from Poems from Mt Moono

TWENTY TIGERS

I knew there would be tigers
Listless before we left. I browsed in books
in Anna Kavan’s dream house behind a hedge
that became a forest
from whence stepped the tiger
and drew her out to sea

Tigers
I wonder, what do they mean?
From the land of tigers, C signed here telegramme.
We were going there, going back there, going there
Drums beat. I am afraid
Too many tigers ago…
Do tigers eat people? Man eating tigers of India, in windswept cabin house
we watched them;
while we sipped our wine and dipped our cigarettes at ashtrays.
Tigers in black and white TV tree-dappled sunlight
spotlight shadowlight hide
Spent tigers, starved tigers stalking jungleman jungleman
Lone tigers, lame tigers stalking the jungle, the jungle.
Riverquiet huntsmen come, and capture the tigers and tie them
up like trussed fowl
Birds of the feather fowl of the sea, seven leagues away.
Tigers, no tigers in Africa or the Bible – this must be the east then
East meets west in a clash of tigers.

My tigers escape. I am afraid.
Or are you the tiger? You are afraid. Our tigers meet
They don’t like each other but they agree on borders.
I am sorry for them. I can see them starving for people,
I can hear them pacing their cages.

I want you. The tiger leaps out of my eyes.
The tiger is tamed.
It lies down inside me and I am ordinary
but I talk in two voices.

Sunlight
riverquiet
jungleman jungleman.

WAITING FOR THE BUS

Waiting for the bus,

in lines of people like washing,

you sadden as a shadow approaches you

takes you next to him like a loaf of bread.

Fall into step with his silence.

Huge leaves, five-fingered,

pat the earth gently with brown.

© Anne Kellas

FOLLOWING ICARUS

The morning sun shone.
She polished it daily
and put it out to dry.

By midday she was ready
her petals just
crisp enough to fly.

Her form refined enough
her attunement
exact.

By evening she had learnt
how to cry.

* * * * *

NIGHT COMES TO ME

Night comes to me.It stands there, brandishing long sticks,
walking on the ears of crickets,
on the pin points of dew.
It shaves the grass as it comes,
swathes the moon,
brushes away everything
with the blood-intimacy of the dark.
Like the hob goblin stars
in the interstices of the sky
I hide my weakness from the dynamo in the night.
Monkeys torment each other in their cages
in silence, mouths open, screaming from withdrawal pains
The night goes by, with its eyes averted.