Poetry: Adrian Rogers

FOUR POEMS — INSPIRED BY FOUR LAST SONGS OF RICHARD STRAUSS

Adrian Rogers

SPRING VOICES

Shadows cave-dark
fire-flicker off rock walls
reflecting mind sets
isolating,
shadowed
into cut-outs of reality
unable to aspire
beyond a blacked out
grope, or mark
a midday sun spark
light greened
up-calling inlet magic
from the Morris, a toned
percussive
dancing, stamping,
consequential as Venus
conned with ungirdled
desire in spring
foam-tidal as the sea
head turning
eyes flashing

in a water-wild world
‘to have or to be’
still life re-forming
unbridled,
twirled earth springing
rondeaux overrunning
contours glowing
swaying hot bodied
until time, reclaiming
tamed memories
passes by...

and aspirations die
dancing, for leftovers
dropped by spring.
***


VOICES OF SEPTEMBER

Septembers of the north
afternoon tinged gold
across landscapes
heather purple
honey-sharp scented
and peat-aged moorlands,
blend into lightness
the soporific humming
of bees
weather-soft sounding
summer’s end into memory,
seen only
in backward glances
outsold
across hemispheres...

time distant
from southern Septembers
light sharpening clarity
paled bright piercing
dispersing
grey-green patterned
eucalyptus shade
outlaid
across time stretched
north/south spaces
and distances,
in such a quietness of love
descending
from an afternoon sky
as memory cannot release,
holding through change
the light
the love,
the silent singing
of September.
***


SLEEP

Soft-footed silence
is a licence out of time
themed
playing consciousness
detached,
absented from becoming
obligation
summons
concentration, goal,
reward
for memory stored
in sleep, like a neap tide
turning silently
leaning
into the blanked-out
moment
one step from death
in a silent out-breath
of love at rest
waiting
on dawn’s intercessional

in light’s processional
homing, delayed
beyond frontiers of being
knowing and seeing
the grace
of moments intimating
love’s resting place
now... forever.
***


TOWARDS THE SUNSET

Backed-up
against a blurred
white-brilliant sun rising
above round shouldered
overlooking hillsides
the day undeterred
faces west

hope’s deferred test
tended
by loving memories
recovered
when sleep ceases
to abide the moment
and releases
above the hill’s crest
shadows running short,
descending
slow-slanting,
edging a living
shadow lengthening
transience...

but few leaving
the Ninth Hour Prayers
observe the sun’s
down-slowed
stooped fan-sweep,
red rays outstretched
in formation dancing
glowing below,
above, transmuting
substances
dying into life
through dark into light
as one.
***

Setu, April 2020