The View from the sold house
By John Stokes
Published 1 January 2021
A high, voice teetering
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A black and
yellow eye in a bush
claws into me from red
berries,
looking for nightmare, sly
truths lived by light,
sound
only: nothing's imagery of
fright and sinew finds its
own warm use for savagery.
A sudden country, this,
where
calls of a black bird
can ring a clarion bell
across
claret, golden ash, heard
over the Parishes of purple
shadows, cloaked hills
of glaucous
incomprehension, fear greening
in benign alcoves
A call of memory, no
concept,
wordless and warning, spells
signifying fruits, spiders, warns,
of a cat's striped growls
one hope shared among the one
and many flock,
the whole
panoply of shrieks and groans
triggering a few acuities of
clear days and darkness, small
flick-locked, drummed necessities of the
quickening, reflections off the bell
imitating quick
joy's
simplicity. I
see the black and yellow
eye it sees back
at me I
am rocked in a trembling cradle.