Your Valuable Resources

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Poems by K V Skene

Now There is Nothing Left But the Journey


as November inches under our anoraks
we walk down Iffley, bypass the sports ground
where Bannister broke the four minute mile,
enter Jackdaw lane, enter
an abandoned apple orchard – branches
beckoning a sun we barely remember Hear
the Cherwell grumble
when no one else is about Across a small bridge,
SS Mary and John School
where the kids throw hellos out the window
and Stanley Road Mosque,
empty and locked and always
the most unpretentious angel in the crypt
We’ve not been here before
so we take a picture and a chair at the Magic on Magdalen,
let our coffee cups circle the formica,
black and white I don’t know
why but I tell it all – everything
that ever happened to me,
not to others just to me.

In Place of Stillness and Solitude

Loose leaves
lost in the wind, January
follows the rain
Take my hand
the two of us can
walk the deserted footpath mud
ankle deep between broken trees
white winter grass,
the MSC and Bossom’s Boathouse
expertly sandbagged
against the expected
still threatening Rainbow Bridge
the sky hangs heavy

while web-footed ‘Port Meadow Specials’
churn up the Isis, duck under the Bailey bridge
We can smell the northwind,
the cold dark scentof home

Hint:
MSC mean Medly Sailing Club.


K.V. Skene’s  poetry has appeared in Canadian, U.K., U.S. Irish, Australian and Austrian magazines.  Her poetry sequence, The Whitening of the Ox, originally published in Descant 92/93, 1996, was set to music by composer Jeffrey Ryan and had its world premier January 2012 at Harbourfront and its west coast premiere August 2012 at Vancouver’s MusicFest.
Amongst others, she has won the Saving Bannister Competition (2012), the IDP Annual Poetry Award (2010), the IDP Winter Collection Competition (2009), The Ragged Raven 12th Annual Poetry Competition (2009) and the Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award in 2004 and 2009.
Her publications include Love in the (Irrational) Imperfect, Hidden Brook Press and You Can Almost Hear Their Voices, Indigo Dreams Publishing.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Donate to CLRI Now!