Eric Ratcliffe Poems

Earth-fainting but rising, returned to the light
through greenleaf arcadia, the gaunt elder guard
knew the first stories of the two-legged wanderers
by the scent of the firehills, in the air of the kingdoms.
...

Barefoot on granite wait I,
who threw a silver javelin
into the shimmering land of whispers,
and watched the wraiths divide
...

Leaving my helmet on shale,
I will stretch my brown right hand,
taking a sword out of mist,
a cold limb from a hollow sea.
...

The red heathen faint beneath her skin, she kneels;
dark as a pagan brooch the shade around.

Nightbrush, God in a myrtle tree, the wine of wonder
...

I shall walk to the girl-cave across the marsh
of the eastern water-birds, my torchflame
riding the earth of cold cousins,
to sit and talk by spices and iron.
...

Into the book the images disperse
as publishers perform their Act of God.
In subsequent appraisal of the verse
the critics' heads may either shake or nod
...

Taking to your hands the torpedo blossoms,
the earth-buds and flowers of the dell,
you are the earth's apostrophe, standing free;
the wind's daughter, holding to sky and sea
...

Whose feet in careful sandals moved
past my oil lamp in the Palace?
My window eyes can see no shape
against the lights of the Western Wing:
...

In the land of fish and heron
and white candle maidens,
a dancing queen of five wings
collecting sea coral
...

They taught her to cure, not by the cradled arm,
but by sharpness of heart in face of illness;
she learned the cheerful delicate trade of orders,
moving from bed to bed on the dull parquet,
...