John a'Beckett

Drive up to where the smooth road takes a bend.
A peep-look in the rear-vision has you knowing
corn-poppy pretty much behind is what’s ahead
to venture forth into a green Mazury flowing;
...

Border town deep into night and the train named
after some distant mythical king remembered
for his famous dreams. Mieszko, Popiel-who now
we don't know in this snatch sleep of rust brakes
...

You'll surface soon, say, suddenly,
of all things in a Kovska tram:
two rugged-up passengers Time’s
traffic’s 'knocked about a bit',
...

The dairy cows have snapped their chains
and wandered into marsh. Hay’s wet again from yet
another burza burst of unpredicted rain. The cat’s
knocked the kompot onto Kasia’s Sunday Best
...

The long inviting lets feint fleeters merge, wane
out of synch into '11 o'clock'. West watches show
“What Would Have, Had We Not Been ” enveloping
us on a high meridian malingering in light shadow:
...

Out of the icicled window
of a cramped, crowded winter bus,
silver sun racing slick into gold, backing off
from the sighed frost, breath of my Slavic passengers;
...

Injured from the Battle of the Marne, wounds fatal-
his mind back-flashing to the events of The Affair:
Schwartzkoppen in a back-street Berlin hospital.
truth locked inside him, conscience meant, intent on
...

Our Boeing Lot slips through the wincing snow
delivering us back to what we don't quite know
is when or where, but strangely full of purpose:
Poland, a corner soul, the lost mnemonic point
...

Leisure-lovers, looking for
Exotic reasons to explore
The mystery of recent past
...

Noon winks a shadow in an over-sight of sun
at- sudden in a Krakow cranny- Stanczyk,
jester of our Conscience, courteous, cast off
from King Casimir’s royal ceremonies. There!
...

Dust from the decimation.
Poland’s cities pummeled
Warsaw- flat. It’s lasting air
thick with questions nagging
...

Turbulent times tossed you around, deracine, indicted, unfitted
for the status quo, re-fashioned, as fate washed you into oceanic shape
of rambling drifter, in and out of jail, convicted and acquitted.
...

The hop of a girl skipping through her hoop
is monumental and her shadow huge. Torino’s
suddenly deserted with its train endlessly arriving.
because it always will. Her hoop is hopped
...

There might have been flowers, violets
sitting perfect in an outreach hand
in the crowded street that day,
and offered in a style the stylists
...

There was a helmet in the shed-
I didn’t know what meant-
along with garden tools
that Dad had kept
...

Splash of red paint in the rain, blot
on stone of a Soviet rail cutting
wall, shock of its into rock
rock therapeutic All
...

“Sorry, sir. Booked out.. but then...”
The patronne’s voice is calm, you’re
penniless again in Paris, facing doom
and banking on the hope her “then..
...

A bronze sun on a black rim fights
to shine out of a carbonated dawn
In mist outline of roof and steeple
peak Warsaw traffic’s backing up
...

So say in Indo-China, anyway
by palm and flick of clock
they let the monkey draw-
fast out of lots –the straw
...

Remember Bratislava? Famed for its Slovak
wine, named by James, our local friend, Blava.
Not what we had in mind, the Hapsburg hot city
hugging a high brow of Danube, a bit in fits
...