Leslie Philibert Poems

Washed with old rain
that maps the parentless wind
under a sky scant with grey birds.
...

O tell me about a snoddy gumboot of a soul;
black as Guinness - a drinker of dirty water;
a wordsmith, the conjurer of fumbler; bearer
of a laugh and pork sausages, a stout fellow
...

Weapons carried children; old eyes in young heads;
the sick pride of a bent solidarity in rows that never end;
cruel beyond understanding; the pushing of pointless borders;
a stolen childhood; games; gotcha.
...

A rain hawk circles in the dawn.
The dawn uncovers the trees;
the trees lead to a forest.
The forest sinks into the damp earth;
...

Found dead in my study; lines strewn across the floor;
the slaughter of an unborn, a virgin text.

the sun electric, the burnt grass of the next life
...

We must unlearn the habit of reading; there is more,
the coffee stains and the sand from that beach in Crete,
the buying, the warm cover and the pages that now smell sour,
the bill from a plumber long cried over, the pencilled
...

1.

Lost childhood in transit; a container full of ghosts
and bottles of piss, the cold and the waiting, the torn
...

So Jesus came to church as a ghost
and claimed to have said goodbye without meaning it.
This is his story - the chalice and the frame
that made him known, cunning dust, half songs
...

Have thou not compassion for my sicknesse?
O fatall desire for your face in heav`n
Behold love`s revenge for my wickedness
That I did treasure you for the while
...

French actresses in films always drink glasses of tap water
in the middle of the night; their long hair hangs over sinks in despair.
They run about Paris (clipclopclipclap) and talk very fast about
their lovers, sitting in cars that look like squashed slippers.
...