Mark Heathcote Poems

Lift your head - look not in shadows.
Gaze not into murky dark pools
Raise high - let nothing foreshadow,
Let your heart be my muse.
...

A poison text...
A poison flower...
In a poison, heart...
'How can we draw blood?
...

Love is effortless they say.
Some compare it to child's play
But whatever it is, it's neither
Child's play, nor effortless
...

I am here alone, lying on this cotton pillow.
I can still recall the lure of her lily scent:
Bouquets I gaze, camphor, and shadow...
There is never a dull moment. When the heart repents.
...

Chase me like a mirror
Into the silvery pond
Chase me like a bird
Into the buds of spring
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A punctuation mark… Molten in wax
A shimmering flirtation within the night!
A 'dog's cock 'a flower like Devils Flax
With its yellow and orange tongue—alight!
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A tenant is he, the would-be bee
To husband a flower.
That wishes not, her ambles free
In fear of the seed-plougher
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Love bends over a yellow stalk of wheat,
hope shields these grains her seed sowed, eyes
corn poppies pearl-black, the inset stars discreet,
worm-eaten flowers caste up a moment's prize.
...

Ghosts come in the shape of the living
I've seen both
but guess what?
It's frightening how alive
...