Matthew Lumley Poems

When the sunrise’s shining promise
Of another twenty four hours
Made me want to cry,
And the sunset bored me
...

Under this moon
I have spent my days searching among the rocks
For some warm, life-filled thing,
A warm hand that will find me the very moment
...

Like a child reaching out to touch the sun,
I stood in Trafalgar Square
Back when it was filled with doves,
Simple and clear and white,
...

My heart aches
For the man
Who looks angry
When he cries.
...

Where are the adolescents, the teenagers?
I see only naïve youth and insecure middle age
A woman in a cottage whose mother died at ninety
A man in a car who thought he lost his kids
...

And all I can offer is

(A thousand thoughts
That rush
...

I spotted you in a dull street, my heart
leapt,
I put my hand to the glass and peered at you.
You were a painted stone.
...

Though the cutter’s work was done
Long before I entered in that wood,
Every notch you hewed drew
My blood out of the bark,
...

Let me unfeel, and I will be buildings in the rain,
Not throw my warm heart against concrete walls.
I will be barbed wire and fences,
And not cut myself to climb.
...

More brutal men, stronger than I,
Look on me with mocking eyes,
Eyes that challenge me to stand,
And prove to them that I’m a man.
...