Charlotte Peters Rock

They gather in the Greeting Place
A smaller flock than once expected
Still elated - out from work and office
...

Green as hanging heliconia
beneath the rosy moonlight

chattering incessantly out loud
...

A darker shape
Flapping lazy through the further clouds

The great grey bird
...

I want to sleep in the dorm, where the backpackers sleep,
and to laugh and to joke and to tell tales of woe,
and to catch midnight buses, where backpackers go,
and to scrimp and to pinch every penny with them.
...

White haired and gay in London
with that determination born
of fleeing from Vienna
A Jew breaking up her life
...

Aeltje Boelens Mother of twins
Wife to Jacob Dirkszoon de Graeff
Honoured Mayor of Amsterdam
...

she wasn't
Temper - violent
Children - various
Colour - brown
...

Lugh

Raven and spear and the longhanded Lugh
like Odin equipped into fear
...

Managing doormat in rose-coloured glasses
shock of grey hair and a simpering smile

Snowy net curtains whose pattern surpasses
...

His high profile made The Qualities.
On one arm a graceful woman
Tucked in close another photograph
woman doppleganger - and his first
...

Down amongst the terraced houses
sturdy Mrs Batchelor..
No..sturdy isn't quite the word to choose
Sturdier than slimmer maybe
...

He loved them most
those people arguing at night
He heard them fight
and - frightened - cried
...

Formal gardens are
the triumph of human mutilation
over exotic nature
...

In 1953 the television came
A big brown wooden box
which coddled a tiny screen
behind the glass
...

The past arrives exploded into starlight
in generation unaware of we
It lit the Aztec temple top
where sacrifice purloined itself
...

She presented herself to the world
at the bus stop
on two sticks
proud
...

Edward, blinded by her light,
slithered into shade she made.
Little Teddy. Her delight.
She, perforce, must be obeyed.
...

I enter this hall to the greater good
my oath is taken
Silence falls on me but soon - as any debutante
I make a maiden speech
...

On the tele
tucked amongst the news
tucked between parades of victory
as boys return in glory
...

In the only way he knows
a leather Baker Boy clapped tight
across his vulnerable head
a beard to prove perhaps
...