Daniel Bourke

Stopping the driver at lights
I'm fishing around in my pocket for fives
With only the winter in mind
...

Passing God's acre; graves and flowers and inscriptions
"Loving fathers" and "selfless martyrs", a mile of scruples

Wrinkled as sand, she's making the gestures we learned as children
...

Estranged from sleep, I've abandoned the bed
Though bringing the blankets, I am cloaked to the head
The window ajar
I'm sat in the dark with my mind on the stars
...

For once it's me looking out; the tall glass windows
framing a beastly December - do the passersby think me some brag?
With my coffee and my notebook and my folded arms
...

Oh winter how soon you will leave me
How soon you'll bereave me
And though I'll remember your seasonal sights,
your evergreens and birches converging for miles
...

In this field of early robins, the dewy undergrowth dampens
my socks, freezes my feet

Rare foxes sleuth between briars and sticks
...

Nothing was faster than the fastest horse, the
Mongol spending months on a trecherous course
The stations and lodges where the riders would rest
The promise of food and a bed
...

An ocean away in Colwyn bay,
a glamorous stranger is looking my way
tilting her head and lifting her shades,
her furrowing features are meeting my gaze
...