Denise Antoni
Denise Antoni Poems
The summer shimmers, glitters with promise.
There is so much to glean from the sea.
A clear wave of memory laps
My ankles, deep across the shifting sand
...
Whorled stone, enwombed in time's green curves.
Along a knotted cord of path
Expectant aconites bloom, trembling white-clad girls
...
Along the lanes the rowan
Trees put out their fresh green tongues,
To taste again the young yellow dew
Of a new-honeyed sun.
...
Oscar Wilde:
Each man kills the thing he loves.
Endymion:
For his element is grief.
...
Rocks; a roiling vortex. Then, a lull and the first frozen breath
Of the ghost-ridden Antarctic.
A cold-sweated vessel with depleted cargo
Exhaling smoke and death
...
The southerly birds write their algebra in the skies,
Their voices equating frost to sand.
Saharan stars span
Their wings, calibrating and cross-hatching
...
Sometimes it is enough. Let ancient wreathes
Adorn the last casket of my heart. Your eyes
Fade. Soon, too soon, Love breathes
His last upon me; a feint, cadent, surprised.
...
The bay flames, a brazen chalice.
Come and haul from its wine-dark words
All the Old World's boasting promise,
The vintage, pearly, twilit hoards.
...
A flat green tide neaps at the footstones,
Stranding this church on a secret shore.
The sea stood down from the steeping of bones.
...
Walking down Melrose Avenue
Nearly thirty years later,
Drunken wheeled coffins and cars clutter;
The junk of the world tries to smother you.
...
Surprised by night, he hesitates beside painted leaves.
Canopied by an eerie light, he waits,
Pretending not to know wherefore.
From the original dark into the golden cup,
...
From among the silver birches
Backed by a low sun
Come the young men.
All dark beauty, full lips.
...
A quick and early evening,
Swirled in rose red dust.
Blue gum trees obeyed perspective,
Standing back.
...
Denise Antoni Biography
Born in Hampshire, United Kingdom. Spent large part of childhood in Malawi. Lived mostly in London and Brighton. Still living beside the sea in West Sussex.)
The Best Poem Of Denise Antoni
The Dream Of The Sea
The summer shimmers, glitters with promise.
There is so much to glean from the sea.
A clear wave of memory laps
My ankles, deep across the shifting sand
Of childhood. I feel the heat of my small hand
In the grip of your large, cool fingertips,
And the strand of emerald weed that wraps
And slips around our feet.
How we would to go down to the sea. You and me.
I, to learn its whispered secrets,
To pour my own into its mercurial keep;
To hear in dream it's ancient repeat;
Hush now, hush now, hush now; go to sleep.
But some learn young of the worlds'
Forked tongue, and of how the days and years
Can become so long.
The heavy brow of sky
Frowns, and curdles
The dream into sun-drenched dismay.
The season drowns in tears,
As we stand here today, the ghosts of you and me,
Of all those who, in every new passion, or for the same old reason,
Must come down to the sea.
*******
Splashes and curses. Pretending not to hear,
I shriek out instead
My frantic glee. A rainbow tiara
Needles my head. Around us towering fathers,
Limpet children encrusting their necks,
Come racing and surging
From the sea, sometimes in answer to the siren's relentless urging.
Sometimes to the innocence of cigarettes and beer.
********
Fingers prising off the hug, the kiss
Long since chiselled away,
I now throw my growing bulk
On the mercy of the sea, its billowing glass
Rocking my clumsy freight.
Spurning the ring and float of netted hope,
I lie like a stunned fish, belly up.
Bloated with the cargo of the mother's
Enduring wait, a fate already
Replete with the shape of the albatross.
******
The old hulks of you and me, you and me,
Still stand here, stranded here. Abandoned years
Stripped and tripped
And medicated away, all counselled away.
As faithful as the tides,
I surely have wept sufficient tears
To make the sea-levels rise
And wash away these low-lying
Coastal places, exposing the ghost traces
Of those played out childhood fears and joys;
These fair-weather friends, or those fresh
Faced and treacherous boys.
*******
So I'm going to go down to the sea today,
If only on behalf of the others;
The disappointing lovers, the suffering mothers,
The shoals of castaway fathers;
Ebbing and flowing, ebbing and flowing, to and fro
In the constant buffering.
Now in the swell that swallows me,
The mermaids may soon be allowed to sing to me.
The water soothes and pillows me,
As that old artful seducer promises to keep
With me the secrets of the dream;
Hush now, hush now, hush now; and go to sleep.
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5/5/2024 11:31:09 AM # 1.0.0.1119
The Winter Garden, is magical. II believe that both of my parents came back to this earth as robins, and when I worry, they always appear. This to be captures my thoughts, and the words create a beautiful picture. Love it.