At Drumcree Churchyard
Hoarse cough of the chough’s voice
from the burnt wood, blisters ear
tells me I am now in the right place
from a burnt spar of mountain ash
the coarse talk of a raven blackens air
tells me your drinking drives you to death.
A jag of smooth limestone struck in gravel
church’s upended ship’s hull brims
light-songs as spilled water, its hammer
beamed roof no longer watertight
spills a line of Aeschylus or Heraclitus
appositely carved – we shall require
your Ancient Greek Dictionary, there
for the river is no longer the same
and call no man happy. The crow calls
its wordless liturgy of riteless discord.
Those aphorisms from the fifth century
of Zeno’s paradox, or Cretan liar
you loved, still echo in my head.
By the broken wall, a ditch gathers
snow-covered moss, grey-pocked
the early crocii snub earth, push through
purple, gold, the colours of the dead.
Colin Honnor: Widely published poet in numerous magazines in print and online, including: Poetry and Audience, 21 Years of Poetry and Audience Anthology, Agenda, Outposts, The Rialto, Fire, Smoke, Orbis, Ore, Iron, Lines Review, Envoi, Staple, Sepia, Hybrid, Poetry Nottingham, Tops, Pennine Platform, Ammonite, Terrible Work, Tandem, Odyssey, Headlock, The Swansea Review, Iota, The People’s Poetry, Outposts, 4×3 ,Arabesques International Review, The Dublin Quarterly, Braquemard, Poetry Manchester, Poetry Quarterly, Masques, Great Works, Aireings, The Wolf, Various Artists, The Poetry Business Anthology and many others. Collections, mostly from small presses and private presses include From Underground (Mirabilis 1986); Dante; Cavafy; The Somme; (Yew Tree Press). English Poetry is forthcoming from the University Press of America. A former editor of Poetry and Audience, he runs a fine arts press in the Cotswolds.