Messages, Signs, Codes

This morning – Blackstar,
Bowie, those jazz swan songs
sputtering from the CD player,
wild trumpets that convulse
through negative space. Funny,
coincidences like that; awoke
to a bonewrong feeling,
my senses pricked like
antennae cosmically tuned.
Tried not to believe them:
messages, signs, codes –
but then the news            Kim
effervescent, ephemeral,
a supernova burned out
in a hospice, long knelled
but refusing The End
as foretold, far too busy
to die, far too gorgeous.

And then I am back
at my shelf, dusting a finger
over cased spines, lingering
at those dark auto-eulogies
by accident? By chance?
watching blackthorns spurt
their nectared nebulae,
crocuses, tulips, daffodils
holding out against the late
frost, a warble of robins
fluttering from the tarmac
like tiny Houdinis only
just escaping the killing
crunch of wheels,
whilst I exhale
smoke signals from out
my kitchen window.

Jasmine Gibbs is a poet from Great Yarmouth. Her work can be found in The London Magazine, And Other Poems, Gutter, and Ambient Receiver.