Two Poems by Claire Joysmith

TASTE OF LIFE

two coins 

clamped

between a grin

hard grip on 

a rusty bike   

speeding  

to some

destination: 

dirt road 

or cul-de-sac?

thirteen 

perhaps

a lucky year

no pockets

two coins

the wind 

speaking behind 

destiny-bound:

what more 

to life?

LINES COMPOSED BENEATH 

WEST KENNETT LONG BARROW*

The Romantics wove 

myriad ages of my being

into their poetry

even as I knew not 

of their green grass meadows

of sloping love and 

dozing distant bowers

dark hued burial mounds

skies thick with clouds

shadows cast from turrets

into oceans of liquid steel—

I had only known 

terracotta Mexican soil

trampled, barren, blood soaked

Quetzalcoatl’s plumes and shadows

ánima inhabited pirámides

a lake turned mud and asphalt

Cortés riding on a pedestal 

in a town square

I had known blood rivers run 

underground haunting 

kernels of timed out silence 

moving rhythmic to tortured 

Inquisition cries chiseled 

into treacherous Hacienda stone

I had known of Independence cries

a hell-torn Catrina Revolution

overnight etched borders in spilt

ink and blood on pennies tinkling 

into voracious foreign pockets

I had known eagle winged beings 

soar in tawny dreams 

woven from ancient songs

temazcal cleansing fires and 

cascabel nakedfoot dances—

I had not known 

of the darkling thrush

or nightingale odes 

except as black on white creatures

captured alive between faded guardian covers

I treasured and puzzled over 

etched onto student writing pads

during lonely nights 

their melodies lullabies for

wisps of memories unforgotten

So when I saw the lush patchwork green

those gentle hillocks, cornflower heads 

nodding in common happiness

as in Wordsworth’s daffodil dance

his solitary reaper and wandering cloud

so when I smelt the heavy dank stone and moss

felt sunless sea depths of quiet 

in the cavernous West Kennett Long Barrow 

I knew 

in a single breath

all I had long known.

*Neolythic tomb (barrow) near Silbury Hill, close to Avebury in Wiltshire, England. Its construction commenced in 3600 BC (predating Stonehenge) and remained in use for almost a thousand years.