Poetry from Pat M

It’s our pleasure to present two poems from Pembrokeshire’s PAT M…

 

 

Really Bright Shooting Star

 

I know that we are not alone.

Because someone lit a match

in the doorway of forever

and cast it carelessly over their shoulder

 

I select four clothes pegs from the bag

Two pale blue and a matching pair

Of darker petrol hue. But distracted by

The black and white of the cat stalking a magpie

I place one pale and one misplaced from my pocket:

A jarring yellow in to the leg of the jeans. Pale stonewash.

Bootcut. That look too unfashionably flared

On my white legs and crumple at the ankle

 

The pegs must match or the world must fall.

I almost crumple and delve in my pocket for the correct sequence.

The cat licks his opera dress nonchalantly at the thieving magpie

And reassures me that life carries on nevertheless.

I can release the breath. Push up the prop:

The wind will reliably blow its Atlantic best breath.

The magpie hops over the hedge.

 

 

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He likes smelling the rain sodden roses especially

He lifts each sodden head and breathes in the scent of them

The rain and the seductive scent of the roses possesses him entirely

 

When he dreams of the ghosts which terrify him

With their sorrowful ordinariness in ordinary rooms

Where one would not expect to be terrified

She tells him he whimpers the same heartbreaking sound he made as a child

 

He thinks why do poems come to him like this

In the middle of the night in ordinary rooms full of ordinary furniture

Why do they come scented with rain with rain sodden roses

Which he must pick and come to be possessed entirely

By their sorrowful ordinariness

 

Pat M the poet says of himself:

“I’ve been visiting Pembrokeshire for donkey’s years and finally got to live here about 10 years ago. I like badgers and trifle.”