Poetry

Davide D’Amico photo

 

By

Leslie Philibert

 

 

 

Our Father

 

 

Hallowed be thy name,

the dark root,

past tense of earth.

 

The start, the first shadow

to be both respected and feared,

he who sweated out his life.

 

Suddenly you came back to us

and played football in the garden

with a tennis ball, an elegant pass

from your office shoes.

 

Child of a child, a chain as dark

a path late in Autumn,

something lost but never lost;

 

As usual as,

part of the sky and the sound of traffic.

 

 

 

 

The Accident

 

(for a young girl killed many years ago in Upper Norwood)

 

 

Your mother wanted to scream you back to life.

We popped out of the terrace houses like rabbits,

We were suddenly all there for just once.

 

Having a good look at the ring of shapes

And the body in front of a Ford Prefect.

This was a funny time to be run over,

 

a Tuesday, a day that ticks over, not a place

or a time to cut a string, to turn aside and say;

I feel so sorry for her, the poor dear.

 

 

 

 

Burning Ants

 

 

Gods of anno ten years,

With open knees and all the venom of hollow heads,

Bent on the path, the magnifying glass the eye.

 

This is a cruelty under thought; the indifference,

the waste, the out-sight, the patience of hurting.

 

Summer, the empty months to laugh at the black

points who run, then burn, then stop, this is

all too easy, not sure if

they hurt or understand, we

 

glory in our thoughtlessness,

bastards of burnt life and small deaths.

 

 

 

 

Bonfire

 

 

Still life of yellow and brown,

a burning of winter`s books,

illiteracy of curled codes and

plans for later growth.

 

This is a way to cleanse all the times you

hurt without reason, the hard

sticks that remain, too green,

the broken arms of neglect.

 

A celebration of turning ochre.

And even If the language of smoke

remains obscure, it reaches

up under the lid of the afternoon.

 

Then the smoke turns your eyes into wet

glass; you choke and admire;

this pointless sun in the bin,

heat the sky, burn the day.

 

 

 

 

Front Teeth

 

 

Two white foundlings elegantly

arranged in gravel,

bloody with the smash

 

of the pavement. A slight changer

as the children shout,

bring him home,

let`s put his smile back together.

 

 

This is the shock of things out of context,

a part of a body next to stones.

 

And when the street is silent with shock.

And when the sky is full of glass.

 

This moment refuses to lose itself,

in later years behind your eyes.

 

 

 

 

  

Back Door

 

 

An escape from the voices in your back,

behind your lowered head, pass the saucers

of milk and cat trails, into the solid wall of

 

failed green, the sad town plants fighting for air,

the grill that browns unloved for many evenings,

the steps on to the cracked way that leads

 

to the end of suburban discovery. You must

twirl to make all this seem alive, but for a second

you are away from all the others.

 

 

 

 

 

Leslie Philibert

Leslie Philibert comes from London, England. After studying English Literature in Ireland he moved to Bavaria in Germany, where he now works as a social worker. He is married with two children. He has had poems published in a number of magazines in the UK and USA. He has also done some translation work for a South German theatre group.