A stained glass imagining
From the third floor the treetops are filigree fine,
emergent tendrils nod frantic nervousness
in the ethereal breath of a gossamer breeze.
Lace leaves play like piano fingers
caught by ripples from whipish curlicue.
The street lights glare a little more furiously
as the ashen sky becomes leaden, stygian,
doorways swell in deepening shadow.
With a nativity calendar of yellow windows
as a five-minute winter hovers broodingly.
Stained glass windows in the clerestories
of Norman or gothic cathedrals
hold the devotee or casual onlooker absorbed.
A glazier with a cathedralic brief
sweats his soul into his magnum-opus.
But here from this vantage point, I see
a secular masterpiece in the making.
Man-made environment and nature synergetic
and by the chemistry of light and shade
I am simply mesmerised, enraptured.
Less to suit myself
I talk quieter as the world gets louder;
I read more judiciously as what’s in print
becomes its own unmourned funeral.
I listen more acutely but remember less
and bring it all together in a structuralist
mind map of what I see as valuable to me.
Neon Marmalade
Having breakfast on the patio, eastern sun;
the jar of homemade marmalade lights up,
neither quite rubiginous nor pure aurulent,
translucent aurora with gilded strips of peel.
The morning sun slowly warms my right cheek,
while all else in comparison is clichéd dull
except the savoured, not so innocent thought
of others in commute and frantic rush to work.
Alex Hand is a Brisbane-based writer, Queensland. He has had two books of poetry published; ‘Looking South’ and ‘The Hand Signals’. In his poetry Alex tends towards the satirical but at the same time much of his work has a slight romanticism to it. Alex writes poetry, essays, creative non-fiction articles, short stories and is currently working on his first novel.