Peter Riley
THREE POEMS
Transcarpathian Song
O God let a few chords
descend on their heads,
in the dying villages, let
a beam of alcohol settle
and let it be home-made.
______________________________
Nothing but a movement in the grass
the strings tighten and only a voice
only a rose buried in sense
Not my voice or yours, not
our meaning facing east, taking
time to reap the new light.
Open the door and breathe, it was
promised us.
______________________________
Now is the time, John, to drink the red wine
as the English summer closes close to
blood heat good for the aromas
and we partake of something that we are.
Why weren’t you at your funeral?
Transcarpathian Song
O God let a few chords
descend on their heads,
in the dying villages, let
a beam of alcohol settle
and let it be home-made.
______________________________
Nothing but a movement in the grass
the strings tighten and only a voice
only a rose buried in sense
Not my voice or yours, not
our meaning facing east, taking
time to reap the new light.
Open the door and breathe, it was
promised us.
______________________________
Now is the time, John, to drink the red wine
as the English summer closes close to
blood heat good for the aromas
and we partake of something that we are.
Why weren’t you at your funeral?
Copyright © Peter Riley 2019
Peter Riley’s Collected Poems, published by Shearsman Books in 2018 in two volumes, covers his work from the early 1960s to today, encompassing books such as Love-Strife Machine, The Linear Journal, The Llyn Writings, The Derbyshire Poems (including Lines on the Liver and Tracks and Mineshafts), Noon Province, Reader, Lecture, Author and Snow has Settled, Excavations, Alstonefield, Two Setts and Coda, The Glacial Stairway, Greek Passages and Due North. Both volumes also contain a large number of uncollected poems. Peter Riley reviews poetry regularly for the website The Fortnightly Review and his own website is at aprileye.co.uk. His work appeared in both print issues of Molly Bloom, 1980 and 1982, and subsequently in online issues 1 and 5.