As Oak and Sycamore will surely testify,
I watched my childhood float by
Alongside the river at Bridgnorth, oblivious
To the bustle of High Town
And the comings and goings of Low Town.
I watched the rowing of the water boatman
and the hover of the dragonfly as it hung in the air,
unaware of anywhere else.
On Hearing “Wild is the Wind” for the First Time
We were sat, scratching at the past,
shuffling our troubled words in a bag when
the notes of the piano floated in the air like snow in a snow globe
and I was lost in quaver and crotchet.
Love me, love me sang me; I was that leaf, clinging
as Nina trembled and sang so tenderly,
and I was caught in the flurry of music and moment.
Oh, music is all things, all things.
What People See
They’re all looking the wrong way.
I speak of oceans, they point at a sea;
ask for a root and they snap all the branches off.
For them, time goes round like a lazy susan,
nobody picking their own treats from the menu –
blending a hot fondant with a sweet, chilled vanilla.
It’s like poems with borrowed phrases, little is their own;
They’ve forgotten how to make sense of things.
I speak out for peace and a missile hits the sky.
Terry Phillips
If you have any thoughts about these poems, Terry Phillips would like to hear them
