Graham Burchell

Early Monday Storm

		Each day a day seeps to the other side.
                                       ---Don Colburn
 
This rain curtain in our woodland theater 
rises and falls between acts of the morning

Act One full of drama
Channel thirteen warns of a corridor 
of possible tornadic activity

we are in it
third door on the right
past sulfurous pre-dawn lights
and a car in floodwater

Act Two slow movement of a pastorale 
steady drum easing the rage 
of overflowing fountains

morning grows a wheel
in the bird sky and swollen pond
traffic sloshes round a rush hour loop 

Act Three grabs us by surprise
like final breaths stuffed full of light and noise

the hurry to have it done drowns our voices
stirs fears once more before

it is over
everything stilled except trees' tear drops
and echoes of the life of it emptying into drains 


© 2007 Graham Burchell

Buried

                            for fun to freckled shoulders 
                            on an English beach
    long weight of wet sand
    splintered shell 
    smell of ignored decay
driftwood             concrete debris nearby
broken box           seal-skin green groynes
salt rusted locks   and worm casts showing off
    their tide-out downward press
    over arms trunk and stick legs 
    a smile aimed at the milk sun
    cataract in wasting sea fog

failed to make connection
with an uncle buried a week before 
in a wood box soft lined
in all that eternal earth damp dark 
without a smile
never a sun 
no poking face no more to feel
a soaking morning dew
or tainted breeze 
still as time in there
putrefying petrifying
into an unseen souvenir 


© 2007 Graham Burchell

BACK