Robin Gilbert - Poems: Mycenae, 1964, Chloe, Frost on walls

Mycenae, 1964 

They say that Agamemnon held this hill.

I can well believe it. 

                                     His spirit still

(and unstill) stalks these stones, and scans in vain

the northward-marching mountains for a flame -

beacon to tell him "Troy is built again!"

The sun, a blood-red omen, waits to set.

Night, in the wings, hangs heavy like a net.

The lovers, eager at the brink, forget

the boy Orestes.

                              Far beneath the walls,

harsh in the valley, the hidden magpie calls.

 Chloe

after Horace

                               

You avoid me still -

like a fawn

in the woods

alone,

like a frightened fawn

that has lost

its mother,

Chloe.

The empty forest

comes alive

with hidden

perils.

Imagination

runs amok.

Danger comes

and goes.

A little shiver

of the leaves -

spring moving

gently.

A lizard flickers

green and gone,

blurred shadow

following.

A sudden shudder

of small limbs,

a heart's fast

beating.

 Frost on walls

"Good fences make good neighbours."  So wrote Frost,

      If only by way of upending his neighbour's saw.

Yet, wherever a stone falls, his hand is there:

His quarrel is with walls, not walls' repair.

A broken wall's a wall for mending.  There is a law

     Of love - and, without such labours, love is lost.

Katey Nixon Watching the Kite

Watching the Kite

I wish I'd seen it dive

The sun bit into the back of my eyes

And just for a moment as I glanced away

The circling kite was gone

Back into the trees?

Or did it sharply descend, and fall onto its prey

In the field of ripened corn?

I do wish I'd seen it dive

Katey Nixon 2008

Katey Nixon

Katey Nixon lives in Brockworth and her home office window overlooks the famous cheese rolling hill.  She works as an Independent Mental Health Advocate for a national charity called Rethink.  In her spare time she goes swimming, spends time with friends, and writes poetry.  She is currently studying one module of the University of Gloucestershire's Creative Writing Program.  She is also learning Mandarin.


Katey moved into social care after finding that her voluntary work as an advocate meant more to her than working as a computer programmer.  She studied economics at York University and only started writing poetry whilst doing the Artist Way course with lecturer T Sansome at Hawkwood College.


She was first prize winner in the Winter 2008 JBWB Poetry Competition with her poem Watching the Kite

Poems by Katey Nixon

Waiting

I waited for my brother by the swings

a long time,

and a long time for a child

seems to ache

I waited an hour

or was it a lifetime?

And then after a lifetime

walked home

He smiled at me at the open door

touched his hand to his heart, and said

I was waiting for you here.

Sailors

Walking the cliff path I speak of Iris,

I must fly home.  His response is venom,

turning away from my SOS.

It is useless to cry out his name,

the storm has come.  Below us the land falls

sharply away to the sea, where Freya’s

half mast sail is beaten by the same wall

of wind that carried my voice far

seaward, as I tried to explain.  Waves

have thrown us, but for only a short while.

The moon parts the clouds and the darkness fades;

his smile forgives.  We touch, walk a mile

to the quay.   He will stay, I will go,

yet the forecast is fair, tomorrow.

Poems by Michael Newman, Love Letter, Remembrance, Collision Course

LOVE LETTER

We don’t do platonic,

You and I –

Were always meant to be lovers.

And if I love you for a day,

All the world’s sonnets will flicker

Across my brain,

Set up strobe lighting.

I shall be sectioned for reciting Spenser

In the supermarket.

And if I love you for a month,

A long far holiday month,

Then every candle will be gutted

In every public place,

Unable to cope with the hurricane

Of our passion.

We don’t do platonic,

You and I –

Lovers for a circle of suns

And a cycle of seasons.

Yes, the eternity of a year.

I will have learnt your ways

By then,

How your eyes say yes

When your lips do not move,

How your fingers play Chopin

Across my soul.

It will be like tongues of fire

Where the only language is silence.

(Michael Newman)

18 Courtiers Drive

Bishops Cleeve

Cheltenham

Glos GL52 8NU

REMEMBRANCE

The day my father died

You sought to embrace me,

But I pushed you away

As though something unclean

Had passed between us.

There was no grey

To the all-alone sky,

Just a loud blue

That commanded

Unnatural happiness.

I looked to the hills,

But they were broken-backed,

And could not be retuned.

The day my father died

Your hurt eyes spoke

Across the null-and-void,

But I had nothing left to give.

The teacups tinkled

With mindless laughter,

And the eyes of the clock

Were countersunk:

We passed a silent evening,

Shrieking with unspoken words.

(Michael Newman)

18 Courtiers Drive

Bishops Cleeve

Cheltenham

Glos GL52 8NU

COLLISION COURSE

We dip its beak in water,

Bring it back to flesh and feather.

Mercifully, the neck is not broken.

One bird, newly fledged,

And beyond parental control,

Flying smack into cruel glass.

٭ ٭ ٭

I would have left things at that,

Content to have played a merciful God

In front of my younger children.

But then you take a pot-shot

With your airgun,

And only by luck, miss.

As you battle with the dark side,

And rid your teens of humour,

There is no therapeutic water dip;

Nor do gentle giants, eyes agog,

Will you into fairy-tale flight.

Between needle and black-out,

You flicker on the edge of humanity,

And watch me die.

(Michael Newman)

18 Courtiers Drive

Bishops Cleeve

Cheltenham

Glos GL52 8NU

Robin Gilbert

Robin Gilbert was born in Oxford three days after the end of the Second World War.  He wrote his first poem, over which a veil is discreetly drawn, at the age of five and has been writing, intermittently and not at all prolifically, ever since.  In 2006, he (self-) published a volume of poetry My Own Dragon, and in recent years has been a regular participant at Buzzwords, Holub and the Poetry Society of Cheltenham. In 2010, he edited and published The Poetry of P.A.T.O’Donnell. (O’Donnell, who was an important influence on Robin’s early writing, died in 1972, and his two volumes of poetry had been out of print for more than fifty years.)  He has also edited Prospero’s Trilby, the youthful poems (1994-1999) of his son Sam Gilbert, which will be published in February or March 2011.  A further collection of Robin’s own work is projected for later in the year, under the provisional title of Prose & Cons.  A classicist and Roman historian manqué, Robin worked for GCHQ for more than three decades, most recently in International Relations.  He has lived in Bentham, beneath Crickley Hill, since 1972.  Among his interests are family history, cluing crosswords, amateur photography and collecting books, far too few of which he finds time to read.

David Ashbee

David Ashbee is a retired English teacher. He has been writing poems seriously for over 40 years. He won a SouthWest Arts Award in 1985, was shortlisted in the BBC/Sunday Times Poetry Competition in 1978.

His first collection “Perpetual Waterfalls” came from Enitharmon in 1989. “Open Day at Stancombe Park” was selected for The Oxford Book of Garden Verse, and a selection of his poems appeared alongside work by Roger McGough and Irina Rutushinskaya in “Cambridge Poets 2”. His second full collection, “Loss Adjuster”, was published by bluechrome in 2007.

He has run HOLUB, a Gloucestershire Poetry and Music group, for over 30 years, and is a founder-member of The Cherington Poets who have held monthly workshops regularly since 1990.

An experienced performer of his work, he is available to organisers of literary festivals and workshops.