New Poetry - Modernist Magazines Project

uttered with nostalgia
the icy roof of the world
the gipsy warns you that the birds fly south
they steal away your youth
torn to pieces by sharp teeth
powdered by groined and gritty rocks
the splintered sun among the splintered rocks
the braces the bananas the papers the cotton frocks
and the wind spinning the band at will
the long rollers of the sea now strongly turning in
and the future hidden from us.
THREE POEMS
1. SEVERAL OBSERVATIONS
The hours of the public place :
In the morning hour the old
Man with his nurse meets
The child with her nurse, between
The rosebed and the violas.
At three the students with
Their theodolites and red
And white and black poles
Measure the known heights,
And the scarlet and the green
Footballers pattern their knees
In the wind, by the black wood
Where the caterpillars spin.
And the evening hour, when
The purple mallards are
Saying ach ach on the pond,
When the man dressed in ochre
Spikes the silver paper, and
The sweaty lover squirms
Under the lime tree*
KENNETH ALLOTT