Poems by May Ivimy

May Badman

Walking at Dusk

Walking at dusk in an unlit room

In level light as strong as water

Floating

Smooth-purposed as a prawn

Parading long-legged on a sandy bottom

Windows slide past like waves and

Air is silk, a sea caressing.

Outside no different, the town, the world

Sways, quiet, under an ocean of evening.

Potatoes

See my potatoes

Growing roots out of their muddy faces

Life, striving to live

Give a free vote to a potato

And the whole world

Will be potatoes

Some

Will have two legs

And run

I cannot be sublime, I have no time

I cannot be sublime, I have no time.

My hands are mostly under water where

The dishes free themselves from stain and oil.

Virgin bubbles cancel grease and greed.

I see them like pink octopi between

The foaming curtains, salvaging a spoon.

They pull the plug, I watch a galaxy

Holed and whirling streamers of its pain.

Visiting Kettle's Yard

The last footsteps cease

Their rapping of floors and stairs -

Those reasonable woods -

The rooms breathe, the works emit

Their odorous message.

I work by sunbeam, flowing and fading,

To make the sounds of words

Serve the art, the hearts

That moved the brushes, moulded clays

Tooled

The glass, the steel, the woods,

Their ringing souls.

Windows (In Kettle's Yard)

They are all windows

Opening out

Setting forth their visions

Rich, strange, or tender.

Looking back

To the ancient past

Or forward

To what may come.

Put together in love

They draw us in.

Yet more frames

Open out

To white tumbling clouds

Chasing over the blue,

Busy, changing weather,

Or brisk cars

Wincing cyclists,

People - more-

There are the trees

Green fountains of leaves,

Flowers

Imagining fruit.

How much we need

To look in at beauty,

And out,

To ponder life.