Augustus Young       light verse, poetry and prose
a webzine of new and unpublished work


False Spring

 
The birds are singing in Pujol’s garden.
Muted excitement on a taut string.
They know the breach of promise that is spring.
Yellow mimosa brings out marauding
flies, but there’s snow still on the foothills.
Blossom surfs in the wind. Cherry. Almond.
Still trees won’t leaf till seagulls leave the land,
and the storks start to nest in church steeples.
Camellias that flourish like blushing brides,
are the foolish virgins of the Pyrenees.
Their bloom blighted by the last blast of hail.
Vines won’t unknot with sap till March Ides.
Then blackbirds will sing with full throated ease,
and you can listen for the nightingale. 
 
Marsh Lilies
 
After the rains
your fragrance reigns:
incense to bless
overflowing drains
with watercress.
 
O cuckoo flower,
so white, so light,
shy in the shade:
lightening the air
above snow streams.
 
Milkmaid-blossoms,
your hour’s twilight,
the slightest wind
you’re off, a flight
on petalled wings. 
 
Once free, they play
a game of rings
that laughing sings,
you still have greens.
And summer comes.
 
A Gift from My Blackbird
 
You sing at night
And bring me light.
A single note’s
ascending scale,
that puts to shame
the nightingale
with its burping
poets call chirping.
 
Your simple pipes
rise to the heights
where peace can reign,
and cannot fail
to bring me sleep
with waves so sweet
that when I wake
the dreams remain.
 
By day despite
white nights, your flight
from tree to tree,
shows off to me
your fine feathers.
But my applause
must take a pause.
Duty tethers. 
 
Yet soon I know
I’ll hear wing-bats
rap my window:
it’s your encore
which I ignore.
I have my cats
to feed, and so,
you leave white splats.
 
 
Boy Joy
 
O the thrush
that promised
Chateaubriand
happiness
as a boy,
five decades later
promises nothing.
‘O joy.
What I have achieved
in life is taking
the enchantment
out of birdsong.
The whistle
is a wrong note.
The bird was not
possessed,
only lent’.
 
     Handmade Flowers
 
      I’m a perfect velvet flower.
      A cut above the others.
      Not dead. I am immortal
 
     because of my material.
     The treads do not unravel.
      I have been made to last.
 
      Nature may be wonderful,
      but art is more serious.
      I’m conceptually yours.
 
      Not withering between pages,
      I live in the imagination
      like last summer’s butterflies. 
 
 
Sirocco
 
The thirty-two winds of the Mediterranean
each one is an ancient god coming alive
to punish the inhabitant who are at war,
and reward those who’re at peace with the brise marine.
The winds speak on behalf of the natural world,
which makes better use of power than humankind,
being backed by zephyrs. I’ve reason to be wary
of these godly blow-ins as I’m often at war
with myself. Although I try to make up for it
by making peace with others. Nevertheless,
when my ashes are scattered to the sea, I fear
an ill-wind will throw them back on dry land,
and when the desert storms come, I’ll be sand-blasted.
 
 
Not Sad
In a world without melancholy
nightingales burp.
Emile Cioran
 
I’m chipper on hearing the doorbell
bringing gifts from the world that loves me,
a valued client’s bonus. I’m doing well
by paying, a music box with rap
celebrating my trust and I must clap
along. And so, there’s no cause to be sad,
having got most things I want in life:
a car that starts and a livable pad,
and the girl two-doors-down as a wife.
I attribute my happiness
to not reading books which would mess
me with ideas. I moderate excess,
shopping and watching television series.
Politics for me never wearies
being boring. I’m a man who must be
chirpy as a bird to be happy. 
 
Our Beautiful World
 
In ruining it we don’t miss a trick.
What with blaming others without shame
for what’s gone wrong. Material gain
is never enough. And Mister Big
as its role model doesn’t care a fig.
The cure for my chagrins in the main
is in black-and-white movies, music,
and seeing children are still the same.