Four Poems

Nightfall in an Eyeball of Howard Hodgkin
i.m. Clare MacDonald Shaw

A sun like a tomato, juicy and nutritious,

when chopped by the serrated sierra, dispenses
a barrel of tarry darkness, sudden and sullen,
as if a vigorous heart were to be caught seething
with the bitterest of jealous thoughts, like black beetles;

and within a few minutes the temperature plummets,
leaping two seasons, so that when the moon has risen,
not half an hour later, it is already winter
and the day’s sunbathers are putting on their woollies,

ruefully swapping reminiscences of summer.


Fire and Ice

The burning ships have been abandoned,
left to snuff themselves out overnight.
The Queen is in her cups,
...