Dick Jones' Patteran Pages

A first draft, shared with The Mag.

WILLIAM H BONNEY.

Wanted. An ambiguous
term to say the least.
The State, in all
its stern impartiality,

wants him. Indeed,
so much so that
his condition of
mortality is of

no account. Such
is the value placed
upon his body and
his soul: that,

even without
the richness of
the latter, the former –
holed and bloody,

stained with dust –
will be acceptable.
Such longing, such
desire. A passion

even as he passes
from this world.
So sad he came
unwanted to it.

A third draft. (The audio version music is 'Les Chansons des Roses no. 5' from Morten Laurisden's 'O Magnum Mysterium').  Shared with Imaginary Garden...



OFFLEY COPSE IN SPRING

(Aubers Ridge, May 9th 1915)

Your path leads you between great-headed trees –
the beeches, muscle-bound and wearing their may
like burly brides; the ash, rattling his blades;

horse chestnut burning stacked candles in the face
of day. The bright rain tricks the air into long
strings of light whose lattice tracks you up

to the treeline. Deeper in the copse blue smoke blows:
dim fumes in a bright season, a rush of bluebells
whispering, where you walk, ankle-high. Trodden down,

the early ferns, rise again behind you. Bramble gateways
tugged apart re-form, slow-motion twisting back
in toothy coils. And now, here, where midnight moss

made a bed for the two of you in May last year,
you lie alone and listen for the guns that boomed
a week ago somewhere north of Aubers Ridge

OFFLEY COPSE IN SPRING [mixed]