POEMS AND PICTURES YORK LOVESONGS I (for Charlotte) One morning, when stepping outside was like walking into sunlight through a billion pink flowers, I spiked a girl's drink at breakfast with poems. But she never noticed until she choked on orange-blossom. XIV (for Isla) Summer comes and your dresses bloom pink, white, blue; and we sit breaking smoke-rings on our fingers. XX (for Rachel) Coloured petals fall around us like the gentlest of reminders, so May will always smell of peaches (the cosmetic fruit in the glass) and the bright blossom will always mean this is the right time. X They fined me a hundred pounds for the handful of daffodils I took from around the city walls, so don't say I never buy you flowers. Antony Dunn "York Lovesongs" Skrentny Folder.
were in Antony's prize-winning
A GRANDMOTHER'S LULLABY I hear music on the wind as the fly brushes the strings of the spider's web, across fields the dull thud of hawk-talons bursting through the sparrow's chest, and blood flowing to earth, laughter as the river rushes home to the sea, whose murmuring tides chase the sweet voice of the moon. I hear the song of a crowd of stars hiding love's lonely face, the rolling of silent wars between the dark clouds and the sun, the skies repeat the stories that candle-smoke whispers to the eaves. Dawn breathes into morning, dusk speaks to the night, and clear through the air, where the trees bow down to me, I can hear the secrets of all men's hearts blowing through the leaves. I have heard all things, my dear; heard all since the day the good Lord softly came to me and took my sight away. Antony Dunn Antony was awarded the Crook Prize for Poetry for this poem. 42
