Red Kite, 4pm

by AL Franklin

Circles.   Shared in underlying measure
with some swifts that flicker higher,
deft and dark, obsessive on another prey; 
its cruel beak mewls plaintive calls
but also sates its blood’s desire;

it is a silent beatless soar of wings
outstretched to ride the wind
in heedless majesty, against the void; 
arching once or twice towards a stall –
an almost-stoop, a trigger not released –

before its tail again controls the flight
which carries those unblinking eyes,
quartering the ground;
although no quarter will be asked, or given,
in the hunters’ sky.

’53

by AL Franklin

She spoke to me quite openly, about aspects of her life
and episodes…
Sometimes I met her eyes, sometimes her eyes looked down
in hesitance…

We’d kissed. I’d held her hands, and helped her with her dress –
the zip was kind…
Her oral skills were wonderful, at least as good as mine:
hungry;  practiced…

Her touch was soft, her body firm.  I actively adored her slender frame…
We promised more
explosive exploration;  while traceries of sound, of painted filaments 
connected us…

Our lives just touched, briefly ~ rich lives, we’ve led in parallel ~
with benefits…

I am a room

by AL Franklin

I am a room:
of hustling crowds and speaking noise and virus shards ~
I am giddy.  So many people!  Too many people?
Can it last?  Does it make sense?  It’s fun, who cares!
Oh, the things my walls can hear.  You’d blush!
I am loud.

I am a room:
an atmosphere of shuffling dust and whirling motes,
of half-lit space and partly shuttered windows
where people used to come.  Traces linger – DNA – somewhere…
my memory is hazy – they have faded – it has gone…
I am quiet.

I was a room:
now I am open to the changing sky
with joists broken, windows cracked, walls exposed to frost;
my plaster aches, my flooring reeks, things crawl on many legs…
Vermin eat the crawling things.
I am cold.

I may become a room:
I am a plan, an artwork and a virtual 360 tour.
I submit, although I may not be approved,
that equity demands a measure of equality
for the temporally unrealised.
I am perfect.

I could be a room:
a labour ward, a tax office, a mortuary;
I could be numbered 101 or called a pleasure dome
or manifest a quantum state, be home to Schrödinger’s cat;
I could appear, or disappear; or still exist unseen.
I will reflect what you would see.

Signal red

by AL Franklin

When I woke in the night, I wanted you so much!
I burned, I yearned, to writhe again with you,
to share our fullness in those frantic urgencies;
the rod of my desire lay heavy on my guts –
a delightful torment, chasing sleep to shadow –
the road was bright, the fires were lit,
the way ahead was clear! 

But after sunrise, black and grey return.
My arm lies flat, the light is smoky red; 
the fat controller is awake in me,
sullen, soured and heavy with his duty
in my fractured signal tower, to block the route:
caution’s cold hand will keep my husk
protected, through another day in safety.