OK, I just submitted to London's "Live Canon Poetry Competition" Here is what I've submitted.

kingfisher

the room is quiet now
only the scent of lust
ghosts loitering air and i
perched at a table by the window
are proof of life
the locals are coming for me
torches ablaze
sicles in hand
i have their princess soiled in my bed
the scents of outrage and boiling blood
rise from beyond woody hills

asleep on the bed
she’s motionless
legs apart
open to me
she is beauty
bruised brown skin and
bite marks on the small of her back
make her love me
broken flesh
makes her need me
i’m a virus in her indian heart
our lines mixed
the damage done
still
they are coming

she was mine for a time
in a moment of raging release
wide-eyed, tight gripped and panting
foreign
a queen wrapped round the
milky body of an aging poet
a beggar
while she rests
peacefully
nakedly
they are coming

like smoke on moonlight
i disappear
gone when she wakes
she’ll be thankful
not for having me
that i was gone when they came

the flames crest the hill now
they arrive to find me gone
hands high in the air
they cry
injustice

black and blue
my wings spread wide
soaring
above the tree-line
i’m the kingfisher
slicing through fog and rain
i leave her behind
making my way south
trying guiltily to escape suicide
on the hills of jatinga


Michael Lorne Leard



The ugly widow

Once I wrote to be relevant.
Now, to be invisible.
Dark, like the closet I store you in;
like the box I burnt, fingertips inside.

I used to think life was a goddess;
round breasted and writhing.

Now aged, a widow
I long for her no more.


Michael Lorne Leard




The Lovers



the lovers
escape
to grass
together
merging
steps
step
hands
hand
mouths
mouth
faces
face
mInds
mind

trees
reach
embrace
with branch
buds blossom
new petals
sticky kisses
feet
foot
root
they fall
ground
melting
body
soil
seed

the lover

we can only
observe

Michael Lorne Leard