Ian M Emberson, 1936 – 2013

 

The Zig Zag Path               (opening passage)

Ioda stood
at the head
of the zig zag path,
looked up
at where her own great star Van-ra-mar
still hung in the cooling sky,
looked down
at the deep green valley –
the mansion
home of her father Ruopa
and all his family –
the lake –
the woodland –
her little world –
the only world she knew.
 
She tossed her auburn curls,
stretched her tall slim figure,
placed a slim young hand
against her pale wide forehead
and looked around.
All things seemed beautiful –
today
as on those many yesterdays.
The walk on the hills
had pleased her,
the prospect of home
was comforting,
this day
like many days before
was part of an unquestioning contentedness
which she had known from birth.
 

Ian M Emberson

opening passage of e-book, The Zig Zag Path (202 pages, all illustrated).
2010, Angria Press, ISBN 978-0-9521693-7-6.
Download free at www.ianemberson.co.uk

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A Weed is a Flower in the Wrong Place

A weed is a flower in the wrong place,
a flower is a weed in the right place,
if you were a weed in the right place
you would be a flower;
but seeing as you’re a weed in the wrong place
you’re only a weed –
it’s high time someone pulled you out.
 

Ian M Emberson

published in collections, Doodles in the Margins of my Life, 1981,
Fighting Cock Press, ISBN 0-906744-03-2;
and The Unicorn and Lions, 1987, Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-39204-3

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Spires of the Fireweed…               (excerpt)

Spires of the fireweed on the fretted sky –
Tints of magenta on tranquillity,
Do you feel nurture for the life within,
The burst of bloom that yields your progeny.
Do you have sense of flowering’s fleeting glow,
Bearing its part in continuity
To charge the seed and rip its casing wall,
And float its fluff upon the Autumn wind ?
 
Spires of the churches in the English dales,
Or on the dusted hills of Aragon,
Do you point hopeful at a Godless sky,
With upward fingers of futility ?
Or when with black you spike the sunset’s dream,
Are you a marker in our wanderings,
Or but a perch to tempt the homeward rook,
Or rest the vulture from its scavenging ?
 
Spires of the bayonets in the armoury,
Bloodless you stand in cold virginity,
Do you long now to feel the tearing flesh,
And gush the bloody wastage from the wound ?
Or are you neutral to the world’s affray,
Rocks of the shipwreck and the gull’s retreat,
Scathed of emotion as the scattered stars,
Guiltless of love and innocent of strife ?
 

Ian M Emberson

excerpt from Chapter Nine of Pirouette of Earth : a Novel in Verse, 1995,
University of Salzburg, ISBN 978-3-7052-0035-7

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Danse Macabre

Death came to me in a mini skirt
As skittish as a kitten,
And said: “I am come – for your final flirt,”
But added: “You don’t seem smitten.”
 
Says I: “Well – not in my wildest whim
Did I picture you looking like this,
I’d been told that you were a reaper grim
And behold – a saucy miss.”
 
“Ah – many a one is like yourself
Surprised by my winning smile,
I have jokes and jests like a playful elf
And I know the way to beguile.”
 
“But – please just pass me by with a nod
I’ve poems and plays unwritten,
There are footpaths I have never trod
As you say – I’m not much smitten.”
 
“Oh hush my darling – and don’t repine,”
And she gave a gracious prance,
Then she twined her fingers into mine
And whispered: “Shall we dance ?”
 

Ian M Emberson

published in Aireings 40, March 2001

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