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in
collection Wolf on the Third Floor, 2000,
New
Hope International. ISBN 0 903610 25 6;
previously
published in Obsessed with Pipework, 1998
Peter the Great
When
my Father, Tsar Alexis, died
and
the blood of thousands splashed
in
the snow like iced rowan berries
I
could dream of nothing but
the
felling of trees.
When
my family and friends were
butchered
before my eyes, I could feel
nothing
but the peeling of bark
under
my red thumb as the
spokeshave
bit deep.
And
when I imprisoned my sister, and
confined
my feeble minded brother
to
his own emptiness, I sealed
the
wooden joints of my own freedom
with
pitch and bitumen.
Then
I defeated the Turk, and opened
our
lands to the Baltic and Caspian seas.
I
sensed again the unfurling
of
new canvas to the
fresh
untested wind.
And
when, as they say, I created modern
Russia,
I remember only my childhood
hands
working on that first small ship.
Ruling
the Empire gave me
no
such satisfaction.
Graham
High
|
last
update:
e-mail Graham
poetry favourites:
British
Haiku Society
Contemporary
Haibun online
Haiku
Society of America
Red
Moon Press
Poetry
Society
Poetry
School
Poetry
Library
Poetry
Business
and in
the
shop
...
collections -
"Under
the Edge of the Horizon (Haiku)",
"Once
Around the Sun (Haiku)",
"Towing
the Breeze (Haiku)",
"Where Two
Streams Meet (Haiku)"
"Between the Heartbeats (Haiku)",
and
"No Turning Back",
Ram
Publications
"Wolf
on the Third Floor",
New Hope International;
"Attempts
to Love",
Athenaeum Books;
"Ravens
of Unresting Thought",
Outposts Publications
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