An edit of poems composed this year.
More of my works can be viewed here: https://dorrellmerritt.co.uk/Dorrell-Merritt-Selected-Poems
Image: Untitled, 2019, Dorrell Merritt
The devil take the hindmost.
deeds of selfish flesh and wonder,
bound so to enmesh, to plunder:
afeard, the herd, defer in slumber.
Hug.
For Tracey.
audacious bronzed form of woman,
a womb warm, and squishy bosom,
close, nearly sandwiched, with a smile,
sustained like a held note on a stave,
written as a lullaby or a soppy ode.
hold me tight perhaps and save me,
cackle or heckle and crave me like
fag smoke; tales, hand-combed curls;
offie trips for crisps or a diet coke,
come dine with me, a hug and a nap.
A pint of black.
With gratitude to S. Heaney.
Oft to the pub,
wooden slats or table gleaming
parting with warm gold for cold black,
dark, deep, like a foam-topped wellspring
or something.
I wish for thick, creamed ivory,
the first gulp, calvary to a tongue or gut,
handling still, ensuring the glug
and a page turned without a drip,
perhaps with a crisp.
Still, silent stupor,
licked, lapped, supped up misted dregs;
swirled, downed (oh I am now old),
a half for the road or till the next chapter,
never alone, solitarily.
Untitled Bruegel Poem I.
Composed in response to Gloomy Day (february) by Pieter Bruegel the elder.
Spindling black birch in a looming dense cluster,
gnarled as witches hands,
hacked in high winds, gathered in a bunch
as old ships are drowned and sunk
like runts in barrels,
peril worn in rolling skies, like worried mothers
or hunters, young, in the chase,
loose earth turned and drizzle-thickened
over wails of bleak gales, whistling shrill,
by flailing tides, long-failed masts;
a vale browning in darkening umber,
creeping like a grumbling omen, a frown narrowing.
Nørrebro blues.
Men searching for fish in scattered dozens,
circle open arms familiar and fervent,
but nothing can save us now, my love, I think,
as we cook in a cosy cubby of gleaming evening light;
a drifting satellite amongst the vacuum of familiarity;
we walk foreign miles in silences that still echo
vacantly, as empty eggs, hollow.
Once, you said love is just a really long goodbye
sings a voice above, now both us and ours,
as nothing can save us now, my love, I thought,
at restaurant tables, in nordic streets,
nor by still, cold sheets, lakeside tears glinting as silver
by bustling bike-lanes, above dear street-beers,
hands locked loose till the end.