Three Poems by Robert Ford

by: Robert Ford

In these ekphrastic poems by Robert Ford, perception is a type of communion, a transfigured merging of the subject and object into an ontological whole, providing the reader with the necessary sustenance only found in poetry: “…More to feed/ us here than could be/ eaten by a single eye.”

Thoughts from an early morning train

Strange how certain things – whilst falling apart –

take on shapes that almost seem deliberate,

as though planned that way, as though this

were merely a truer angle to see them from.

A reassembly of ideas. A reversal of mirrors.

So you become the terrified hare cowering in

the tractor wheel ruts as the carriage spears by,

not the owner of the jaded eyes witnessing it.

You always have been. You see holes now

where once there were pegs, an illusion of

opportunity created by yourself, by your own

shadow sweeping across the picture as you pass.

 

Afternoon, hillside above town

So the heart must

actually work because I

feel its hourglass thump,

its rising, gnawing

reassurance under my

jawline, the lazy blood

squeezing through its

chambers. More to feed

us here than could be

eaten by a single eye.

Below, in their paper

cages, the chattering

drones imagine time

and crush themselves.

All those things I forgot

I wasn’t thinking become

static. They crumble

at my finger-ends.

 

Bookmarked

Only a single photograph survives out of all the clouds

she once had of him, from that roughly assembled collage

that once papered her sky, and filled her up like bones.

 

They haven’t met. He’s still unaware of his importance,

of his hands, and what they’ll do one day. He’s almost

avoiding the unknown photographer, posing obliquely

 

like he’s written in italics, an unnatural tilt to his cupped face.

The room is an open field, but his eyes are those of a creature

who knows its limits, one you’d never quite be able to

 

bring yourself to edit completely. Necessary time has slipped,

leaving new tissue. She sees it now, and has him marking

a relevant page, knows exactly where he is for once.

 

Robert Ford lives on the east coast of Scotland. His poetry has appeared in both print and online publications in the UK and US, including Antiphon, The Lake, Butcher’s Dog and San Pedro River Review. More of his work can be found at https://wezzlehead.wordpress.com/

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