TRANTER, John

The Moment of Waking

She remarks how the style of a whole age

disappears into your gaze, at the moment

of waking. How sad you are

with your red shirt, your features

reminiscent of marble, your fabulous

boy girl face like a sheet of mist

floating above a lake.

Someone hands me a ticket,

in Berlin a hunchback

is printing something hideous;

my passport is bruised with dark blue

and lilac inks. Morning again,

another room batters me awake—

you will be haunting the mirror like silver—

now the nights punish me with dreams

of a harbour in Italy — you are there

hung in the sky on broken wings

as you always have been, dancing

preparing to wound me with your

distant and terrible eyes.


The Plane

The plane drones low over Idaho,

a thundering shadow on the wheat.

The captain is thinking of a dust-cloud

disappearing out to sea.

The heavy wings tilt, a silo

looms abruptly. The cloud

falters on the horizon of his mind.

Taped to the cockpit wall is a photograph,

a piece of Sunday afternoon,

a lawn, a bright dress, flowers.

Soon they will be flying over the mountains

in a halo of ice. The cloud

hangs about, behind the imaginary trees.