More poems

The eagle has landed

(yet again) on TV last night,
Looking a lot more graceful than
When I watched the eagle claws clamp
The untouched skin of the moon
On an old black & white television
Squatting above a scarred white fridge
In Newtown 40 years ago.

The screen fluttered like a moth
In the light as those grey robots
Waddled down onto her soft powder,

As we sat around the kitchen table
Smoking bad dope & drinking flat beer
When a voice that could have come
From any one of a hundred
Western movies spoke those words

But the fridge Ommed mysteriously
In deep mechanical sympathy
With the peaceful pitted face of the moon
Who was about to be colonised
By the eagles, who were us -

So tonight I walk outside & look up
To see that lovely lonely disc
Peep around a cloud,
& toast her with blood red wine,
Warning her that we have never been satisfied
With the selfless love of any woman,
However beautiful, however far.

C Rae Desmond Jones

18 July 2009