ANONYMOUS ROOMS

 

Five hundred miles off

On a night of no surrender

Amid the bedrock and the pine

 

In the anonymous rooms

Where we whisper salvations

To the prayer flags on the walls

 

For the sake of our sins

Now fixed upon the surface

Of the love we yield to the grave

 

At the gates of some heaven

When the message comes clear

This damn destiny is all we deserve

 

 

 

ESMERALDA

 

I see you in my dreams

Standing alone on a rooftop

In some sleepy coast town

In Croatia or Suriname

Where every man on the street

Is either taxi driver or butcher

And all intentions are blurred

In stray dogs and cigarette smoke

 

Out at the end of earth

Where the days move easy

Drinkable wine in coffee cups

A scattering of ashes to the sea

You swore it to the jezebels

Open arms stretching for the sky

To enter tomorrow a stranger

Void of history and proper name

 

Are you Esmeralda in summer?

Are you Dark Bird on the vine?

 

Do you rise in the early hours

To the howl of the hungry ghost?

 

Or perhaps I play a part

In the visions that chase you

The forgotten hero in the war

Some cardinal sin you tried to bury

Now living out my vacant days

In the towers of your memory

Lost boulevards you left behind

Where I knot the myth writing this

 

 

 

 

 

stevemeagher

 

Steve Meagher grew up in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. His poems have appeared in
Carousel, The Nashwaak Review and Ottawa Arts Review. His first book, Navy Blue, was published in 2016 by Guernica Editions. He lives in Toronto.