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Hilltop: A Literary Paper. Volume 1 Number 1
Lorna Clendon
Lorna Clendon
The Old Old Lady...
The old old lady,
The giver of eggs and flowers,
The minder of children,
Said she was a faithless creature
And a hypocrite at that,
But said she could pick the Christmas lilies.
And she, at these false accusations,
Stared at the closed door,
Stared through the pane of glass.
Will the Phoenix Rise
In the afternoon
Beneath the pine trees
He rolled his trousers up
And producing a flute
Leapt barefooted about the hillside
Like a faun;
It was very high up
And the town was obscured by falling rain
By rain falling.
In the evening,
Changed now into dry clothes,
He spoke for a long time
Walking to and fro before the fire
Warming himself,
And said that owing to the futility of life
There was nothing left for one to do
But to cultivate one's ego.
Lord She is one of Your Children
She would not lend me
The wooden beads;
She said I had not bought them;
That she had never once intended
Selling them;
That the reason for my alarm
When I lost them
Was that I knew they were hers;
That she was sick of my stories
And my lying
And that I had broken the catch.
Then she went into her room
And wept
In the darkness.