THE DAY IS FROZEN ON THE HILLS

Entered into McLellan Poetry Prize 2012

SUMMERS END

When the sun hides

The townsfolk assemble

Blading the gourds

Knifing the eyes

Sucking the meat

And placing a light in there

The light giving life

To the orange dome


They have been waiting for this

Each has made a head

Fat heads like giant eggs

Or huge red foetuses

Not yet ready for the world

Ballooning monstrously

Warped heads plastered

With strange death grins

Off colour odd eyes


They don the skulls

And walk through

The narrows’ amber light

The vapour from the lamps

Stroked by the bare limbs

Of the trees dance upon

Their swollen false faces

Then it is that they too

Dance and out

Into the darkness

Of the fields


And like the harvest

That has just been sheared

By morninglight

There is nothing but the

Heads

Crushed in the fields