Stella Davis

Stella Davis is a widely-published UK poet whose material draws on political, spiritual and natural worlds, the lives of women, and the imaginative realm. She has been Poet in Residence at the Port of Southampton, and at Winchester Cathedral.  Her latest collection, Last Boat to Avalon, was published in 2009. She lives inSomerset in the west ofEngland, and is currently Poet in Residence at St Mary at Hill in the City ofLondon.

Beached

The shore-line is full of bones, little white bird bones

and beached bleached branches stripped to their clean last,

fleshless and sapless among the stones,

skeletal recollections from the vast

offertory of the sea. The bird

that called so raucously at daybreak, the unfurled

leaves splayed out across the skyline of many springs,

fall back now upon the bare bones of things.

Fleshed still, vivid still, encumbered,

I sift them out, from a muddled world

of claws and tarry strings.

After burying the monster                                                                  

After burying the monster

we cannot return home.

We follow the geese skeining south

to the quiet docks, where lie in hulk

our ships once seaworthy.

They let loose a flickering hope.

Who is to say we shan’t set sail again,

rise to the occasion as the tide turns?

There are coasts where we never landed:

those secretive shores.

A long time since, we turned on our neighbours,

rending their comfort by way of a sacrifice.

“Give of your best” was the rule.

We obeyed it, didn’t we?

All those young men.

Now when a deceit of lapwings ravages

the green corn, it scarcely seems to matter.

Surprising, how long we are able

to eke a living; how many years

since we ate red meat?

We went so far, in the steps of the monster.

But the dint wears away, the road unravels,

the flag we clung to lies shredded,

and we find we cannot bear

to return home.

Caffè delle Arti                   

She wears this city like a garment,

easy as scarlet linen, bias-cut

slanting over one brown shoulder

A dozen madonnas sleep in her profile

vanquished emperors glow dark

in her hazy green glance

As shaded atnoonunder a white awning

she orders up pink-peppered fish

and a salad of leaves

And gesturing from the wrist, describes

the etchings of shields, threads Virgil

with small ringed fingers

Her voice a shift of tongues

her laughter sashaying down the steps

and across theBorgheseGardens.

Un’altra bianca della casa, bright, beaded.

Sparrows slow among the crumbs,

the humming heat.

Che vuoi? On any day like this

she might set aside, lightly

all the illustrious past

strap on golden sandals

head for the South.

© Stella Davis