John a'Beckett

Drive up to where the smooth road takes a bend.
A peep-look in the rear-vision has you knowing
corn-poppy pretty much behind is what’s ahead
to venture forth into a green Mazury flowing;
...

Border town deep into night and the train named
after some distant mythical king remembered
for his famous dreams. Mieszko, Popiel-who now
we don't know in this snatch sleep of rust brakes
...

You'll surface soon, say, suddenly,
of all things in a Kovska tram:
two rugged-up passengers Time’s
traffic’s 'knocked about a bit',
...

The dairy cows have snapped their chains
and wandered into marsh. Hay’s wet again from yet
another burza burst of unpredicted rain. The cat’s
knocked the kompot onto Kasia’s Sunday Best
...

Captain Cook, wig in the wind, a shrill black zip
belting back to the Pacific, bare-back astride a horse
quick-living down the frequent freeway rain
has fleeced of mega-trucks; he gives the road sign
...

Our Boeing Lot slips through the wincing snow
delivering us back to what we don't quite know
is when or where, but strangely full of purpose:
Poland, a corner soul, the lost mnemonic point
...

The long inviting lets feint fleeters merge, wane
out of synch into '11 o'clock'. West watches show
“What Would Have, Had We Not Been ” enveloping
us on a high meridian malingering in light shadow:
...

Leisure-lovers, looking for
Exotic reasons to explore
The mystery of recent past
...

Out of the icicled window
of a cramped, crowded winter bus,
silver sun racing slick into gold, backing off
from the sighed frost, breath of my Slavic passengers;
...

Injured from the Battle of the Marne, wounds fatal-
his mind back-flashing to the events of The Affair:
Schwartzkoppen in a back-street Berlin hospital.
truth locked inside him, conscience meant, intent on
...

“Sorry, sir. Booked out.. but then...”
The patronne’s voice is calm, you’re
penniless again in Paris, facing doom
and banking on the hope her “then..
...

A bronze sun on a black rim fights
to shine out of a carbonated dawn
In mist outline of roof and steeple
peak Warsaw traffic’s backing up
...

So say in Indo-China, anyway
by palm and flick of clock
they let the monkey draw-
fast out of lots –the straw
...

As if they were the stop-press news,
her memoirs out-loud in the street
more urgent than Irak, her eyes fixed
on me hypnotizing back the good old
...

Thick night. A guess of place. Mid-Mazovia? Wonder where, then
as Jolanta’s car tyres beat in their bumble drum bounce in question
over the blabbing big slabs of cobble-stones under. Probably paving;
a whiff of invented breeze met with a shake maybe shudder of leaves,
...

Noon winks a shadow in an over-sight of sun
at- sudden in a Krakow cranny- Stanczyk,
jester of our Conscience, courteous, cast off
from King Casimir’s royal ceremonies. There!
...

A stirring in our conscience bids
church bells clear the snow-filled air,
in peel reveal on Starszek Square,
Warszawa’s fickle, earnest fuss,
...

Twilight can snap its shackle
Step on a four-horse cart
Hard on the head wind whistle,
Give the wild whipped horses bray
...

In quick Bangkok mid-rush
on Rasamanthan Square
the lush flow, teeming Thai
humanity where everyone
...

Snatch up a time, swift as Pythagoras,
wandering off his mathematic thought
deep down a Samos side-street, hears
far from soft Pythia and loud agoras
...