In webs of darkness

Internet troll faces arrest for threats to MP
METRO, 8 June 2012

A concealed geometry underlies
the best Parisian heels.

Beneath the laughable symmetries

of bonsoirs, aux revoirs

and their shadows thrown on wet stones,

a staccato precipitate drips

unseen in delicate counterpoint

to the scratching of tiny feet.

A gondolier plies these catacombs

equipped with only a lantern

and a wooden scraping tool,

and scurrying marks his passage

as surely as gulls’ cries

mark a homecoming trawler’s wake.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

The church of emancipation

French girl dies in Easter church floor collapse

France 24, Easter Sunday, 8 April 2012

In our church we dance the passion,

not from Aramaic, but from the Haitian.

We do lent like the Arab do Ramadan

and when we relent we do celebration.

In our church we raise the rafter

that we closer to God through our rapture.

If Saint John could see we ascension

he say what this new verse and chapter?

On our church there a cross on the gable

that mark where our brothers have struggled

us freed of the boss man in Haiti

and the overseers of him religion.

Here lie in peace sons and daughters

buried in cotton picked by others.

(c) 2012 Andy Hickmott

First published in Interpreter's House vol 52
'Dedicated to the best in poetry'