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David Subacchi 

The June Featured Poet is David Subacchi

Please feel free to email David at: david.subacchi@tiscali.co.uk

David

UNMARKED GRAVES

These days I read little;
Dog eared bargains
In charity shops
No longer tempt
Now history is only
A click away.

On line videos
Provide instant
Gratification,
Bullet casings,
Steel helmets
And rusty rifles
Rise from the earth.

I fly from France
To the Russian front,
From the Great War
To the Second
In a heartbeat,
A finger movement.

Watch gloved hands
Excitedly wiping dirt
From what
Should remain
Buried,
Undisturbed.

These days it’s not
A golf club
Or a fishing rod
That I grip tightly;
Only the black box
Mounted on a pole

And wired to my ears.
Probing the soil,
Listening for echoes,
Sweeping the surface
Of unmarked graves.

SORCERER

I wave my hand my eyes explode
The friction of my senses
Causes reality to implode
From beneath a hat
I produce a skull
Licked clean by an angry cat
I’m a mysterious magician
Full of tricks
Well, fancy that

Take my hand come under my spell
Don't hesitate to call me
If you need support or don’t feel well
Always dressed in black
Good bedside manner
Address me as ‘Your Highness’
Smile as I write out a prescription
A sure cure
For your illness

Feel my power taste my liquor
Converse with every demon
That approaches you seeking succour
Meet the evil one
Accept my welcome
Abandon all your restraint
Dance wildly around the blazing fire
Touch the flames
Until you faint.

 SILENCED

 Les Non-Réclamés (The Unclaimed)
 Painting by Steph Goodger 2015.

 Twenty-four coffins open lidded
 Painted in oils, upright like sentries
 Paris 1871, unclaimed communards
 Dreamers who sought freedom
 In the womb of revolution;
 See this is what you get
 This is how it ends
 This grim display.

 All are numbered
 In the original photograph
 But the artist has painted
 Each card blank
 Perhaps to avoid distraction
 For some have the same numerals;
 See this is the madness
 This is the hopeless
 Confusion of rebellion.

 Most are men
 Their heavy beards
 Untidy, matted with blood
 Limbs bent and twisted
 See their awful expressions
 Unsoftened by brush strokes
 And see a solitary woman face down
 Her angry protests
 Forever silenced.

David Subacchi was born in Wales (UK) of Italian roots and has four published collections of poems in English: First Cut (2012), Hiding in Shadows (2014), Not Really a Stranger (2016) and A Terrible Beauty (2016). He studied at the University of Liverpool and also writes in Welsh and Italian.

David blogs HERE