scarecrow poetics/essays

I was looking forward to bluebells.
The woods droned with April –
Stretching out of winter,
Tuning-up for spring.

But I was early.
One frail beauty among empty stems,
First up to dance, bent under inspection.
I plucked her away before music.

Several years later
She’s too fragile to exhume
From this hardback. She’s wept her bloom –
Her dress is nearly white.

She’s poised,
Then she twists
Away from the spine –

Spins all the way down.

Merrick Palmer © 2005

Merrick Palmer graduated from Bath Spa University College in 2002 with a first class degree in Creative Writing under the tutelage of Philip Gross and Tim Liardet. His poetry considers how the transience of the surrounding world shapes the inner landscape of daily living. It examines a number of voices and personas, both child and adult, and not always his own, moving within a terrain where experiences conjure significance beyond the banal.