Rosemary Norman poems

SONG OF THE NOBIRD

There is an unease in the first stanza,
enters you by the ear.
Those skinny trees that arch
around the lake, are they indeed
birdless? Or do birds aplenty, beaks sealed,
press their wings to their sides?
Begin. Answer. If you do not
my question repeats.

The sun's edge frays off into cloud.
Only now are you aware
of a dense knot above you, growing denser,
ravelling up the unsung stuff.
The air shudders. The trees tighten,
and not a twig but would snap to stop it.
Every root muscles deep.
The lake is beautiful
as pewter, with a faint metallic tang.
There is no way out.
If you believe me, pine away. Game over.

Young man, the nobird
cannot lie. But I admire your pluck.
Home you come with a new album:
the Nobirds. They are excessive, haggard,
woebegone. They seem to know
what you only fear. That reassures you.
Now, over the bright shadows
of three plaster ducks you never saw,
you pin your Nobirds poster.
They hint - you cannot miss it - insist
you should return to the lake.
Do you believe them? Game over. Go back
to stanza two. Otherwise rest.
The next stanza concerns another player.

You are uncertain. This is stanza four,
young woman. Do you remember
the birdless place? You smell it in your hand,
ready with loose change for the bus.
There he scuffs at dead sedge, and fantasises
febrile sex with you, in the guise
of an alien femme fatale.
The bus is here. Will you ride to the lake?
Or do you press the coins into your palm
and find them not a proper fare
for an expedition of the soul?

Game over. Welcome to stanza five.
You have chosen well.
Do not despair. Pewter light will pool,
now and then, between the strewn
clouds of your world - an intersection
with stanza two. It is not lost, or far off.
Music will stretch and wind
out through your ears at the first notes
of any desolate string quartet.
Beaten water. The stiff, metallic trees.
A nobird, rising tight as a lark
into the sag of the sky.