Leslie Philibert

Fear Of Trains

autumn rain is akin to black tea;
the burnt yellow of old growth watered,

a train shakes the fields like an old carpet snapping,
birds shoot holes in the turbulent sky,
the world is split like an apple,
your head inside a bell,

when it is over it is not over,
the air hums with steel,
too many eyes are in the undergrowth,
evening`s calm as brittle as toffee,
shocked from coal and smoke,
a heartbreath along rails

• • •

An Angular Boy

mucho akimbo, all elbows and knees,
sudden as summer rain, white as paper,
he falls through doors and windows;

then,

closed like a shop on Sunday,
window eyed, still as a nightbrook,
a dry wheel under clouds, silent

• • •

The Dark Between the Stars

stones under sand
streets around your eyes,
when the moon stops

the tide fails, a cold bell
drops out of the ringing sky
and you hide in shadow

• • •

Leslie Philibert lives and works in Germany. Born in London, he studied English Literature in Ireland. In Bavaria he works as a social worker. He has published poetry in a number of magazines in the UK and US. He has also done some translation work for a South German theatre group.