Patrick Meadows and Stephanie Shepard Memorial Site
These posts contain poems found in a computer file of the same name.
Here is a collection of poems I found on his computer in the file poems.odt. They were written over several decades and compiled a few years before he died. These are based on the tag “poems.odt” I used to identify the works from that file. JPI’m the son of Patrick of Meadows.
Now Seagulls flatter us upon the dock, each image bellied upon the cluttered waves; their parted, hectic beaks comma names, and as they carve the air (ellipses, ovals) clouds unfold their frescoes, flocks of feathered gods wrestling; sunlight twisting into shadows: caves, or marble fingers clenched. The river raves and flaps its dirty wings. Injured […]
Achilles stumped about in this dust,Beneath these walls. Those poppies are less redThan petals bled by Trojans and GreeksFor Helen and the rest. Priam’s surging lustWas small beside this rise and fall of land,The snake of river slipping out to sea,The Dardanelles, lying at the kneeOf Turkey, a girl stretching on the sand. The tendons […]
That building seems to soar. Athenian menWould watch the mountain mornings as if the godsThat Phidias friezed there might command the panOf hammered dawn to scoop them into cloudsAnd set them with the temple on the peak Olympus. Each day Athena dreamedAgainst her arm and seemed about to breakA sigh beside the spear on which […]
Pigeons flutter in the park at dusk and shiver feathers in the mauve half-light: policemen meet under the lams to ask what the special is tonight. The air is crisp. Hunched in black, the hacks clutch a wreath of woven hide, staring at their knuckles or kneecaps; damp horses snort in fogs that stain the […]
(I watch and the pelicans plummet into the water.) It must be the time of year, with the wind blowing through my hair and roughing the river; perhaps it’s just this wooden bridge and the line slicing itself into halves bending back beneath the edge of the weathered boards. (There the brown algae limps back […]
Lady, your flowers have been well-kept for generations; Blossoms have topped that stone wall many springs And filled parlor-damp vases. (Roses cannot clean the mildew from the spacious, once gracious rooms.) I have been in your parlor, Seen polished wood Under light straining through stained glass, Felt leather groan as I sat, Handled wicker and […]
_by nowI have learnedthat all things portendbut thenwhen we fought each other downby day and made it upby night i did not know the sloop sailedhard by the ochre cliffsthe waves slapping like wet sheetson the stony shorea gull shriekedriding our spill from the falcon’s nesta feathered missile hurtledair to airspur and talon demolishedthe gliding […]
I have just stoked up the wood burning Jotul, and just in case we are inspired to song, put on the heater in the music room. By my wing-back is the copy of Great Jones Street cover curling from the damp bookmark in place. I have just cooked turkey in mustard with old-fashioned mashed potatoes, […]
The sky behind the bluff catches fire and burns Down the clouds, spreads to the peaks Above the bay; the wind changes and turns The waves into dolphins racing to break The headland toward the open sea. The squall breaks over us, not from sky or hill, But out of black crashing ocean spilled Over […]
the moonshattered in the fountainswings west while we sleep and dream:the moon is shattered in the fountain.let’s wake the poetwith so many dreamshe will have things to say. I have no idea when this was written, or if this is even Patrick’s. It was at the top of the file called poems.odt, which contained a […]
How many springs is it nowthat Tomeu pretends he has heard the first song?And I dispute his word? The trouble isTomeu is nativeand I a stranger with no such birdin the land I knew. But so strong is my wishI cannot shake my faith: There must be a wind to bring themup from Africa – such small creaturesneed […]
She is happiestfacing the morning sunamong her snapdragons. Or with the pregnant caton her lapwhile she reads. Or trimming the bramble on our path. Or playing the flutelistening to the owl Or when we are alone. Whatever she is doingshe is happiestwhen she is doing it. Deya, 1980s PatrickPatrick Meadows 1934 – 2017. patrick-meadows.com
we won’t let you go! tackling me at the knees. gretchen is laughing at this new game with daddy. jennifer is older and cries her mother’s panicked eyes telling her it’s no joke with my books bundled in twenties i lash myself down the stairs, toss them into the vw bug and drive mari to […]
The first oxygen goes to feed the fire that flames in the heart of us; that flares our gaze out beyond the near business of day to day. Like the bonfire which begins its own round grave, the center goes first into coals, then cinders, then smoking dust, a crater ringed by useless fuel. Burn […]