Garth Luetkemeier was born in England, but has spent most of his adult life in Germany. His work has appeared in Orbis, Smith’s Knoll, Iota, Pennine Platform, theCrank, Umrisse, Buch zum Poetry Café (both Germany), with a publication forthcoming in The Dawntreader. He was Assistant Guest Editor of The Literary Review (West German Poetry in the Eighties, Fall Edition 1989, Farleigh Dickinson, USA).
Park in Summer
An eruption of green
Traffic repetitive
as an obsession
draws, redraws the line
hemming it all in
lest the luxuriance spill
over into our managed
reality
Dusted by the city’s exhalations
leaves hang like flaps
as if in the heat they’d outgrown
their vitality. Something
sickly and rank stirs
in the balmy twilight
foliage engenders
The world is too tired
to notice. City-dwellers
wallow in pools of sunlight
on the cropped grass
or hug the still centre
of the shade’s slow clock;
simply letting life happen
And it does
In the undergrowth
beneath the blur and bourdon
of insect endeavour
twigs dead leaves rustle
mice rats the demeaning
haggle of scavengers
the slowworm’s blind purpose. See.
says an unheard flurry
as with no to do a thrush
rips from its shell
a snail and disembowels it
Here and at water’s edge
(for there always is water)
children oblivious
to the water’s complicity
drawn to the teeming
underbelly of decay
ferret and clamour
or, hushed by what stones
turned over, bush parted
reveal, marvel or fear
while stirring to the bared flesh
of summer’s short abandon
minds stalk the borders
of desire and beyond.
In the cool of the next morning
the unhurried application
of municipal gardeners
mowing, watering, weeding
The occasional flip-flop
of middle-aged men
out for their ritual
run against time
At the perimeter
in a chink of the tarmac,
the paving a weed
if we see it reminds us
of the green’s
mute claim
Park in Autumn (The cranes are flying)
High up in the late-autumn empty blue
I hear their chatter, to and fro of faint cries
Lament to the summer’s end and forbidding cue
To depart regardless of whether meet or wise
They’re late this year, the collective mind that seemed
To usher stragglers back into the ban
Of that sprawling arrow homing on climes deemed
Milder suddenly dissipate, in the van
Confusion, they wheel round seeking direction
Who knows what up there they see or sense?
But then they re-organise; the connection
Restored, they wing off into the immense
Beyond. Here in the park some last leaves cling
On, uncertain of what the Winter may bring
Beer garden in October
The sun was warm how could you not pretend
That glass raised to you promised things quite new
You should have known it was the Summer’s end
And not let murmurings of the year’s false friend
Beguile with looks, brief touches that seemed true
The sun was warm how could you not pretend
Folk chatted as if speech would never end
Their smoke twirled up impossible to misconstrue
You should have known it was the Summer’s end
What empty tables in the shade portend
But that glass again rose, eyes so hazy blue
The sun was warm how could you not pretend
That in those thickets, just around the bend
A songbird warbled out its thrilling cue
You should have known it was the Summer’s end
What futures realistically impend
When first bare branches craze the empty blue
The sun was warm how could you not pretend
You should have known it was the Summer’s end
Park in Winter
Despite the warnings people are on the ice
Some with children. I press on before
The ice breaks and I’m faced with a stark choice
I press on through a world draped in white fur
Reaching after a while a gentle rise
Here, out of earshot from the lake, the shrill
Cries of children hurtling on their sleighs
Crowd out those thoughts that worried at my soul
Flanking the rise trees. Against the cold grey
Sky crippled arms raised up mute imprecation
Who knows if they ever get a reply?
Avoiding the lake, vain act of self-depletion
I go home. Nearby I hear St Matthew’s chime
Beneath the ice the water bides its time
Park in Spring
That May a frost seared the new leaves. Frazzled
Black flags they hung beneath the sun’s cold gaze
Flower buds, startled, closed till warmer days
Might tease them open, a burst of growth. Bedazzled
By the vigour with which colour now erupted
We wondered at creation’s busy scheme
The sheer invention of its delayed Spring theme
So stunning, how could it ever be corrupted?
Some weeks before a girl had disappeared
Search parties everywhere, frogmen in the lake
Rumours. Recriminations. But no real break
We didn’t dare think what in our hearts we feared
Soon new leaves from blackened buds would unfurl
Shielding where someone deposited the girl
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