Street Angel

My daddy
could lift
a horse
above his head
as if caught midway
through a barbarous dance

skin a hare
with a pianist’s
delicacy and pace

hold an audience agog
with his concoctions
of farce slaughter perfidy
and wasted love

leach stark spirals of regret
from the Uillean Pipes

and with a single
airy gesture
despatch me
to the shadow-world.

Comments

[Brian Edwards]

I know this is in portfolio John, but "shadow-world"? Really?

[Brian Edwards]

I think the poem is excellent up to that point by the way.