Jason Morgan: ‘For Paul’ and ‘Last night’

For Paul

We must forget the sea, the sails hushed
like stars, the long forged path
forgotten, the snows of years left
on waves tolling like bells
no one hears except the night.

The wounds from old battles
turn red as the sunset,
the horizon a waterfall where
days turn to shadow shall
plunge the boat to a floor
of scattered stars.

With each revolution,
the seasons remind
the ice from graves
to lift its veil and walk with
the sun to the edge of the world.

Here I shall see you evermore
through the keyhole of heaven
where time retraces its path
on the bounty of night.
A pyre on the water burns,
and waits for your return.

Jason Morgan

Last night

A film and a drink then a stroll through streets
at night when souls communicate like stars
pulsing from across the road while the clock tower
spears silence, loneliness and point their hands
to dreamless skies and cleaners roll in streets,
and vagrants sleep in old sheets wrestling Bacchus.

In the distance shines the harbour bridge, and
gilt light it casts upon the waters wrinkling
with time. The arch is made of bones in which
I see the gestalt, doomed as eternity,
and the course my invented self treads
beside the slapping tides and road signs.

I have nothing more and nothing less than time.
Before dawn colours the sky, I reach rock
where gulls build their homes and watch the ocean
crashing into stone. So booming waves
cradle me as they break, and with one step
I tread across the cliff and walk on air.

Jason Morgan