Yew
(Christus vincit Christus regnat Christus imperat)

Rubbing against the gloomy evergreen
like a preserved corpse —infused.
Iva, the immortal; bitter, toxic, beautiful,
the church-yard yew,
the red heartwood, white sapwood,
blood and body of the Christus stricken
slips sliver'd in the moon's eclipse
to sleep the steep eternal sleep,
smitten under her crimson boughs
drawing secrets from the grave.
Despite her fatal seed exposed
I tasted the fleshy pink cup... the aril.
Leaves, half withered, poison directly
to still the fluttering kill.

© David Knopfler 15.9.04 
 

Invisible 
 
Two stars shift axis. It’s a fatal eclipse
The wound is carved - my tongue cleft mute.
Light falters, finite, finally.  Eyes sting
this time I don’t weep. I offer flowers

she betrays them as steep weeds. My songs
my poems —perverted to deceitful needs,
In her fearful lunar world love is obsessed
stalking... It’s numbingly grotesque. I won't bleed
she'll execrate a bent-backed beast gorging.
I can't contest such base monkey twine.

I retreat. At the speed of bird-wings flapping
invisible, a heart beating so fast light itself bends.
With time, this spent sun, shrunk by chill fog
will reveal divine radiance again.

© David Knopfler 8.1.05