Rose Garden by Frank McMahon

In shade from the hot Spring sun, I try

to count the colours round these walls

but lose myself in the tumbling blooms.

We’re under the starlings’ flight-path,

left to right then left again, roof ridges as

terminals, a chaffling conference then lift-off.

Way above, the muted one-tone roar of a jumbo-jet,

rare visitor this spring, trailing its smoke

through the cerulean dazzle  of a cleaner sky.

Look down and round to light-buttered yellow,

white-pink and white and crimson, dark as plasma,

your gift of thorn and bud to grace

these all-enclosing walls.

His professional career has been in Social Work. First volume of poems, At the Storm’s Edge, published in January 2020 by Palewell Press. Also published on-line: ( Poet by Day, Riggwelter, Fly on the Wall, Morphrog, I am not a Silent Poet ) and in print: (Cannon Poets, The Curlew, Brittlestar. )  He has written short stories ( one published ) and a children’s novel. He has written several plays, full-length and for local radio.. “A Death in Flanders” was broadcast in 2018. He lives in Cirencester and is a member of a local writers group.