Anton Floyd - Drawing From Nature

Flyod LE P&W Vol 3 Nov-Dec 2025

Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 16th Anniversary Volume Three
November- December 2025

Drawing From Nature, poems by Anton Floyd.

Imaginary

For Lizzie Flemming

Roethke wrote of pale carnations,
blossoms balanced on a single stem
leaves like elaborate Corinthian scrolls,
the cool air drifting from hemlocks
rising not far from water.
He brings the image to mind
with a crisp hyacinthine coolness
that is locked forever on the page.
Yes, he brings it all to mind. All is clear
as a cloudness September morning.
And he leaves me to imagine the fragrance….

The Electric Moon Gecko

for Malcolm and Elaine Urquart

At the flick of the switch

the veranda lamp lights up a gecko

perched against the window pane –

in silhouette a pinkish glow.

Feet spread like human hands,

an alert arrowhead,

large, protruding, lidless eyes,

an attenuated tail.

Through translucent skin

smudges, a delta of veins

and purpled, more defined

the gecko’s beating heart.

The light brings in moths,

sand paintings on their wings;

mosquitoes with pinched waists.

More fly in – insects without names.

Cicadas provide a rhythmic incantation

and so it begins – a delirium of desire,

a frenzy of wings, a wild nocturnal

worship of the electric moon.

And on this sheer mountain face
the gecko sits in wait. Insects dance
like ghosts in the lamplight,
like windblown flurries of snow.The tongue licks one eye clean.
The arrowhead moves in an arc.
It settles into a preternatural freeze,
a kind of ornament in glass.

The only signs of life – its beating heart
the tail’s faintest wiggle at the tip.
A sudden lunge, the fastened jaws.
A Danse Macabre at the flick of a switch.

The Art Of The Possible For A Synaptic Cowboy

for Jordi Larios

I speak of how the art of the possible

dares to reveal itself through surprises.

Take how a tumbler pigeon in flight

by the sudden disruption of straight lines,

exults in its mastery of airy space.

Take, also, the improbable aerobatics

of the charismatic red billed chough

base jumping in a cyclorama of cliff and sky,

or how in a split-second reflex

a mongoose makes a toy of danger;

first it taunts then foils a cobra strike —

jumps clear seeming to uncoil and climb

as if the air were some solid thing.

Maybe shows of instinct like these

unlocked desire in the ancient mind

to meet an unlikely dare head on,

to bridle fear like those Cretan bull leapers

who made a pommel horse of an angry bull.

Such skill and courage drawn into an art,

a form, like authentic work in any age,

that carries, in practice, the deep satisfactions

of mastering unique profiles of risk.

Now I find myself pondering my next move.

I’m no sauteur in a course landaise, no recordator.

It’s challenge enough to lasso thought

like trying to corral a wild mustang; to whisper

wildness into something resembling trust,

that horse and rider then might move as one.

Anton Floyd was born in Egypt, a Levantine mix of Irish, Maltese, English and French Lebanese. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin and University College, Cork. He has worked in education in the eastern Mediterranean and in Cork City. He now lives in West Cork. Poems widely published in Ireland and internationally. A member of Irish Haiku Society, he is several times winner of International Haiku Competitions. Awarded the 2019 Poetry Prize by the DS Arts Foundation (Scotland). A selection of haiku is included in Between the Leaves (Arlen House, 2016). Collections include Falling into Place (Revival Press, 2018); Depositions, with translations into 20 languages (Doire Press, 2022); a special illustrated edition of Depositions, translated into the major indigenous languages of the British Isles, with the assistance of the DS Arts Foundation and The Scottish Gaelic Books Council, (Glóir, 2024). As editor, Remembrance Suite by Shirin Sabri and Point by Point, an international anthology of poetry (Glóir, 2018). His poetry film Constant was selected for the Cadence 2023 video Film Festival (Northwest Film Forum, USA), Bloomsday Film (Dublin 2023) and Atticus Review (2024). The poetry film, Women Life Freedom was a commision from IUAES (Series on Freedom and Peace in Iran, November 2022). A new collection On the Edge of Invisibility is forthcoming. A collection of haiku Singed to Blue is in preparation.

Anton Floyd – Drawing From Nature

Imaginary

The Electric Moon Gecko

The Art Of The Possible For A Synaptic Cowboy

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