Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 16th Anniversary Volume Three
November- December 2025
The Scarecrow, poems by Bob Shakeshaft.
The Scarecrow
Wind brings all dead back to life-
idle branches whip-lash
dormant leaves, drumming
in a rabbit-downy doorway
while trying to uproot a tree;
angry gates fly open, close
upon fields that shimmer like surf,
black-cattle misty ships
toss I torrent turmoil.
Straw soars in glistening, stiff gold
on arbitrary airwaves to land
lazily on rooftops; nearby
a pond leaps to leave itself.
Like feathers floating freely
or speckled birds buffeting
line-hung sheets that slap
and crackle-strain,
the ragged sun-red coat
embraces many gusts-
the scarecrow struggles.
Traveller
A lamp shines in a single window and the man pauses, looks ahead to a
darkening sky shadowing the mute fields; the sensitive ear of the plodder
is taut and tuned to the rub of the voles ‘fox-red body in the bush, the crack
of a mouse’s skull in an owl’s beak, the badger and the rabbit in hunting
mode.
The wind-hand of the sky freckled with stars blows among the stems of
flowers barren leaves dress the grass in nocturnal quiet, small sounds
muffle a huge forest; beyond, lights twinkle in the distant city, homeless,
defenceless people sleep-bag-snore, barely surviving the desperate desire
to live out this night.
Drifting on, the wayfarer knows all this, small shadows the enormous
meadow, Aware of the desire to kneel, to belong to all small creatures
who, in his solitary existence,
he loves.
An Capall Dubh
A wide land with bright light flowing
amid a sky churning cumulus:
neither right nor wrong.
Not one step to break this charm
where winds rise-fall boisterously, exhaling
over sandy dunes, scutch-grass.
Unaware of the gentle song of a galloping horse,
grinding sand-dust skyward, a mighty heart awakens
full knowing its harness,
and its load.
© Bob Shakeshaft
Bob Shakeshaft has been a regular reader on the Dublin open-mic. scene since 2004. Poems appear in Riposte Broadsheet 2004/20015/ also Census Anthology 2009/2010. Agamemnon Dead 2014. New Ulster 2016/2017. NY. Lit. Magazine 2016. Live Encounters Poetry & Writiing 2016/2021. Bob is a member of the Ardgillan Creative Writers. Bob’s debut collection Auld Rope Published by Revival Press June 2021, is also available from the aforementioned Press. Presently, Bob is working on his second Manuscript: Minutes winged.