Live Encounters Poetry & Writing February 2024.
A Promise, poems by Lincoln Jaques.
A Promise
The Magic Travellers
these are the places we travelled together
Rarotonga, where we fled along The Great
Road of Toi on a Yamaha scooter
New Delhi, where in the Red Fort we
sheltered from the heat under banyan trees
Zagreb, where you spoke about everything
without moving your lips
Morocco, where the Tin Man squeaked
through the souk to kiss the camel’s head
Singapore, where we caught a train to the
empty gardens where the pangolins hide
London, where I was silent this time,
walking out like Pound’s apparitions
these are the places we left ourselves
these are the memories that drop like fruit
from trees, only to rot in damp earth overnight.
Garden
I found you
digging around
the lettuce
the spring onions
in the planter
I made from
a pallet.
The afternoon sun
lifted you up
from the garden.
I pulled gumboots
on and walk
through damp
grass.
The blind parsley
quivers against
our silent
revolutions.
I held you
close, you
turned your lips
to mine.
© Lincoln Jaques
Lincoln Jaques is a Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) based writer. His poetry, fiction, travel essays and book reviews.have appeared in magazines and collections internationally. He was shortlisted for the 2023 inaugural “At The Bay” hybrid manuscript awards, and was the Runner-Up in the 2022 International Writers’ Workshop Kathleen Grattan Prize for a Sequence of Poems.