Poetry

A Love Affair with Annabel Lee

I look from my window; night on night,

to a kingdom by the sea.

Ramparts whistle by stuttering light,

to white houses calling me.

A dusty path may take me there,

if I wish one day to see,

the rusty gates and narrow lanes,

and people by the sea.

Their music drifts across the hills,

it calls; it beckons me!

I hear the siren’s salty tongue,

swilling songs for me.

Today I take a dusty path,

through rusty gates to see,

at every turn down narrow lanes,

The people watching me.

I knock at doors of houses white,

I fumble for a key.

A vacant song swirls round my heart,

a vacant effigy. 

There’s no music in this place,

no siren calling me!

Just stuttered light from blinking eyes:

no kingdom by the sea.

James Griffiths