Sympathy for the Serpent

Venomous and sublime,
Dappled velvet cable
Coiled on the limb
Just below the level
Of your eyesight.

Deified and maligned,
Elegant in my skin
Shimmering light
Like diamonds that beckon
In poured geometry.

Sinusoidal terror,
Eve didn't stand a chance,
But, to be fair;
Who could resist my dance?
I, the sensuous bearer

Of the forbidden fruit,
Who'd incurred your wrath
Long before that youth,
Who came from Nazareth,
Learned the awful truth.

Calls After Midnight

The ringing telephone
arcs across my dreamscape
like aerial flares
catching me, the errant sapper,
alone,
flatfooted,
in the minefield
that has become
you and I.

With yards to go before
I reach the darkened safety
of the tree line,
blinking in the phosphorescent
glare of
your voice, now
disembodied,
the plunger's found
under foot;

"Are you awake?"

Click.

I lie frozen,
mindful not to shiver
in my own sweat.

Any movement,
however slight,
might set the damned thing off.

^

Biography

Barney F. McClelland is currently slipping into senescence with a curmudgeonly old cat named Tiger in their tastefully appointed Clifton apartment. He occasionally takes time out from expounding on Hobbesian eschatology and the intricacies of Irish hornpipes, to publish poems, stories and articles in Ireland, the U.K and the States. His work has appeared in Cairn, The Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Aura Literary Arts Review and The New Formalist. In 2001 he was awarded the KotaPress Anthology Award for Poetry. In his spare time, Mr. McClelland enjoys reading the works of dead white European males, smoking cigarettes, and plotting revenge.