One of Andrew’s poems was published in the April 2017 issue of Quadrant. The poem, a tanka, is titled “Gossiper” and is reprinted below:

Gossiper

As a brass clapper
in a windbell, so a tongue
in a gossip’s mouth.
Any wind will make it swing
to strike out its single note.

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            © Andrew Lansdown

The March 2017 issue of Quadrant contains one of Andrew’s poems. Titled, “Dearly Departed”, it is reprinted below:

Dearly Departed

So much of it, my childhood,

departed this world with you.

 

Though I lived it, I can bring back

only brief moments of it:

 

candle-smoke and a blue trike,

a Band-Aid on a skinned knee,

 

your bosomy hugs during

nights of dread dreams about … what?

 

Mother, I meant to ask you

so many things about me,

 

so many whens, hows and whys

that can never now be known.

 

The loss of both your presence

and my history presses on me

 

as an ever-present absence.

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            © Andrew Lansdown

Two of Andrew’s poems — “Recollections of Dread and Deliverance” and “Comfort” — have been published in the December 2016 issue of Quadrant. “Recollections”, written for Andrew’s wife, Susan, is reprinted below:

Recollections of Dread and Deliverance

Dearest, when you haemorrhaged

(I am of a sudden with hurt and horror

recalling it these near-three decades on),

 

when back in the ward after the birthing

the nurse drew down from your white face

the bedcover to uncover that swamp

 

of blood from your wounded womb,

that crimson saturation of nightdress

and sheet, I plunged to pleas and please!

 

and when they wheeled you on the trolley

away to the theatre, not now for new life

but for your life, I feared you’d gone for good

 

but by the doctor’s good hand the Hand

of God touched you, staunched you, spared you

for me and our newborn daughter and all

 

the other loved ones who loved you

as I loved you and love you still with kisses

and wide wishes and everlasting longings.

 

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© Andrew Lansdown