Three poems by David McLean

this is sun

this is sun coming up
two dogs running under it
though there are clouds over the sun
enough to hide most light
but not dark enough to hide love
in a dog's eye, probably not even
in mine, but some things you can't see
you don't even need to be blind

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kittens and everything

kittens are complete unto themselves
and thus their love means more
than memory and sort of precludes
the mourning of anything other
than the process of growth in cats,
ancient gray time that takes the kittens away
or at least makes them less insistently
playful. i do not regret any meaninglessness
or history's horror or all these lesser temporal
infelicities, but a jaded aging kitten
would make any body grieve

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wherever hearts beat or

the body carries this blood in us
like a minimal obligation, a mode
of murderous sleep tacit inside
the empty, wherever hearts beat
and flesh goes to dream

blood is red and the hue of evident
sensuality, often it wants out, shouting
technicolor sun and zealous abjection
through the painless blade of a leaf
or a memory.

the blood sleeps easy with memories
in me, it just sometimes likes to scream
and be

Author bio:

David McLean is Welsh but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there on an island in a large lake called Mälaren, very near to Stockholm with cats, and a couple of dogs. He has a BA in History from Balliol, Oxford, and an MA in philosophy, taken much later and much more seriously studied for, from Stockholm's University. Up to date details of many zine publications and several available books and chapbooks, including three print full lengths, a few print chapbooks, and a free electronic chapbook, are at his blog at Mourning Abortion.