Two Poems by David McLean

summer is 

summer is the blind witch;
she is looking for the murderers
who took her mother,
or just a motor car driving in Paris

like Lucy Jordan might have wanted
once; warts and all the anxious
immeasurable, summer
was never yet heaven for them;

she is looking for her murderers
so she can be forgiven



stars 

stars in the sky like cocaine
wasted,

and water to slake the thirst
of everything else forgotten -

a smear of time
over dried paper,

dead words and hungry ashtrays
and all these incessant “maybes”

are a face to peel off
over every empty pedestal,

and the night wants nothing -
especially not faces and babies