Poems inspired by College life

Leif Haley is a multi-talented composer, percussionist, and pianist currently studying at the Royal College of Music, London, with Kenneth Hesketh (professor of composition and orchestration).

Outside of music, Leif also enjoys enjoys reading and writing, mythology and fairytales,  philosophy, linguistics, and psychology as well as martial arts and  hiking.

Given his interest in writing, Leif runs the College’s Writers’ Society for authors and budding authors of poetry, short stories, novels and novellas. The Writers’ Society Club met during Giving Day 2023 (a special event organised to raise funds to support Scholars at the College) and Leif used the occasion as inspiration to produce two lovely poems about College life.

Another Bright Day

The turn of corridors
The ensemble of the building
The garden to one side
The field to one side
Two orthogonal roads
Green oasis
A granite atoll in the urban ocean
Moreover: a leaning tree, incandescent
The wind blows in from the garden
Great London plane trees
Rustling
Footsteps
Voices again on the wind
The people in their patterns
The world in its patterns
Another bright day

Leif Haley

A Confluence of So Many

A confluence of so many,
A syzygy without orbit or release;
This is staring into a tidal pool
And seeing the center of the world.
In this city are the voices uncountable
And singing;
In this house even the quietest thoughts
Become gravitational:
A necessary accident
Of a semiotic architecture.
There are imaginings that could only exist
(That are only emergent),
There is a level of analysis only afforded
From the meeting of many waters,
And in the delta
Life flourishes.

Leif Haley