miscellaneous poetry
the horse shoe nail
a slideshow
No more to wait
A Cas' lass my mother's mother
Saw each new death of four score years.
Her face became soft marked in lines,
Which spoke in words but known to eye,
Of times with friends – though long since gone -
Who all surround to share her age.
Altared twice till betrayed by time,
Cold stone was placed where clay had been.
Cracked, her voice ran with phantom friends -
Heard in days as her empty rooms
Where visitors were seldom seen
And walls ever whispered loneliness.
I came to share her words, her thoughts -
And fixed I sat to silent watch.
Her body clothed in folding flesh
Tried hard to hide her flick'ring eyes:
Put out by life with age the hand,
For dark to touch and comp'ny keep.
I reach to touch old woman's face,
Since palled in earth: her body graved.
Though deep and single dark the grave,
Still I see those past filled eyes
Which longed to hold Death's reaching hand -
A closer friend she did not have.
(1984)
....
Ploughed fields
Voice errant proclaims my soul in
Words – though few – cold deep of face
To eyes which cannot see the sound
Of cries so loud in anguish mute.
To ground I look mine eyes a'palled
Themselves now long cold wrapped in self.
Hard earth but creased by plough alone
Shows sure my worth in work as one
Where hard I sweat of fresh cut thought.
In folded land of tilled turned soil
I sight a soul too long unvoiced -
Yet earth remains as now unbroke
Where paining palms have still not sought
To overturn new soil of thought.
(1984)
....
After getting home one night
On dull aching leather we sat, as
Plastic orchids do to decorate as room,
And pretended we were daisies – quietly.
Tap room sounds surrounded us in smoke, while
Voices pushed a lonely draft round empty chairs,
To circle feet and whisper unexpected words,
But unlike doms and pints obliviously held,
Our minds were too deliberate and removed.
I folded words around my thoughts, but
Seeing their peeping hope you sipped your drink,
Preferring not to notice the matchbox in my hand.
Enthusiastic conversation only showed
Our fear of offered honesty – too caustic
To repel vague smiles and gazes of conceit.
Formica feeling casually pushed
Intimacy to one side, where it bled – alone.
Now closeness is a weakness and fear of
Confrontation pushes touch into opinion,
While beer which lasted longer, only ever tasted flatter.
(1984)
....
Happiness
I sat and thought about why I sat,
In the cold of these four walls.
I sat and looked at the floor,
For I did not understand my unhappiness.
Into my view, across the cold concrete,
Crawled a beetle – black as my thoughts.
How trustingly he moved, not knowing where -
I thought he was rather like me.
He looked for his happiness under my shoe,
And mine was found in the sharing.
That night I shared my happiness
With the beetle under my shoe.
(1984)
....