Poem: Call In The Middle of the Night

 

 

“You what?”

“You what?”

my voice echoed down the line

like a bedlamite

bouncing off

cushioned walls.

Then,

suddenly,

the silence,

the quiet electronic crackles,

hung in the dark night

as if my question had gone,

disappeared down a deep and endless well.

 

Minutes passed, maybe hours.

 

In the end, I whispered “I love you”

and put down the receiver

as the bitter sting of nausea overwhelmed my throat.

 

Poem: Forward

 

The forked tongue of the future lies ahead

Beckoning us forward.  Advance!  Progress!

Regardless of the perils and our dread

 

Of failure, ever onward must we tread.

And no matter how much we feel the stress,

The forked tongue of the future lies ahead.

 

And whether we fly the black flag or red,

The same indignations we must address

Regardless of the perils and our dread:

 

The starving masses, children barely fed;

And even for those who have even less

The forked tongue of the future lies ahead.

 

So throw away your doubts; let us instead

Rejoice in future’s coming, and impress —

Regardless of the perils and our dread —

 

Our generation’s mark.  Let it be said

We lived, loved, built, and understood that, yes,

The forked tongue of the future lies ahead

Regardless of the perils and our dread.

Poem: Moments

 

ordinary lives shattered by

curiosity

&

revenge

invisible shadows reflected off

murder

&

bodies

momentary madness defence fails to

execution

&

nothing

Poem: December 31, 2000

 

In a bus line

in the heart of the city,

in a hailstorm thrusting silver shards of icy glass

deep into the concrete earth,

a woman holds a little Japanese baby

the colour of Cadbury’s

Dairy Milk Chocolate.

 

Asleep in peace,

his little fingers wave in the air like

undulating undersea fronds.

Beneath the coloured threads and protective fibres

of his logoed rainsuit,

no fever shakes the young child’s bones,

no distrust disturbs the sleep of purity,

no threats or worries fly about

in his head so full of wonder and learning.

 

In this child’s dreams lies the promise

Of the new year.

 

 

Poem: Midnight Snack

 

 

It’s 2am and the furnace

of our passion

is cooling     slowly

 

we rise, tottering together,

arms entwined,

to the kitchen    kissing

 

after making love

we make toast

thick with butter     oozing

 

rich strawberry jam

streaked liked blood

or rust on a fence     rich

 

as sweet love’s triangle:

you and me and toast

 

Poem: In Progress

 

The older woman at the bar

thrusts out her breasts

exposing her defiance

of gravity

only to reveal

the clever architecture of her foundation

garments

etched in lines and grooves across her back.

Such women

with such pretensions

shouldn’t wear white sweaters

tucked tight into yellow stretch pants.

the shadows of the lines and grooves

accentuate the engineering

drawing our attention

away from the points she wants us to watch.

And once you notice the bra-lines

across her back

you ignore the synthetically pleasing roundness

of her surgically-enhanced bosom

across her front

and instead you focus

the lines and shadows that dog

her face

even through the most post-modern make-up

and you ask

probably silently

why this woman needs to hide her age

why this woman needs to pretend

she is still a sexual object.

Indeed,

why the sexual attribute has become so all-fired damn important

when sex lasts for but minutes

and friendship lasts forever.

 

 

Poem: Descent

 

The rustic lane unwinds

its way from the mountain

like a lover leaving her man

after a lingering entwining kiss;

 

a solitary clump of bluebells

reflects aquamarine raindrops

on the hood of the passing car

like mirrors round as hazelnuts in the mist;

 

and as I ignore the windowed beauty

the weekend ending burns into my soul

leaving me wondering if, once I’m gone,

she’ll remember me with a cheer or a hiss.