stating the bleedin obvious
i am not averse to a verse
for that’s the rhyme and reason
why the hearse drives past with
it’s floral treason …
poetry is not dead
just laying in state
and past that catafalque
tomorrow’s poets earn their tears
and a few dropped fears
through the coloured glass
see how the sun dances
on their upturned rifles
shhhh
what will rhyme with shhhh
it’s your shout now
waiting
all enveloping silence
of a hospital waiting area
in the early hours
the empty chairs
waiting for me to say something
but i dare not
who is next
the unasked and unanswered
question
a door shuts
opposite a light goes out
a deep breath comes on
the receptionist
creaks in her swivel chair
the radiator clicks
not long now
the roos-
-ting
of the crows
arriving in the pallor blue
they steadily do
in their truesome twos
darkly starkly hark to
their chatter do
their love me dos
do you do you
the pigeons find another tree or two
leaving the dusk to me and you
fight fight
two men blackbirds square up
sparrows incoming chirp
chirpy chirpy fight fight
the branches applaud
he’s on the ropes
there goes his hopes
kerrrpow!
they depart as if
it had never happened
the sun shines
between the branches
we blink
flight flight
clueless
i am clueless
you say
about what
i ask
about this
you reply
there is your clue
i reply
sixteen
she was only sixteen
only sixteen
but she was old enough
to fall in love
and she fell in love
with me
i was only nineteen
only nineteen
when i put her in
my very best poem
and she is still in love
with me
a snowy dusk
all have walked that lane
and sometime have asked why
the moon seems cold and lonely
the snow hard crisp and dry
and in turning corners
turning the night the way
the ambling takes no prisoners
the day the day did die
see now it settles
by a fireside forlorn
oh take me back i beg you
to the day that i was born
