Harmonium
You cut the harmonium strings
and I’ll tie them up each time,
pedals getting higher and higher
till almost vertical, unplayable.
And for what?
Does it spoil your peace?
Do my attempts at sounds,
at music, offend you so?
This family doesn’t do talent, I know.
There is only work.
But you needn’t have worried:
When I came down today
there was this space, gaping,
and through the kitchen window
I saw the fire in the yard,
the contented man, smoking
© copyright df barker 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17701080
Isn’t nice to see that Roman parents had the same problems as us? Although, I would hate it if anyone ever described me as pushy.
Don’t you ever wonder which children had/have the best childhood. Is it the Roman child who did not have the ‘luxury’ of an x-box but was taught literature, taught to question and discuss or is it the child of today who has freedom but prefers the quick fix of a video game to a good book?
However, I did find it funny – and sad – to read of the Roman difficulties when it came to contraception.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17839185
It looks as if exciting times are ahead judging by all of the events being lined up. What a pity that we have to wait for an event such as the Olympics to get such a cultural treat. Don’t we deserve a bit of culture every year?
A Robin’s Descent
The rain is gone,
though a heaviness remains.
Between this precious repose
and first glimpses of a lighter day,
a robin drops to drenched grass,
almost tame and curious,
the colour of passion,
his peppy, ardent life
among manifold greens.
Then he pops up once more,
daring closer this time,
an upturned table leg his perch,
to peek inside this house
of false comfort,
bringing life to worn out lives
poem and image © copyright df barker 2012
Little Anne
How could it have a name,
this skeleton dug up in York?
I asked myself many times,
sitting there transfixed by the image –
a face with no flesh
in the open newspaper on the floor.
In the background
the Righteous Brothers sang,
requiem voices reverberating.
A lone, leaden bass
dripping in a sad, grey pool.
I stared at those empty sockets
as if I had known her,
unsure if I was mortal, too.
On the black and white T.V.
they were burying Churchill.
From the kitchen mother’s
caveats decried the great man,
how she’d marched into
the polling booth back
in forty five dressed all in red!
But when I asked her what
a Jewess was, she wouldn’t say.
All I wanted to know was how
Anne had ended up like this,
disturbed in her rest
while Churchill went to his.
poem © copyright df barker 2012
*first published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, available at amazon
* PLEASE ALSO SEE http://mikemalonemysteries.wordpress.com/
Ciscography 