Category: digital art

Poem ‘The Poppy Murders’

The Poppy Murders

They have gone,
all the poppies. Gone.
Please, don’t look at me like that,
it was none of my doing and

besides, there’s too many seeds.
You would have to sift the soil
to find them all, believe me,
and you know I’m not that patient.

It’s not that I hate them, who would?
So delicate and bright,
like bloodied tissue, though
they did rather crowd the lavender

last year you must admit,
sort of snuffed it out if I recall.
In the end, with a heavy heart
I had to dig it out, remember?

So, yes, maybe I did strip them back,
(just a touch, with a scythe),
merely to protect, you understand,
that last remaining lavender bush.

And after all, we should be satisfied
that the poppy grows wild
almost anywhere. Except here.
Not anymore.

image and poem © copyright dfbarker 2012
**poem first published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, available at amazon.com
* image is sketch in oil

*it’s so cold here I needed something to remind me of heat!

Poem ‘Snow Again’

Snow Again

I grab a cup of tea, set out
to make something of the day.
Snow again, it brings daylight on.
They describe it as ten centimetres
which I still find hard to see.
It’s enough to cover my shoes,
that’s how I look at it
while clearing your little car.
Later, the laptop warms my knee
with Schubert declaring his genius,
when I feel the phone shudder.
A cursory text says the roads
were not too bad.
I look outside at the gathering host,
busy blots of grey and black
on white. An emerging blue.
They know the human is about
and that he has food.

photo and poem © copyright dfbarker 2012

Poem ‘Face’

Face

The face of winter
hangs rigid like death
pinching my ears
stabbing at my nose

Plumes of steam
from concrete slits
blur hunchback figures
shuffling through
the matte scenes
in ashen white

I’m looking for heat
stamping
flicking ash
on lunar prints
sealed in fortnight ice
waiting for steel facades
and great sheens of glass
to emanate your face
from rippling sepia shapes

poem and image © copyright David Francis Barker 2012
image digitally created

Poem ‘Terrorform’

Terrorform

From the first day let us start to terraform Mars,
make oceans from melting ice caps

and rivers run red through the rusty soil.
Day two let’s release plankton into the sea,

let out vast shoals of fish to feed on them
and steely predators to feast on the fish.

Day three we’ll throw spores into the sparse air
and watch the forests grow, the trees

stretch high up the slopes of Olympus Mons.
Day four let’s release mammals, birds

and other fauna into the forests and fields,
to watch them gorge on the goodness

of the land, enjoy the clarity of the sky.
Then on day five we’ll take ourselves

to the former red planet, to become
the feared Martians we thought were there.

Day six let us wage glorious, total war
among ourselves, make the rivers run red

in the name of the god who named this place.
And day seven let us rest, exhausted by labour

and lust, to examine our new abomination
from the safety of space’s vacuum,

in orbit with Phobos and Deimos
without fear or dread of another first day.

poem and image © copyright df barker 2012

*poem first published in collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, available at amazon.
**image created digitally.

Poem ‘Cameo’

Cameo

The morning is like copper,
a veiled threat in the sky.
We find ourselves among
patches of green poking through
a dusting of snow, scents of
woodsmoke hanging in the air.

I watch your smile break as
a blackbird alights on a bare branch,
a morsel of bread in his beak.
I shiver, adjust my coat
to find the ruff strangely
around my neck. You turn

round to see what troubles me,
your dark mantle twirling behind,
the lightness of your collar setting off
that burning gleam in your eyes,
windows on some other world.
We saunter through a sleeping garden,

hints of the dead season clinging
to brittle bushes like a bitter denial.
Standing in front of me, your soft
words are scarcely understood,
yet inwardly known. Your laugh
sends out clouds which resolve

to a gentle cough, gloved fingers
touching your chest. Without a word,
I usher you inside towards the fire
which greets us with soothing heat.
We shall warm our toes together
in its fading glow

poem and image © copyright David Francis Barker 2012

The image is from a watercolour, completed several years ago.