Five Minutes
It’s only a pigeon’s call,
three short squawks
repeated ad infinitum.
I wonder why
he has so much to say
but this is his life:
during the day he eats,
at dusk he turns to sleep
A car arrives— sounds like
the slick bass purr of a German V6,
crunching on gravel.
A door slamming marks an end,
maybe shopping unloaded:
the beginning of silence.
And then the pigeon
starts over all over again
poem © copyright df barker 2012
Birmingham
In the morning we cooked eggs,
wrapped the blanket around ourselves,
tucking in and staring like zombies
at a dead TV. There was little reason to speak,
to say that food seldom tasted so good.
Birmingham, that first time,
seemed like the bleakest place;
November had fallen cold and hard
and Rubery, the name you couldn’t say,
was depressed and downbeat,
so many shops boarded up
it was like a battle zone.
But there was enough to be grateful for
in that nest of warmth,
watching Saturday’s light rise
and bleach your bedsit walls
poem © copyright df barker 2012
Doing it all
you are like a meteor
and you’re young.
I am a metaphor for middle-age
I watch you smoke,
I can’t tell you
how it makes me feel
one hand wants to snatch
while the other loves
patting your head
so why do I smirk
at your facebook smile? – oh
this envy takes many forms
though the worst is knowing
you’re doing it all, and that I,
for all my whittling
have nothing to show
poem and image © copyright dfbarker 2012
Dark
Rook on the road verge ahead
how casually you’ll step aside,
only just avoid my wheels.
Is that why I smile at the mirror
where you promptly step back
to continue to pick and prod,
pulling at the roadkill entrails
some straitjacket driver provides?
Like the crow, the raven— few
are as bright as you, so dark
in colour and reputation
poem and image © copyright dfbarker 2012
A Time of Dreams
I found myself in a country
of huge living skies,
speaking your dreams
of earth, the great teacher.
I was standing by a mesa,
felt its warmth against my skin,
fingers spanning epochs
flattened into inches,
whispering mantras
and prayers in your name,
not in memory
but for your continuing
presence of love.
I spoke to you,
my spine square to red earth;
you were there in each rock,
the cactus, every molecule of air,
in the eagle’s eye lasering my soul.
When finally I awoke
it was another age, as if seconds
had stretched into centuries.
But you were there
and took my hand.
It was the most natural thing
poem © copyright dfbarker 2012
Ciscography 