Category: landscape painting

Poem ‘Crabbing’

Crabbing

You’d think the crabs would learn,
like the canny herring gull does,
buzzing anyone suspected
of bearing food

Generations have stood, sat,
squatted on this spot
overlooking the wide harbour,
an untamed marsh,
engaged by the melding
of land, sea and air,
dangling bait tied to sodden strings.
It’s easy meat for crab and kid alike,
a great treat to see
their briny sojourns in buckets,
arrayed like lines of medals on concrete.

Soon we’ll let them go,
watch each one plop into the murk.
We’ll be back to coax another day,
warmed by the thought of them
in cold dark depths,
waiting for next time

© copyright dfbarker 2012

Poem ‘At Cromer’

At Cromer

When I look down toward the beach,
the distant pier seems to stride
forward from the shining sea.
I like to look beyond,
to the bands of turquoise and blue,
an ocean painted in bold,
abandoned strokes.

Why are we drawn to the waves?
Those elemental rhythms,
sounds and colours
of a primary world,
where sparse pointillist spots
busy themselves on
yellow-ochre sands.

Some days the morning
unfolds through mists,
groynes spacing out
the distances along the strand,
until a final fade-out,
well before the sea
can meet the sky.

Overhead, pterodactyl shapes
patrol against fresh patches
of blue. As I approach,
the blurred semblances
of buildings appear, rectangles
feathered violet or grey,
as if stepping off the cliff.

© copyright df barker 2011, first published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, available for purchase here: http://liten.be//gHmf9

*Painting from an original, digitally enhanced.

Poem ‘Still’

© copyright dfbarker 2011

Still

We awake to whiteness,
standing still to take it in,
like nothing will ever move again.
A few footprints in the snow,

silent records of an earlier day.
You say this is how it should be,
our minds lost in books, our dreams,
stretching out in listless days

and long nights. I yawn down
the stairs to click on the kettle,
soothed before a misting window
by the straight-falling flakes.

© copyright David Francis Barker 2011

First published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’ available at:

http://liten.be//sVGsz

*If you are having a Christmas break, have a peaceful one

** Many thanks to all of those who have read or commented on this blog. I am very grateful.

Poem ‘Until the End of the World’ (work in progress)

© copyright dfbarker2011

Until the End of the World

He walked with me
some of the way

Through the dark woods
he became a bright torch
to illuminate overgrown paths
where leaves of oak and ash
caressed my face like friends

On the high moorland
he was the warm fleece
which I wrapped around myself
to shelter from the cold and rain

And when we sat down
in the clearing by a stream
he produced this feast of food
which I shared with a host of birds
and others sitting tamely at my feet

But when he stood up to go
his skin turned a deathly white
I watched helpless
while he vanished silently
into a bank of willow and alder
swallowed by the rush
of the now turbulent stream
The animals all scampered away
to peer at me from somewhere
unseen in the shadows

I began to trudge home
shivering on the high moorland
drenched to the skin
with only hardy sheep for company
who eyed me warily
when I staggered by

Once back in the dark woods
I soon became lost
the stinging branches whipping me
and thorns piercing my flesh
while groping my way through

In my bag I found the old torch
with its flickering light
I hit it against a tree
trying to make it work –
my only recourse
in such a state of loss

*dedicated to all those who have found faith

© copyright David Francis Barker 2011

*image is a digital manipulation an original

Poem ‘Woman from the West’

Woman from the West

You’d awoken me with tea in the spare bed,
where my feet hung out the end.
At breakfast we heard about the pier,

smashed by the savage storm, the worst for years.
It was early December with heavy skies threatening,
so we wrapped up warm to take some air,

scarves blowing, my arm around your waist
feeling your locomotion, the buttock’s rise and fall
with that playful goose-step, your natural stride.

Through the lichgate, we passed graves old and
one very new. We stopped by wreaths, with thoughts
for a boy of no age. Found him in a ditch, you said,

in blasé exaggeration. No Christmas this year.
Not for them, but did it bother us?
Your life lay ahead, sampling life in London,

as lethal as the sea stallions pummelling that pier.
Now my eyes were open. That walk wasn’t playful
but callous, and the tea seemed like a gesture.

So when we left the wreaths, I felt changed.
Wreaths for that poor boy and for us.
Not for love.

© copyright David Francis Barker 2011

* First published in 2011 in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’.

** The illustrations are from a 1990s drawing of a Lincolnshire Church, and a more recent painting of a couple on Cromer beach in North Norfolk, England. CLICK ON AN IMAGE TO SEE BIGGER SIZE!