Poem ‘Chances’

Chances

You watch me do the washing up,
clean surfaces and toilets.
All the time you’re standing there,
moaning, swaying in your underwear,
sleepily spooning chocolate cereal
into that stale and coated mouth.
You must look at me and think
this will never be you,
that someone will always be here
to do this, the menial things,
the responsible things.
Maybe in twenty years
your swelling salary
will provide the foreign cleaner,
so you and some lover
can roam that glittering world.
Maybe sooner than that;
this huge lottery win
you keep hankering for
will surely drop the easy life
straight into your lazy lap.
Chances are, it won’t.
Do you still want to know
what the future might hold?
Take a look at me.

poem © copyright df barker 2012

Poem ‘The Artist’

The Artist

Black paint on the front door
was peeling badly. Before knocking
I ran a crackling finger over it,
flakes falling into shade around my feet.
A small grey lady in garish pink
dressed for bed, squinted up at me,
something akin to Stravinsky
played in the darkness behind her.
“Take a pew!” – words betraying her age,
her station, a headmistress perhaps,
Arnold’s paintings in primaries all over low,
leaning walls in a room of gloom,
as if yellowed by years of smoke
and smelling of rose and age.
His preference for palette knife
and fingers were evident at once –
then a portrait, blue eyes staring at me,
almost violet, gorgeous like Liz Taylor
and hints of a grey uniform with pips.
Tea and scone arrived on Royal Albert
with shuffles of pink slipper.
“The portrait,” I pointed.
“Oh, that’s me, circa 1944,” she croaked,
standing bent. “But not his usual style.”
“No,” I had to agree, writing frantically,
excitement like sap
sent tingling up my spine.

So, let’s get this right:
She had trained in Ireland,
was deployed to France,
following allied troops into Germany
all the way to the end, in Berlin.
Hers an eccentric family of noble stock,
a quite irregular life lived on the edge.
Did I believe her? At first, yes.
At least until I closed the door
with that peeling paint.
Then I noticed the corner in the road,
breathed in the fresh air,
saw the rush of wind in poplars
and rooks cawing their honest presence.
The further I drove the less I believed.
Narrow roads led into town, a realisation
that still – the artist had eluded me

Poem and image © copyright df barker 2012

Poem ‘Subliminal’

Subliminal

They put it up on billboards.
It made the headlines,
the tickers scrolling in Times Square
and TV screens back home.

It was like hearsay going viral,
became banal talking points
in satellite drivel,
a tsunami of information
which hid the pearl of truth.

This notion that everyone
who has ever lived
could be alive again today,
our eight billions souls
matching totals for the past;
all of us primed, exposed
for some terrible judgement.

How many saw the subliminal flash,
I’m not sure;
reputedly like an ad,
the split second image of cola
that wets your thirst,
though not on screens – in the sky.
A judgement? No ceremony, no glitz,
no alarming lord riding the clouds.

But word quickly got around,
between lines of copy,
in the things not said.
Tickers in Times Square
stuttered, then stopped;
people draining away
like water down plug holes.
Wi-fi was gone,
it’s just something else
we can’t grasp in the air.
The only tickers now
are the clocks, our watches,
while we keep one eye
on the sky

poem and image © copyright df barker 2012

Poem ‘Floss’

Floss

And I followed you,
holding desperately your trailing hand.
From dodgem screams in head-on collision,
to long kisses on carousels,
sitting the wrong way—
facing you,
holding you—
Yes, I was daring you!
That smile behind your eyes like a loving sun
which I met devouring candy floss,
sugar highs spinning lips together,
meeting and melting our cares;
suspended in ghost trains,
scaring you, opportune for me.
And later, strolling slick sands,
the far bass thuds
tripping our hearts,
setting off our lives:
Still in motion

Poem ‘The Sparrow’

The Sparrow

The sparrows are gone and now the winter is lonely.
Their spaces are taken by the gravelled drives
and the paved gardens. There will be no reprieve
but as the little bird leaves, like the wise man
deserts a fool, know that everything has its time
and that ours, too, is almost run.
*
The horse chestnut’s elephantine trunk glows warm
in the low winter sun, its clawing bareness stretches
into a cleansing sky. A narrow shaft of yellow light
dispels the rime on the whitened sward,
and the hanging orange globes of the passion flower,
like tiny suns, remind us of long gone warmth,
a hint of the approach of solstice day.
*
The lone robin stands guard, like a redcoat
patrolling his shed roof, punching way above his weight
to see off the bigger birds, those who would dare
plunder his own private space. He has nothing
but disdain for the squabbling starlings
who strut around in their shiny suits
in vain shows of bluster and pretence.
*
Even the cowslips thought it was spring.
Over keen, they showed their yellow hats
when the weather was mild and now they’re
caught out in a sudden arctic blast.
So too, the evergreen rosemary, whose lilac flowers,
though welcome, reveal the underlying unease
at the heart of the garden.
*
So we grew to like mowing the lawn, put up
with cutting the hedge. We let the poppies grow wild
and the elderflower rampage. We even learned
to love nettles and the funny little weeds –
but the sparrow never came back. They say he lives
in tiny enclaves now, in the fringes with red squirrels,
quite unknown in these parts, where the blackbird
chinks a meagre winter song.

*first published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, available on amazon.com

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anonymous-Lines-ebook/dp/B005SGWTOG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338013669&sr=1-1&tag=acleint06-21

Please also see this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_tc_2_0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3AMilly+Reynolds&keywords=Milly+Reynolds&ie=UTF8&qid=1338013925&sr=1-2-ent&field-contributor_id=B0056IY4OE

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