Sometimes I hate you, I must
avert my eyes.
Other times I love you
and I’m crazy, I can’t leave you
alone.
Mostly though I’m indifferent,
you’re something there out
of my window on any
random day,
like the sparrows who chat huddled
side by side
on their privet hedge.
But whether you’re friend, enemy
or mere acquaintance, you are all
outsiders—
intruders in this precious
secret space
poem © copyright David F. Barker 2012
I come here most days
after school. Dad says it’s ok, so I
head straight away to my
friends, the chickens; I help them
dig for worms. Sometimes
a school friend drops by too
and we race up the stacked bags
of guano; they’re almost warehouse high, our
voices muffled like we’re in a cave. Later,
when it’s time to go, I sit and wait
for Dad, stare at old pictures
on the wall. A bomber
plane in camouflage, the rows of cheerful
men before it with little to smile
about, Dad said. I can
point to his friend, the rear
gunner who never gets out. I’m stuck in
there, spinning round
and round in the noise, the ground’s
approach quickening— then nothing—
until this awareness
and I am his son
© copyright David F. Barker 2012
*Notes: When I was seven or eight years old, my Dad used to work in a warehouse and I did play with the chickens, climb the bags of guano. There was an office, with a picture of an old British Blenheim bomber, with rows of RAF men lined up in front…
The window is
ajar,
just enough to
let in some air, to
tantalise the cat
hooked by
night’s soft invitation.
Something outside
is burning, hangs
in the yielding light, though
I’ve never
seen those crimson clouds
phase
to dusky pink
and then to grey.
It’s a flux which
eludes me
every time.
Magic, you might say,
like being in space,
and now
© copyright David F. Barker 2012
There is no love on those horizon lines,
nor in the sight of ships
tacking their finite courses to
oblivion, spilling me
outside.
So who is it waiting
in the rain, feels its spots
cool on their skin, can smell
its sweet aroma
off the hard hot road, stretching away
around the lonely coast?
poem and picture © copyright David F. Barker 2012
It was you who said that
it’s not what you earn but
how little you need. That
was the way to fly
in their face— living
within your means
is no good to them. They
want your soul, your very
soul, make it drown
in debt and fed
on all the salt
and fat
and lies you can swallow.
And they want you bound
to their state, you said,
their secret,
silent state. Well, I don’t
know about that, but
your answer was simple, a firm riposte
which said ‘no’. It meant
watching the pennies
and paying your dues. Keeping it
simple,
not listening
to the news
poem © copyright David F. Barker 2012
Ciscography 