Poem ‘I could live with it’

A screenshot of the free game, 0 A.D..
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I could live with it,

I mean an endless sun,
sipping cool pina coladas
in bottlegreen shade,
watching boats and glimmers
on the steady seas,
smiling abroad in January
like it was wilting June

Yes, right now I could go for that,
especially in this reluctant spring,
where complaints about drought
are already here.
Hosepipe bans hit headlines
while I watch daffodils being battered
and bowed by sheets of savage rain.
And I’m pestered
by cats attacking bare feet;
like me, they’re already tired
of watching drops clatter on sills.
Unlike me, they resort
to playing hide and seek,
upstairs and then down—
flying all around.
I’m sure they think it’s me
with the weather remote
and today I wish it was

poem © copyright df barker 2012

Poem ‘Five Minutes’

Common rock pigeon (Columba livia)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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

Poem ‘Doing it all’

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

Poem ‘Dark’

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