Trinity
Scent of sweet woodsmoke
Beauty in indignation
Fresh ascetic breeze
Haiku and image © copyright df barker
Category: photography
Poem ‘Barricades’
Barricades
My home is a castle in need, because
of who I am, for all that went before.
Living close to a sea I rarely saw,
I rode bikes, losing trees, clothes on the way,
all scale of self to glimpse some grey ocean,
a lone redshank wail from his muddy creek
and rise into blanket skies, scorning me.
I didn’t know then, nor do I pretend
to know now exactly what’s hurting me,
but the funk of youth is bitterness now.
The shining ship which might’ve saved me, white
sails riding threshold waves — it didn’t come.
Abandoned, the sailor who never was,
behind terse barricades, counting the days
poem © copyright df barker 2012
*image © Neil Smith
Poem ‘Doing the Work’
Doing the Work
I thought of someone
scrunching up pink paper tissues
and sticking them randomly
to scanty trees. I paused outside,
beguiled by fresh horse chestnut leaves
like little green squids,
poised in the crossing sun
When finally I sat down inside—
sustained sounds in A
all around the unravelling dark
—I knew how much sweat
went into this, his sweetest symphony.
Oh, there would be tears, applause,
cries of ‘bravo!’ and the house
might well be brought down— eventually.
None of them saw the bitter tears
or heard the harsh cussing.
And they never had to sit
through the long silences
or watch him toss batons aside
and wipe that heavy brow.
More than once he must’ve wished
to be somewhere else—
in the grip of a glacier, perhaps?
At the break
I stumbled out into an evening
among smokers, a kerfuffle of gulls.
We watched a lone magpie emerge,
sneaking off with leftovers,
the keener eye winning
with the merest effort
poem and image © copyright df barker 2012
Poem ‘Another Day in Helmand’
Another Day in Helmand
He joined willingly
and has no complaints.
This is the life he chose.
He signed on the dotted line
knowing the score from day one;
about the low rates of pay
and the invisible enemy
who won’t play by the rules.
And show me where they said
all the equipment would be there,
that it would be all up to date.
There were benefits, too;
he was lauded several times by
flying visits of premiers and ministers,
who stood squinting in the sun
praising his courage, his skill,
in the best army in the world.
Yes, the cause was just,
his presence there directly protected
those he loved back home:
Our freedom, our democracy.
Yes, it was tough but he knew
he would have a trade,
something to contribute,
something solid to show
for his service to a grateful country,
plus a good pension to fall back on.
Now, not everyone has that.
I saw him the other day
admiring poppies in the sun,
to the clatter of pans and plates,
the warming sounds of Sunday lunch.
He’d been reading the paper
and that’s where I saw the
map of Helmand province
thrusting up into that rugged land,
where his life was changed
and such medals were won –
and where his legs were lost.
poem and image © copyright df barker 2012
* first published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, which can be found at amazon.com
Poem ‘Charity Shop’
Charity Shop
That scream connected
with the deepest level of guilt.
I’d been breezing by the charity shop,
litter and leaves scuttling ahead in a chill wind.
I saw him strapped into a chair
on the chewing gum pavement,
pulling taught in a fury
of condensation and sputum.
I stopped a safe distance away,
mingling-in with the bus queue,
all eyes askance and tutting as one,
wondering if (and how) to intervene.
Best not to get involved.
It’s nothing to do with us,
it would cause more trouble
than it was worth.
So I left to get some food,
relieved to find him gone on my return.
A clear misunderstanding:
mum had been in the shop all the time,
had emerged to the relief of all,
smiles and hugs and kisses all round.
But no. There he was ahead of me,
blighting my eye, my mind,
outside the chip shop
surrounded by shell suits and smoke,
the swearing and the sputum –
on the chewing gum pavement.
poem © copyright df barker 2012
*poem first published in 2011 in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, available at amazon.
Ciscography 