The other day I had cause
to open your wardrobe and shoes
fell out like maggots
from a corpse.
New shoes
old shoes
blue shoes
broken shoes.
A pair for every day of the year
it seemed.
Try as I might
I couldn’t get them all back, for
I don’t have your gift
for packing or hoarding. So I
put some in my wardrobe
because I don’t buy any shoes.
poem and image ©copyright rp 2016
A light held aloft
nature’s path to liberty
treasure in a field
words and picture ©copyright rp 2016
Over the fence he leans, speaks of
his time working
the huge hedgeless farms, decades
spent stretched on brown landscapes,
scenes etched into his eyes, where
I see him smoking
in deafening tractor cabs, minding
ploughs behind him
while trawling the rich draining silts,
for all our sakes – the interminable
trails of gulls in his tow
© copyright David Barker 2014
Spring finally comes, like your
warm breath on my
desiccate skin. So then
sing to me of careless summers,
your smile, where
love begins
© copyright David F. Barker 2013
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Don’t hold out a torch
for me, I am not free of blame. This
is the dance of life where all are
culpable, soon to be drowned in
washes, the mangling gears
of pain. But who knows, these maelstroms
might be wormholes, revealing other
worlds and tableaux of night; dressings
of props across cold stone walls, taken
and rebuilt from dishevelled remains.
And where bards once played on stages,
hidden behind arras stitchings
and nom de plumes, we are all still
mere punters in pits macabre, holding
torches for celebrity – look at them, drunk,
high up with their gods of gold
© poem copyright David F. Barker 2013
Like a heavy Thirties’ vibrato, the early
talkie movie strings exquisite
yet tainting,
your restrained pose remains
steadfast before the storm, long shadows
of a vengeance which threatens
you, barely withheld. Still
your smiling eyes stare
back from Paris cafés through
mists of Gitanes, drenched
in sepia, like the relics of some
melancholy sun
© copyright David F. Barker 2013
No longer will I bore you with my
mother’s life, and how I wish I could change
the way of her death. Thirteen years
is a long time, abridged by events that
just happen down this road. Though more
and more, this life seems impersonal, like
watching a new born lamb, sweet
to touch and then later to taste. How does
this lover turn carnivorous at a stroke?
And the lamb, like its mother, is a mere
vessel – when you’ve seen one, we all
know how we’ll react. So don’t get me wrong,
but Mum, you were a function, a role you
played so well, and no matter how
I embellish your memory at this time – well,
there you go, I have done it once again
