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
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
Ciscography 