Morning List
Aromas of snuffed out candles
A new bar of soap
The fix of fresh black coffee
A warm fruit teacake
smothered in melting butter
First sight and smell
of the salty sea
© copyright David Francis Barker 2011
Category: poetry
Poem ‘Witness’
Witness
Deep in the darkest place
we feel a faint memory is
lurking unbound like a freeze
on the fast spinning world
a rare sight for we strangers
from the far flung parts
of tenuous space
We must have strolled
those ragged shores
leaving no footprints in the sand
and breathed in deep
the unbreathable air
before sentient life could
crawl out from the sea
We saw the infant sun spill
his light over jagged horizons
and a shattered moon
ascend into sparse skies
to ride across that curious
scatter of stars
Was it us who fostered
the mortal pain of eons?
And did we sanction suffering
from simplicity to sublimity
all borne through this weary flux?
That we were witness
when it began – is true
We will persist to its end
to see star stuff blasted out
when it all starts over again
© copyright Francis Barker 2011
* I’ve had a version of this poem hanging around since I was about 17. This is the latest incarnation and I’m still not satisfied.
* The ‘painting’ is a ‘photoshopped’ adaptation from another painting.
New Poem ‘April Promise’
April Promise
Full of April promise
so many times we’d disappear
to where the canal boats moored
make-believing one of them ours
a gypsy craft laden for a simpler life
We’d found our own place to dream
saw the naked sun step down to play
to dance on daisy-strewn fields
leaving us to lay by a twisting stream
cradled by heavy blossom trees
unable to face an unpalatable truth
The holes it burned in our maudlin minds
like never-healing wounds
more vulnerable than the blossom
which fell into torrents below
So it is that a few fine April days
are quickly gone
They never presage a fine summer to come
© copyright David Francis Barker 2011
Unseasonal, I know, but those of us entrenched in the northern hemisphere might want to think of spring.
‘Anonymous Lines’ – My new collection of poetry on Kindle, Smashwords…
I have a new collection of poetry for sale in various media, see links below for details.
I am grateful to Tim Roux and Night Publishing.
New Poem about travelling in Canada… aaah!
Long Train
I’m going to catch that train,
so I can watch panoramas roll by,
their gently unfolding stories,
and pinch myself into believing
I’m seeing the Canadian Shield.
I’ll drink endless cups of coffee
while chatting with fellow travellers.
Perhaps make a friend or two,
and we’ll exchange stories about homelands
and climate change and places never seen,
maybe raise a glass of schnapps or single malt
to toast Ontario, just to ease it all along.
We’ll swap addresses and emails;
I’ll start a blog on my laptop
where I’ll write some pithy lines
with quotes from my friends,
to capture the spirit of Saskatchewan
and Alberta, while the people back home
simply won’t believe my progress.
I’ll produce a battered guitar
from my back pack and we’ll
write songs together about places we see
and sing familiar tunes like Yellow Submarine
to help pass the darker hours.
And when I finally see the Vancouver skyline,
I’ll look forward to the Pacific,
my first sight of the sea.
Or maybe I’ll just sit here in the warm,
and stir more sugar into my tea.
© copyright David Francis Barker 2011
