Poem ‘Daffodil Heaven’

Daffodil Heaven

When March was still and new
before I was of an age to care
we’d visit the fields across the way
where she’d earn some more pennies
in that cool primavera air

Here I would watch her
peeping from between deep rows
where lingering water drained
like instant coffee in footprint pools
only recently covered with snow

With an abattoir efficiency
she’d pluck off each clean head
sometimes pause for a smoke
stand straight to feel her back
or maybe tick me off instead

To the sound of mellow bells
we’d walk home for biscuits and tea
when I’d hear her cutting vegetables
leaving me with a comic
a ginger cat curled up on my knee

© poem and image copyright dfbarker 2012

Not seasonal, I know, but it’s nice to think of the spring.

Poem ‘Silent Wings’

Silent Wings

Looking up into darkness
he asks if that smudge is Andromeda.
She thinks it may be.
He’s heard its light takes
two million years to reach his eyes,
stories on swift silent wings;
galaxies so far away,
so near at hand
like froth spinning round
in her coffee cup.
‘I’ll go there one day,’ he says
‘Why not go right now?’
she asks – ‘in your mind!’
He looks up once again
his mind big like the light-filled sky,
recalling her story of Horus
crossing millions of years

© copyright David Francis Barker 2011

*illustration done wholly digitally

New Poem ‘Morning List’

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

New Poem: ‘Windows’

Windows

we admire the window’s
fine proportions
giving out
onto bare trees
a grey sky
those pervading
stillnesses of space

and the coffee
is good and strong
good enough to take black
to sit back with
and to savour

and listen
can you hear the
crows calling?
they’re telling of
eastern winds
bringing on the winter
which arrives tomorrow

but against
this crackling fire
our comfort is fixed
by your hand in mine

© copyright David Francis Barker 2011