
Young ones love the frost
They hanker for drifting snow
I watch from inside
Copyright Francis 2022
Young ones love the frost
They hanker for drifting snow
I watch from inside
Copyright Francis 2022
Precious, meagre sun
Fingers and thumbs numbed by cold
Praise returning warmth
Copyright Francis 2021
Snow flurry
through street of masks —
freezing point
Copyright Francis 2021
Strange to say, but as the snow
falls your nosebleed is like
a punctuation, something else
we can remark upon, something
other than this relentless cold,
our sparse Siberian spring. Harsh
economics brings with it
other extremes; people
who must choose between
eating or heating well into
April’s empty promises.
Some of them I know,
not the tragic ones who stare
at me from television screens,
directors tugging the stretched
strings of my heart. No – these
are stalwarts and forgotten
heroes, men and women
who have given their lives
once and don’t complain while
they slowly freeze or starve
in little houses, not so far
from me. Now they give up
on living so cold hearts
can balance their books.
But we fixed your nose, it was
easy in the end, though who
fixes this town and this world, is
anyone’s guess
© copyright David F. Barker 2013