soft indignation
flat third of a minor chord
world’s light in a cell
© copyright dfbarker 2012
*image based on a watercolour original, part of a reconstruction of a Benedictine Priory. This image is not necessarily to hint at the meaning of the haiku, although it could be one interpretation.
At Cromer
When I look down toward the beach,
the distant pier seems to stride
forward from the shining sea.
I like to look beyond,
to the bands of turquoise and blue,
an ocean painted in bold,
abandoned strokes.
Why are we drawn to the waves?
Those elemental rhythms,
sounds and colours
of a primary world,
where sparse pointillist spots
busy themselves on
yellow-ochre sands.
Some days the morning
unfolds through mists,
groynes spacing out
the distances along the strand,
until a final fade-out,
well before the sea
can meet the sky.
Overhead, pterodactyl shapes
patrol against fresh patches
of blue. As I approach,
the blurred semblances
of buildings appear, rectangles
feathered violet or grey,
as if stepping off the cliff.
© copyright df barker 2011, first published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, available for purchase here: http://liten.be//gHmf9
*Painting from an original, digitally enhanced.
Woman from the West
You’d awoken me with tea in the spare bed,
where my feet hung out the end.
At breakfast we heard about the pier,
smashed by the savage storm, the worst for years.
It was early December with heavy skies threatening,
so we wrapped up warm to take some air,
scarves blowing, my arm around your waist
feeling your locomotion, the buttock’s rise and fall
with that playful goose-step, your natural stride.
Through the lichgate, we passed graves old and
one very new. We stopped by wreaths, with thoughts
for a boy of no age. Found him in a ditch, you said,
in blasé exaggeration. No Christmas this year.
Not for them, but did it bother us?
Your life lay ahead, sampling life in London,
as lethal as the sea stallions pummelling that pier.
Now my eyes were open. That walk wasn’t playful
but callous, and the tea seemed like a gesture.
So when we left the wreaths, I felt changed.
Wreaths for that poor boy and for us.
Not for love.
© copyright David Francis Barker 2011
* First published in 2011 in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’.
** The illustrations are from a 1990s drawing of a Lincolnshire Church, and a more recent painting of a couple on Cromer beach in North Norfolk, England. CLICK ON AN IMAGE TO SEE BIGGER SIZE!
The Painter
Climbing the dune,
wind heavy in our faces.
We squint (or do we smile?),
our laughs and quips
diffuse in the air.
Young legs carry you
ahead to the summit,
where tufts of green cling
to an existence. Then you’re
a sudden lithe silhouette
against a racing sky.
I revel in your victory;
your gentle hand hauls me
up close to ocean eyes,
an elfin smile, teeth
pristine like breakers
on the distant, crashing
shore, that white noise
filling our ears.
To look into you
is to look as men
have done for centuries.
Unchanging heart,
you’re the pearl left
nestling in filth.
So take a look –
can anyone steal time?
An hour here or there,
we leave our footprints,
no foothold anywhere.
I am the painter of this shore –
you are the model.
Again and again,
we return to wrestle
in familiar hues;
deep alizarin crimson,
yellow ochre, phthalo blue,
making it real. Stay in this
moment, we bless and bless.
It has to be you.
© copyright Francis
* Taken from the collection ‘Anonymous Lines’
The illustration is from a larger painting of a scene overlooking the North Sea, from sand dunes at Wells Next The Sea, Norfolk, England.
Winter Sun
The weaker sun burns low
over stilled marsh and scrape.
Straight-cut dykes glow like
hot metal fissures through indigo.
Heavy boots crunch on ghosted grass,
breaking threats of enveloping silence.
By a glistening gate I pause, to gaze,
the pristine kiss of rime stiffens my hand.
The lone motion is my breath, brief clouds
vanishing in vasty air, to which I am inured.
A bleeding horizon yields dwarfed
silhouettes feigning heat, random skeletal
trees and pylons merely punctuate
before a distant church stump.
A sudden snipe breaks his cover,
rasping furiously over my head,
where I catch fleet Mercury gleaming
bright through icy blue.
© copyright David Francis Barker 2011
* Taken from poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, which can be found here: http://liten.be//nr7n9
** The illustration is from a current painting by the poet/artist, showing the marshland at winter sunset near Boston in Lincolnshire, England.
Ciscography 