So don’t believe in
conspiracies, not a word –
just prove who you are
copyright Leofwine Tanner 2019
Tag: poem
Haiku: State of Play
Our kin losing touch
while predators lurk in mind.
Outside, walls crumble
copyright Leofwine Tanner 2019
Poem: A Picture
Like a heavy Thirties’ vibrato, the early
talkie movie strings exquisite
yet tainting,
your restrained pose remains
steadfast before the storm, long shadows
of a vengeance which threatens
you, barely withheld. Still
your smiling eyes stare
back from Paris cafés through
mists of Gitanes, drenched
in sepia, like the relics of some
melancholy sun
© copyright David F. Barker 2013
Poem: April 2
No longer will I bore you with my
mother’s life, and how I wish I could change
the way of her death. Thirteen years
is a long time, abridged by events that
just happen down this road. Though more
and more, this life seems impersonal, like
watching a new born lamb, sweet
to touch and then later to taste. How does
this lover turn carnivorous at a stroke?
And the lamb, like its mother, is a mere
vessel – when you’ve seen one, we all
know how we’ll react. So don’t get me wrong,
but Mum, you were a function, a role you
played so well, and no matter how
I embellish your memory at this time – well,
there you go, I have done it once again
Poem: ‘Clothes’
These are my favourite clothes, I
wear them for days on end.
See?
They retain their shape,
my shape,
even when I toss them
into wardrobes, or hang them from
skeletal frames, dis-
assembled, waiting for warm
odours of my living
return.
So say you’ll never throw them
out, and resist all
temptation to wash. Simply
lay them on a chair or bed – though
mark the creases,
the bulges of cotton limbs, fleshy
legs which have moulded denim,
now hanging in threads. And make sure
to study the greasy collars, precious
oils of my skin. Then take
hold of this shirt, stretch the faded
fabric in your hands and breathe in
the smell of years. Remember
the walks and our talks, when
there was only time to kill. For these
things, which may be nothing now, are
still worthy of note, the relics of
a single life
and not without right
image and poem © copyright David F. Barker 2013
Ciscography 