Poem: Kit

Somebody stopped me
in the Canterbury street, like a hand
on my arm which took me
by surprise. Two dark eyes full of
verve, like air fanning fire, arresting
me with their stare,
a challenge written with an effulgent
quill; in my mind I saw it tripping
over pages with invention
in sweet candlelight.

So many years before, a Kentish king
knelt before the altar in solemn
genuflection, and now
you, your head brimming with catechism
and heady charm, speaking out like
Machiavelli, Paul becoming
Saul to declare another truth
in your eyes, in mottos and tatty trinkets
of shop windows, which only repeat
your daring pose in ignorance

poem © copyright David F. Barker 2013

Poem: Blindfolds

There is no crisis
that’s never been made, no war
we’ve ever had to join. Why
don’t you stop! – look

at what you’re doing? Don’t
accept it,
turn off the TV and ignore
the paper headlines stacked

in front of you, they lead you into their
traps,
their pigeon-holes.
What are you? Can a jackass

stare back from the mirror? Even
gods call you sheep, creatures who
need to be brought in – whoever said
this

should be so? The more I say no, each
time you refuse to
toe the line, so much sooner
you and I become us

and then we

I am not a pacifist, but most conflict is avoidable.

Maverick

At what point do you realise you’re
not alive? I’ve watched
pedestrian slow to
moribund, the colour
drain away like a leaching wound. Life
without verve is no life at all
and my verve shot away years ago. He left
on this tangental course, a maverick
fired like some devil who may care. Oh,
he’s fine by the way and living it up
in a lush valley somewhere, high
on peyote and painting the tall
arid peaks where
the air is clear and the milky way
whispers sweet nothings
in his ear, the shining girl who
once curved my night sky

poem © copyright Dave Barker 2012

Literacy has stalled

The sun only slowly burns off the morning fog;
a mind is clearing.
I’ve been cursing the cold and remind

myself of the time of year.
‘Literacy has stalled’. The radio spits out
this throw-away phrase.

It gets stuck in my craw, as if
this country hadn’t already been thrown
to the dogs, its mangled corpse

not tossed around for years, plaything
of the Whitehall hounds
and their circling vultures, both

rather good at feigning that they care.
‘Literacy has stalled’. As if it ever really
got going, it’s been a hidden truth

for decades; those miraculous exam
successes where league table is king. Never
common sense, not discipline and

certainly never values. And here’s
carte blanche to dress it all up; new curriculums
and shining academies: Zero times zero

equals zero.
Literacy has stalled: so tell me something
new! Nearly everything learned I’ve taught

myself, it’s a case of needing to but
I’ve yet to train my eye to spot who’s
behind the tail that wags the

elephant in the room

Poem ‘October’

English: Pumpkins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

October comes and suddenly
there’s too much change.
Enough already with trees going bare,

without having to alter clocks
to appease the North
which might not even care.

While some see beauty in decay,
all I find is a reckoning, revenge
in Hallowe’en’s red-eyed stare,

where we fare no better than pigs
fattened and slaughtered,
sentenced for nothing

by callous clowns in wigs.
So I will kick through the leaves,
as is the custom

in my search for a soul,
or a silver-lining in death,
wrapped up like a sausage

against the first icy blast
which blows away all joy
and steals the breath.

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