From here I’ve seen
thousands of suns,
the days end with copper glints
through languorous trees. Summer’s
apogee is seed of summer’s end, sure
as swifts scream out the balm of night.
A fast-forward pipistrelle delays
the drawing curtains, ever
thankful for the light.
On the windowsill the sphinxing cat
sleeps, pointing
the way to live
Poem and picture ©copyright rp 2016
Nature will provide
There’s enough for you and me
Riches all around
haiku and images ©copyright rp 2016
The other day I had cause
to open your wardrobe and shoes
fell out like maggots
from a corpse.
New shoes
old shoes
blue shoes
broken shoes.
A pair for every day of the year
it seemed.
Try as I might
I couldn’t get them all back, for
I don’t have your gift
for packing or hoarding. So I
put some in my wardrobe
because I don’t buy any shoes.
poem and image ©copyright rp 2016
A light held aloft
nature’s path to liberty
treasure in a field
words and picture ©copyright rp 2016
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Don’t hold out a torch
for me, I am not free of blame. This
is the dance of life where all are
culpable, soon to be drowned in
washes, the mangling gears
of pain. But who knows, these maelstroms
might be wormholes, revealing other
worlds and tableaux of night; dressings
of props across cold stone walls, taken
and rebuilt from dishevelled remains.
And where bards once played on stages,
hidden behind arras stitchings
and nom de plumes, we are all still
mere punters in pits macabre, holding
torches for celebrity – look at them, drunk,
high up with their gods of gold
© poem copyright David F. Barker 2013
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
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
