It’s winter and all the seats are empty.
The numbing cold has forced them inside,
to sip insipid coffee and chew on bagels,
swallowing whole the words and images
ticking across primary coloured screens.
As for me, I like being with the birds.
They may be cold but no one tells them
where to go and what to believe.
And when I watch the crow
and his intelligent antics, no one can tell me
they don’t know what’s going on

copyright Francis Barker 2019

I see the effects of prevailing winds,
the stark trees morphed and twisted,
posts gnarled against the freeze and thaw,
the light and dark valkyries
raging across these blighted skies.
This may be natural or foisted upon us –
tell me, how can we be sure?
This world, I look around,
lost in time and out of place.
I feel like a stranger, alone more and more,
while some nature distorts and disfigures
the beauty I was taught to distrust

copyright Francis Barker 2019