copyright Francis Barker 2019
copyright Francis Barker 2019
copyright Leofwine Tanner 2019
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
The window is
ajar,
just enough to
let in some air, to
tantalise the cat
hooked by
night’s soft invitation.
Something outside
is burning, hangs
in the yielding light, though
I’ve never
seen those crimson clouds
phase
to dusky pink
and then to grey.
It’s a flux which
eludes me
every time.
Magic, you might say,
like being in space,
and now
© copyright David F. Barker 2012
Wordspiller (for Christopher Marlowe)
So you are the spiller of words, almost
as far from me as
Beowulf is to you.
Wordspiller, your crosspose outstands me,
but I backthink
the falling choirs where you sadwalked
your summerwaiting mind, to
when your glories were mere
airthought,
like the Greathallow who once
shorestepped there
to see for himself
your forliving Angles (he oncebethought
angels) and their saxon King
Ethelbert redeemed to newspells that
you mindweighed as truthless.
Now I meet your clearstead gaze; for
the muse which stretchfed you
has not alleaten you yet
poem © copyright david f. barker 2012
