The wind blows a gale;
I must fetch a sweeping brush.
Fresh air in the room
Copyright Francis 2021
Haiku #13 (NS)
Tag: poets
Poems in Fevers of the Mind Poets of 2020 — Yesterday and today: Merril’s historical musings
I apologize for posting across social media, but some people follow me only on this blog. I an honored to have three poems in David L. O’Nan’s massive (over 300 pages) anthology, Poets of 2020. There are so many wonderful poets in this volume–many well-known names! The book is available in several formats. Here’s the […]
Poems in Fevers of the Mind Poets of 2020 — Yesterday and today: Merril’s historical musings
Tanka: Bloom
Flowers by themselves
bloom without trying or care
They are all in tune
To grow strong within nature
How else could we truly be?
copyright Francis Barker 2019
Tanka: Cat
The cat owns nothing
he’s the solitary one
who owns all of you
The Egyptians worshipped him
the silent watcher of souls
copyright Francis Barker 2019
Haiku: Home
Tell me what is home?
Corners full of possessions
Or rooms filled with love.
copyright Leofwine Tanner 2019
Poem: ‘Dance of Life’
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
Poem ‘Flux’
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
Poem ‘Wordspiller’
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
