A Robin’s Descent
The rain is gone,
though a heaviness remains.
Between this precious repose
and first glimpses of a lighter day,
a robin drops to drenched grass,
almost tame and curious,
the colour of passion,
his peppy, ardent life
among manifold greens.
Then he pops up once more,
daring closer this time,
an upturned table leg his perch,
to peek inside this house
of false comfort,
bringing life to worn out lives
poem and image © copyright df barker 2012
Rain
He was looking at the rivulets
stuttering down the glass,
ignoring the sodden cat on the windowsill
and the puddles in the grass.
Sitting down, I braced myself:
He’d say it wouldn’t do any harm.
I suppose it was his way of seeing things
when in the safe and warm.
Never mind that spring was passing,
never mind that I’d forked the grass over
for five darn days on end,
to drain away the numerous ponds.
Yet still there are some who insist
that we are the lucky ones!
So I put on my best April gear,
braving the cold and the wet.
I had to get out of his face, you see,
to hear some pessimism instead,
about the weather, the world,
or the state of this or that.
Sadly though, I have to say,
rain makes even the shy ones talk,
though they’d better watch out —
because I’ll be stabbing with my fork!
poem and image © copyright df barker 2012
I could live with it,
I mean an endless sun,
sipping cool pina coladas
in bottlegreen shade,
watching boats and glimmers
on the steady seas,
smiling abroad in January
like it was wilting June
Yes, right now I could go for that,
especially in this reluctant spring,
where complaints about drought
are already here.
Hosepipe bans hit headlines
while I watch daffodils being battered
and bowed by sheets of savage rain.
And I’m pestered
by cats attacking bare feet;
like me, they’re already tired
of watching drops clatter on sills.
Unlike me, they resort
to playing hide and seek,
upstairs and then down—
flying all around.
I’m sure they think it’s me
with the weather remote
and today I wish it was
poem © copyright df barker 2012
What Goes Around
At last I can leave
the window ajar
to sense those languid
sounds of the street
like life itself returning
from some distant place
a world woken up
by a warm gentle kiss
Promise too in the bee’s
tender tap on my window
busy on beatnik rounds –
I am wishing him luck
on a maverick wind
in the cool melodious rain
poem and image © copyright David Francis Barker 2011
*First published in Shot Glass Journal in 2011
Rain outside could mean I stay inside and paint… but not on a Saturday, for Heaven’s sake!
Ciscography 