The things men do,
The words they say,
Little thinking that they must pay.
The secret trist.
Man can not resist.
perfume on a girl’s wrist.
A stray hair
upon the stair.
You swear
she wasn’t there.
The crumpled bed.
The dread
of neighbours who tell
How they heard the bell
ring late
and reveal
the click of heel
On stair.
You swear
She wasn’t there!
You have reached the end
of the line my friend.
You must descend
and fight your way through the crush.
Good luck as you rush
to your goal.
But mind the hole
between the train and the platform.
For the gap doth yawn!
—
Several days ago, I was travelling on the train from Gipsy Hill to London Victoria. On arrival at Victoria a fellow passenger asked whether the train had arrived at it’s destination. This inspired the above poem.
Kevin
I came across the below poem while browsing through a recently acquired collection of the poems of Emily Dickinson.
—
Look back on time with kindly eyes,
He doubtless did his best;
How softly sinks his trembling sun
In human nature’s west!
I will not play tonight she said
shaking her flirtacious head.
But tomorrow who knows
for that is the way writing goes
Warm summer days.
The haze
of belief.
Time is a thief
that steals
our ideals.
The secluded garden.
Ideas that harden.
The truth
youth
doth know
Oft ends in woe.
A book.
The path forsook.
The backward look
to a place
lost in mist
he can not resist.
Hanging from the floor
with nowhere to go.
White nightdress limp
on broken frame.
Memories singing sweet nightmares
of reality.
Images of white rooms
with white walls
and white doctors
flood the white mind.
They took her in,
the girl –
the rag doll.
They filled her with pills
till giddy delight
was forced upon
an exhausted body.
White
she remembers.
White.
She was the blackboard
and now she is the chalk.
I want to come in.
The din
I make.
The trees I shake.
I awake
the old fear
Of nature wild and near.
People quale indoors.
There is no applause
when the gale doth come.
Animals run
for shelter
helter skelter
seeking release
from the hurricane’s teeth.
The morning brings peace
And trees
Lying amongst fallen leaves.
He tried to make his verse rhyme
But it became worser and worser.
‘Twas perverse
To see
Dog rhyme with tree.
He cudgelled his brains to produce poetry fine
And was convinced beer rhymes with wine.
Inspiration from the great poets he took
And was certain Emily Dickinson
Was Brontae’s sister
And Heathcliff could not resist her.
Finally from the top of Wuthering Heights
He jumped
Hitting the moors with a plop
But his bad poems
Just would not halt.
It was his very great fault
He did not decease
And leave his readers in tranquillity!
Awakening to the sun’s light
I listen with delight
to wooden wind chimes.
Their music delicate and sweet
has not disturbed my sleep.
Now heres the thing
you can not catch the wind.
It goes where it will
over dale and hill.
As a child it blew
through
our home
whistling in the chimney
as I sat alone
reading many a fable
at our oak table.
The gale inspired no fear
then
and when
I hear
it blowing near
today
I pray
it will blow all this away.
