I have sat on bar stools
As fools
Pontificate in love and hate.
From on high, I
Have judged women and men
Thinking myself superior to them
Yet in the quiet
Of morning time
I rhyme
Of imperfect man
And I who am
As them.
We role played.
Afterwards you stayed
And spoke of your childhood
Which, on the whole, was good.
Then you told me
Of a family friend’s knee …
But now you are at university
And all that was long ago,
And besides, you do not know
Whether it was really so.
And of course you are free
To say “no”
To me
It happened years ago
And I have no responsibility
For what he may
Or may not have done.
Its just fun
To engage in role play.
No harm is done
Or so we say
Sitting in just
My boxer shorts
In the cool of a summer morning,
I think on is and ought.
I touch
My own skin.
And think how thin
Is the veil
That separates me
From the eternity
Of dust
A man in a sweet shop chooses
From a menu online.
The sweets are divine
The website says
So no-one loses.
The candy arrives
In pretty bows
And wrapping
Fragile as flowers.
He knows
How it goes:
The tapping of heels
Bring deals
Of sugar sweet
He can’t keep,
While the website
Offers fleeting delights
Of fresh flowers
He takes,
But his thirst
Remains unslaked
I sit here
Drinking beer
Alone at home
In this dying heatwave
Unable to forget
What I could not save.
As I drink
I think
Of girls who padded like cats
Around my bachelor’s flat
In their bare feet.
We drank wine
And, sometimes
I would find
A kind
Of comfort in a stranger’s arms.
A few left charms behind.
A hairband
I kept in a drawer,
Though I saw her no more.
I returned hair extensions.
There was no pretention
Of love.
Drinking my beer
I look back on half wasted years.
There where tears and laughter
But what comes after …
Perhaps I can find
A sort of tenderness
Tinged with regret.
I can not forget
And sometimes wonder
What they remember
Of me
In the quiet time
Before I go online
I see the sunshine
Fall on my office walls.
If I could stay
And watch the sunlight play
I would be happy,
Temporarily.
I have seen another January
Come and go
And trust I will see
The coming spring
Bring flowers to me.
But man’s hours
Are brief as flowers
And I may go
And not know
January or spring
In the early morning
Before the birds are heard
I think on light
And dark
And how the human heart
Makes art.
For we are light
And dark
Birds
In early morning
Sing
Of coming spring.
Cats
Have no cruelty
Yet we condemn in them
The cruelty of men
While the birds still sing
Of spring
And my heart responds
To birdsong
I open my window
And listen to bird calls
As rain falls
To the garden below.
This is the timeless time
Of nature’s passing rhyme.
But work calls
And I must go.
Yet the fall
Of the rain
And the bird’s call
Remain
The cold takes my breath.
I kick a branch away
And think of death.
Winter will not stay.
The wind through branches sighs
Then dies away.
And I will lie
As that bough
Lies now
While birds sing
In spring.
K Morris - Poet 