After tea
And homemade cake,
And the crossword,
We heard,
Sitting in a London garden,
A wild, screeching sound.
“What was that?”, I said.
“A fox with it’s prey”.
Soon the screeching ceased
And our sunny day
Returned to peace.
A quick death
Is best.
And the dead
Read no romanticising poetry
Of death.
I check my feet.
The skin underneath
Has begun to crease
And my toes
Are sometimes stiff.
I am growing old.
I can not deny
My middle age.
But when girl’s feet
Pass me by
I know only dust
Will defeat my lust.
In the sunlit wood
I heard
The sound of love.
No word
Did I hear.
Simply the bliss
Of young lover’s lips
Came softly to me
As a bird
In a tree
Mimicked kisses for me.
She looked
For her lost socks
In my flat.
On looking
I have found that
A lost earring
Or similar such thing
Is easily discovered
In bedcovers.
She found her socks
And I pleasure.
But, I wonder whether
I have lost
The capacity to love.
I am not indifferent to the charms
Of a young woman’s arms.
So when your arm wound around me
Of course I was flattered
For you are much younger than me.
I have had dreams shattered
So will believe that it was merely
Out of friendly regard
That your youthful arm
Wound around me.
In the churchyard
On my way home alone
I passed by cold stones
And contrasted their charms
With your warm arms.
When your fun is done
And she goes home
And you are left alone,
Do you consider
Her youth
And that perfect figure?
Perhaps you consider
The truth:
How lack of finance
Or other mischance
Leads her to dance
With a rake
Who, fearful of dust
Takes, in lust
A young woman who
Needs your wealth,
But holds in contempt
You and herself.
Were we lovers of a kind?
There was no answering spark
In your heart.
While in mine I find
A rhyme of your first time
Bought through art.
You were kind.
And I too was kind
For you and I both knew
Just what you
Felt you had to do.
Your need to feed,
And mine for women and wine.
No return of texts
For you were never mine.
These autumn leaves
Remind me
Of my mortality.
Winter’s knife
Chops down life.
And trees
In spring bring
Forth leaves
And I recall
We all
Are of earth
And turf.
She says, “soon I will stop this”.
“Why do I engage
With a girl only half my age?.
Must I forever kiss
Lips which yearn to turn from me?
I am no devil
And perhaps at a certain level
She likes me.
In her deep sleep I see
Her in her vulnerability
And find the tenderness in me.
There is no true bliss
In her reluctant kiss.
But gold may hold sway
Tomorrow as with today.”
In my frayed old dressing gown I found
A broken hairband.
I know not where
I met her.
Names I forget.
But this broken hairband commands reflection and regret
For her and all those before.
And others, if there are more
K Morris - Poet 