Whenever I return to my family home
The clock on the wall
Stands alone
Looking down on us all.
I have composed rhyme
To women and wine
And the clock on the wall
Watches us all.
We laugh
And time slips away.
As the clock on the wall
Looks down on us all.
One day
Someone will be gone
And the clock on the wall
Will tick on
Just the same.
For Time is blind
And the clock knows not
Who has gone
And who remains.
Who has
When a young lady named Mable
Danced nude on the vicar’s table,
I said to Miss Hocking,
“That girl’s behaviour’s shocking!”
She said, “Yes! She’ll break that table!”
I walk in sunshine
And gentle rain.
I see
My shadow
Goes with me.
I feel beauty
In rainbows.
But what will remain
When I go?
Just dust.
The elements
And me,
Refracted back
In poetry
A crocodile on a log.
I sat. My dog nearby
And thought
Perhaps
I ought
To run away
To live another day
As the creature might be starving –
But it was merely carving,
A log,
Me, and my dog
On a spring day
¬
These flowers
Are fading now.
This vase
Which stands so stable
On this wooden table
May not break
In my lifetime.
But hours pass.
Glass breaks
And this rhyme
Composed as I sit
At this wooden table
As the clock ticks
May remain
When all I see
Is gone from me.
But this grain
Of truth
Will stay
When my mind
Can no longer play
With time.
Walking to the pub to meet you
On a warm afternoon in summertime
The rhyme of Richard Corry filled my mind.
I remember well
How the water fell
Into the pub’s pond
Recycled again and again.
Few things last long
And all things must fall
In the end.
Still I recall
Meeting my friend
And discussing Robinson’s rhyme
One summertime
Long ago.
The same rain falls
Again and again
And seasons return
But men …
Dull spring morning.
Another day
Of work
In a contemporary play
Of temporary things.
Soon the afternoon
Will come.
The sun
May shine –
How many moons
And suns
Will I see?
My mug of tea
Grows cold
Next to me
There once was a guy with a tie
Who was plagued by a very large fly.
When a girl called Yvette
Said, “is he your pet?”
He swatted that fly with his tie!
When a beautiful young lady named Miss Prism
Said, “the sun he has long since risen”.
I said, “the moon
Will come out soon –
And have you ever been good Miss Prism …!”
On a day in early spring
I heard the birds sing
As we walked together
Through this ever-changing weather.
And as we walked
I wished to talk
With you my dear old friend.
But it was my shadow
That walked in sunshine
For you have crossed the line
Where all things end.
I cannot cry
Or go where you have gone,
Yet our friendship lives on
And one day I will become
A shadow in sun
And shade
For life is made
Of fleeting shadows
And I know
That I must one day go
Were you have gone.
But other men
May see my shadow
Walking beside them
And know me
And their own mortality.
K Morris - Poet 