When there is no night or day
Man will have lost his way.
When the harsh bulb does forever shine
And man is caught in a mesh so fine
He can not see
And believes himself free
Methinks he will have passed a line.
When the face of love
Is replaced by a glove
And lonely people
Hide in a steple
Of the mind
Humans will find
They have crossed the Rubicon
Something indefinable has gone
And the fluorescent tubes burn forever on.
Shall I compare thee to a prickly pear?
Thou art more fair
Than the wild rose
That in thorny profusion grows.
There the bee goes
Then stings my nose
Must the writer forever analyse?
What is that look in her eye?
I wonder whether
They will stay together?
No hurry
Over their curry.
They flirt.
Will he get desert?
Desires
Carried by wires.
She burns
And turns
To one
who enters in.
Will cables that coil
Contain passions that boil?
Will dials
defile
Smials
As man plays
Out his days?
Will the machine control
The soul?
We duck and dive
trying to survive
let alone thrive
in this world of plastic
where truth is elastic
and love can be bought and sold
for cold hard gold.
Attachment is a fad
and we are oft times glad
when lovers go
for intimacy brings woe.
We hide in our bubble
with no one to cuddle
save for the pillow at night.
There is no delight
or perhaps somewhere
there are those who care.
Summer dresses
And sweet caresses.
Perfect days
Lost in a lovers haze.
Her porcelain shoulder
His arms enfold her.
Getting older.
The porcelain cracks
She lacks
His attention.
There is contention
over that pretty blonde
Its all going wrong.
‘Tis the same old song
Lust is strong
And mice play
When the cats away.
The sighing breeze
can not freeze
the frozen heart.
There are no tears to start
welling up
From the dry brook.
A child’s innocent voice
Perchance makes the heart rejoice.
A little ice melts
And the soul struggles to be free.
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!
The wall seemed so high.
Acorns fell as from the sky.
There they would lie
To be collected by you and I.
The acorn’s hard shell.
I remember it well.
The smell of the wood
Natural and good.
Now the wall is to high
And on the other side you lie.
I have long been intrigued by John Keat’s poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (“The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy”).
“O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.
She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!’
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing”.
K Morris - Poet 