On Thursday 18 June I was delighted to host a segment on the World Poetry Cafe, which is a show on Vancouver Co-op Radio. To listen to the World Poetry Cafe please go to https://www.mixcloud.com/VictorSchwartzman/world-poetry-cafe-june-18-with-kevin-morris/. My segment starts approximately 20 minutes into the show.
Mid June.
Sunshine.
The longest day of the year
Draws near.
Everything must decline.
My rhyme
Will find its end.
Another year
Will bring spring flowers.
I will think on hours
And the brevity
Of rhyme.
I must have liked you
As I paid for us at Kew.
We spent some hours
Among exotic flowers,
And strolled in glass houses
Where respectable spouses
Walked too.
I bought
A room in a cheap hotel
Off Victoria Street
Where assorted lovers meet
Then depart
And no hearts are left
Bereft.
We dropped off the key
At reception
Saying we would be back …
I wonder, did they have any perception
Of us two …
It was just an hour
Or so
In a cheap hotel
Long ago.
But I must have liked you
For I paid for you at Kew.
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.
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!
K Morris - Poet 