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.
Some fear their final breath.
I have fought
With the absence of thought
Were I reached for words
And repeated “thank you” again and again.
There was no pain
Of the physical kind.
Just the mind
Closing down
And a lopsided walk.
When I cried
It was not at the fear
Of dying.
I can face my final breath.
No! I shed my tears
For the collapse of my mind.
I found in me
No poetry of mine
But grasped at others rhymes
To keep my inflamed brain
Alive.
I survived.
My brain abscess is no more.
I pour out poetry.
For I am not yet dry.
One day I will die.
I have no great dread
Of being dead.
What I fear
Is living death
Were breaths are taken
But the mind is dying
Or dead.
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
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
I saw a square
Of sunlight fall
On my study wall.
It is no longer there –
We all borrow
Each joy and sorrow
Until our square
Vanishes into empty air.
I feel the wind
On my skin
And hear him
Whisper in the trees
Reminding me of you.
I go in
And face my darkening window
Were I to die tonight
I would go happy –
Yet tomorrow will probably come.
I will walk in sun
Or rain.
Then, returning home again
I will face my window
But not the same
One as tonight
The scent of new-mown grass
Catches me as I pass
By graves in spring.
I take delight
In this brief light
As birds sing
Over tombs and grass
K Morris - Poet 