Poetry

Smell of family
and crumbled cookies
of a Sunday morning
now no more…

Only trace of burnt wood
from a long-spent fire.
Stale bread and
an empty bird nest
with an anxious tenant spider…
Rusted door hinges
playing with the stubborn wind.

I go out to the yearning lawn…
The weeds laugh at me.
The old squirrels
frail and thin haired
askance on dried branches
gaze bleary-eyed.
All is quiet.

Except for the faint drum
of a hopeful heart
in a cagey chest.
Jerky montage of greyed memories
play on the blooming
honeysuckle flowers.
Distant smell
Or is it fragrance?
of the family sweat
that wafts through the night’s body…
Nudges me up from my stupor
and lures me…
To give my little finger
to my hopeful heart
…and work out a smile
for the next day.

When I
I may just wake
and bake
some more cookies.

Empty spoons
on plates askance
and a centerpiece
bleeding heart.
A draught
that crept on to my doorstep.
My waterwell
mimicking my heart
that sank below…
A dried maize cob
with a thousand eyes
and as many questions…
Like why the spider
on his magnificent web
was so sad..?
and why
the door hinges
yearned.
It’s been a dad ago…
The chequered old windows
tirelessly beckon
listless lace curtains
embarrassingly
threadbare.
Behind my old
wooden stable
my old horse
wobbly at the knees
and sad-eyed
looks up
towards a patch of sky gone dark…
And my eyes
in a bizzare
treasure hunt
dart around
the simmering courtyard
to find a memory
of a rainy night
my dad died
in autumn leaves
and shriveled carnations.
A hint of damp soil
a trace of moist hope
wafts through the
poignant air…
the lace curtains wake up
ever so gently…
Maybe tonight
I’ll save my horse in
my wooden stable
…Maybe I’ll have dinner tonight
i’ll decorate my dinner table
with spoons
in plates with raised eyebrows
a centerpiece bleeding heart
… and a little
hope on the side…
Well
it’s been a dad ago…

‘tis said strangers
are ships
passing in the night.
some dare to lay anchor
close to each other.
to explore
the waters around them.
often they do not regret.

we are strangers yet.
lets
lay anchor
pause the night
and fathom the moment of silence
gently swaying
on the waves of hope.
the morn soon may be around
with its wake of life
beckoning.
to show us the way
to
where we ought to be.

Every touch
becomes the orgasm of life itself
and in its throes, you and I
become one, an island
tossing on its swollen seas.
Time storms through moments
that surf its pleasure.

But the moon is so sad in the sky
as it reminds and goes by.
It knows the morn lays bait
to loot my treasure.
Far and high on a plane
across a sea gone silent
you must go
and pay your excess baggage of pain.
For me, well, I’ll walk
the moon each night
to an island where memories live.
Sad, it’ll be your touch
the only thing they won’t give.

Time washed us shores apart.
Miles that shores stretch
sometime somewhere fetch
a puddle in time the size of a dime
that draws you up close, nose to nose,
memories struggling in the eyes.

I become ink on paper,
stark in a room with loneliness candlelit.
Without shame I ask for you and the
mulberry tree up on the hill.
To fill the spaces around us with love and thrill.
Nothing happens. Nobody comes. What comes
is a craving for the next moment to just be.
With quivering fear
and every hope very dear, comes too
a same morn each day where I must
get up and drift a few more miles away,
to a freak beach, where shores meet . . .
maybe for a while, maybe for a smile.

Riding a jerky montage of daily chores
I trundle towards a sunset
waiting to add my fire to its coals.
Hope leaks through day-tight rooms
spilling over tomorrows
that struggle to become today.

And the day packs its bags each evening
to elope with the past.
It’s a game time plays well.
And sometime not so.
But it does leave a clue in the nuance of things
and in all the shades it brings.
That hidden in the folds of a moment
is where life lives
or peeps out from a hearts’ eye
when it gives.
Out of habit I stop
and let the moment have
a good look at me. I’m not in a hurry.
The sunset can wait.