Departures

I, each time we speak,
Secretly prepare myself,
For your departure.

Trust

Love, it’s simple truth,
Nothing more I seek than this;
But it lies, hidden.

Standing in madness,
Looking at mess with despair:
Pride in all my works?

Weighed by memory,
Hopeful wings remain flightless:
Shed your burdens, rise!

Garden of my youth

Muddled in a maze
Holding hands
Elated,
Found the centre
There with smiles
Escaped
Settled deep
To talk of paths
That weren’t to be
Beneath
Trailing summer boughs
Our loving lips
Conversed
With more than words.

Mirror Cat

Confused cat
Struggling,
Scrambles to the the bed.
Faltering feet fail to find firmness
Mirroring me
Fearfully
Stepping out
Sinking slowly
Caught in a mire of memory.

—

Sitting on the bed watching the cat fall off the end as she tries to climb up while I sit reading other people’s poems and relive my sadness mingled with their own emotions, sparked by words and images with which I am so familiar.

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Ghost

Within the dark the slender stalk grows thin,
Hid from the tender light she cannot thrive,
And stifled by the walls, now caving in,
She longs to feel more than barely alive.
Her tissue-paper countenance so wan
Where once a strength engorged now pallid veins,
Laments shadowed existence since she sprang
To flowering thus cursed in ancient days.
A glimmering of light renews her sap
And quickens in her breast a rushing bloom,
Yet gathered in to kindly hearted lap,
Familiar ground now free, she fears her doom.
  Roots soaking comfort now, in warmth of sun;
  For keener eyes see more than weeds in some.

AGW 25th January 2017

Once more to still the maelstrom

Softly
Blow out the light
Rise from your knees
With whispered thoughts
Accepting.

Until the mending comes undone
And simplicity
Cracks
To reveal kaleidoscope colour
With threads intertwined and entangled
And confusion
Creeps
On shadowy tendrils
From as yet unfathomed
Deep.

Then
Again bend
Calmly descend
And light the lamp
Once more to still the maelstrom.

Nomad soul

The nomad soul, now quiet, settles down,
Hard fingers soft caressing coloured cloths,
Evoking bustle in an ancient town,
Where hawked were products of peculiar moths.
Long lost aroma of a censer’s smoke
Recalled, now drifts upon imagined breeze,
Which carries burning spice, thick as to choke,
Bold tastes and flavours linger there to please.
The glinting brass in golden light of sun,
Which warms his skin with tender morning glows,
Shines as a hoard, a legend’s hero won,
A regal gift from grateful prince bestowed.
  With resurrected voice from haunted past
  Her face within the crowd echoes at last.

AGW 23rd January 2017

Ambush

I lie
Quietly
In darkness
Waiting
Patiently
To ambush
Sleep