WELCOME

If you’re passing by, the gate’s open so please come in. This is my garden,not of flowers, weeds, shrubs and trees but planted with a variety of ideas, Some grew haphazardly into spindly things without much form, but others I tended and coaxed into bloom. I hope as you wander among my verbacious borders you may see something you like, and when you leave, you feel you didn’t waste your time here.




GROWING UP



Hurry little boy
down the garden path
Hurry little darling,
through your childhood years.
The love that
attends you
would keep you safe
from harns,
and it would
keep you
tight within
its arms.
But hurry little boy
down that garden path.
Hurry little darling
through your childhhood years.
Your manhood
is awaiting
and we must let you go.

But oh our little darling,
it's sad to see you go.
So sad that just the
thought of it
bathes my cheeks in tears.

THE COAT, THE CHAIR, THE BROKEN GLASS

I saw your coat on the back of a chair
and for a moment
I was glad you'd come.
Then I remembered
the night before
when you'd misconstrued
a remark.

We'd almost been close
enough to touch -
our minds in
close proximity.

But a chasm had yawned
and now when I saw the back of your head,
I tensed.
You turned slightly
and in your eye
was a wall eight foot high
and topped with broken glass.

Rain

It's warm tonight, warm as breath
against my skin, and in the air
battleship clouds paint the sky dark grey.

I waited for the rain; I knew the rain would come
and run in rivers down my cheeks
and make an ocean at my feet
where fish and whales would swim
and when I wake, Ill be alive;
I'll be alive like them.

Or never wake, and
sleeping, turn to dust -
the rain to wash away.

Untitled

I looked into the pool, and the way the wind broke up its surface, the reflection of the sky was fractured into a mass of tiny silver bells silently shining their song of light back into the world.
With my hand I scooped to catch them up and see them laugh, but they sank at once
and now all I ever see
is the grey, unsmiling day.

LOVELY PREDATOR

She loves me,
she loves me not;
she loves me,
she loves me...
how can she not?
In our bed she's loved me
when I've given all I could.
She's loved our house,
our cars, my yacht,
and all the things
I've got.
But I am old and
and she is young,
and I am rich,
and she will be
if, not loving me,
she takes me
to the cleaners.

STRAWBERRIES

The strawberries seduced me to a surfeit
when we picked them in that field,
and lifting a laden stem I'd find them
clustered beneath its leaves;
hiding while they ripened;
ripenning to perfection.
Red and shiny tight and
luscious, whispering
seductively to lips,
and teeth and tongue,
with a husky invitation
to enjoy their
soft, sweet,
succulence.
Those strawberries seduced me to a surfeit,
and my memories of that summer
are filled with their delights.

GIRL ON THE STREET

What happened to her,
the girl in the doorway,
her right hand held out,
cupped, and you can see
the ingrained grime
and dirty finger nails;
and when last did
she wash her hair
or have a bath, or
clean anything at all?
When last did she sleep
in a bed or lay her head
on a pillow that didn't stink?
And can she recall
eating at a table
with clean crockery,
and no one swearing,
and food not crushed
into the floor, gone black,
and the reek from
a corner
of urine?

Was she beaten by her dad,
and made to drop her pants
so he could feel, and
if she breathed a word
he'll kill her?

Was she betrayed
by everyone in her life
who should have made
her feel secure, and wanted;
who should have shown her
tenderness and love?

Or did this girl throw her life away
on a whim, for a dare, or
because her boyfriend was throwing
his away and wanted company
on the road he'd taken
to self-destructiion?

I pass her by,
insultating myself
from her failure;
but momentarily
made guilty by it
because I ought to care,
but don't.