WHO HEARS THE CRY FOR HELP?

As the ocean roars,
who hears the cry for help,
a cry carried to several coves beyond?
Who picks up the human voice
in the wind's bluster?
Who sees a dot far out to sea
and shrugs unable to identify
who or what it might be?


Who turns away to follow
all the others who turned away,
not wanting to get involved,
not wanting to waste their day?


Who hears the cry for help?

AGING POET

At half my age I looked for reasons,
wondered at the changing seasons,
searched for answers in record tracks
and tried to paper over cracks.
Now I'm twice as old as that,
I sit with rolls of midriff fat
and chastise myself to act my age,
yet still the challenge of the page
demands a poem, worldly wise,
but I look bemused and rub my eyes.

POET LAUREATE

This piece was written as a song, a folky piece, but based on a true romance in 1976.


I used to write poems for you
in our hot summer love affair
and I'd smile as I read them to myself
when no one was there.


I wrote seven that are special,
some more along the way
and I'll give them to you, wrapped with love in velvet,
maybe one day.


I thought I was your Poet Laureate
for you were my ambition
and that summer was the best of times
without a contract of conditions.


Maybe I wrote this song for you,
or perhaps it wrote itself,
you've gone so I place it gently out of reach
up on a shelf.

I thought I was your Poet Laureate

for you were my ambition

and that summer was the best of times

without a contract of conditions.

THE STRID

Shin-deep in autumn leaves,
we took the riverside path, 
a slimey run of various browns,
to the angry rush of water called the Strid,
so-called because it's a stride wide
from slippy rock to slippy rock
a tempting dare for the brave and the stupid,
a jump that ends in cheers
or ends in tears, 
success by the skin of your teeth
or lost forever in the chasm beneath.

HANDBAG

My mother's old, dusty handbag,
stuffed with photographs,
all of them black and white,
some pristine, some worn at the edges,
some blurred, some faded,
some looked at more than others,
her family, her friends, scenery,
meaningless to some of us,
memories for her, moments in her long life,
snapshots of personal history,
her story, a treasure trove of self
stored on a high wardrobe shelf.

FAIL TO CARE

I hold the dry leaf,
crush it in my fist
and slap the dust from my hands.
As the leaf vanishes
into thin air,
I shrug
and fail to care,
oblivious to nature's grief.


It was only a leaf.

GUNSLINGER

The gunslinger lies
bleeding to death,
resisting his last breath.


A crowd gathers.
They know his name.
They see his shame.


Once the fastest
draw in the west,
now lying second best.