‘Merry Trinkets’

Trinkets and knickknacks!
Spilling under the tree.
Doodads and baubles
Glistening in green.
Gimcracks and trifles
Jingling and jumping.
Wrapping paper flying!
From the flurry of hands
And warm winter sleeves.
So gay and jolly!
As they give and receive
All the trinkets are swinging
And shining in the light.

*Yes I realise I should’ve posted this around Christmas, but oh well.

The Alter

You’re the love of my life,
So i’ll make sure you’re my wife,
Forever. Till the end.
I know where we’ll meet,
At the alter, in such a heat,
At the perfect moment.
You’ll make me all sappy,
God knows I’ll be happy,
And it’ll last.
We all know it makes sense,
I was never on the fence,
We’ll get there.
So when the clock strikes three,
I need you there: for me.

‘Come Lord and Lift’ by T. Merrill

Come Lord, and lift the fallen bird
Abandoned on the ground;
The soul bereft and longing so
To have the lost be found.

The heart that cries—let it but hear
Its sweet love answering,
Or out of ether one faint note
Of living comfort wring.

This is one of my favourite poems by a contemporary poet. It is a breathtaking cry of compassion for a fallen creature, and metaphorically for ourselves. What do you think?

What is writing?

Sitting at a keyboard and bleeding.

Back to the winter theme: ‘Icy Lanes’

Ice had covered the long darkening lanes,
Masking the treacherous grey tar and panes,
Spreading so far, nothing fled its frost.
And now the cold has caught us: at a cost,
Crystals and diamonds shall soon become coal,
As sure as hell, the ice will take its toll.
The innocents are falling and slipping,
Finding out, too late: the ice is cunning,
But even then, when it’s dwindled and doomed,
We see liquid limbo, and we’re consumed.
I sat in the gutter on soggy spit,
But I felt the splutter of iced-up shit.

Here goes. This was the first poem I ever wrote, about World War 1, called ‘Look’

 

 

His gaze

Travelled up the wounded trees, taking in the softly sapping seeds.

Their eyes

Hoped not to meet the tired wonder of broken, barren plains.

Her ways

Could not grasp the gaping holes nor the hellish embers on heath.

Our hopes

Were that a war would never hurt a great land so gravely.

Your sight

Swallowed grey death on bleak and black and blood ended sands.

My life

Look. It is despair.