“When I go out in this shithole city
The streets smell like oyster shells.
The tents of the homeless hug in the underpass.
The buses arrive with refugees from the warzones
Beaten and battered with scars
And memories of horrific silence.
Loudspeakers play deafening drumbeats,
Torn meat fills the shop windows behind barbed wire,
Steam from the cracks in the gutter
Sting the eyes with peppered tears
The smokestacks drip urine from their spouts,
Above the oils reflect a yellowness in the clouds.

This poem was inspired by a wonderful day, I was privileged to be invited to her majesty the Queen’s garden party 2015 in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.

I am like a thin glass
full of water.
When you are thirsty
I will replenish you.
When your throat is dry
And you find it hard to speak
I will help you.
When you need me
I am there.
But if you drop me
I will shatter.
And I will cut you open.
Leaving scars all over.
So you will never forget.

A Musing

Calliope

It is a long story to write of you,
An Epic will that do
On many tablets as in days of old
This is how your story is told

Clio

Of times past you tell
Of battles won, and times of hell
Rest a while let your scrolls foresee
A calming image, for you and me.

Erato

Now let me see a lyric you do sing to me
The beauty in the instrument you hold
A lyre from the Greeks of old
Play for me, let days dream by

Euterpe

same blood
different bodies

same air
different lungs

same truth
violent contradictions

I wonder what mood
has the rain!

Does it feel happy
To wash mother
nature's pain?
Does it feel sad
And fall as a sign
of complaint!

Or maybe it just goes
Mad because of
Man's insanity?

I wonder

Prairie In My Pocket
Here in April,
the prairie wind at my back
while white clouds mottle scarce
new grass, I hold in my hand
what has stayed in the jacket for all
the long months since November
Seeds carried through cold times
since that dark day I stripped them, waiting,
from rusty plumes in my fence line;
Turkey Foot, Big Red, Blue Bluestem-
names for an old and simple grass saved
from the plow. Most I scattered on earth far
removed, scratched a shallow bed before the frost

there is a guy I knew unmarried wanted to marry desparately
I asked him why then don't you
he confided
his mother was looking
for a suitable girl
beautiful
rich but like a home maid/nurse
so that when she wanted a massage
she would
and
cook a meal as and when
and
sleep besides her at night

Seven years she had taken
so far
couldn't be obliged
as yet

Does loving you
while we're apart
still count?
Is my biggest sin

that I believe
in alternate universes?
That hope
is like a rocket ship

that can
make it

to other planets,
solar systems,
where all
is dance,
where all
is made
right.

That hope
really does

not disappoint.

Submitted by Esker on Fri, 2017-05-26