Version

Coming between them and their defences

His jokes were on permanent loop,

Her asks turned into commandments.

Select rooms had an absence of sorry.

Her gaze went north into nostalgia,

His walk was southbound toward repeats.

Someone there is to pick up the pieces,

Too, someone who can scarcely believe their luck.

Now the words trail behind like lost keys,

Varied versions for each of the friends

And the composite, that’s more like it.

Memory somewhere retains an old happiness

And the arguments that got in the way,

Recapped in a sentence should mention arise.

Untold

At any chance in the mood the zone

We moon into wonder, let questions unfold,

What it is we were never told

Wonder about again, again leave alone.

And does it matter what we’re never told

Each of us amidst millions the same

Alone with the moon and questions untamed,

Explanations limited, the age old.

It is wild out there beyond the fences

Our parents referenced in morning talk,

Their stories vague answers, deliberately so.

It’s a lifetime unearths and very slow

Each sudden untold on mindful walks,

Coming between us and our defences.

Morning

And outwards curl in air so many colours

The trees, or those spring petals one at a time.

Ovals green with frost sheen, lawns wet lime.

Birds out and about chirping charming weathers.

Last night, the exploration of silence,

Fear first overcome, then desire for truth.

Others at the opera of high-decibel couth

Italians wrote lustily in open defiance.

This morning the unending maze of sealed roads

Proud houses in cold light waking in lines

Return us to the teeter of words, the terms of work.

Extinction takes column inches lonely murk,

Peroxide heads rule the world by crime,

Brutal facts we tease out according to modes.

Tomorrow

Have another look Tomorrow that’s a boy.

Lead’s on the hook we only do it to annoy.

Snuffle the water scoff the biscuits no remark.

Stir crazy okay let’s go to the park.

Trample the daffodils crash into the creek.

Is it you or me who plays hide-and-seek.

Stay sit stay sit that’s a good Tomorrow.

Distant mystery woofs make your brow furrow.

Eat the homework yes enthusiasm rife.

Washed combed clean within an inch of your life.

Every day is different that isn’t the same.

Subtle distinction Tom the name of the game.

Smile if you like but nothing too deep.

Curl in a swirl in your basket and sleep.

Future

Forsake all questions, gone in time where how.

Passengers drag their luggage along the corridor.

Singing rises above a composer’s intention.

Positioned well, yet the signs’ meanings elude.

Future has arrived, it doesn’t even try.

This turn of events goes largely unnoticed.

The improvements are, frankly, only cosmetic.

Answers, even if the case, prove unsatisfactory.

To change the subject just for a minute,

There’s the tech check and homework to be done.

The phone call you won’t make’s the one you must.

Or again, to put it slightly differently,

Isn’t it a bit late in the day for this? Write a note to

Have another look tomorrow.

 

Godless

A sonnet in the style of Jessica Powers

The priest empties as everyone’s gift

The good wine last, to our exclamations.

All other words then are mere complications,

As when I, for instants, follow these drifts:

“I would be god-less when god was a word,

A bargaining chip, a means to divide,

An idol behind which my anger could hide,

A concept on replay, a toy so absurd.

I would invite god-more, knowing not how;

I learns its blesséd lesson there, in stillness,

False selves displaced, proud dreams turned to air.

And there, though confused and bruised near despair,

With single common thanks in my wilderness

Partake (all questions, none) the wine here now.”