NEW POEMS ADDED (OR ADDED TO) OFTEN
Although all by the same person there are different moods and a variety of content. I see no merit in seeking out an individual "style": that's a bit self-conscious, deliberate and constraining. If others see one, that's a different matter: up to them and fine by me!
JUST CLICK on any titles
LISTED ON THE LEFT
and
BOTTOM of the page
to get to that page at once.
There are 3 newish running sections:
GIFT BOOK some light-hearted play with Shakespeare's quotes
WITCHES END, a childrens (?) poem published by instalments and continuing (ad infinitum?)
INSPIRED BY just SIX so far, but "Extremes" below may well be moved to make these SEVEN
...all shown on the LEFT near the top
EMAIL ANY (that's either brave or stupid) COMMENTS TO: davidgoulding84@interpoems.com OR
Here are EIGHT (not necessarily typical!) samples:
NIGHT WALK
I walked one night in town,
Passed 50 men if they were a day.
Glared past one who hated his wife.
Danced past another in love for the ninth time.
Stared red-eyed at the tv watcher.
Grinned at another without any money.
They all get hungry and eat.
Winked at the suit who’d come from his mistress.
Scowled at the prim one just because it was Sunday.
One was boss-eyed – perhaps I’d been drinking.
Dragged past another who lived like a habit.
They all get thirsty and drink
I jumped past the one who was getting promoted.
Had a job getting past the one with eight children.
I smiled a bit at the man with no clothes on.
And I think I made the man with the dog itch.
They all get frightened and hate
EXTREMES
(Inspired by Alexander Pope)
We can succeed, or at least we get along,
In knowing very right from very wrong.
We usually distinguish black from white
And huge from miniature at once on sight.
To emphasise the point ad nauseam
And bellow to the world because I am
So certain of my ground in this respect,
And will have no-one show it disrespect,
We see all these: the faster out of snail
And cheetah; and which most free: in jail
Or roaming on a tamed wild, coastal hill;
That a muscled athlete is not quite as ill
As a leper nearing the welcome end
Of a tapering life; and, finally to send
The message and complete my mission,
That less dishonest than a politician
Is almost anyone, it has to be admitted.
I doubt the cap could ever be more fitted.
Extremes are easy, and are quickly seen,
Impenetrable is the in-between:
All grey and doubtful, but so is human life.
So why the intense toil and zealous strife
To define, label, box and then set out
The indefinable limits of what it’s all about?
A line has to be drawn to mark a base?
But each person’s line is in a different place.
SCHIZO
His schizophrenia came and went
Through variable health and night and day,
Through coffee hours and menial bathroom rites,
Through warm duty times with pets and family,
And then to radioed travel and repeating work
With convivial splashes; even his sofa divided between
blinkered reading and his blind TV.
So many lives, selves, characters to play:
His personality not split but splintered
And sent to infinity, like big-banged galaxies
Cavorting away and away from each other for ever.
He could not learn that he was only one,
Though all his parts would still die on the same day.
CAT
A cat got run over.
Belonged to a little girl.
Wow! Some poet, or other, could go to town on that.
The maudling and the cute and cosy weeping
could drip from every line.
But she said:
“It’s dead.
If it doesn’t get better, we’ll get another”
Still, she is very small
And the cat’s name was Fred.
Sometimes it got a bit fierce.
Sometimes it thought it was a dog –
following you about and things.
A cat, but just different enough to deserve a name:
Missed but not mourned.
Funny, the little girl seems to have
the right perspective, somehow.
when daffodils die
when daffodils die
next winter is seen
when crocuses cry
grey suffocates green
when snowdrops flop
swallows pass through
when bluebells drop
snowstorms ensue
as each spring ends
Christmas is there
summer only pretends
autumn is where?
as first youth is lost
old age can be seen:
your prime is a ghost
middle age a has-been
HEADLINES
Vain bargain for the hour that death is due
Though: “she has time to come to terms with
dying”
For headlines blazed in black are always true
Minutes for sale, each one can buy you two
We haggle with, not for, our final sighing
Vain bargain for the hour that death is due
In Chinese floods ten thousand dead too few
Whilst one lost westerner has nations crying
For headlines blazed in black are always true
So make your devil’s pact and see it through:
You may, but will not, stop the seconds flying
Vain bargain for the hour that death is due
Though death is old as hills and never new
It makes great copy with the ink still drying
For headlines blazed in black are always true
Dozens blitzed for a cause without a clue
From instant life to nothing without trying
Vain bargain for the hour that death is due
For headlines blazed in black are always true
author's note: A VILLANELLE: ..if you think it is formally wrong in any way please tell me.
COLOURS
Red are her moods
Her trust is green
Black are her arts on me
She broods unseen these colours three.
Brittle gold, her heart is yellow
Her hate, fired up, glows white
She’s fashioned into evil every hue
And yet I mellow in her sight
just because her eyes are blue.
author's note: my form ..and no apologies for the colours!
EYES DOWN
Your feet are clever:
they know just what to do
There are no precious stones strewn before you
the streets aren’t paved with gold
The gaping holes that scare you
aren’t in the road, but in your head
keep your feet on the ground, OK, but not your eyes
Look up, my friend, the world is level with your sight
imperfect, yes, but flawed not floored
Join in, accept, embrace
at least if you collide, you’ll see it coming.