living poems: some new and alll original work

davidgoulding84@interpoems.com

AUTUMN


The first breeze of Autumn softly cools the air.


Flashing greens expand, dilute and change;


and the glittering days of summer flare


and die: clear and confident to muted strange.


So are your eyes: they sparkled, laughing in the light;


but now their sapphire shimmer fades


to a deep moistness that reflects the night,


and offers love much softer, warmer in the shade

I WISH

 
    I know,          I know
that the more you show you need me
the more I become the man you need.


    is it true,          is it true
that the less time I have to doubt you
the more I can happily live my life? 


    I think,            I think
that the more I stand, sit or lie with you
the less you fill my hospitable mind. 

    I feel,              I feel
that it’s only when I’m next to you
the missing stops to allow other thoughts.


    I wish,             I wish
I could force out a poem, even sometimes
that wasn’t a love song to you.

    but then          again
I would have to create and write it
with you beside me - and could I hold a pen
          instead of you?


SQUIRRELS

Dull day.
Stark grey winter sticks of trees,
      not enough colour to be grey - or black.
All without feature in a mist with no substance.
The sky is hiding and the ferns are dead:
      this through the glass of the windscreen prison.;
      inside, immobile faces add no life:
      frozen and expressionless from excess of feeling.



We sat and watched a dozen squirrels play:
      joyless – us, not them..
We nearly raised one weak smile between us.
But sensed the early winter evening
      draining the little light there was 
      to leave us suffocating in each other’s presence.



Then descending through bitterness,
      accelerating through guilt,
      whirling through remorse:
just three realms of purgatory before landing in hell.



At last we looked up – and
      finding the other just as low,
      we both began to breathe again.

DON’T ASK FOR TOO MUCH

We absorbed the same sun as it bloodied our   

                             eyelids

The clouds that we blinked at were ours to 

                             name.

          We felt the same breeze

          And we heard the same sea.

Bodies together, dreams never the same.

We touched the same earth as dust filtered

                             through fingers

And lived the same day as we breathed the

                             same air;

          But as eyes searched eyes

          And hands found hands

Was it more than one thought as we lay there?

Later, where daylight had given us substance,

Fantasies filled the void round the dark tender

                               bed.

          The pleasures seem shared

          And the dreams seem fulfilled,

But how can I know that my lyrics were read?

It’s fatal to seek the perfection of unity.

By wanting it all I might lose so much.

          A child, though from two,

          Is completely itself:

The future is faded, the past is your touch.

I JUSTIFY

I justify and you indulge

          the day, and day again, recounting

                                of innumerable numbers;

          and those sense depriving,

                                dreadful words.

I justify and you indulge

          the limp madness and lame anguish

          of my real-as-magic half-imagined ills

                         and my electronic proven fault.

I justify and you indulge

           the moss green sulk

                     so cleverly explained

that we, the villain and the victim, swop,

          and agree to change the colour

                        to the red of righteous rage.

I justify and you indulge

          and let the inward eye confuse

                                           the message,

allow the inquests in my prima donna brain

         to feed the hungry cells of self and doubt.

 Do not indulge or justify

                   the unease, jealousy and

                                    spasmodic nausea

even if it seems my groundless moods are only

      a strange product of my love for you.

AM I ALLITERATE?

emerging from a mingling myriad of faceless phantom faces

a finite figure slowly solidifies from the swirling foam of flickering fog

and shapes to a slightly sad seraphic but substantial statue.

in spite of me, the cynic, smiling, stone melts to flesh and the human form;

I actually unfreeze, becoming nearly honest, even warm and sentient.

I believe, well almost, another person is as real as me!

but am I just a monumental ghost to them?