Month: Sep 2011
The Mirror of the Mire [poem]
the poet is the pedlar of possibility
the architect of other worlds
reminder of responsibility
deflator of all hubris hurled
iconoclastic painter
dark defibrillator
narrator of all love unfurled
a rendezvous arranger
a nervous bold and
hungry bird
I used to Believe
I used to believe I’m a writer of poems
Now I know that my poems write me© 2011, Alan Morrison
Our Learning Curve [sonnet]
You told me that you learn your lessons well;
on that hangs every hoped-for dream I crave.
For loving you with every pining cell
ensures those lessons will our trothness save.
I never wish to be a source of pain
or torture you with love’s untender rack.
At most I seek to drench you in the rain
which, falling hard, may melt old cul-de-sacs.
But you are not the only student heart
for by this marriage my stiff stones are turned;
as piece by piece my folly falls apart:
To fall for you means lessons must be learned.
Such all-consuming earthquake love as ours
despite the falling rocks) is strewn with flowers.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
My Greatest Enemy [sonnet]
My loving heart seeks only peaceful means
to make its way through every troubled world;
while bombs and guns blow souls to smithereens
and bullets at small children’s heads are hurled.
I make my trenches deep in flow’ry fields —
those graveyard dreams where only poppies grow;
while all my opiated suff’ring yields
a lifelong minus conflict afterglow.
Yet though from foes my heart is always free
(for even when I’m hated I’ll not spite)
I have to — if I’m honest — disagree
as there is one opponent whom I blight.
Despite the fact that from all war I flee
the greatest enemy I have is me.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
The Space Between Us [sonnet]
There is a space between us filled with air;
this day it has expanded wide and deep.
No more our hungry bodies we can share
or reach out touching while in bed we sleep.
Reluctantly you faded to the sky
while watching helplessly I sighly mourned.
My own fool self I crassly crucify
and feel my heart dissolving unadorned.
Meanwhile back here in naked neverland
I struggle with my clearview vision’s scene.
You sit there in a makeshift witness stand;
your right hand raised (my agony ravine).
As soon as your sweet presence disappears
that space between our souls fills up with tears.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Transfiguration [sonnet]
We sanctify all spaces with our love —
transform them into lifeful-scented scenes.
A scraggy-feathered bird becomes a dove
and leafless trees are changed to evergreens.
Our lantern lips meet in a darkened room
and suddenly Aurora’s sunlight shines.
Embracing hotly by a rubbish heap
makes refuse-laden stigmas redefined.
I swear that if we in a battlezone
should conjugate ourselves in passion’s blaze
all guns would melt and drown the combat drone
while bullets danced in ceaseless ricochets.
Each time we kiss or other gesture make
A place becomes a palace in our wake.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
I Could not Say I Love you [poem]
I could not say I love you
(though I do).
To say that
I’m in love with you
would
(although so true)
some precious thing
undo.
Non-Sense [sonnet]
When you’re not around not one thing makes sense.
Stars seem red behind laughing clouds of green;
as healthy germs are placed in quarantine.
Now nothing happens in the present tense.
When you’re not around everything seems weird:
The trees have witchy fingers spooky shapes
(deep-rooted in a dried-up lunarscape)
while every leaf and flower snigger-sneers.
But when you grace my presence with your poise
the jigsaw pieces crumple into place.
Dead suns will blare their light in hyperspace —
cacophony becomes a joyful noise.
Am I a foolish man (undignified)
to want you here forever by my side?
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Ineffable [sonnet]
If words could sum your features up with ease
my voice would speak them ceaselessly with pride;
but I can only know them by degrees —
not concretely but faintly, half-implied.
Your landscape spansome smile disarms my mind;
removes its normal smooth semantic flow.
Your eyes with undulations undefined —
a changing crazy-patterned portico.
The multi-facet mazeful mouth I see
becomes a work of art (I’m dewy-eyed).
The whole ensemble shifts repeatedly
and I dumbfounded am on every side.
To think that I could grade your face with words
is not only conceited but absurd!
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Nowhere Else to Go [sonnet]
For countless desert years I searched in vain
and made my bed unconsciously in stone.
I never could my loneliness explain
and all my garden gates were overgrown.
In caves I sought my solace like a thief
who plunders from the far side of the sun;
I flirted with the fires of disbelief
avoiding love’s debris (that smoking gun).
Thus every time I thought I’d settled down —
(uncomfortable couches were my home
and troglodytish parlours proved my frown) —
I disillusioned was with where I roamed.
My foolish bolthole choices all fell through
because I’d nowhere else to go but you.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
