Year: 2011
I Clothe me in your Beauty [poem]
I clothe me in your beauty
a woven cloak of ochre made
blood-red inside and brown like earth
whose complex colours never fade
I bathe me in your blitheness
while showers of shifting senseness
wash my wilted soul with widening
waves of laced and lavish gladness
When… [sonnet]
When you said “I will not write long letters
for that is how I deal with missing you
(longing for your molten touch to melt us)”,
I felt my blood dissolve in cobalt blue.
When you said “I will never say goodbye
for that is how I cope with when we part
(as all I’d do is crumple down and cry)”,
a tremble quavered in my aching heart.
Although I know that distance cannot change
a single seething atom of our blaze
(no spark between us can be rearranged),
I in your absence will be disarrayed.
For if I am without your words and face
which part of you will I with fire embrace?
© 2011, Alan Morrison
The Sign on my Door [sonnet]
When all the earth moves under Cupid’s bow
convulsively creating waves which chime
with cataclysmic cadences of flow
(in spite of visions loomingly sublime) —
When riotous eruptions shake the core
of every quaking atom’s dance of love
and aftershocks resound against my door
(the threshold to the threatening skies above) —
Then I (who swore to halt all hurricanes
and keep all raging fires in control)
in my unyielding tower can remain
or let the deluge thunder through my soul.
The tremors round my being do reverb;
the sign hung on my door says “Please Disturb!”
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Hara Kiri Every Time [song lyric]
I have been here before…
Feeling I’m on a mountaintop and riding high
Though all my instincts tell me that it’s all a lie
This is the one I dreamed about my whole life through (yeah)
Thought I could breathe at last although it’s all untrue
Clinging to straws and roses made it seem so fine
Yet I committed Hara Kiri every time.
I thought I’d seen the light…
Flashing and swirling round me like a storm at sea
Warning me not to go there ’cause of where I’d be
Showing me how I’d fall into the poisoned tide
Tearing myself to pieces with that knife inside
But I was like an insect round a candleshine
And I committed Hara Kiri every time.
My Semantic Sea [poem]
I always have the feeling
that I say too much.
In my oral fever
I am constantly ready
with words that gush.
Bubbles come out
from my lips with ease;
I leave not one stone
unturned (unseized).
For words are to me
like a fecund flow
of turquoise-coloured
streams searching hard
for a place in a harbour
to anchor my wildest dreams.
The Cold Water Brigade [sonnet]
Some people see it as a vital job
to put out fires which burn in people’s chests.
They use their winding water hose to rob
you of your ardour felt. They are obsessed.
They spread their darkness using many ways —
(beware they love to make you doubt your dreams)
do anything to try to quench the blaze.
There is no end to all their deadly schemes.
How vigilant do lovers have to be
to spot this army coming from behind!
Equipped with gossip, venom, jealousy,
their aim: That all your flames be undermined.
I’ve seen it all before; it’s déjà vu;
I thwart their every strategy. Will you?
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Pearly Gates [sonnet]
“There comes a point when words have all been used
and nothing is the space that’s left to rhyme;
when even every thought is self-abuse” —
That’s what he pondered as he stood in line.
He wasn’t waiting at the pearly gates
(though how he wished the game would reach an end);
he floundered at the point where truth conflates
with mortal coils which never comprehend.
“If only I could make the grade”, he thought;
but beauty’s endless virtue cast him down.
His walk was wanton, wild and danger-fraught —
reluctantly became his battleground.
When silver bullet wounds have worn him thin
his steps to leave this planet can begin.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
We [sonnet]
We became we when stars fell into place
before we was a twinkle in our eyes.
You bared your soul at mine in uppercase
and now by we my me is mesmerised.
If my me and your you turn into we
an alchemy of souls will have transpired;
for the we that we are now could not be
unless our you-and-I-ness had expired.
And so to every lover on the earth:
the time to quell our egos has arrived;
for in this way we consecrate rebirth
and only purest love can then survive.
Without the we that we have now become
I would be like a flower with no sun.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
The Moment [sonnet]
Of all the trembling moments in my life
(that sequence streak of microsecond sprawl)
of every ticking minute (minus strife)
this one I cherish far above them all.
For looking back on fleeting lifespan’s flight
consecutiveness makes its arrow known;
and always serendipity excites
when by your fingers I am overthrown.
You did not realise it at the time
(or possibly you knew — you simply smiled)
but all my former moments turned to rhyme
when by that healing touch I was beguiled.
Your hand placed on my shoulder when we met
became the moment I will not forget.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
So Much a Woman [poem]
you are more woman than I ever thought woman could be
a stream of softstrength waiting to hold and be held
laughingly. with gentleness we sigh at all the ways
that woman’s deep mystery-giveness is now no longer
deemed to be worthy of wonderful wide-eyed praise
it is your purity of heart which rolls away the layers
enabling you to feel that womansoul which shelters me
when in your presencesun I blithely bathe and you me save
with handsful of touchful healing strokes (not just with your hands)
like sea on the sands of time (you are now my tidal wave)
The Naked Troubadour 