Sonnet
Merge [sonnet]
Cautious smiles flickered on her wounded lips
behind the fire curtain drawn across
her face. There is a wariness which drips
out of her pores. I sense she’s suffered loss.
I know her pain (I think she knows I know);
but neither of us states the way we feel.
Thus, to prevent the fact that hurt may grow,
we hold back and our longings we conceal.
This gentle soul’s been bruised and left to die.
Am I, alone, the only other soul
to see her scar and want to sanctify
its cells and melt her shell and make her whole?
It’s long since I have felt this sacred urge
to take a woman in my arms and merge.
.
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© Alan Morrison, 2014
The Table of this World [sonnet]
Those feet of mine have never slid beneath
the table of this world nor ever could.
This world will never throw my way a wreath;
my only hope: to be misunderstood.
In early years those elements would sting
but now they glide like water off my back.
For in this world to nothing I will cling;
I’ve learned to deal with anything I lack.
But there’s another world beyond our view;
in fact, there’s more than one outside this hole
of green and brown and red and black and blue.
The urge to leave I barely can control.
No tables here will fit (as I have found);
and nothing more will keep me on the ground.
.
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© Alan Morrison, 2013
Curtain-Raiser [sonnet]
It’s good to have the windows open wide
for scents and sounds can enter as they please
and birdsong through that open space can glide.
So long as Summer holds, the room won’t freeze.
But predators can come while people sleep
if bars have not been placed around the hole.
Deft pedlars of deceit can sprightly creep
into your house if you won’t take control.
To speak more plainly than you’ll think is right:
(for you who keep your lace-net curtains drawn
[I know against these words you’ll dogly fight])
behind those drapes you’re just a blinded pawn.
Pulling back the veil brings cries of “Slander!”
Most prefer mythology to candour.
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© Alan Morrison, 2013
Contusion [sonnet]
At first only my footsteps could be heard
while walking in that forest on the hill.
But then a sound (was it a mockingbird?)
of grasping, struggling fingers; it was shrill.
Alongside all that shrillness came a voice
of endless rivered grief yet golden calm;
as lovely you made some pragmatic choice
which yielded an effective healing balm.
When all these puzzles hunkered into place
revealing their contused identity,
I wrote with blood my name in lowercase
and tiptoed round you gently — sacredly.
This bruise which lesions round your broken core
will surely fade with flowers at your door.
.
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© Alan Morrison, 2013
More than a Rosebud [sonnet]
There was one part of her which made its mark;
though others did their work to sculpt the whole.
The way her lips were shaped in me did spark
a joyful sigh. (I give you my parole).
With mouths like rosebuds some can show their charm;
while others pout and pose to cause a stir.
Her mouth of cavelike mystery would disarm
the staunchest facial structure connoisseur!
Yet, some would find my observations coarse;
might even say such words could sound perverse.
To them, with vigour, I, with counterforce,
say lips have found their zenith in this verse!
Her mouth: The part which deeply spoke to me.
If you could see it too, you would agree.
.
.
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© Alan Morrison, 2013
My Creamly Friend [lunar sonnet]
A Hunter’s Moon of power shines today;
and we are but her ebb and flowful tides.
Some sensing souls are thrown in disarray
while round our greenblue ball she creamly glides.
Reflecting only light from mother’s smile
intensified by monthish phasely flow;
she grasps my sleepless heartbeat for a while
and only later see she’s helped me grow.
From where, I wonder, did your craters come?
Did meteorites invade your virgin space?
When in your tidal waters I have swum
did you infuse me with your limpid grace?
A moonless earth I cannot comprehend.
Without her gravity I’d have no friend.
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.
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© Alan Morrison, 2013
Just Another Culture Clash [sonnet]
Orang and Utan were two chimpanzees;
animalistic actors on the fence –
jungle-living creatures with no conscience
wrapped up in the branches of some trees.
Then Orang nearly jumped out of his skin;
a human rattled something in the leaves.
So Utan got the hump – rolled up his sleeves:
“Upstarts we will not tolerate within”.
But when those words reverbed in Thunder’s ears
a lightning bolt from darkened skies unfurled.
“Your style of life and thought disturbs my world
It’s time you heard some music from the spheres”.
What’s happening here? said monkey (voice was brash).
I answered: Just another culture clash.
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© Alan Morrison, 2013
Iceberg in your Heart [sonnet]
You’re not the woman who I once had known.
For then, our universes parallel,
the iceberg in your heart had still not grown
and then you laughed and loved so well.
Abuse you suffered at your father’s hands
has hung itself upon your perfect breasts
while by your prison bed another stands;
and now an anger all your words infests.
But how can daddy’s failure take its toll
in such a way that overtures of love
are crushed and burned up by your frozen soul
(your body just an empty pairless glove)?
“I’m lost,” you told me. “Nothing you can do”.
I will not rest until once more you’re you.
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.
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© Alan Morrison, 2013
Unfinished [sonnet]
“Don’t leave me”, were the pleading words you said.
Yet how can I leave someone who’s not there?
“Don’t leave me all alone” — your words (with dread)
as if we’re in some torrid love affair.
“I need you in my life”, you said with tears.
Yet I’ve no function in that life today.
For when I send my arrows or my spears
of love or any thing, you look away.
So far we’ve not fulfilled our mission call;
we never really finished what began.
Parentheses have been our curtain call.
(Sometimes you made me feel like I’m a man).
There is no you for me left here to leave.
In the meantime I’ll just quietly grieve.
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.
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© Alan Morrison, 2013
Smart Alec [sonnet]
What did poor old Alec do to coin
the phrase referring to his name as Smart?
And who did those two words so rudely join?
If I were him I’d keep them both apart.
I’m told he was some hapless New York pimp
who, with his wife, the punters he did rob.
Although it seems Smart Alec was a wimp
who failed to bribe the cops while on the job!
So Alec Hoag was never really “smart”
and neither were his namesakes since those days.
Such people never speak out of their heart;
an emptiness their knee-jerk speech betrays.
They stalk the wise like midges round a light;
Smart Alec’s just an envy parasite!
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© Alan Morrison, 2013
The Naked Troubadour 