Sonnet
Sting in the Tail [sonnet]
He opened the box, carefully looked inside
then sniffed the air which seemed to have no scent
of any former mouldy calcified
unedifying, ossified event.
He climbed into the darkness which he knew
from many other boxes of this kind.
Believing he could trust his overview
he danced with joy — but soon was undermined.
Just when he thought that all was light and clear
some pointed thing swept through the air above
and struck his bare unguarded fearless rear
(it didn’t feel like friendship or like love).
So from now on he has no more excuse.
Such nicely-packaged scorpions won’t seduce.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Out of this World [sonnet]
There’s only one sole place I want to be;
it isn’t on a map or on this earth.
It can’t be found through using geography
Not even if you look for all you’re worth.
You will not guess it using logic’s brain
nor with a compass will you this spot find.
If you should search too much you’ll go insane
(unless you see it’s just a state of mind).
For even though I’ve longed to have this dream
fulfilled for longer than I can recall;
there’s something dark about its central theme
which from all sense of comradeship does crawl.
The place of which I speak cannot be named
The answer’s in the fish which was proclaimed.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
No Single Flower’s Scent [sonnet]
Your beauty does not rest in your body
or in your face or any other place
or in the manner of your hot embrace
(although they are its part-epitome).
Neither does it lie in your clothing schemes:
sweet floral printed dresses, clogs in black,
Doc Martin lookalike lace-ups (thick-track)
nor sleek long evening dresses made of dreams.
Such things are tokens of your beauty’s art —
some facets of a diamond’s surface scan
or lesser details from a painting’s span —
warm showers (not a deluge) on my heart.
For though your beauty bursts like buds through earth
no single flower’s scent tells its full worth.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Teething Brain [sonnet]
I know I said I give my all to you
(and you said I am yours and you are mine)
but what I said was not completely true;
for one square centimetre I decline
to send across the empty frozen waste
which fills the space between my shape and yours
and hope it doesn’t leave an aftertaste
of unfulfilled and misplaced metaphors.
The reticence you sense within my heart
(a temporary teething state of brain)
is so I will adjust to taking part
in soaring altitudes without the pain.
I never flew this high or far before;
so please forgive me while we both explore.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Sometimes I Must Avert my Gaze [sonnet]
In some strange way it hurts to see your face.
It’s not a thrusting, piercing spike of pain
but rather like some shadowed chlorophane
where splendour morphs with melancholy’s grace.
Perhaps your visage bleeds with ancient throes
which rippled through your lifeline when it rained;
just as a swollen river overflows
when all its shorelines cannot be contained.
But even though I must avert my gaze
sometimes (for your affliction is my own);
such empathy my love for you displays
for in my heart your beauty I enthrone.
So if I ever quickly look away
please know it does not happen with dismay.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Love Bubbles [sonnet]
You gave my magma permission to flow
as if it was a dam breached by the sea —
unleashed the power of my volcano
which dormantful had languished sulphurly.
But all those bitter fumes are now dissolved
as in your eyes I glidely rise to sky;
and through your lips my loneness is absolved
(although we kissed for hours, no time went by).
So now that molten rock runs down a stream
of ever-widening flood and torrid deep.
I now know you are more than just a dream:
My heart awoke from numbed-down oversleep.
For lava does not burn when in the sea;
but crazy bubbles wrap round you and me!
© 2012, Alan Morrison
There is One Flower [sonnet]
There is one flower I’ve known from time to time
which even grows in darkness (as I’ve learned).
It always falls outside my paradigm —
its size depending on how much I yearned.
It flourishes with trust and moonly light
and must be watered well with tears of joy.
The buds lie dormant in the dead of night
for only in the dawn they redeploy.
However, such a flower as this can wilt
or shrivel from neglect and fade away.
No bed of roses yet has drawn a quilt
of dovely down where I, in peace, can lay.
But now I’ve reached a meadow on my road
with flowers galore. Could this be my abode?
© 2012, Alan Morrison
One Big Jigsaw Puzzle [sonnet]
We are all just pieces in each other’s
sacred puzzles; sometimes fitting wholly
to the next ones just like blood-born brothers;
other times connection meets more slowly.
With some we never will connect at all —
at least not in the physicality
of time and space on this occasion’s trawl
through parallel dimensionality.
But if, as one huge jigsaw, we are full
enmeshed and clickly dovetailed on all sides
what foolishness it is to finger pull
and trigger euphemistic homicides.
To take another life creates a hole
upon our tapestry’s collective soul.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
There is no Wasted Time [sonnet]
There can be no such thing as wasted time.
For every foolish error gives a chance
to learn; and every misstep in our dance
is just a misdemeanour not a crime.
To see things as they truly should be seen
(viz. to know that nothing’s ever squandered
wherever our hearts and hands have wandered)
will render every moment evergreen.
Thus, nothing in this life can be misspent —
no consequence can ever atrophy.
The seconds of the clock are alchemy:
Each tick a chance for us to reinvent.
When we can understand why lessons come
then “wasted time” will not be burdensome.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Was it ever Love? [sonnet]
[For Viva]
When what we think is love does turn its face
towards a nightmare shadowed from the sun;
then tenderness and joy it will displace
with laughing masklike fury’s smoking gun.
For love is not the same as naked lust
(although it sings with mimic tuneful sighs).
The first one gives — the other’s base is thrust;
but power to heal will never brutalize.
How can it slake your soul when fists hail down?
(But yet some strange attraction draws you in).
You’re both his puppet and his random clown
unless you cauterize him from within.
When dust has cleared revealing light above
the question thunders: “Was it ever love?”
© 2012, Alan Morrison
The Naked Troubadour 