Sonnet
The Dark in your Heart [sonnet]
You thought me conquered by your silken limbs
and for a while you had me by the throat.
Into my head a thousand acronyms
like ‘false love of a trespasser’ did float.
Bedazzled by your frontlights on my road;
transfixed by mouthish muscularity;
your mountains gripped my membership payload
and drained my horn of masculinity.
And yet you wonder whitely with dismay
how come I through your pantomime did see?
Why not seduced by your sweet cabaret —
your presentation done so adroitly?
Despite your aptitude to hypnotise
I saw dark in your heart without my eyes.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
War of the Words [sonnet]
The scout returned and broke the wretched news:
The citadel of dreams was breached by those
whose cold prosaic manner misconstrues
the warm Arcadian heart which overflows.
They stormed the walls with ordinary ink
(for that was all they wielded in their quills).
They thought into that city they could slink
with rubber stamps gained from diploma mills.
Yet, though the walls had crumpled from their weight
(for they were legion, marching in a line)
that city they would never arrogate
nor could they its true dwellers undermine.
Espousing shallow intellect in verse
is in this world a sickness and a curse!
© 2012, Alan Morrison
No Other Way but Deep [sonnet]
“Your trouble is you think too much,” they said
to me at school more times than I recall.
“There’s too much going on inside that head
of yours; you try to run before you crawl.”
They didn’t say it kindly or with care;
their only aim: To make me just like them.
So long as kids were dull and unaware
there was no peccadillo to condemn.
Yet more determined I did then become
to swim upstream with underwater strokes.
Although those forces still are meddlesome;
to dive down from the surface it provokes.
It’s true one can live lightly on the cheap.
For me there is no other way but deep.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Scarf of Glory [sonnet]
[for Susanne]
She wore a scarf but not around her neck;
it nestled gypsy-like upon her head.
I looked but had to do a doublecheck —
the colour of her face filled me with dread.
Tressed and formerly flowing locks of hair
were chemically taken from her skull.
The tear-inducing fragrance of despair
my sunny day of joyfulness did cull.
But when I took a closer look at she
whose loveliness had still come shining through
my heart rejoiced at what there was to see:
A gorgeous princess then came into view.
For though some cells within were broken-down
that scarf she wore on top was like a crown.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Complementary Creatures [sonnet]
We’re equal, spat the woman to the man.
Whatever you can do, I also can.
We’re just the same, she said, with venom voice;
the only difference is I have less choice.
He gazed at her with kindness in his eyes —
which she thought was a patronising stare
for men to her were something to despise —
if only she could see how much they care.
For deep inside her heart he saw a hurt
and damaged soul — her pain she had transformed
into this sharp unkind abrasive curt
self-righteous creature, whom he now informed:
Although we’re equal beings on this earth
We’re here to complement each other’s worth.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
The Sanctity of Skin [sonnet]
The sacredness of intimacy’s deep
enthral embrace is bleakened in this world
of sleepy cold and unawareness cheap
and so uncheerful wasteness unimpearled.
Saliva is another word for bliss
and love-juice aphrodisiac’s a moist
and sliding sleek glissando close-knit kiss
(a measure of the way love is unvoiced).
We overlook — by which I mean we fail
to see — the fundamental ABC
of skinsome close encounter’s alchemy
when liquids mingle and two souls dovetail.
Unless we know the sanctity of skin
we’ll never feel true passion burn within.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Growth Rate [sonnet]
The spinning weathervanes of squandered hopes
have woven pirouettes around my pride.
My battered sense of honour now elopes
with joking wreaths of rash infanticide.
For all the newness latent in this yarn
was drowned in squalls of flood-bequeathing twine
which, trussing me with knots I can’t undarn,
amok with your mendacity combine.
So now that dust has settled on the stone
and peaky-pointed mountainsides of snow
the comprehension comes: You’ll never grow
to see beyond your puerile princess throne.
I wonder wishly what could take your place:
A woman, not a child, must fill that space.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
The Plan Unveiled [sonnet]
When I survey the patterns of my life
the jewels displayed there force me to confess
that through the difficulties and all strife
some hidden influence negates distress.
Perchance celestial keepers guard my days —
angelic wardens working winsomely —
my heart intention with them interplays:
All yearning is to them a litany.
But yet in darker moments I can doubt
that seraphim take interest in my span;
then from the blue a gem comes sparkling out
and serendipity unveils the plan.
Thus, even though some paths are incomplete,
somehow I always land upon my feet.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Lonely Princess [sonnet]
She sits upon her distant homeless throne:
That lonely princess tearing up her eyes.
At first one does not hear her heart of stone,
nor feel her constant floodfill wall of lies.
When closely looking one could see there lay
those marks upon her soul in engram print.
The sharp discerning mind can know that they
do of some hidden hauntful memories hint.
Yet, even though men’s foolish hearts may flow
towards this hurt and whirlwind loveless Miss;
her pokerfaced dissembling — head to toe —
will soon deter seduction by her kiss.
Thus, every lie, deception, angry rail
becomes an unintended coffin nail.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
Broken Beauty [sonnet]
When dragon footprints stride across the sun
intention’s wallet — empty — opens wide.
I tried to count the virtues one by one;
such diligence could not be justified.
For when the emptiness of mouthing ploys
reveal their dull derisive jeering taunts
I feel the frosty cold dark counterpoise
to all entreaties (then the shortfall haunts).
But all such grim considerations pale
to insignificance’s scanty sky
while spoors of fire-breathing monsters scale
to realms which even love won’t mollify.
There’s no more baffling quandary that I know
than heights which have no coital afterglow.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
The Naked Troubadour 