Sonnet
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
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
Love’s Own Blaze [sonnet]
I will not be ashamed to own my love
to shout it from the rooftops with all joy —
to cry out from the mountaintops above —
the highest herald themes will I deploy.
For I have played the secret games of queens
who swept me under carpets, behind doors;
who scrubbed me from their world by any means —
who made sure that I stayed within their drawers.
But hiding under skirts is not for men
nor knights who sing their ladye’s name with praise.
To be the cloistered closet jewel again
betrays the very heart of love’s own blaze.
I cannot be a secret of my maid
for love must by its nature be displayed.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
My Ladye of the Winde [sonnet]
Surprising simple sounds of breaking air
made waves across the room with curtains drawn.
You languished on the bed and in the chair
and said such weakness made you feel forlorn.
“Forgive me” were the words which struck my ears
as I with other features grappled hard.
A scent with all my senses interfered;
you threw into my way your calling card.
But yet I will not by such stuff be thrown
nor will I acquiesce to sweet redress.
So often strong retorts are overblown
despite the lack of feminine finesse.
No matter how much breeze you blow my way
my love will never fade to yesterday.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
We Hold the Keys [sonnet]
Once you said I hold the key to your soul
that only I your treasures can unlock —
can know your lovely youness as a whole
(your beauty like a lighthouse on a rock).
Such trust and high responsibility
will never be a lightly-treated gift;
but always seen with sensitivity
in honour of the glory of our kiss.
That power you gave me works the other way;
you hold also the key to unlock me.
I know in all our sacred interplay
you’d never do me harm or injury.
Because we gently hold each other’s key
then love in freedom’s reign we guarantee.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Anaesthesia [sonnet]
When crazed and wanton anaesthesia
coldbloodedly applied through my own hand
gripped me with surrealistic seizure
against all suitors I could coolly stand.
So there I stood without a winter coat
convinced my stoic heart would never melt.
I didn’t know there was an antidote
in human form releasing all I felt.
But then your shimmer woke me with a start
(before I’d wandered lonely as a shroud)
and now my eyes have sparkling beauty marks
in place of threatening thunder-laden clouds.
If you had found me countless years ago
a lifetime’s worth of ice could freely flow.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
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 Naked Troubadour 