She’s a Thoroughbred [poem]
I’m going to steal your broken heart, I said;
but not by force for that would be beyond
the dovetailed frame of love and peace.
If I could have your unmuted consent I’ll carry
it away and in my funfurred lair we’ll play.
Love makes me nervous, said she; her
coolness startled by my earthy brevity.
And from her glazed expression I can see
I made a strange impression on her
lifelong gathered concentricity.
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
Over Seas [poem]
How can we love we truly well? she said.
For you are over many seas and dale and dell
and though the distance makes a difference
to the mystery (plus we know no history)
I fear that longingness will take its toll
upon the soul
of who we are
when we’re afar.
My Hyper Cosmic Valentine [poem]
How come I see that face
and know the one who lies
behind the mask
was (in another time)
my heart’s delight
my joy my pain my
want-to-get-it-right again
no matter how many
days and nights and
months and years
and centuries it takes?
The Unquenchable [poem]
How does one measure love?
to know that it is made of steel
(the stable stainless kind)
and not a sludge of dreams unreal
eroding with the winds of time
and — made of words which only
rhyme for one day every single week
(a wretched prospect which I now
regard as wintergarden bleak) —
beguiles the careless soul into
a perfect rigmarole of drudgery.
It’s All getting to me Today
It’s all getting to me today – the sheer wonder of all things. Yes, ALL things. (For even what we call “bad” things ultimately work for good in the overall scheme of life {and are not tornadoes magnificent?}). They have to. We cannot see it now but someday we will, after aeons of turning cogs and the breaking through of primal light into all the fullness of our puny sight…
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
A Major Element of Wisdon
A major element of wisdom is knowing when to say something and when to keep quiet. This means listening to the music behind all words and then responding in harmony with that music. How often we can be sucked into a verbal vortex because we didn’t bite our lips and restrain our responses and wait… for pennies to drop, for lightbulbs to go on, for minds to catch up – always realising where reactions come from. So often we say and do things without even understanding why. We need wisdom to use or withhold our words well.
The Naked Troubadour 