If [sonnet]
A disembodied voice was in my ear
with layered tones I never did expect
to come from her. Its sound was full, sincere,
with laughter there and always star-bedecked.
To dance upon those suns in playful praise
produced in me a joy I hadn’t known
for many moons of empty mournful days —
at last, my melancholy overthrown.
But while that fluted palette fills my mind
some other, lower, thought assails my smile
(becoming with our tryst now intertwined)
which will not with desire be reconciled:
If she were not now with somebody else
I’d gladly give to her all of myself.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Missing [sonnet]
A hole exists beyond all ozone thoughts
which, I confess, did take me by surprise.
An empty iceful chasm come to naught;
I watch and gasp but won’t believe my eyes.
The more I look the larger it becomes
but not because it merely seems that way;
no optical illusion to be shunned,
no magnet pull to make me want to stay.
I thought the hole would boundlessly be deep,
chock-full of treasure trove and ancient dreams.
Instead I found it strangely incomplete;
no waterfalls or mermaids — just Snow Queens.
Although there’s beauty, vast amounts of space,
grace and passion are missing from this place.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Baggage Class [sonnet]
When frightened people run this broken world,
this broken world will not remove their fear;
for fear accumulates and, like a pearl,
in secret grows until it domineers.
When frightened people feign to be one’s friends,
that friendship will not take away their dread;
as phobic apprehension never ends
but yeastifies like sour unleavened bread.
However big your axe-to-grind becomes,
your shoulder-chip it will not hack away.
The fact remains that we cannot be chums
until you can embrace the present-day.
It’s not the baggage size which spoils the freight
but if what’s packed inside is out of date.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Flyless World [sonnet]
So, one by one they drop away like flies
without a chink of respite in between.
They fall down lightly not from starlit skies
but through electric-lady shock machines.
Bemused, I dangle, arms outstretched and bare
while silken angels hover near my throne
to watch the sorry show and then compare
their axe-free observations with their own
delightful flyless sane and loving world
where lies and disingenuousness die
where women would not feel ashamed as girls
nor reticent to flirt and mystify.
If only I could change my universe
to one where friendship’s lure was not a curse.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Amedeo Modigliani
“When I know your soul, I’ll paint your eyes”
(Amedeo Modigliani to his muse, Jeanne Hébuterne)
The Turning Coat [poem]
I never knew what turncoat meant until I met you r alterego other half posing proudly like a stained old scarf draped around my stranded neckline bent out of shape by treacherous plotlines your face (like your coat) a looming warcrime That ability to turn yourself with gusto into someone else that others want to see even at the expense of trust between you and me is bowdlerisingly bruised and blessingfree The way you become someone altogether other when you feel under threat or imagine that you're vertically smothered is kissofdeathingly drownful for lovers The reversibleelbisrever lining on your coat has, I see, shiny-textured brittle buttons beautifully turnéd out wardly in order to mask so cloakingly the seams which should have gone in wardly Some years were spent in deskbound dread in case that lining would be spread through such indelicate weaveless ease with freezeful woes through polyester's painful loveless undertows across my sizely shoulders broad and burdened ever-ready to receive but all I saw were Autumn leaves and limestone boulders not a stitch to which a searchful man could rightly cleave in time to save a lonesome one nevermind a nonesome nine O how I longed to see that garment lining-free as it should be with you and me just running free bedecked in sequins nothing hidden undersea it's train behind us flowingly while growingly we learn to venture nakedly our skin for coats and all the while ensconced by love without debris © 2011, Alan Morrison
Only a Sparrow [sonnet]
Does familiarity breed contempt?
Comparatively so, I have to fear.
Comme d’habitude will crumble dream cement
and with a film of blindness it will smear
fool’s eyes. How easily we lose our joy
at seeing something close before our face;
our sense of wonder it will soon destroy
and sink surprise’s seedlings without trace.
Look in the tree! “It’s only a sparrow”,
intoned a weary voice who’d seen it all
a thousand times — his reverence so narrow
(although before that splendour I must fall).
Too readily we close up beauty’s door
when frequency negates our sense of awe.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Fragments [song lyric]
there’s a fire in the attic
there’s a furnace in the hall
and the restless heart within you
is a stone’s throw from the wall
there’s a hailstorm in the window,
there’s a torrent in your soul
and the fat cats in the corridor
are looking for the hole
there’s thunder in the chimney
there’s a desert in the bed
and all the strength has drained from you
through something that you said
there’s a typhoon in the windmill
and an iceflow in the bay
with a plot to tie your laces up
and take your toys away
Played and Lost [song lyric]
I played the game of love and then I lost
I knew not that it was a game at first
But now I paid the price at such a cost
All future close liaisons will be cursed
I loved a girl; she said that she loved me
She told me that she thought I was The One
But nothing in this game of love comes free
Especially living near the midnight sun
Orgasm [sonnet]
When within you my inner landscape bursts
I am both giving all of me to you
and lavishly loving the way you birth
me in reverse (your cardinal virtue).
All of you. All of me. Floating and free
as through your labyrinthine temple doors
a fleshly part of me pampers your needs
while all my hearting hugeness heaves and soars.
And yet I hardly have your full depths plumbed:
Even the ecstasy deeper things masks.
Something vast and largely untouched then comes
to pass, eclipsing my post-coital gasps.
If only I could keep this fleeting bliss
in heaven wrapped up with an angel’s kiss.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
The Naked Troubadour 