Parlour-Piece by Ted Hughes

With love so like fire they dared not
Let it out into strawy small talk;
With love so like a flood they dared not
Let out a trickle lest the whole crack,

These two sat speechlessly:
Pale cool tea in tea-cups chaperoned
Stillness, silence, the eyes
Where fire and flood strained.

Algebraic Heartache

2 + 2 = 5
the maths is all wrong
nothing adds up
all has gone for a song

can’t seem to formulate
a corrected answer
want to believe I
could just stand a chance

to make it ok again
make it alright
lost all blindsided
and can’t find the light.

Simon Turp RIP

On golden sands stands young Vinny,
next to him the deep, cold sea.

Holding tight in gentle grasp
a slender thread, that does hold fast

a kite to Gaia, life and hearth
to all that exists here on earth.

In the heavens soars the kite,
floating free no need to fight

with clouds that don’t hold any rain
precipitate of cold, hard pain.

The string it breaks, the kite it falls
Vinny cries out, much appalled.

The kite, you see, no longer flies,
it hits the ground and Vinny cries.

And the Others by David Berman

Some find The Light in literature;
Others in fine art,
And some persist in being sure
The Light shines in the heart.

Some find The Light in alcohol;
Some, in the sexual spark;
Some never find The Light at all
And make do with the dark,

And one might guess that these would be
A gloomy lot indeed,
But, no, The Light they never see
They think they do not need.

Swimming to Work on My Bicycle.

The water hits like a wave. Slapping
me about with closed fists,
a proper beating. I
wend away while
brutal blows
keep on
raining
down on
my head now
drenched. A drowned
rat, caught splat, slap
in the middle of a blind storm.

Delay by Elizabeth Jennings

The radiance of the star that leans on me
Was shining years ago. The light that now
Glitters up there my eyes may never see,
And so the time lag teases me with how

Love that loves now may not reach me until
Its first desire is spent. The star's impulse
Must wait for eyes to claim it beautiful
And love arrived may find us somewhere else.

An Acrostic Poem for Ralph.

Rearing up he roars
And though his spittle
Flies I find it
Funny that my
Little friend can show such
Enmity toward a
Stranger of his own morphology.

That he seems to feel such
Hate leads me to
Expect

Ghastly things would sure occur were I to
Even think
(Ne’er mind
The risk to me) of
Loosing him,
Even though he
May well want me to
And, although I love him so, I’m
Not prepared

To pay for any damage. I mean,
Have you heard how
Unreasonably priced
Going to the vet can be nowadays?