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John Anderson Poem
The sorrows we borrow,
the sorrows we keep—
are debts of the dead,
replayed in our sleep.
Blood writes the tally,
blood writes it in red;
tomorrow collects
what yesterday bled.
The sun drags its shadow.
The sun drags its shroud—
darkness advancing
cowering aloud.
Dry eyes at dawn.
Ashes inbred;
a prayer in the dust,
a prayer for the dead.
The sun flares faintly,
a wound in the sky.
The clouds part briefly,
yet cold will not die.
What was served yesterday
lies rotting today;
a banquet of abstinence,
a plate of decay.
Tears must be borrowed.
Tears must be sown;
the covenant is endless,
the debt as ever has grown.
I am summoned.
I am again sworn—
to gather the blood,
to nourish the thorn,
to water dead flowers,
for sorrow's reborn.
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2025
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John Anderson Poem
My shoes lie prone like dogs waiting for a new adventure
Will it be a soft seashore shuffle?
A jaunt through the mall, all dusty with grime
A plunge to tippy-toe into mud and puddles
A climb up a tree or hike up mountain slopes
A skip through playgrounds with the kids
A ride up an escalator, what a relief!
All polished and shined, a first date in mind
A twirl around dance floor, avoiding soft toes
Laced up tightly and properly for business date, late
Or pounding the pavement for shopping walk jaunt
A stroll through the park on soft green grass, fresh mown.
Finally to relax off-feet, in lounge room, at last we're home,
Before shoes shed, get bedded in closet with friends,
Who share tales and tongue wags with the shodden down-trodden.
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2016
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John Anderson Poem
Mister Joe, poet, jangles loose change in his pocket,
Jogging memories and garnering thoughts as he walks.
For Mr. Joe's brain washes, tumbles and dries,
his gems of thoughts in hourly cycles, with riddles, jingles and rhymes.
Each wash-up, extracted, pegged, and hung up to dry,
To taunt and flap jangles for him, his readers and strangers near by.
Mister Joe's charm icons are processed, mulled over, distilled and wrung out for meaning within.
His jangles find meaning in bumps on smooth paper, read as Braille.
His jangles arise from stones skipped over calm smooth waters,
yielding meaning in the creases and ripples created.
His jangles rattle his sleep awake each night, with sky rockets of images and flashes bursting.
His jangles are a empowering, rewarding, revealing, enlightening,
and sometimes troubling and haunting, but can't be undone.
His jangles are his rhyme and reason, his friend and confidant, his mater and aether
His jangles are really what he's all about as a poet,
as a miner and peddler of ideas, and as a prophet and revealer.
Mister Joe's charms jangles the minds of his readers
His words cast nets to trawl up memories and concepts,
lured within the reader's mind with word play and twists.
Seas of dreams and memories are netted, prodded and poked
To yield twinkles, sparkles, hums, grunts, and nods of appreciation and delight.
His jangles finding meaning and echoes with links and associations, never before conceived nor considered.
Mister Joe's catch of memories once jangled, are returned to reader with care
Embellished and enthralled by meaning, relevance, word play and twists.
The reader now has new jangles to add to charm bracelet on wrist, or to jingle with loose change in pocket.
Mister Joe, the poet, and his reader, now walk and dance with jangles, jingling echoes within.
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2016
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John Anderson Poem
. Family Gathers
. friends arrive
. flowers fade
. voices soften
. hands reach
. fingers touch
. tears glisten
. eyes meet
. breaths ebb
. lips tremble
. breathing slows
. LAST BREATH
. stillness settles
. silence listens
. ripples widen
. faces paused
. sunlight softens
. memories re-surface
. half-smiles through tears
. grief embraced
. thankful we're here
. coming together
. Love Remains
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2026
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John Anderson Poem
All pie-eyed, I leapt up in the sky to defy
And to decry my flightless plight, that I deny.
I made my wings of feathers, wax and strings,
All strung together with rings, springs and other things.
But aghast, I flew too high, too close to sun's hot blast,
The wax dripped, alas I slipped and fell, like a pie downcast.
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2024
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John Anderson Poem
Why
are there
stars in heaven above
annoying pinpricks in the firmament?
No need for black holes if all stars were shot on sight.
The reach for the stars is hopeless they are so far away we can never visit them.
Knowing the vastness of the universe belittles and demeans us to insignificance.
We would all feel a lot better, sleep a lot better, if stars were switched off.
Like city lights, stars glare, twinkle, flash so bright all night
that we cannot sleep, and shut shutters are so stifling.
If no stars shone, we could leave the curtains open.
Better not to know what may be out there
when aliens may be coming to get us
Celestial abstinence and solitude
is what we all cherish.
Let us hold a vote.
Raise your hands
if you want
all the stars
switched
to off;
stars
shot.
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2018
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John Anderson Poem
ripples on the lake
quietly spreading outward
nature's vibrato
softly falling rain
builds ripples to crescendo
shimmering sparkles
water, calm and still
until stone skips across it
splish splash stepping stones
ripples dance and play
in verse with meter and rhyme
nature's poetry
reverberation
rippling sensation
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2023
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John Anderson Poem
Three celestial bodies 'tis a crowd.
A trinity, a tussle kerfuffle if you please!
The 'three body problem' in space
made Sir Isaac Newton's head ache.
He couldn't sleep at night.
For its easy to see how two bodies interact.
They're a couple
Adding the third one
makes a terrible three, a triad triumvirate.
No one can predict how they will interact
with each other.
Can three tango?
Can you ever really know what
the other one is doing while
you are watching the other one at the time?
It's sneaky what the un-watched
can do behind your back,
in the corner of your eye!
For when three converge,
each longing for an equal share,
on the stage, under the bright lights,
all sense of unity fades into a fractured affair
and a terrible selfish chaotic fight.
But nevertheless, despite all this,
a threesome can be kinky!
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2023
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John Anderson Poem
You know what soccer football needs?
Bigger Goals!
An extra meter on each side of the posts.
Bigger Goals means More Goals!
With goals shot from wider out,
the game then would be far less defensive
with less endless back passing,
and shuffling the deck at the back.
Going All in for Goals,
would produce fairer results,
with less flukes and freaky results
holding the sway.
Imagine scores of 5-7, 10-8, 3-7!
What fans want to see is more goals!
What players want is more attacking football
and fairer results,
with more goals from their great shots, some from wider out.
Its so easily done, just shift the goals posts
out wider by a meter on each side.
What the World Cup Needs Now is
Goals, Goals, Goals!
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2023
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John Anderson Poem
Every image and text we post on Facebook
is selected and air-brushed,
to present our lives as we would like it to be,
sharing images for self congratulation and gloating.
We are both the viewer and the viewed,
the audience and the actor
mutually disclosing tarnished,
filtered and selected images and impressions
to create a make-believe social world.
Now we learn that our private data
and that of our friends
has been leaked to those that
can analyse and create a profile
or our weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
Advertisements and fake news stories
are fed to our in-boxes
to change the way we think.
A chest-full of tarnished reflections
left on our 'Welcome' mats.
Facebook faces front and rear,
are all tarnished reflections.
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2018
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