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Fred Clark Poem
Two dog night
A stillness had crept in under a cloak
of finely sculptured snowflakes, descending
quietly from an oppressively heavy sky.
It blanketed deserted streets
that longed for the busy life
they had been built to accommodate.
Snow, Nature’s comforter;
Soothing the urban animal
with a winter medley of lullabies.
Slowly the urban nightshift trickles in,
Streets begin their slumbers once again,
Restless, tall buildings grumble as the interlude begins,
Until their lifeblood disappears and emptiness remains.
An empty backyard, sheltered and dry,
his best offer so far.
He slumped onto a pile of empty boxes,
Sleep seductively called his name,
Promising to sooth his deeply furrowed brow
and ease the nagging pain inside his head,
Bringing peace to a troubled mind and soul.
Sing softly, lest we wake the raging bull,
Let sleep cleanse doubts and ease the troubled mind,
Bring forth fresh fields in which to wander free,
While on the far horizon sails his ship close to the wind.
He smiled at a memory,
A Led Zeppelin gig many years ago,
Glory Days!
Eighteen years old and full of life!
Living was easy, problems were small,
His journey through life in its infancy.
Driftwood ebbs and flows with tidal repetition,
His memory playing outtakes from a near forgotten past,
Once, no thought of futures held his gaze,
The present was the only time and surely would forever last.
He woke to a soft edged marshmallow world,
Sweeping lines of virgin snow rose and fell, white and pristine.
White, the colour of colours, yet not colour?
Insipid? Pale? Bland?
Mother Nature’s idea of a joke?
Readying the world for a fresh coat of paint.
The artists canvas, nondescript and white,
Needs colour free and bountiful to stimulate the mind,
Should we ever need reminding of the quality in life,
Look around and see the colours other people leave behind.
He'd aspired to be like his father,
'You missed that target!' said the voice in his head!
"I didn't!" he shouted,
"I didn't!" this time softer and to himself.
The poster on the wall shouted its message:
'EAT AT JOES, ALL YOU CAN EAT FOR A FIVER!'
Its job done for now.
His Dad had had the measure of him!
Oh, how he missed that man.
Time doesn't heal.
It simply draws a darkened veil across our access to the past,
Allowing us a chance to change the things that we perceived as real
and overwrite our stage notes, without the need to change the cast.
Copyright © Fred Clark | Year Posted 2019
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Fred Clark Poem
Come to me tonight in dreams,
When darkness shoos the day away,
When reality splits down the seams
and reasoned thought in disarray
lets loose the hold it has on life,
As tenuous as that hold might be,
and dances off to drum and fife
amidst the glitz and jubilee
that herald in forgotten thought,
Lain dormant under lock and key,
Behind the mind in limbo caught,
Only for eyes that truly see.
Then, if by chance you pass this way,
Stay with me till night finds the day.
Copyright © Fred Clark | Year Posted 2018
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Fred Clark Poem
I'd lost count of the times I'd said those words,
Thinking back; should they have been rationed?
Maybe kept only for those times of intimate closeness,
Were they the times for which they'd been fashioned?
Those moments where love left lust in the shadows,
Not where it just felt like the right thing to say.
Maybe nestled in moments of quiet contemplation,
There have been one or two of those today.
There was something I saw on a social media site,
Under the title, 'An Internet sage speaks his mind',
He’d quoted ‘less than lovers but more than friends’,
A sort of quasi philosophical blind.
In truth I would say, it’s a contradiction in terms,
Or even a get out of jail free pass
for those with commitment issues,
Or for some, because it sounds very middle class.
Born a thinker of thoughts, not a speaker of words,
To a life where he's deemed socially unable,
Would it have helped to be labelled 'damaged goods'
Left in a box, on the floor, under the table?
Practiced words make for perfect speeches,
Polished thoughts make a beautiful mind,
I once tried a combination of the two,
Computer said 'Access denied!'
?
Copyright © Fred Clark | Year Posted 2019
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Fred Clark Poem
If nobody speaks of remarkable things
Consciousness hides behind curtains of sleep,
Bright lights dim in the cerebral gloom,
Thoughts of tomorrow hold no credible guise,
A vacuum grows in the cognitive womb.
Fantasies slip into nothingness,
Dreams disperse on the breeze,
The words of Petrarch drift back into time,
When rivers of love start to freeze.
Winter decries its slow painful thaw
When ambushed by warmth in the spring,
Tender new shoots would shrivel and die,
If nobody speaks of remarkable things.
Copyright © Fred Clark | Year Posted 2018
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Fred Clark Poem
She sank to the depths of deepest despair,
Wallowed in blackness, the darkest of days.
When the sight of balloons loosed up into the air
She thought soon to be lost in thick clouds of grey,
Opened her eyes to a light in the world
That shone through clouds that whispered and curled.
When in that long forgotten place,
The sun lit up her perfect face,
The kindling of a memory hung in limbo:
Oh, when they were young,
They danced and laughed and sang in rhyme,
Never thinking of the time
In years to come when in death they parted,
Leaving her crushed and broken hearted
Copyright © Fred Clark | Year Posted 2018
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Fred Clark Poem
THE DUCKS.
The ducks didn’t quack much that night.
They didn’t make their usual din.
Sat around that window, grooming their feathers,
I thought they were trying to look in.
Did you notice?
They weren’t looking for breadcrumbs,
Not in their normal way,
Heads cocked,
They were listening, alert,
Wondering how our silence could keep the noise at bay.
I wanted to explain it all to them,
But someone had taken all my words,
But anyway, if I was struggling to comprehend it myself,
How would I tell them? Those birds.
Copyright © Fred Clark | Year Posted 2020
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