No Care (Stream XIX)
Here where no one cares,
Careworn she lies sick in the fetid air.
The sick room smell, lies rank upon her.
And she so sick, tries to rise,
But some immovable force holds her down
Too sick to rise.
No angel ministers her fevered brow
Nor comes with swift and gentle aids.
Like old news she lies forgotten
Abandoned, useless, broken.
No progeny from her barren womb
To ease her passage through old age.
Or send her a loving last farewell
A kiss to ease her on the road to her demise.
And he she loved with tender care
Gone, lost in a war these long years past.
Footsteps pass her door
And feebly she calls out,
No answer comes.
No foot across her threshold falls,
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poem by Paul Brookes
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The Syphinx's Look (Stream I)
In a vacuum.
No sound to penetrate
without thinking they
Slid sliding into love,
Hip hopping out again
As easy as pie
Pi r squared.
As difficult to decypher
as the syphinx's look
Brought to book
All that mystery
and no, I know where to go
It wears me out
You know,
Go-
Go on find it, its there
Whilst I'm here
Do you hear there.
Their eyes lock
The key to their depair
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poem by Paul Brookes
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Raw waR
Bombarded and war pitted
And pitied they who lie here.
The scar blasted houses
Now no place for dwelling
Or dwelling on the passed.
Where once love blossomed,
And families embraced in solidarity,
No blossoms grow for all the trees are dead.
Now the men have gone to war,
For war is raw and needs its raw recruits.
Recruited from the innocent
Whose hands will soon know death.
And those left behind face a different war.
The war of want.
The women face the daily grind
Of sky dropped bombs that scream annihilation.
And dodge the shells and bullets
To fed the hungry children
Who cower in makes shift sanctuaries
Deep beneath the ground.
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poem by Paul Brookes
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Specters
What is the architecture of a life?
Not the bricks and mortar of cells,
The branches of arteries and veins,
Sinews, muscles or bone that made you.......
The gene machine.
The big bang with which every life begins.
I am grateful to the sperm donor;
To the warm wet nest that nurtured me,
Until the time I made my first appearance.
It is the only time you have centre stage,
The star.
For me though there were no loving arms
Gentle words,
Lullaby,
Having made me, the two principles left
Exit stage right.
They sadly could not stick around,
To mess me up or be of any influence,
But they made me, gave me life
The architects if not the builders,
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poem by Paul Brookes
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Elusive Words
I haven't really got the time
To put together the perfect rhyme.
All the words are tumbled tossed
Some go missing, some are lost.
I give my best with each line
But the words have no incline.
I put them in an ordered square
But when I look they are not there.
It seems they are an elusive lot
And try to tie me in a knot
Make me give an angry frown
I simply cannot tie them down.
Giving me the run around
Sneaking off with out a sound.
I pull my hair out by the root
They all think it such a hoot.
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poem by Paul Brookes
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Crossroads (Stream XVII)
Here at the crossroads
After cruel and cross words
Such weighty thoughts
Weigh on my mind.
Being weighed in the balance,
As I wade through the morass
Of my cluttered mind.
No star crossed lovers we
Just cross, unhappy.
When did we lose sight
Slip past each other
Where did we slip up
Looking back,
Life flashed by
Like a hurtling train
Gone too quickly.
Some where we lost each other,
Between desire and indifference.
So accustomed to each other
We wear our shackles lightly.
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poem by Paul Brookes
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Visions
Kaleidoscopic visions of you
Flash fleetingly or ride majestically
On the cusp of my mind
In a rush of disjointed pictures.
The stark bare bones of your life;
The sum of its days.
Its tricle of hours.
Held fast like an insect in amber
Marching to your hearts tattoo
To conjuror the past - a replay.
Half remembered conversations.
A touch, a taste and kisses
Butterfly light that tingled the soul.
Your bright eyes, soft hair.
Settling the past into focus.
A flash of colour.
That emerald green dress.
As you danced carefree and joyous
Like you skipped in and out of my life
Leaving only the echo of your laughter.
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poem by Paul Brookes
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Rosy Hue
When I look back through the rose shaded glass of the past
All hurts are forgotten as if expunged in gentler reminiscences.
The jibes and cuts of the bullies tongue and fist
Or the strangled loves of adolescence
Where like a hook caught fish would wriggle with embarrassment
And shed tears of self destruction
To think the world would end because of one rejection.
Of the loss of friends through death or the vicissitudes of life
And all the failures big and small; of which I suppose are many.
Yet the me whose here to look down the road, would not be, if not for these.
Yet though sometimes I regret the things not done
And pine goals not yet reached.
I wouldn't have missed the journey for the world.
I am maybe no more a wiser man but I'm certain more content.
Copyright P H Brookes 2012
poem by Paul Brookes
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Just Before Dawn
Just Before Dawn
Waking early I saw it
Surprised by its sudden arrival.
It greeted me cool,
Beautiful to my eye.
The soft pure flakes,
Fallen overnight.
Silent and stealthy.
It lay in flawless white;
Making the everyday magical,
Hiding flaws.
A benign blanket,
Disguising the detritus of modern life,
Carelessly flung by unthinking hands.
The beer bottles, cans,
The abandoned bag or newsprint.
The soft whiteness lies undisturbed,
For now, by footfall or tyre tread.
Not yet dawn, I shiver.
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poem by Paul Brookes
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Questions Unanswered
Ah those days of starched shirts
Of water boiling in the copper,
And soap-flakes snow-white
And the mangle in the corner
Like a medieval implement of torture
Waiting to grind and squeeze.
And granny's hair wrapped in cloth
The goodly housewife at work
Hands red, hot water immersed,
Sweated in the washing room.
Each Mondays Herculean task
The stringing on lines for all to see
Of pure white sheets rinsed in Dolly Blue.
To wash the families dirty linen clean.
But never speak of the true dirty secrets
That scrubbing could not undo,
That gallons of bleach could not erase
Nor boiling water wipe out.
The lies told to protect
Which ended up hurting.
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poem by Paul Brookes
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