The Key

I have a light
In my little life,
Someone holds a candle
Someone else a knife.

One shines in darkness
The other in sunlight,
I could have hope
Or end this fight.

Two paths cross here
My state of mind.
Will it be damnation
Or hope that I find.

Someone holds a candle
Someone else a knife
Who holds the key
To my little life.

Adolescent Memory

Humming to herself

she stood, half dressed

slip and bra already on

one foot upon the bed.

She rolled a stocking between

her nimble thumbs and fingers

not noticing my presence,

her angled reflection

in the bedroom mirror.

I spied the scene,

voyeur

                 or victim.

She rolled the 15 denier ring

over her ballet pointed toe,

smoothing as she stretched material

and hopes

higher and higher.

Sheer material against still youthful skin

dark band contrasting the pale

translucence of her thigh.

Then suddenly she dropped her leg

smoothed down her slip

and closed the door

with a sigh.

Diaspora

Eating Onions

Eating pickled onions

by the jar

shut behind doors

that only open inwards.

Strange how children become

accustomed to

strangers at home,

whispered intimacies,

an extra button

undone

on mother’s blouse.

Father never brought

work home.

Nights on the tiles

hid his infidelities.

Six and half a dozen

I’m eating onions

they bring tears to my eyes.

Millington Pastures (East Yorkshire)

Abandoning our car in the woods

we head off up through the Pastures,

as the low winter sun catches one slope

we pull our fleeced envelope

tight against Natures extremes.

Kestrels, like tethered kites, hover.

Casting their beady eye over

steep, grassy valley sides

where still, cowering prey hide

not daring to break cover.

Shaggy, Highland cattle graze,

as the narrow valley winds its way

between high, banked walls

where echoing calls of crows 

break the shortening day.

Water bursts into life from below,

bubbles its way to the nearest hollow

where sheep come down to drink

and ramblers, like us, pause to think

and reflect before we go.

China ballerinas

They are two porcelain figurines,

dancing about each other.  Afraid to touch

in their brittle situation, in case

the brush of a hand

reminds them of the conversation

they’d rather avoid.

Their bed, once a sweet battlefield

is quiet now, trenches dug either side,

neither will yield,

a flag of truce flying in the cold air.

Fragile, easily broken.

Escaping December 2

Autumn’s assured tones fade

as age old fears

silver your hair and knot

your frozen fingers.

Winter takes you by the hand

and leads a weary path

into December.

You mix cocoa for your invalid

who has escaped

to re-fight the conquered enemy

in foreign lands.

Leaving you to stay and fight,

to guard his home front

entrenched in sand.

Long, unfulfilled nights stretch

toward the end

accompanied but alone

through wasteful years.

You check the carriage clock,

a golden wedding present

its chime insincere.

Sharing powdered pills between

two cocoa cups,

you extinguish the light

and sound a final retreat.

Escaping December I

Miss Honey spends her Christmases abroad,

Saga jet her off to winter sun.

Convalescing from her latest face-lift

and the varicose veins that she’s had done.

She engages handsome Spanish waiters

in verbal intercourse to pass the time,

drinking in sunshine and sangria

she sings out ‘Danny Boy’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

She dances away the early evenings

and hardly wears her outfits more than twice.

Mornings by the pool she spends relaxing

penning postcards from her ‘paradise’.

At home the best her sister can hope for

is a milder spell to break the freezing cold

as she warms arthritic hands on one bar,

an extravagance she barely can afford.

She wears her wardrobe of old cardigans,

tangling with a stubborn envelope.

An invitation to another funeral

she eyes the postcard from her sister, Hope.

She remembers family holidays in Spain

longs for the endless days of summer.

She looks once more at the invitation
wishing she could escape December.

Time to Remember

Guy Fawkes' Night

A night alive

with whistles and bangs,

shooting stars

and smoke that hangs

in the cold, crisp air.

The smell of cordite

and cinder toffee,

burning wood and sparks

that leap from the bonfire’s glare.

An effigy atop the pyre

comes alive as the flames

grow higher and hot timbers

crack as we celebrate

a son of York, who got caught

and lost the plot.

The end of the pier

Salt-tarnished, red-rust metal pillars

stagger beneath the weight of years

carrying century old timbers into the sea

never to return.  I walk the lonely mile

the gaps between the boards

growing ever wider.

I become liquid, seeping through

between those gaps, sliding away

from their grasp, plunging into the water

far below to mingle with the ocean swell,

to ride as Neptune's daughters
upon white horses.

Silences

Between silences

I can hear the storm

closing in, a low rumble

at distance

following a brightening of the sky.

Another silence.

Another flash

and I’m

c   o   u   n   t   i   n   g       s   e   c   o   n   d   s

to a louder crash

signifying its presence.

I can feel the tension

in our next silence.

Waiting for you to explode,

the storm upon us now,

and I am the lightning rod

to your anger filled rant,

a thunderhead of emotion

pouring out.

I may get drenched in the storm

but the silences

kill.

Depression Lifting

                                                                                                                                          copyright Paul E. Smith

A misty veil drowns the oars

that break the stillness

of morning.

The brightness

of guessed at sunlight

catches ripples

as shadows pass.

A heron silhouetted

against bright water,

cast in bronze,

is still.

As day alights

and I awake

parting the curtains of sleep

I step from dream

to dream.

Tattooed Tears

We cry for our youth, lost

beyond these pleasant shores

sent out to fight the shadows

in commitment to others’ laws.

As another flag draped coffin

sails down tear flooded streets,

one more community bows their heads

to the drum’s slow beat.

We’ve brought back so many brave hearts

in parts from foreign places

and shed so many tears we feel

they’re tattooed on our faces.

Brought back so many brave hearts

so tender in their years

lost the ones we care for

and shed too many tears.

Home to Roost – Buckenham Marshes

Magnetic trees draw rook and jackdaw

from the lowering sky like iron filings,

drawn from the last rays of the setting sun

in raucous numbers

to the hub of their feeding grounds

on Norfolk’s flat lands.

Chattering,  jack  jack  jack

to and fro, cawing into the dark

as dead leaves rising up

returning life to winter trees,

shouting back their defiance

at their untimely demise.

as bad as each other

There’s a body in the garden

no, don’t call the police,

it’s half past eleven

it’s dad, he’s fast asleep.

Got back from a skinful

not made it to the door,

he’s fallen through the garden gate

and passed out on the floor.

A mistress in his pocket

a cuckoo in the nest

who gives a damn about the kids

who cares if they’re distressed.

When mum’s not on the sherry

she’s flirting with the boys

spending all dad’s money,

pawning all our toys.

Getting herself pregnant

dad was taken aback,

but as a poor, failed Catholic

she practised on her back.

A mistress in his pocket

a cuckoo in the nest,

so how the hell did all this mess

turn out for the best.

April Acrostic

A rainbow through showery rain

Puts a smile on the world once again

Rays of sunshine warm cold earth and

In Spring’s first flush of rebirth

Life breaks Winter’s chains.

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Zakynthos - Late June

Zakynthos –Late June

Swallows pull turns the envy of fighter pilots.

Airborne acrobats harvesting insects in mid-air

to feed a cornucopia of hatchlings.

Butterflies, fluttering flying machines,

the size of saucers, dancing between perfumed

blooms, prospecting, lured into pollination.

Feral kittens chase one another’s tails

up a convenient tree, regardless

of the difficulty of returning to earth.

And as the sun reaches its flaming zenith

and the furnace drives us beneath

what shelter we can find,

Careta careta swims for Africa

after laying her future in the sand.

Solace

 

 

Solace

Well thumbed
This old volume
Of my best loved poems.
I turn to them in troubled times
For peace.

They quell
The cacophony in my mind
So that I can focus
On what means most
To me.