That thy days may belong…

You barked your goodbye
this side of the grave
Every gnashing word,
Each dismissive shrug
opened fresh earth,
turning pensive sod.

Skimming days tumble
with no reprieve
one more night nail in coffin lid
unkind spikes in plank I walk
to island new
through forbidden tears

your indifference
smells throughout the years,
false banker of the family soul
dealer in tainted metal.

Yet this dragon gathers yet
His bauble hoard and spangled sentiment
To glare in these darkening years.
Yet no aid these for frenzied flap
of withered wing against the closing door

You left clue enough
To drop even the grimmest rogue
Through dawn’s lonely hatch.

You cling to flimsy flotsam
With your seaman soul
Though no lagan goods will mark
Your fall in deepest sea.
Apotheopean spark
drowned In mourning waters

Peace has washed clear the merit
That war and troubled times
Hung on that inflated breast.
Survival strips away
All noble semblance
You gathered round hollow bones.

No false tears  shed now
At this damp pit
Dressed in lamp black
I mourn each day of my passing
Through the leftovers of your life

I would not wound
Nor uncover the coins
You laid on myopic eyes
My gift, the scars
I bear on this tender soul
-

                         Sinking Heart
                      __________________
                      Abandoned by you
                      For a little dance
                      In the stinging night
                      As life reels about me.
                      I endure alone
                      On rigid hurdle
                      Of age and knocks
                      With window-sill edge regret
                      Before my fall into time's oblivion
 
 
 

                    Autumn
                     ---------
                     Could I like a puff of wind
                     on fallen leaves
                     resurrect for a time
                     brittle eyes in a
                     twirling tumbling fall
                     through times and people past
                     before frost anchors
                     me and mine forever
                     to the earth?
                     Green world descended
                     Painting earth in crushed brown.
                     Dry choirs of rustling voices
                     Flung in spinning fall
                     Whisper soft answers
                     From earth’s ruddy mosaic.

                  Bulwarks Stand
                     ---------------
                    Passing fire on mountain grasses
                     Blazes short and again it passes.
                     Fiery flame on forest too
                     Branding earth then blaze anew.
                     Flares no more on hilltop high
                     Uneasy welcome in earth’s dark sky
                     Finds in hearthland’s shadows
                     Dim domicile in the dwindling day

                     Trekked traveller from afar
                     Night again in foreign quarter.
                     Fiery beast from rambling sky
                     Restless walker on binding wall
                     Beset by moats of wary eyes.
                     Crackling comfort on outstretched hands
                     Fiery sword lunging bright
                     Beckoning embrace through the night
                     Sun child bedded in holy pyre
                     Till clasped again by morning fire.
 

                        Earth turns

           Whose finger
           Shaped spinning clay
           And formed my brittle coil
           On earthly wheel.

            Mislaid in our dim crib
            My wrinkled skin
            weeps softly now
            For stars that once caressed
            My head with breathy stroke.

            Their thinning shine hauls yet
            My drained youth
            On burgeoning furrows
            Squandered
            in the skattering sky.
 
 

THE 'MORRIS' STUDIO :         Presenting a selection of work for sale by Eric W. Morris