From the poorest dysentery filled gutter,
The stars still shimmer as bright and unreachable,
As they do from a billionaire’s garden.
September Morning
It’s a cold blue skied September morning,
The first coffee for the day has gone,
The heater is on and slowly warming,
And I feel myself finally waking up,
I perform the daily curtain opening ritual,
Bright pink cherry blossoms catch my eye,
Our garden is beginning to come alive for Spring,
The thought of an end to winter makes me smile,
As golden sunbeams pierce the tree line,
My room illuminates, and I rub weary eyes,
It is quiet, a blessing of country living,
My mind is also quiet, unready for workday stress,
The world feels so far away from me this morning,
And the thought of that distance makes me smile,
Apart from sparrows squabbling outside my window,
The fan of the heater is the only sound,
Right now, I could be the last man on earth,
And I would be ok with that.
The Rain Keeps Falling
It’s early morning around my desk, it’s peaceful,
The summer heat still hangs in the air from the night before,
The sound of pouring rain dulls the songs of early birds,
The garden drinks its fill, after several hot days in the sun,
The rain falls harder, and the tin and concrete roof tiles hiss,
The sun has nowhere to go this morning,
Bashfully hiding behind storm clouds,
Perhaps feeling guilty for the previous day’s temperatures,
I sip coffee in the white glow of my screens,
A car hisses past the house, a lone weary driver starting their commute,
I soon hear the engines of other cars kick over in the distance,
The world is waking up, and the rain keeps falling.
Labyrinth of Lost Words
At once a shopfront, but also a cavernous labyrinth of lost words,
An old grey proprietor rubs their hands, anticipating the sale of some forgotten tome.
Deeper the explorer ventures, and the dust covered bookshelves grow dimmer,
The adventurer’s mind buzzes with the sheer wealth of knowledge in one place,
Pressed together in unorganised manner, his predetermined targets are instantly erased,
If asked his own name now, he would not remember it amongst his sensory overload.
Books lay stacked out of order, poetry mixed with dictionaries and the Bards plays,
He clears room one, nothing found, before delving into forgotten fictions, the light dims,
He can hear the proprietor discussing mushrooms, bread and eggs for supper,
As he pushes past the Dickens he owns, sadly stacked amongst the Dumas Musketeers,
He came for Keats, for Shelley or Poe, but his head swims as old dust invades his senses,
Suddenly, one blue book here, Burns, and a green there, Donne, treasure found within chaos,
He makes the journey back before he gets in too deep, back to the proprietor’s hungry eyes,
A deal is struck, and he manages to escape back into the bright sunlight he left behind.
He’ll be back, the proprietor grins knowingly.
Dan Verkys 