Burning Questions - Edgar Allan Poet

I am a maid, Your Worships, please:
not wicked, me, I meant no harm.
I beg you now, upon my knees
to please desist, it hurts my arm.
You are strong men while I am weak.
Undo the rope and let me speak.

Last Friday night, I heard a cry:
it was my friend: her name you know.
She is the witch, not I, not I.
We went, by moonlight, to and fro.
She bade me cast aside my frock
to frolic on the Catioroc

and though we danced without our clothes,
I did not meet the Devil there.
From that bleak hill no fiend arose
to ravish me or kiss my hair.
Please, not the fire! Here are the names!
Sweet neighbours, do not fan those flames.

Edgar Allan Poet

Lovers - Richard Fleming

Once they were lovers, now they meet
by chance,
a lifetime later
in a busy street.
They greet each other cautiously,
embrace, but tentatively.
One glance
is all it takes
to remind him
how the world had once seemed
limitless
with her in it.
While she, acutely conscious
that she only dressed to shop,
feels suddenly complete again
and prays that time might stop.

Richard Fleming

Drifting Poet - Ian Duquemin

If it wasn't for your kindness
He would be a drifting poet
Who might sing a song of sadness
To whoever wants to hear it
And his words would flow like water
That would trickle through their ears
Where each drop that they were hearing
Would amount to all his tears
As every poet's heart is hurting
It's the way that God desires them
To break the hearts of others
So that he can overcome them
Leaving scars that have some meaning
From a time when they were broken
And the only cure they needed
Were the gentle words once spoken
By the healing sound of thunder
Or the silence of a whisper
From the voice that serves to call you
If he had become that drifter
But he stayed within your comfort
Like a child that needs affection
Contented in your arms
As though he longed for your protection
It was you who gave him shelter
Sowed the thoughts of Inspiration
So that every word he'd spoken
Was a breath of aspiration
If it wasn't for your kindness
Then I wonder where he'd go?
Well I've never been a poet
So I guess we'll never know

Ian Duquemin

Paintings and Flowers - Nicholas Rowe

I saw your paintings, and your flowers,
and I remembered when,
for just a second,
I had not lost hope.
When my long closed eyes
felt a hint of light,
when I felt at long last
my dreams could take flight,
no longer trapped in the past,
with me shrinking behind my disguise.
At times I feel I cannot cope,
yet I have always known, when troubles beckoned,
fresh hopes would follow them.
~
And I am lost
in the beauty
of the paintings
and the flowers.
~
Raindrops on petals, and
art in rusting metals,
fields bursting with colours, and
pictures of never heard album covers,
urban streets, and
tempting retreats,
solitary blooms, and
graffiti ravaged rooms,
the detail of an insect’s eyes, and
infinity found in starry skies,
peaceful scenes of quiet seas, and
poplars leaning in a breeze,
an instant of a bird in flight, and
eternity captured in the camera’s light.
~
And I am lifting in the wind, with the birds in the air,
slowly drifting, I let go, I am free of my care,
swirling through the colours as the land beneath me passes,
twirling with the swallows over fields of waving grasses,
turning to the treetops that look tiny from so high,
churning through the troubled air and spinning through the sky.
~
I cannot change the winds that blow,
to where they take me, I cannot know,
music seeps into my mind,
my worries now lie far behind.
~
I accept control
is beyond my powers.
~
And I dissolve
in the world
through the paintings
and the flowers.

Nicholas Rowe

Up The Creek, Again - Tony Bradley

The salty spray of Spring tides wafts in through my boarded window
my feet start to itch, my wander-lust, I have the verve to voyage
I’ll build a boat, but first I must plan the materials I need
into my bedroom, where I used to sleep, for I must rummage, and forage.

In here, my ‘man-cave,’ my own testament to Easter Island,
abandoned adventures, fallen Idols, forsaken sheets and spars,
I will construct a rugged little vessel
and slip off, come April, to follow the stars.

My ‘Sea Urchin’ measures a fathom, it’s all I could fathom
it’s not for fame, it’s adventure I seek
that wind’s got stronger, whipping up the waves
we never quite made it, to Tamerton Creek.

Tony Bradley