Grey skies
Don’t stop the birdsong
Windblown hedges
Don’t dampen their spirits
I have risen early
For no real purpose
It is too soon
To make my love her tea
Poetry doesn’t begin this way
Even for Mr Bukowski
Why, by now there ought to be
Profanity, or words more profound
But, as the too slow camper-van
Crossing the New York Bridge
I also am moving too slowly
I need reminding how to flow
Perhaps a meditation
To contemplate the light
Say thanks to all creation
And the wonders of the night
Maybe an invitation
To a debutante’s ball
Or another Gatsby glorification
To sound his lost lover’s call
Besieged by past temptation
I stride out towards the fall
There is no simplification
When love to know is all
The love of one another
The brook beside the brawl
The sister and the brothers
The familiar tone to stall
As richness becomes discovered
And spitefulness is turned around
The day moves on upwards
Sad thoughts banished to ground