The Trouble With...

The Trouble With …

The trouble with love, is
it takes sides
too much to one
too little another.
Many get lost in its maze,
to others, a straight road
interstating, zonk, outta nowhere
into everlasting contentment.

How did love start?
Whose name is on the cup?
Where did national love day go?
Was it a sixties thing?
Women always say, I love you, first, I’m told
their cards well and truly on Valentine’s table
and it’s that thing you’re always
expected to say back,
true or not.

Love has sailed past me, many times
smiling, curtsying and waving wildly
besotted from the chrome rails
of a man-o-war, as it passes
in the opposite direction.

But love IS the word,
nothing comes close,
just love.
Then, the eyes fog
and a rose coloured
short sighted nirvana
prances about beside you
like some gormless
morris dancing
Nancy.

Jerry Pike

Rescue

I found the bee
exhausted with days
flung at windows
in the closed room.
It seemed the windowsill
was its last resting place.
One claw?like leg
extended without hope,
it watched me
watching it.
I saw its panting fear,
eyes glittering
pinpricks in black fur.
Could a bee hope?
I offered
a scrap of paper.
Could this be worse than dying
on unyielding paint?
It dared.
And, planted on soft earth
in a window box,
it had not breath
or confidence
to unfurl fulvous wings.
It climbed a mountain
of turned earth
and rested.
I planted a flower.
The bee had flown.

Sylvia Goodman

Ghosts

Ghosts

Two houses standing empty.
Through dirty panes light breaks,
illuminates bare floorboards.
In the rooms there are no shadows.

On dusty furniture mottled mirrors
reflect nothing.
Not peace but absence.

Once it was different.
Passion, death, tragedy, wrenching grief
tormented this place.
The world mourns those star-crossed lovers.

Do they quietly rest?
Are they at peace?
No.
Through emptiness, in endless silence, go
the ghosts of Juliet and her Romeo.

© John Snelling