Joker

You haven’t left,

I know for sure.

I saw you in Sainsbury’s

Only the other day,

Your cart piled high

With goodies.

The dead don’t change;

They carry on,

Playing the same old game.

Shuffling the pack,

I see you again,

Ignoring the rules.

Well past your sell-by date:

Your smile as bright

As a new-minted coin,

Deceiving no one.

Γέρωντος

for my Father

How must it have been for you,

Growing up all those years

When truth made sense,

Despite war, chaos, death,

The stuff you’d read at school;

The turning of the spheres,

Like some vast cinematic reel,

As time swept by;

And, later, love.

Gazing at the screen,

You saw the years implode

Into a storm of doubt,

Obscuring the past;

And soon the walls of certainty

Came tumbling down:

Truth, power, authority, respect.

You took your sword stick from its case

And marched the streets

Scowling at the young.

We scoffed at your vision then,

As you might gaze on ours:

Caught up in novelty, like tourists,

Clicking away at every world of choice,

As if photography

Will save us.



Fragments

The photo’s ripped:

Just us,

Kids inbetween,

One face torn off.

A backdrop that day of blue:

Ceanothus, Lilac, Wisteria

Trailing up to our room.

Smiles fixed

On a lens;
The darkroom of trust.

Acceptance can’t rescue

A moment lost,

More sacred than memory:

This missing piece.