The Poetry Marathon

I flex the muscles of my mind
To stretch back, reach out, try to find
Why I suddenly recall a summer day
When all around is a gloomy grey.

Laburnum in a vase, a fresh fruit platter,
Picnic by the pool, laughing and chatter,
Are you then, wearing that special fragrance:
‘Soupir d’ete’? It evokes such remembrance

Of long summer days, glowing, lucent,
When the autumn of our lives is almost spent,
My love?

Dark street at night, a circle of light,
An arch like nothing I’d seen before,
Was it a portal, a wormhole door
Leading to somewhere else in the cosmos?
I froze.

I did not think to run away
I was seized in the grip of awe:
My mind trying to make sense of
What my dazzled eyes now saw.

A science experiment gone wrong?
ET’s in my mundane town?
Wondering, guessing,I waited,
For my pulses to calm down.

I stood transfixed in wonder
Till a whiff of ozone, a clap of thunder,
Caused the apparition to vanish.
How I still regret and wish

That I had never paused to guess
How I wish I’d answered “Yes! ”
To that inviting, open door.

Children of my mind, you are no less
Than the children of my body.
You are the creations I’ve laboured over
By myself, needing no friend or lover
(Parthenogenesis).
Deep in my subconscious lay the seed
Of what you would one day be.
You have been moulded by the placenta of thought
Nourished by streams of considered thought
Coloured by my opinions, growing in me
Offshoot, too, of friends, of family.

Fully formed, you delight my eye,
I set you free, you let me fly.
I have been an empty nester for years
You keep me busy, bring me cheer.

Though we’re tethered together so tenuously
I know that you’ll always be there for me.
And i can grow still further, i find,
With you, the children of my mind!

There was no bypassing or avoiding her-
This black, forbidding, shadowed figure,
She stood at the end of my narrow road,
Her arms outstretched, her dark head bowed.

I could not deviate, turn aside,
I had no precedent and nobody to guide
Or introduce me, or wish me cheer,
In my confused state of fear.

The light of a rainbow in the sky
Illumined her face, and i wondered why
I had been so afraid, unsure,
For her glowing face was calm and pure.

As i grasped her hand, i lost all fear,
And walked with her into a sphere
Of light– a higher plane of existence.

White-veined blue petals, a loving heart,
Is this nature, or is it art?
Flower pressed inside a book
Evokes a loving look–
Of a love that’s lost
Of years long past
Was it you
Who wore
Blue?

Skyscrapers, their feet
Set in concrete,
Watch over the smoggy city street.

The needles of factory chimneys
Spin fluffy cotton clouds
Into dreary mundane grey funeral shrouds
To spread on the city street.

Only the gaudy glow
Of neon-lit store fronts
Pierces the murky smog
Of the grey city street.

I once dreamt of spending days
In a green and gracious place
As a forest ranger,
I now face a different danger
Of drowning in the grey
As a cop on his beat
On a grey city street.