My most recent poems are below
Some older poems are listed under the Poems list, on the left.
Tot
Tottered is a nice old word
Of times the chivalrous observed
And rose when entered to the room
Another, it mattered not was whom
The child, rightly, tots her way
Erratically she wanders, play
Consumes her and her learning feet
Tottering the day, to greet
Now the older view disdains
The tot, for a vain hope remains
That always true their step may be
So none shall cast a tot on thee
The elder is a separate case
Older concerns lay on their face
As they climb the stairwound years
Sure stride ebbs, tot reappears
The same cautious measured amble
Crowds back home, makes it a gamble
Perhaps, to walk a slower pace
Is the right way to human race
A knitted cardigan, with pearls
A whistling voice, like Allan Searle's
A look of wonder and surprise
Totters by the elder wise
JMD
26/10/20
Once Again
When pollen laden popular puffs
Drift horizontal slow
When the nimbus cast dark shadows
As they rise to cumulo
When the stallions strut their stuff
Against a pattered foe
We must be all most a half the way through spring
When the morning light raps loudly
Against our eyelids shut
Then defuses in the rising clouds
As we drink our break fast cup
To a lazy, hazy, slightly chilled day
In which the magpies strut
Round the garden that choice and opportune shall bring
Glorious Goldilocks days
That are tempered, oh just right
Not so cold that shivers shake the body, tear the sight
Yet not so hot that the covers don't last the night
No wonder baby's chuckle and birds, they sing
Before the days the blast of summer sears our lips
After the days of snow and ice and wintered hands that split
We're in the house, without the bears, we to the table, sit
To pottered porridge any provedore would please to bring
JMD
October 2020
Songs
Now that my hairs grown long
I'll go and hear the barbers song
And sit amongst the muted chat
The tails curl and purr, just like a cat
Then, throned, I'll reign from padded seat
Amid conversation, my crowns made neat
Now drawn to the song of cloth
This weaving clads both pleb and toff
The racks and stacks, they offer me
Hats and cloaks and shirts of tee
Once, till bell was the last that sung
Now beep tells me my cards been stung
This notes reminds an usur's song
As to the bank I walk, along
The bench where pens were chained
Pamphlets sing a base refrain
They say my 'life is incomplete'
Another loan?' I leave, discrete
Peckish, I seek the song of food
To graze where sustenance suits mood
The tempo, here's, a deeper pitch
A note of urgent, like a stitch
Drums along a tasty seam
I leave plated, sated, coiffed, creamed
In the park I now recline
To song of popular, plain and pine
Leaves that rustle to the wind
Ducks waddle quack and magpies sing
It's is as if for me they play
A song of songs completes this day
JMD
10/10/20
A Welcome Spring
The roof, it rings a short tattoo
I wake on the last note
And wonder if the drummers beat?
Is to arms or to retreat?
What will I, on rising meet?
A staying shower?
A storming hour?
or rain that's passing through?
The predawn light, it conceals much
Of what the day shall bring
The clouds will always float, but where?
Will they descend to earth, and bear?
Rain or leave with graces air?
Us to ourselves
On Sunday's shelves
Replete with sun and such
Then rich blue sky tendrils weave
Like veins amongst the white
They are yet to demarcate
Yet to define, to still our fate
Yet to set days heavens state
What wilt day bring?
A welcome spring?
One none shall wish to leave
JMD
28/9/20
A Feast Sublime
A man in polished cotton suit
Has in his arms exotic fruit
A lady in a knitted dress
Has carrots, capsicum and cress
Petite oriental, small black cap
Has bamboo shoots with rising sap
Three older men, their wives they shop?
Sip dark brews from demitasse cup
The cleaner rattles past again
On a round without an end
Cars circle like a lost cortège
An ever flowing people barge
Sing hawker with an ethnic holler
'2 Aussie mangoes, 7 dollar'
The tall and thin and wide and fat
Browse and graze this market vat
All, it seams, have place to go
So weave and weft amongst the flow
None hurried, yet each steps not wasted
Their minds are made as goods are tasted
Then homeward, clutched their forage fines
To bake themselves a feast sublime
JMD
27/9/20