MASTERPIECE

There are times

In blackest night

When I seek
Moonlit shadows

And streaks

Of midnight blue,
A place of softest warmth

And textures sleek,
A bed perfumed

With fragrances of you.

But I miss you most

When God paints the sky -
Crazy crimson

Surrounds

A golden fleece,
Pink blotched clouds

And pale mauve rose air up high -
And we count brush strokes

On His masterpiece.

SURRENDER

Let me hear music
And lyrics of songs;
You take your world
And you right its wrongs.

You fix the climate -
I gave you the tools -
But don't scoff at me,
Aim jibes at the fools
Lusting for cash,

Extending their hands,
Inspired by greed's
Ungrateful demands.

Allow me a poem,
Grant me a novel;
I need no home,
Words are my hovel.
They'll outlast me,
Although left unread.
You're poorer for that,
I've said what I've said.

My sickness is mine;
It's all that I own.
You've taken the rest,
So leave me alone.

The painting is by James Tissot, a nineteenth century French artist.

OLD AGE

I have not heard the thud
Of that stumble
When blood bursts
Through viscous ventricles
To extinguish hope;
Nor have I turned my head
To heed the crumble
Of teeth chopping
Through my flimsy plastic rope.

And there are years
And there are moments -
They waste themselves
Before we have a chance -
Then we stoop to neglect
So we can find excuses
To destroy time
Either with hubris
Or someone else's useless ambition.

Somewhere a piano plays
A pop frolic from my youth,
Or is it more like jazz,
Or an heroic hymn
For the bankrupt
And the merchants of the obtuse?

So I'll cry like Christ but without His reason
And chase my dreams again despite the season.
No one will know
And fewer will care or question:
Why?

'UNSEEN POETRY' - AVAILABLE NOW

Hard copies of David Morisset's latest collection of poems are now available here via Amazon.  The Kindle edition can be downloaded here.

Most of the poems were written in Long Jetty where David now lives and writes.  Several of them explore the natural beauty of of the Central Coast of New South Wales.

HOMELESS COASTIE

The rain that comes from the gloomy sea's grey
At the end of a wasted winter day
Stings like the tears of homeless man,
Salty like a single malt, replete with Islay’s peat,
Laced with traces of seaweed, never sweet.

His head hangs,

A fright-fraught face hidden by a hoodie.
He zips up his high-viz vest

To chase the chill from his chest, cheerless,
And sips from a brown bag,
After drinking a long-necked bottle beerless.

He had a mother,

And possibly also

A father

For twenty minutes or so,
When what passed for love,

Spurted from hormones set to soar,
Splashing into the fields of right and wrong.

At some point in this dark night he'll wake,
Screaming at the demons

In his technicolour dreams,
That repeat and recur

Like movie themes,

And rattle with riffs

From rowdy rock 'n' roll anthems
Created by a cursed composer

Immersed in money-making schemes.

When the pounding of his heart

Eases enough to bid him resort to thought,
He'll wonder where he is;
And after a time he'll know

His bedroom is not his.