Four Poems by Gordon Scapens

 

LADY OF THE NIGHT

 

 

Even the moon

has moods

and readily reveals them

to those who seek

the right companion.

 

Just look tonight.

She’s applied make-up

in her haste to greet us

 

and blotted out

part of her face.

 

That won’t stop

the plying

of her trade.

 

A true lady

of the night,

she solicits regularly

if not exclusively.

Many men have admired her,

few have really known.

 

Those who have

will never be

the same again.

They leave something

of themselves behind. 

 

 

 

 

JOYRIDE

 

 

The blind geometry

of an escaped balloon

above the weight

of the city burden,

is motion recognized

in a complicit breeze.

 

The balloon is saying

all it wants to say,

is asking no questions

of an impartial sky.

 

Spectators are envious

of colourful emancipation

locked in single-mindedness.

 

It has no regrets,

puts a stamp of meaning

on translating freedom,

follows the rules of the highway

on which it travels.

 

I read its announcement.

This is a floating poem

hoping to convey hope

to a world that’s lost it. 

 

 

 

 

                                                JIGSAW

 

 

Each day is a jigsaw piece

towards the full picture.

Some days he’s hollowed

into merely an ornament,

brittle with his condition,

and there are no more words

for finding some comfort.

The pieces fit in.

 

Other days are parachutes

floating from despair and hovering

where he can see further

than himself as mere passenger

in the life allotted to him

and he will ignore the clocks

that are counting away

such precious time.

The pieces fit in.

 

He accepts the future

is now an empty promise

as he collects pieces in turn.

 

Sometime soon,

after a time of regrets,

the final piece

will collect its due.

 

 

 

 

EXISTENCE

 

 

It’s not the chessboard

of imaginary boundaries

looking for a question

that it can answer.

 

Not handicapped wanderings

on misplaced horizons

to escape impotency

that’s made-to-measure.

 

Not the stolen speech

that doubles as a map

indicating the way in circles

that’s not recognized.

 

Not even the cult

of self-adoration

as a book of survival

read on a daily basis.

 

It’s the small deaths

collected every day

to pay for a journey

of unknown length,

 

of changeable quality

that pretends too hard

that it can be a promise

and then fails.

Gordon Scapens - Widely published in various countries over many years in numerous magazines, journals, anthologies, newspapers and competitions, most recently first prize in the Brian Nisbet poetry award. His latest book is ‘History Doesn’t Die’