by Mavis Rose

VIEW FROM THE DOCK

Dark silhouettes of land from where I came

Emerge as greying skies meet murky sea

While sunlit beams pierce effervescent clouds

To strim the rippling waves, set free.

It’s dusk and small boats beyond the sandbanks

Rise and fall to meet the flowing tide,

Loose-sailed and flapping with the gentle breeze.

In the distance a gull cries.

Solitary, he soars to dizzy heights

Then, swooping down to catch his prey

Dives beneath the foamy surface

A watery flash cascades a salty spray

Dark silhouettes of land from where I came

Now match the growing darkness of the night

Lonely, I stand and watch as stars appear

A disarray of shimmering light

Only my footsteps break the silence as I walk

Along the cobbled pathway to the shore

There I shall sit and wait for morning

When those dark silhouettes shall fade away once more

both are dedicated to Julie, his wife.

Thanks  for these, Mark

Poem No 177

KISSING YOU

Kissing you

is like kissing a Love Heart.

You burst across my lips and tongue,

Blazing a trail,

Like a comet's tail,

Then slowly dissolve on my teeth

as an ever abiding memory.

"Be Mine"

I will

How could I suck another Werthers

after

kissing you.

and Poem No 178

JELLY

My soul is like an empty jelly mould,

Useless,

Pointless,

Unless it's full.

You fill it with your undemanding love,

Wrapping your warm arms around my heart,

Taking all the pain away,

Completing me.

Mmmmm.

Strawberry flavour,

My favourite!

from Vincent  McTigue

SHE DID

I took my girl down by the brook,

But she could read me like a book,

So knocked me out with her left hook

She did.

I cried, 'Don't read page forty-four'

As I lay supine on the floor,

And please don't hit me any more'.

She did.

I pleaded, 'Darling, please be mine,

I'll take you somewhere nice to dine

And you can drink the finest wine.'

She did.

On her toe she had a cut,

I kissed her dainty little foot,

Then said, 'I s'pose you wouldn't?' but

She did.

Poem No 180

by Gina Riley

PEACE BE WITH YOU

Only some feathers left so we step aside.

(Oh dear dear Oh dear dear the dove intones)

An understatement lost on you and I

warm from sleep and easily pacified

by a summer morning’s gloss of gold.

Only some feathers left. Ugh! We step aside

to eat our ‘ready brek’ and mumble why

our remains are holier than those.

No other statement suits the morning light

but in the silent depths of ears and eyes

a coming desecration that may host

only some feathers. We step aside

but a love-bird on a gable end still cries

then gabbles in a rush to clear its throat.

An understatement lost on you.

And I am also with you

and at the heart of what we ache to know.

(Oh dear dear Oh dear dear the dove intones)