Published August 31, 2021
by Barrie Davies
(Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland)
In the next room
Even more shadowy in imagination
Lurking, like a reclining wolf,
Just beyond the green pockmarks of mould:
In the next room,
She sings her swoon
A falsetto heart wrench right down to
The dregs;
All the way to the end of the phrase.
In the next room,
Something that sounds like a carriage clock
Fidgets with time.
No, that's correct;
You can't rely on that old mechanism;
It is not keeping pace
With dread reality that abounds
All around it, swooping like swallows.
In the next room,
Floorboards creak with a sigh of guilt.
Bare feet negotiate past nails.
Old loves splinter the sole.
A flaring memory of Paris,
Rain slick cobbles reflecting
The being and nothingness
Of a romance
That might have been a figment.
In the next room,
A window clacks on the future.
A bird pecks on a pane.
A hollow squeal of delight
So unexpected and exuberant,
I fell off my bed.
Biography
My name is Barrie Davies. I have been writing poetry for over 20 years. Some have been published. Others have disappeared in the mists of time and agent's delete boxes. I live in Dunfermline and was a banker before I gave that up as being far too dull and became a free lance writer instead.
Previously published in Edinburgh Poetry Magazine:
"At Low Tide" by Aleks Wruk
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