Bernadette the budgie sang her wistful, merry tune
from her cage hung near the window in the sun.
The Demon and the Door
Photo by Deepain Jindal on Pexels.com
In the early hours of this morning I had a very brief nightmare in which I was running from an evil spectre that I couldn’t see but could feel. I was sprinting for my life, my heart beating up and out of my throat, down a dark corridor.
Dear Big Cloud
Dear Big Cloud,
I am Raindrop #1293048574442. You won’t remember me, but You dropped me onto Earth about half an hour ago. I don’t expect You to get this message, and I’m sorry to bother You if You’re busy, but I need to ask You something.
Cloud Child
A solitary, dizzy giant floats and twists on a high
in pastel hues and raisin toast,
her chestnut curls jumping, in syncopation,
and elbows bent with ready energy toward her often-not-present mind
which recalls all the good but can’t seem to remember the bad for long…
To Reach Them All
A skinny five-year-old with wiry hair and copper skin,
Falls in her exhaustion, breathing dusty rubble in,
Gazing out in hope to hear her mummy’s muffled cry,
Not understanding any of the how, or what, or why.
I need to crawl beyond the screen and take her in my arms,
To help her take her mind off all the panic and alarms,
Look Up
Did that Like keep you from slipping away?
Did it sing to you sweet lullabies to conjure up silence?
Did it comfort,
or console,
or empathise,
or null?
The Caterer’s Husband
A light breeze rocked the baby birds asleep in their nests as the sky drew them a vast, starry blanket. Clouds became scarce, and so did all activity below. Stray cats and dogs settled under their various shelters for the night, and the dragonflies came out to play. The loudest sound that could be heard was the soft, swishing dance of the autumn leaves twirling on the pavement.
For a long, beautiful moment, everything was peaceful. The stars had all aligned for everyone, and everything was as it should have been.
CRASH! BANG! SCREEEEECH!
All moments, however, must end to make room for new ones.
10 Tips for Keeping Your Waitress Sane
If you didn’t know this about The Smiley Poet, I work as a waitress in a little Italian restaurant, and because of this I get the joy of being able to observe how different humans behave in their own individual ways. It’s fascinating, and the majority of the behaviour I observe is lovely, and makes me certain that I can help a customer enjoy their day a little bit more even though I am only a small part of it.
Some of the behaviour, however, doesn’t. The following is a plea to the people involved in that latter category.
Black with Three: Part 3
PREVIOUSLY:
‘What he thought of were his four children. The last time he had seen one of them was about two weeks ago, and he had received a phone call from another last Saturday for his birthday. Pauline was overseas, David had been starting up the new venetian blinds business, and Linda constantly had a sniffle, so none of them could visit. Linda was the one who had called him last Saturday on the train ride back from work.
Michael, the youngest (the youngest being 47) visited his father sometimes, but never stayed for very long. Isaac was convinced that the visits were the result of a nagging wife.
He couldn’t resent them, by any means, because he hardly knew them anymore.’
He had been in the hospital, incarcerated, for what seemed a lifetime, and preferred being around busy people. His frown lines had become deep, protruding crevices faintly covering his veins.
D.G.W
Today marks the fifth anniversary of when the greatest man I ever had the privilege to know – my Papa – let his heart beat its last. When it finally sank into my soul that we were actually in his final days, I became overwhelmed with memories, snapshots in my mind of all that I would consider his legacy. For his funeral, I wrote and recited the following poem. It isn’t the best for rhythm and metre and all the technical whatnot, and I’m pretty sure ‘philosophic’ hasn’t ever been a word, but it carries the most meaning for me. The words came from a teenager’s raw mourning.
Thought I’d post this today as a little half-decade anniversary tribute.
The Smiley Poet 