Category: Poetry

She’s been gone for hours and hours.
Something’s upset her, I hope she’ll feel better,
Down in the woods, gathering some flowers.

I think she was up half the night feeling sour,
Must have been something to do with that letter.
She’s been gone for hours and hours.

The radio said there’d be thundery showers,
It’s bad getting stuck in that kind of weather.
Down in the woods, gathering some flowers.

Thought I saw lightening, but we’ve still got power,
I wonder if someone should go down and get her?
She’s been gone for hours and hours.

And that dog’s bark, it’s nothing like ours.
The cute Irish setter’s returned, having left her,
Down in the woods, gathering some flowers.

No! Wait, I was wrong and she’s climbing the tower,
Soaking, but happy with bunches of heather.
She’d been gone for hours and hours.
But back from the woods now, she’s gathered her flowers.

© Sam McKeon 2015

Somewhere between
Today and last Tuesday,
I’ve lost my voice.
Thought I had it, but
I must have forgotten,
Misplaced how it sounds.
And now all that I write . . .
. . . Is so fucking trite.

Writer’s bronchitis,
That’s what I’ve got.
Coughing up snot covered,
Chest heaving, mucous glazed words.
Pieces from jigsaws,
Mish-mashed in wrong boxes.
I’m wastelanding forests of paper,
With acid rain showers of blooded ink.

Or maybe it’s worse,
Neural pathways shutting down.
Tomorrow I won’t even write nonsense.
It must be viral occlusion.
So please stay away,
At least until the fever is gone,
I’d hate for anyone else to suffer.

© Sam McKeon 2015

I never fell in love with you,
I rose.
Thankfully,
I’m still climbing.

© 2015 Sam McKeon

Lodged between the shadowed rocks,
Helpless, tired and shivering.
There she lay, as if in death,
On seaweed beds and quivering.

Sanded hair in tendrilled veil,
Skin so cool and smooth.
I don’t remember if her tail,
Twitched slightly when it moved.

Gently under darkening sky,
I eased her from the grip.
And at the touch of warmer skin,
Her scales began to slip.

One by one they left a trace,
Of stars across the shore.
And by the time I laid her down,
Her tail was there no more.

Now beneath a slender waist,
And falling to the knee.
A shapely curving pair of legs,
Where tail had used to be.

Slightly fizzy on the tongue,
Citrus limed and salty.
Pressed against me on that night,
Her perfect body taught me.

More about a lover’s touch,
Than ever I could learn.
Had I not been there on that beach,
My mermaid’s love to earn.

Just before the dawn we woke,
And leading by the hand.
She walked me to the water’s edge,
Where shingle turns to sand.

And at the touch of ocean’s tongue
Her form began to change,
Gone the legs I’d lain between,
Replaced by tail again.

I held her in my arms until
The current was too strong,
And pointing at the bright full moon,
My mermaid love was gone.

Waking as the flowing tide had
Soaked me to the knees.
The crash of waves upon the shore,
Absorbed my sobs and pleas.

So cast aside the whiskey jar,
For of the booze I’m cured,
And I will search that western beach,
Each full moon now for sure.

© Sam McKeon 2015

paper is missing,
the feeling of ink,
transporting our essences.

the booklet you tore,
those several sheets,
lies low on the shelf.

we were to write
each share halving our
news, sounding bright

but I can’t scratch,
sketch, nor focus,
my center circumferenced.

the postman calls,
but bills, no letters,
communication freeze.

I haven’t troubled,
the book for a stamp,
Since you’ve lain fallen overseas.

© Sam McKeon 2015

In your absence, we are nothing,
Starved of our purpose, broken, despairing.
None of us know where, what, or how to do,
Our planet yearns its core, the returning of you.

Like cranking old engine, with weak failing battery,
Only a splutter of life could we spark.
Your absence in any form, masking our lighting,
We flop, darkened down, dry-droughted yet drowning.

Depths verging death, we moribund plumb,
Blunted, our weak knives warm butter can’t part.
And cold as a gale, chilling hurricane storm,
Nothing on earth can our freeze bodies warm.

But by time we are brightened, again you can join us.
We radiate, glowing, greet chance filled horizons.
Yet all of our light is the dimmest reflection,
Your’s is the radiance of simple perfection.

Centre of orbits, place of our hopes,
We feed at this locus of each journey’s end.
Beginning anew we can mantle our strengths,
All of your presences, our lives have refreshed.

© Sam McKeon 2015

Heal,
While I rest centred.
Pass,
As others rush in your streams.
Clock,
Spinning mechanism.
Stopped,
Twelve-forty and thirty five seconds.

Somewhere,
Between midday and lunch.
Hand,
Showing seconds.
Locked,
South, South-west.

Why,
In this circular transit?
Orbit,
Suspended eternally.
Hunger,
Thirst for the future.
Ever slaked.

Time,
Never ends,
Always,
A watch, Watching watcher.
Checks,
On the progress,
Day to night,
Dawn to dusk,
Dark to light.

Perhaps,
The end of time,
Approaching,
Will make some announcement?
Dragging,
It cannot pass.
Will not be late,
Nothing,
Beyond, it might be happening now.

© Sam McKeon 2015

Unyielding, jaw firm set,
Locked tight as bolt’s centuried rust.
Fearing ground shift,
Terrified consequence of modification,
Though stimuli, persistent forcing,
Raise armies against fidgets, fighting.

Throttle full, while brakes remain,
Attempts to steer from quayside,
By mooring ropes constrained.
Anchor thrown to depths of certain,
Blocks shifting path or course’s change.

Every chance for positive action,
Observer tested, tried and thwarted as,
Avalanche, mud slide, quakes, acid rain,
Await steppers forward,
To dare-devil cross oblivion’s line.

Solace never shares your path,
These plans, by self-structured artifice,
Themselves deny all chance of passage,
To futures of relaxed uncertainty.
For more the mould its pattern urges,
Less your lifetime’s map endorses.

If only you could all control,
Make onshore waves break backwards roll.
Life’s fractured elements you’d unite,
And all would grant your great foresight,
Then surely you’d be proven just,
For treating each new concept thus.
Everyone caution’s torch raised high,
In you they’d place their trust and die.

© Sam McKeon 2015