Remembrance 9/11

The towers fell,
Shattered.
Lives stopped,
By those with hearts of bone.
Hard ideologs.
Those in its wake,
Stripped from life.

Now ten years on,
Photos of the lost,
Clutched to grieving breasts.
An anniversary of pain.
Raw feelings renewed.
Salted wounds.
Bone deep.

No cliched phrases,
Or politicians platitudes
Can blam the pain.
Each recalled.

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poem by Paul Brookes
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Purple Evening

I breathe you in as we kiss.
Your hair smells of moor
The tang of peat.
Fresh.
Of the heather, wildness.
The close purple of evening
Slowly creeps across the sky.
We take each others hands
And slowly walk into the moon.
The becks sound a watery serenade.
We seem float on the early mist
Which rises as the earth loses heat,
But we are warmed by our love.
Insulated from the chill, content.

April 2009

P H Brookes Copyright 2011

poem by Paul Brookes
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Mistaken

I misunderstood
I stood stark.
Not withstanding
This misunderstanding,
A mistake.
Mistaken identity,
Unidentified,
You lied.
Lay the facts distorted.
Like in the hall of mirrors,
Twisted, mistaken,
My words mistook.
With one frozen look
You froze my heart.
My tongue frosted.
My ears burned by honeyed lies.
Eyes deceived by outer form.
Formed the wrong image
For you were deformed, twisted.
And I misunderstanding,

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poem by Paul Brookes
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Endgame Stream XI

This state of mind
Envelops my wits.
Find myself
At my wits end.
A life on hold.
Looking through
An opaque veneer.
The world indifferent
Spins on,
Puts me in a spin.
Hovering on the horizon
Stuck between night and day.
In everlasting twilight
Where nothing has definition,
Not defined.
But low upon the skyline
A slow lick of sun
Burns away the gloom,
Illuminates the path
Disipates the fog.

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poem by Paul Brookes
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And Down We Go

And down we go,
And down we go again.
We do nothing by halves.
We drink deep,
Deep to the very dregs;
Take it in deep down.
And down we go,
Falling in and out of love.
And down we go again.
We're on the verge, on the cusp,
We ready ourselves,
And down we go again.
Having no self worth
Our love is worth nothing,
A fleeting presence
That comes too soon
And goes too fast.
Devalued, clichéd,
And down we go,
And down we go again.

poem by Paul Brookes
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Snowflake

When the day dawns
Bright and crisp,
The snow yet to fall
Hovers on the horizon
In laden black clouds.
The chill air hangs ice,
Breathing on trees,
Sliding down drain pipes
Making zylophone icicles,
Playing a winter's tune
The wind whips scintilling,
Vibrating the telephone lines.
An aolian harp, zinging,
Then a silence covers the land,
Shivering in antisipation......
Awaiting the first snowflake.

P. H. Brookes Copyright 2012.

poem by Paul Brookes
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Departed

The house lies empty
Hovering on edges of my senses
The faint trace your scent
As if you have just slipped out the room
Soon to return.
Pick up where you left off.
The shelves are powdered with dust
Grey as my thoughts.
The room lies cold, barren,
Dead, for your spirit is absent.
A book lies open where you left it
The story stalled never to be finished
But yours has ended.
And I, I still have mine to finish.

Copyright P H Brookes 2012

poem by Paul Brookes
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Solitary (Stream VI)

Solitary,
Alone, yet crowded in.
Hemmed in.
Penned in.
Encircled.
The flow of the crowd pulls,
Surrounded you surrender,
Are surrendered,
Surrender yourself.
Rendered down.
No longer alone,
Yet lonely.
Left alone.
A lone voice
Crying out,
But ears are deaf,
Eyes blind,
Lips dumb.
No solicitude.
Not touched

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poem by Paul Brookes
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Death Pities

Oh fair without yet pitch within
Beauties outer cover hides the rot.
The skin pale so soft to touch, is ice.
The eyes deep, hold no warmth.
The rosy lips carmen red, smile
But it never reaches the soul.
For that you have sold too cheaply.
You are all for outward show, sick,
An empty vessel that holds no joy.
Your honeyed words cloy and poison
Corrupt the air and blacken the rose.
Death pities but cannot touch,
For you are already dead.

poem by Paul Brookes
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Perfume Trail

Only memories shreds remain.
A tinge of scent,
A perfume trail,
A butterfly rustle
From watered silk.
An echo of her laughter,
A reverberated memory,
Where now silence heavy lies
And solemn shadows dwell.
Her things lie where dropped
Dust draped, abandoned,
Waiting vainly for her return.
The pots and powders
That were her beauty aids
Bereft, no more needed,
For she has gone;
To lie in her deep bed
In cool funereal earth.

Copyright P H Brookes 2012

poem by Paul Brookes
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