She’s Gone
Eyes bemused –
A disconnect
Dermal swathes of young and old
Reject the guessing of your age
You’re blind –
A blueprint for blankness
Your dreaming pipes through nothingness –
Are you still afloat? – atop the oceans,
Heaving, heavy over Hell,
Boiling, spoiling in a mind that couldn’t cope.
Ah! but Death smiles
And so do you
Kissing Him
Is all to do!
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Pantoum on Nature's Patience
Surviving all to seize the hour;
A firm reward: a solitary flower.
With pinch of time to propagate -
Of seed and chance, it must await.
A firm reward: a solitary flower,
But motionless, the dainty tower.
Of seed and chance, it must await
And not by dreams or wishing fate.
But motionless, the dainty tower -
Completion lies in gusty power,
And not by dreams or wishing fate.
Unmindful patience; whither date?
Completion lies in gusty power
To cast its genes by seed in shower.
Unmindful patience; whither date? -
To dance in wind, from taut and straight.
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poem by Mark R Slaughter (2009)
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A Drink
With glass, I am a man – or so I think! –
A role to play when blessed with courtly drink:
A gin or two, then vintage port or wine
To pep me up and gift me with a shine.
I know it’s false, as I now must depend
Upon my daily shots with open end.
Insidious, it all becomes routine
To beg a drink each day for self-esteem.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
All rights reserved
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An act of poetry
Ruin is what we need –
Despair is what we feed
Upon in poetry
A shock resets the nerves –
Helps remould the curves
Of written art
Catharsis helps portray –
Acting out a play
On expurgation
Tears or hidden fears
Release the bottled years
To ink a page:
The pen be our salvation.
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Thirteen Lines
A brain peered through stoic eyes;
Yet all it saw was rendered into
Flawed interpretation –
No honoured contemplation of a
Gluon, muon, quark of any flavour;
Nor a vision or conception of its world
Within a universe anthropic in its physical laws,
Inside a boundless multiverse.
All it gleaned and modelled
Bore parochialism well beyond belief! –
Delusional perhaps.
Survival only matters here on planet Earth –
Evolution saw to that.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
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Mighty Sun
Sun so hot, our desserts sear, give struggling life so much to bear.
Sun so bright, you clear our skies for us to see with sparkling eyes.
Sun of violence: in great warfare you lash afar with solar flare.
Sun so kind, you keep us warm, and dry us aft of squally storm.
Sun of power, driving flora – food of life for grateful fauna.
Sun of beauty: paint our morn to mesmerise with blushing dawn.
Sun mystique: electrify our lofty sky for Northern Lights to beautify.
Sun of calm: give hazy days to doze in shade of lazy rays.
O Sun, you mighty Sun! fire your furnace just for me –
Those flames of giants must always be!
And awesome though you truly are,
I pray, remain our blessed star!
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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My Sneaking Tears
How heavy fell the rain that day
From burdened clouds of mournful grey.
The torrent forced them stay their height -
Composure swayed by onerous might.
My skin wrung wet with icy chill
As mud embraced that sodden hill;
But mind of mine had elsewhere gone -
'Twas clouds abandoned I was on.
The driving drops advanced their gears
To camouflage my sneaking tears -
Whence now did swell such floods of pain
To see me melt into this rain…
On equal bearing now were we:
This rain, myself, in harmony.
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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A life half lived
A life lived in fear
Is a life half lived.
If only you would dare – or do!
A flagrant kiss of challenge on the lips
– then on to tongue –
Will help undress the man,
So you may feel the dawn
Caress your waking self:
The blush of latent pride will
Place the cold of low-esteem
Upon the shelf of also-rans.
You’d shine! –
In oestrogenic ways that
For the moment hide beneath your skin,
Deferring yet again a shaking breast
From androgenic hands.
Involve your glands upon a whim –
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Coffee Courage
The bitter coffee kicked;
I shook and then I licked
My lips and gave a sigh.
Shattered eyes encouraged,
I nearly had envisaged
Waking up an eye.
Another sip; a jolt –
Not unlike a bolt
Of wattage from the mains.
My sockets under strain,
I tried it once again:
Aha! The light, the searing white –
My God, the bloody pain!
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
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Pirouetting Autumn
The tree blushed - a rude blast of air
Betrayed a shapely bough.
My saddened heart aware
That Nature's clock was chiming,
I froze upon the twelfth
Clanging tone, caught alone,
Staring at a creaking door -
Left ajar for dancing, coloured Autumn,
Pirouetting in her leaves,
While agitated summer creatures
Backed away resignedly,
Sighing in protracted breves.
I turned; gave company;
We stood together, watching
Summer slowly blow away.
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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