In My Own Words – Page 35 – The Poems of David Garlick

However old we become,

we were once a baby.

However strong,

once a child.

However wise,

once ignorant.

However learned,

once illiterate.

However beautiful,

once wrinkled.

However rich,

once poor.

However powerful,

once impotent.

However skillful,

once clumsy.

However unworthy,

always loved by someone.

David Garlick, Victoria, July, 1996

Some can Bowl, as smooth as silk.

While others of a different ilk,

rain blows upon the cringing Green,

results of which can then be seen.

Divots, like a golf course tee,

fly through the air for us to see.

While those who ‘scalp’, concentrate –

on aim and arc, the Jack to mate.

And so they never see grass fly –

from bowls, as birds, up in the sky!

And we all cringe, this sight to see.

‘Why can’t they learn, to bowl like me?’

Please do not tell, those few who sin,

about the sods, their bowls may spin –

up in the air to then lay flat –

upon the green. Go fetch a mat!

I’m sure we all, can manage that.

David Garlick, Sidney, April, 2001

Mirror, mirror on the wall;

who is the fairest of us all?

Whose drawn in cheek, or ruby lips?

Whose wide-eyed stare, eye brows eclipse?

Then in a moment all is gone.

Our aging skin tell what is wrong.

It sags away, the pores expose

those lines etched deep beside a nose.

The sagging neck, the wrinkled brow,

It was so sudden, I wonder how?

David Garlick, Mexico, January, 1998

In the quiet early morning,

when sleep slips silently away

and a cold nose is insistent

or a tickle tail is trailed.

When a heavy paw says,

“Wake up, come share-

a beauty to behold!”

Then I rose to see this wonder.

Of which I’d just been told.

Hidden by the darkness.

Hidden by a curtain.

Hidden by the night

and breach the vale of silence

to the glory of that sight.

No stars beckon from the heavens.

No moon stared back at me.

Only darkness, velvet darkness;

falling silence, mystery!

Three creatures by a window,

look in wonder at a night,

sleepy eyes are woken,

by a silent sense of bright;

in the softly lisping darkness

is a wonderland of white.

David Garlick, Sidney, January, 2005