In My Own Words – Page 58 – The Poems of David Garlick

I had forgotten how beautiful they are.

Sleek of skin and limbs without

the blemish of time.

Bodies straight, colts full of fun!

Clear eyed and determined.

Unspoiled by too much or too little.

Poems in the writing.

athletes in the training.

Our future, their responsibility.

David Garlick, Puerto Vallarta, March 1999

They must be Gods, I thought.

How else

did they learn so well,

while I could not

remember anything?

They must be gods, I thought.

How else could they

write, write, write in halls,

where floors squeaked

and sun beams

danced the motes of dust?

The scratch of pens on paper.

They must be gods,

or I’m a fool.

Yes,

that must be it.

For off they went

where clever people

gain letters.

And I was left to

work my hands.

My mind still dwelt

where words were spun

but that was not to be,

for I was a fool.

So, as with those

who spurn our love.

I trampled on the memory

of flowing speech;

cascades of sounds

that filled the mind

with tears, love and laughter.

That world was not for me.

I must forgo it.

Then through the agony

of an ailing heart.

The words, my friend;

dying piece by piece,

gave back to me,

surfaced in my mind

and I was whole again.

Now these animated

living pebbles

in the brook of life,

roll to make music

in my heart.

They spring, as

water from the living rock,

to chuckle or to stab.

I hardly know from where.

Yes they were gods.

The lucky, clever many;

who sailed the seas

of knowledge, years ago,

when I was a fool.

Because I could not learn

the way they did.

David Garlick, Victoria, August, 1995

Saccharin, self-righteous judgments.

Oozing piety and risk less clichés

of urban prophets.

Never challenged beyond their narrow

benign lives.

Wrapped in soft comfort of ignorance.

Swaddled in shotgun educations.

Blinded by lack of experience.

Yet noisy in condemnation of

other races and countries.

Scratch them win nothing,

for there is nothing there of worth.

No new ideas, only mindless bleatings

to scourge different cultures.

Nations they cannot mark on a globe.

Judging others with standards flawed by ease.

What know these prophets of hunger, thirst, –

disease, insects, filth and famine.

Stand in these kind streets and solve

world problems if you can.

You pompous useless bastards

with your plated tongues.

David Garlick, Victoria, February, 1995

When the Loons call as evening falls,

a haunting cry across the golden lake,

and trees that lace a hilltop

turn black against the orange sky.

Then our eyes and ears enchanted

by these gifts that we enjoy.

Give thanks in silent gratitude

for our senses, lives and friends

David Garlick, Quesnel, July, 1994

For Rudy and Anne on their Lake