In My Own Words – Page 63 – The Poems of David Garlick

Where have you been?

Had you forgotten me!

I feared you went where

fragrant scent

is lost on dewy ground.

I feared you lost.

I feared you gone.

I feared you would not come.

I feared the days

sun up, sun down

would never bring you home.

I looked for you, when out on walks.

I searched and searched in vain

You were not near,

you were not there,

you where gone far away.

At night I heard you on the wind.

The chimney spoke to me

of sand and rock

of snow and ice

of strange and

wondrous things.

I dreamt the rhythm of a wheel.

that clicked on a rails of steel.

I dreamt of you on camel backs

the rolling gait I feel.

I heard strange sounds,

I heard strange words.

I heard the calls to prayer.

I felt the rasp of history.

I felt the pain of time.

I felt the loneliness of grief.

I knew these pains were mine.

I knew that time was slipping by.

I knew you would not come.

I knew that you were far away,

perhaps, like others gone.

But all at once I felt faint hope.

I felt you in the air.

I felt the warmth

of love come home

and knew that you were near.

David Garlick, Sidney, April, 2008

The curtains of winter

are closing around us.

The mountains are shrouded,

the sea is slate gray.

Branches are dripping,

the flowers are wilted,

a fog horn is wailing,

waves crash in the bay.

Lone Rock is guarding

the beach which is littered

with logs that escaped

from a boom far at sea.

Seagulls are wheeling

their shrill voices crying

leaving this cold place

to the sky and to me.

Heron is fishing,

one leg in the water.

Brown kelp is looping,

to pattern the sand.

Flecked spume is flying.

Fine sand grains are drifting.

Waves cleanly wash

foot prints from the strand.

The day is declining,

the red sun is setting,

moon palely rising,

to brighten the sky.

Venus is starting

to glitter a greeting

for us who still linger

by the edge of the bay.

David Garlick, Victoria, 1990

Britain has many mysteries

but the strangest one of all.

Is how to make the plumbing work

in the small room down the hall.

Some you pull and some you push

and some will need a special touch.

But you are not sure of success

until you here that welcome flush.

Also beware that flaunted shower.

That hangs in welcome on the wall.

It’s not there to wash your hair

but placed upon your foot to fall.

If used, it drools in feeble drops.

Some times it’s warm, but mostly not.

And when your eyes are full of soap

th wretched flow will surely stop.

Never ever drop the soap.

For if for it you try to grope.

You may expose your nether end

outside the stall in which you bend.

Hand basins like a bathroom shrine.

Hot and cold, oh how sublime!

As long as all you need to wash

is one hand at a time.

With groan and belch, in Falstaff style,

hot water from a tap will flow.

The bath will fill, you’ll wait a while,

your bathing sure but rather slow.

Your minds eye dwells on fluffy towel,

to warm your shoulders, now so chill.

But when you take it from the rail,

you find it will not fill the bill.

With clanking chain and dragging leg.

Fear not the haunting of the tower.

The thing that causes sickly dread,

the plumbing and the shower.

David Garlick, England, 1986

He sat across from me,

sunlight glinting in his beard.

A show of gold in a miner’s pan.

A flash of excitement in a graveled day!

But Guy is no miner.

Not for gold anyway.

Perhaps for words,

words that flowed easily,

like a large river,

not as a mountain stream.

Words of literature.

Words from his favorite writer.

William Shakespeare.

Agincourt, once more, dear friend!

David Garlick, Victoria, February, 2001