In My Own Words – Page 80 – The Poems of David Garlick

In a graveyard, a crop of headstones

had sprung up, shiny black;

epitaphs written in white,

with perfect plastic flowers faded by the sun.

The new head markers

stood beside old leaning ones,

gray and pockmarked with age,

that staggered drunkenly, pathetic.

Unkempt, their tributes of long

grasses with bowed heads.

Remembered people, forgotten.

Where no graves scared the ground,

beyond a path and under trees,

two girls laid out a picnic

between clumps of Sea Pinks.

The cloth bright in the sun

but no match for the wild flowers.

Boys ran in noisy sport.

The girls chatted on a sea of pink.

There the dead communed in joy

with their eternity. Living on in

the carefree shouts and pleasant

moments of happy children.

What better monument could

anyone wish to raise,

than a harvest of living laughter.

David Garlick, Victoria, May 1996

I hear the sound of wind in trees.

Leaves rattle and talk to the night.

Soon they will fall, harvest of gold.

Rain on the roof, what does it say?

Drum beats in a forest, words for me?

A flurry of tears, voice in the dark.

Soon snow will whisper soft sounds.

So quiet, yet they speak loudly to me;

alone on my bed, thinking sad thoughts.

Drip of the thaw wearing away stone.

Wearing away the peace in my heart,

thoughts that haunt, from long ago.

How may I lay these ghosts to rest?

Deeds that haunt me through shame,

selfish, mindless acts and words.

A voice speaks loudly in my mind.

Before you would forgive others,

learn to forgive yourself!

David Garlick, Puerto Vallarta, February, 1999

I’m really rather ravishing

in my many patterned skin.

I like to lie on sunny rocks

to let the heat soak in.

But just like you I am afraid

when I don’t understand;

why people tease me with a stick,

or grab me with a hand.

So though I’d rather slip away,

though small, I show no fear

and coiled I strike as fast a light

my motive very clear!

Some of my cousins bite to kill,

though this I don’t condone.

So I’d suggest the best defense

is leave us well alone.

David Garlick, Victoria, November 1990

Waiting, waiting, waiting

alone on the bench of life.

The game races around me

as I sit there unnoticed,

caught on the vortex edge,

waiting to be sucked down

into a drain of grief.

She has been gone hours,

much longer than before.

What is taking so long?

Every one is busy and

though kind and gentle,

I feel terribly alone,

waiting for the gurney

to bring her back to me

from the theater.

The waiting over but

still she is hardly here.

Pale on her bed, tubes

and monitors drip and beep.

There is nothing for me to fix.

Just waiting to play my part

when called from the bench.

David Garlick, Victoria, February, 1996