In My Own Words – Page 85 – The Poems of David Garlick

She came drifting through the mirror

in the middle of the night.

She wore a see through garment

of translucent lace in white.

When I say that it was ‘see through’

I could see through her as well.

Who was this lovely creature?

Who was this Southern Bell?

Her hair hung down in ringlets.

Her garment was cut low

but it didn’t seem to matter

there was nothing there to show.

Her vacant eyes were staring

and on her cheek a tear.

Then she drifted to a gilded harp

and sat in a gilded chair.

I wondered as I watched her strum

upon an ancient string.

No sound of note or chord I heard

as she began to sing.

But her lips were moving with the words

as she fingered the melody.

The question beat upon my brain.

Who could this lady be?

So I arose from my canopy bed

to stand on floors of oak.

And I let her finish playing,

before a word I spoke

and as she turned to face me

her beauty was a spell.

Who are you lovely lady,

my ghost of a Southern Bell?

“I am a Planters daughter.

This was my wedding day.

But I can never leave here –

as my lovers gone astray.

So until his soul is quiet,

I must sing my lonely song

of love that’s unrequited

and the things that he did wrong.”

“He was the local heart throb.

Girls swooned to touch his hand.

He had a hundred lovers

across this cursed land.

I was quite contented to –

be one of the mindless many.

But I never thought my rival would be

a heartless “Spinning Jenny”.

“The night before our nuptials

he was captured by her charms.

Falling into her bosom,

caught by her loving arms.

He went through the spinner

to become a skein of yarn.

Purchased by a farmer

who hung him in his barn!”

By now my mind was reeling.

“Please tell me more.” I said.

I was caught up in her story.

I was tangled in its thread.

“What happened to that farmer?

Where did he use the yarn,

that was spun by Spinning Jenny

and hung up in that barn?”

She sat there softly sobbing,

her voice was quavering.

“It must be hard for a landed Lord

to end his life as string.

I know he was a lecher,

I know he could be a swine.

But my heart is greatly saddened –

to think of him as bailing twine.”

Oh woe my beautiful lady,

my heart goes out to you.

Perhaps if you wandered

the hill and dales,

your lover would be there too.

“I can’t.” she said in a whisper.

“Not someone in my position.

I’d make such a mess

of this wedding dress.

Besides, I like to be Air-conditioned !

David Garlick, Jackson, L.A, 1990

I’m only a mouse

in the chocolate chip cookies

but I make enough racket

to awaken the dead.

As I scrabble and scratch,

gnawing and chewing.

Which wakes up the people

asleep in the bed.

As I knock over drink cans,

rattle the glasses,

jangle a tea spoon

or fall in the tub.

I scamper and scurry

to get at the package

that calls like a Siren

to my yearning taste buds.

I try to be quiet

but the problem with paper

is it rustles and rattles,

as it puts up a fight.

And I must have a cookie,

with chocolate chips in it.

‘Cos a mouse can get frantic

for that very first bite.

They think I’m a monster,

a tiger, a cougar,

a man eating spider,

a sinuous snake,

a villain, a raccoon,

a vampire, a grizzly.

a wild boar, a hippo,

or a massive earth quake.

But its just little me,

in the chocolate chip cookies.

That they left on the counter,

when they put out the light.

And I’ll try not to wake them

but It’s really a problem,

for a ravenous rodent

in the dead of the night.

David Garlick, Victoria, August, 1991

For Dick and Jeanne Cavaye, in their trailer on Pender Island.

There comes a time when

happiness escapes my heart,

leaving behind desolation in my soul.

Words held captive, as water in a mountain,

bubble through the fissures of my mind

to run unbidden down drawn cheeks

They gather in tiny pools, each bright as the sky.

Reflecting twinkling sun dust or

the eyes of angles in the night.

They speak on pebble, sob between rocks,

sing songs of purity, falling from ledges.

Cascading to form a lake of verse.

They flow as tears at a wedding.

Half sadness, half joy

for the promise of new beginnings.

The yearnings for what was once ours.

Now stolen by years and blunted

by the grit of life.

And so they flow, salt at the

the corner of my mouth.

Each one a thought or memory,

a jewel in the necklace of life.

Each one a word to share with you,

the under stander of my inner being;

who with a word or touch can

rout the tears that overwhelm me.

David Garlick, Victoria, May 1995

The mildewed hour stank of discontent.

Words rotted on damp page.

Leaden thoughts sank in a swamp of self.

Nostrils quivered in disgust and

spoors smudged the clean.

Bird feather thoughts rattled.

Nerves jumped like fleas

on a dank carpet of yesterday.

Thick ugly air crawled.

The ink line stopped

where point pierced paper.

Thunder shattered the fetid gloom.

Harvested clouds washed the air,

leaving an arch of smiles.

Words flowed, clean on life’s window.

Sun shone and tears fled eyes.

David Garlick, Puerto Vallrta, November, 1997