Desklove

I love my desk.

My small space where I can do anything.

Dark wood that looks sometimes rich as chocolate

Sometimes black as ink

Sometimes simply a surface, pitted and battered

Scarred by use.

Like it’s alive under me.

The brown runs to worn coffee-foam hazel in one zone.

In another a past user has madly scratched

a tangle of scribbles.

There are chips and deep gashes where the inner wood shows through –

Almost the colour of skin.

This desk has felt pain.

It is narrow, it doesn’t hold much

But what it does hold is precious

Because it is mine now.

Its legs are thin but sturdy.

I am transfixed by its colour  

So much so that I sometimes write shit like this:

A love poem for a hunk of wood.                               

This is the first time love has been simple

Maybe it’s mine forever.

Evening Walk

I walked home with my books

In evening’s pastel blue

November’s chill compelled me

To hurry past the view.

Yet grey clouds stood like mountains

Beyond the city’s light,

The far off traffic winking

And autumn’s leaves in flight.

The laughter of the jackdaws

Was sweet as choir song,

But yet evening was dying

And night would not be long.

The hills were green and silent

Beneath the fading light.

The moon shone brightly, clearly,

Yet birds were still in flight.

And as I passed a stranger

Who might have been a friend,

I dipped my head to greet him –

He did not comprehend.

So on I walked, and neared my street

With orange leaves beneath my feet

And found my restlessness was lost

With weary legs the only cost.

The trees like towers, tall and wild

The night descending, daytime’s child,

I brought my eye to sky at last –

But evening had already passed.