Poetry

By

Harry Mills

REACH FOR THE STARS

Her willowy long fingered hands, as wild cold silk

in a lost garden, reaching for the night’s silver winged birds

slowly circles on the day’s heat and perfume

whispering to her

willing her to stretch just a little more and find a magic world

of azure blue lakes, snow flurrying as castor sugar

over cake decorations of steaming polar bears

then, tired, she rested her hand on the Angel’s wing

of quills that filled with light and joined her fingers, as one

her blonde flowing hair interlaced with the Angels

until, she awoke, listening to fairy tales from below her Grandad’s

white moustache

‘did I ever tell you Princess, the Chinese would tell of old moons

that the God’s crumbled into shiny new stars?’

EACH MORNING

Touch me Death, I’m awake

unveil your hidden face

cowering behind old diseases

under new shiny microscopes

smiling, smeared, pretty patterns

your fingerprints of swabs

slithering along silent passageways

scenting new rooms of death

each morning, when we die once more

INTRUSION

She told me

don’t write any more

no more words that disturb in the night

Don’t intrude, let the sleep heal

and allow her eyes to wander, to float

over soft meadows

thrown before as bolts of green cloth

unfolding, shimmering below awakening

clouds that kiss the seeds of flowers

the scent of life

Or, cast the heavy stone of conscience

into equilibrium’s pool of mediocrity

that whisper echoes of deafening ripples

Don’t write any more poetry

she told me

SCHOOL BUS

The diced chuck-steak wallowed

in the Irish blood, the black plaque stout

simmering naked, as stolen sin

do you love me ?

she turned, quick as the season, looking through the window

past the frog-spawn gobbling Canadas on the lake

waiting for the afternoon noise of the school bus’s binding brakes

she never answered

her old ice cream tub contents littered the pine table

nail polishes, files, rasps, acetone anesthetizing nostrils

like a miniature farriers, graced by half-moon clippings

do you love me?

the bus squealed, she raced with outstretched arms

excited as Christmas morning, wafting the steak pie aroma

around, as happy as a drunken Paddy with a fiver

she never answered

MAGIC CARPET

Palmed by psalm singing

slithering, silver

Ivory handled mind guns, loaded with black

murmuring dreams

that wound with words from a blurred magician’s wand

underscored by his slow trembling long nailed finger

that follows the snail across the page, each digit diligently

inscribed in Perpetua by a shaken hand that will wake the dead

resting electronically in a wild-west wilderness of strobing neon

a life of fast climax, fast food, fast living and a slow death

magic spells that smash preconception, like an ice pick

piercing the sleep of a rusty, rejected hidden existence

Intoxicated by the constant whispering of your name in the night

awakened to bumper stickers of birth control, gun control, no holds barred, wired around an already paled Autumn morning sun

of an eternity, already started without you, on my magic carpet

Harry Mills

Born 1944 in North Manchester, England.. failed every exam in the world, went to Art School (with Tony Prince), ran ad agencies as creative director or owner…divorced, kids, divorced, kids… divorced four times… lived in China, now in Philippines where I drink too much and write too little.

Harry’s vast array of poetic wisdom can be found at his Facebook page or via his blog