Gerry read these two poems at our last meeting:
The Love Apple
- What holds you back,
my brave young man?
A path has opened in the woods:
enter if you can.
What holds you back
my brave young man?
The mists of moonlight beckon through the trees
Will you take my hand?
- I see a lady clad in scarlet
as her outstretched arms and fingers slim
entice me to a lover's tryst, and
beckon me in
to a hidden path between ghostly trees
which leaves me shaken:
a door into the dark, a way through the woods,
a road not taken.
- And there I go
with trembling fear following after
a dangerous belladonna,
captivated by her
piercing eyes
and penetrating pupils giving palpitations
as seduced, beguiled and helpless
I am on fire.
- The pathway seems
to close in darkness as I lapse
in to unknown territory where, helpless,
I collapse
dreaming only
of the bittersweet black and red berry,
love's apple, deadly nightshade,
the sorcerer's cherry.
Magic mushrooms
and fatal fungi, discovered in the main
in the dampest, deepest forests, foment
within my brain
- until I wake
as sunlight filters through the curtain
drying the perspiration on my helpless limbs
and I am myself again.
Gerry Miller copyright 2014
The Mouse
We went on vacation for a week
to a caravan close to the sea.
We swam and played the amusements
and had mussels and chips for our tea.
When we came home we were full of high spirits
with our batteries charged up anew
and were singing and laughing aloud
as our village and house came in view.
Our laughter soon stopped as the door swung ajar.
It had been like that since we left
but at least no-one had taken our belongings
or had entered our little love nest
- except a family of field mice
which had started to run and to roam
all over the floors and the beds and the chairs
and we're refusing to leave our dear home.
One by one I caught the intruders.
Please don't ask what happened to them.
My family agreed to return to the house
and soon felt happy again.
Next morning I was brushing and sweeping
and cleared the ashes out of the fire,
taking them out on a shovel
to scatter down by the byre.
Then the embers moved on the shovel.
Tiny whiskers quivered and eyes peered out.
The last of the rodent family shook himself
and twitched his sensitive snout.
I was about to quickly despatch him
just like the rest of his kin
when the ash got into his eyes
and irritated his delicate skin.
He rubbed his eyes with his miniscule paws
and on his haunches looked sadly at me.
I checked that no-one was watching
and let the wee fellow run free.
Gerry Miller copyright 2014
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