POETRY BY RICHARD BERD

 

LITTLE BEAR

All is dark now, Little Bear
Dark and warm behind the curtains.
You gaze into the dark air with me.
Us, tucked away under the duvet.

winnie bear

Thanks for today
And for the moon and the stars tonight.
The wind sounds far away;
Schooldays appear like a folded photo
Of long ago.
The room tastes of a pear drop
As we float into the air.

Written by Richard Berd on 24/5/95.

 

ESCAPE

Rising upward
Through plastic air
Grey-white, rain, wind
Vanished, all gone.
Blades of dark grass
Still and silent.

No more of that
Spinach-like hell;
Stench through the air:
Lemon and lime.
Dull wooden doors:
No more of that.

Slow, dreary rot
And stuttering
Tedious as
The clothes he wore.
Such old women
Just come to talk.

Smells of stale milk
An asylum
Of lunatics
And half-asleep
Old men, women
Young boys and girls.

It's not for me.
Miserable place
As rain poured down.
Prison of glass,
It is, it was.
Wasn't for me.

Winter feels free.
Fresh aqua night.
January.
Still and silent.
Shine on me, moon:
Just shine on me.


THURSDAY DRAGON

Beware ceiling-
You're about to cave in.

The day begins and ends.
Eyes from the past
Smoking ferociously;
Channels of fire
Splashing
From its nostrils.
The day begins
Enslaved
In a cage
All day.
The sky grows wings
And remains static.
Its colours,
Shaped and shapeless
Locked inside a skull
Of a restless stasis.

Rain is useless-
it won't stop flooding me.

The day dies, night befalls.
Sludge and dried tears
Of wrath, turning around;
Hills are fantasy
Fleeing
Far; they are gone.
The night begins
Banished
To a dungeon
All night.
The sky spins round
And bleeds ugly clouds,
Their shapes,
Ghosts and monsters
Roaming in vast void
And poisoning a world.


SUNDAY NIGHT

Oblivion covers windows
And rain streams down in woe
A candle wick turns black
And the curtains rise in the wind.

A man has been murdered
The windows react with a shudder.
A lost dog howls again.
And is lost as a sound of a feather.

A maroon sky is staring
And brown clouds move away.
Rain washes puddles in the street
And the black trees ignore their warning.