Is a poem not just a song
with rhyming verse
that’s not yet sung?

With repeated chorus
not yet stuck
inside one’s head,
amongst the muck?

Is a poem not just a song?
A daisy chain of verse
not yet strum

around a fire
among some friends
deep in the woods
on away weekends.

Is a poem not just a song
not yet proclaimed
by a choir’s tongue?

But uttered silently
in a bed-lamp’s light
at early hours
of the night.

Is a poem not just a song
that peacefully rests
in black ink upon

a white page
inside a book,
upon a library shelf
until it’s took?

Is a poem not just a song
quietly set to lips
that read along

on a train,
on the way back home
from visiting gran
for tea and a scone?

Is a poem not just a song
unset to keys
and not yet begun?

Not yet major,
and not yet minor.
Just metered in beats
and little other.

Is a poem not just a song?
I suppose it could be
but not this one.

With my five iron
I drive fallen, raw figs
Across the yard

And before me lay
The glory of the world.
Hard as we might try,
We could not defeat its beauty.

There’s no post in the box
At the top of the drive.
The sun won’t write us
‘fore the clouds arrive.

Leaves and plastic
Get caught in the rail.
We pull them out
So the gate won’t fail.

But who walks by
Or on bikes roam
Beyond the corner
From where we call home?

We can only hide far away
Behind the bougainvillea’s green,
In our bricks and glass,
In the spaces between.

And still no letter
And yet far better.

At first it made me happy
But now it makes me feel ashamed
My Christmas tree in February

Wanna rescue earthworms
All about on the drive?
Throw ‘em back on the grass
To try keep them alive

The rain has come down hard
And flooded their worm home
Beneath where they all live
We can’t leave them alone

Before the hot sun welds
Them all to the cement
And long before their last
Squirm and wriggle are spent

Hurry and grab a twig
We’ll save ‘em, you and I
We won’t get them all
But be sure we will try