you said i was exotic,
and i said ooo
what do you mean?
exotic like a fruit?, like
i don’t know what tropics
you think i came from, was
imported from, but you read
my skin like the label
on a flavour of coca-cola
you had never been
offered before and i
was refreshing, and
different. and you liked
the way my coke-bottle
curves felt beneath your
fingertips, said you’d never
tasted caramel
like me before,
you said i was exotic.
like i was a work
of west african art,
even though my mother’s
from the east, like
i was from a storybook like
1001 african nights, like,
you saw my cover and you were
hooked, never did think to
look beneath the jacket,
just wanted stories like the
ones scheherazade sold,
i was your sheba
and you my solomon.
we rode lions across
the sands, your kiss
was salt on my lips,
i needed to quench
my thirst and you offered
me the brand new flavour
of coca-cola.

you said i was exotic,
like a pretty foreign thing,
some mail-order thing,
special delivery
just for you,
a flavour of coca-cola that you
had never tasted before.

Why can't life be this?
I asked my wife as
we sat underneath our
white polyester blanket,
snowflakes gently striking
the pavement and our
gray-blue mailbox outside.

Why can't every day be Saturday
when you and I awake to
each other's smiles?
We would hold each other
and be thankful that we
have nowhere to be
this quiet afternoon.

We would find purpose
in cleaning the laundry,
in washing the floors,
and we wouldn't need to worry
about any bills or those
leftover to-do lists waiting
at work from the week before.

I'd like to imagine this
is what Heaven is like,
no worries, or cares, or toil;
just relaxing each day
with a chestnut and clove candle
warming our senses
as we sit in silent contentment.

Suddenly  gone  very  quiet  here.
Main  tourists  now  long  gone.

Birds  and  animals  quiet  too.
No  morning  chorus.

Weather  stagnant, mainly  cloudy, no  wind.
And  surprisingly  no  sign  of  rain.

Trees  are  beautiful  though.
Leaves  of  rich  reds,  browns,  and  golds.

Keith  Wilson.  Windermere.  UK.  2016.



,

The first thinkers were poets
Naming Mother Earth
Beginning symbolic thinking
Of nature, death and birth

Though themes are often repeated
Love, Beauty and God
Poetry in the guise of Religion
A prophet or a fraud

The poet resurrects the Primitive
Through allegory and similes
Disarming the unknown like explorers
Sublime Prophets and Visionaries

They must lay bare those treasured images
That must be expressed
Unraveling and revealing the sounds
At each soul’s behest

Encompassing the entire Cosmos
So lyrical the beat
The poet’s excitement flows outward
Laid at the Reader’s feet

So original, individual
She won’t examine or explain
Letting go the festering feelings
Disturbances in her brain

He exposes his dark, wounded psyche
Just to release and express
Such capacity to see and compare
Hyperbole at its best

I love, I hate, I suffer
A special dance in rhythm and rhyme
The poet as a buffer
Lessening the pain and sting of time

Laden with symbol and feelings
She gives you sweet relief
From something urgent, revealing
Confusion to belief

Through a cinematic kind of seeing
The poet purges to transform
By leaping through Alice’s looking glass
She never was one to conform

Quite intolerant of convention
Just like The Mad Hatter
His passions immune to all logic
In syncopated patter

Jamming up the poet’s mind
Struggling for expression
Seeking order out of chaos
An infantile regression

Cleaving to his imaginary world
The poet breaks out into words
Creating sound paintings to be unfurled
So his own agony is blurred

She succumbs to storms of passion
With instinctive techniques
Rhymes and rhythm still in fashion
Out of hand flows mystique

The poet mines from his unconscious
The Reader is not blind
For every single line and symbol
Means something to the mind

Causing an inner liberation
Enlightenment or flight
It is a matter of life and death
When darkness turns to light.

tonight
I ache to see you sitting next to me
I yearn to hear your voice
I desperately wish you could make me feel alive

the days are adding up
and they don't stop- for me

you've been gone for decades
and each 10th year mark
I feel like a part of me slips away to

tonight
if just for a few minutes
I want you

If you could make me feel something
I could tuck it away
cherish it forever


but forever,
that's a time
I'll never have with you

every moment, you're gone
you're a memory- one that I can't even remember

I wish I could have you

Just Hold my Hand whenever earth attempt to shade my faith,just Hold my soul together I see his attempts are graduating every year,just hold my hand whenever I feel like losing hope,I definitely can't and won't cope without you holding my Hand,just hold my hand more tight these year I need you more than last year and next year I will need you more than this year,just hold my hand I see he is testing the depth of my faith in you let him drown ,Please Hold my hand like metal on a magnet and never let my hand trip,Please just hold my hand  more tighter than clue stick on a paper,please take my hand and Hold it forever until I fade from the earth's surface,They say Nothing is forever just hold my hand and prove your strength is forever,Bring me closer to heaven since earth is straying away far from heaven,Please Just Hold hand again and again forever and ever Amen

I had told her about my pin badges -
It was that kind of intimacy.

I had written poems about her -
It was that kind of intimacy.

She returns with another present,
In fact, more than one,
Despite being a woman scorned -
It was that kind of intimacy.

One, a postcard, to return my gesture,
A memory we shared together -
It was that kind of intimacy.

Two, a pin, she travelled to find,
Searching to fix something that
Was never broken.
To her, this was a failure,
To me, it was
Our kind of intimacy.

And three, a notebook,
Because she knows what I love,
And that words lie deep inside of me,
Screaming to come out.

I write this to her to apologise
For being a fool, and to thank her
For her undying encouragement
And her endless inspiration
And her kind, warm words -
A beautiful friendship married
By the endless embers of
Written words -
Our kind of intimacy.