Perch

Who knows how many years

it had avoided detection?

The rusting tip of a plough share,

come to light lately only

by the solitary investigation

of a curious child amongst the

furrowed troughs of clay

and brought home to be

presented as a holy relic

and placed on top of the wall

in the back yard and forgotten

again, by all except the birds,

that queue for a position

on the metal altar with dainty

pilgrim footfalls, as it warms

in the morning sunshine.

John H Davies

16th April 2011 

Me and who’s army?

‘Honorary Colonel of the Revolutionary Army

of the Rio Poco Sol, San Juan District,’

had a certain ring of the tin pot about it,

but to me it was better than any regimental silver;

a set of hallmarks of the highest sovereignty.

John H Davies

15th April 2011 

Tinitis

There it was again: a low frequency hum

lasting only a few seconds, its source

within his head; always a sustained note

never wavering, though random in pitch

with a constant volume fading neatly to silence.

He’d never met anyone who heard

the same hum, at the same time and anyway,

was reluctant to share the phenomenon

in case he was considered a bit strange,

but he liked to think he had a special gift.

Perhaps his finely attuned senses detected

seismic shifts that might forewarn disaster,

as someone passed through the space

he occupied in a different dimension,

stirring the fading rhythms of the ancients.

John H Davies

14th April 2011 

Astral Projection

A row of concrete ceiling slabs,

is the view when I open my eyes

in my head, and it feels oddly normal.

Everything where it should be:

the shelf beneath the glassless window

with concrete pill-box slits

instead of bars, that I pretend

are Elizabethan mullions,

against which the sun casts shadows

and gives form to the idling time.

But there is no sound, as my mind

conjures images of home,

and fights off the daily hunger pang

arriving promptly as the long case

clock down in the hall strikes seven.

John H Davies

13th April 2011 

A. V.

A.V. or not A.V.

now let me see…

give one side or another

the chance to pip the post,

then suffer in silence

while they spend

the next five years

making sure

they pip the post again.

Why don’t we

instead, you see…

let them vote

for themselves,

while we vote for

the important things

which it would be

their duty to implement?

Now that is the question.

John H Davies

12th April 2011 

Diversity

Although they both walked

along the same street

side by side

enjoying the same view,

she was aware

that what they both saw

would be different,

and that someone else

walking that same way

on a different day

would choose to notice

other things

in a different light.

And as she applied

this thought to the

elderly couple in front,

or the kids over the road,

she understood

how sometimes

she was misunderstood.

John H Davies

11^th April 2011 

Shenton’s Heroes

In the months and years

that followed the overdose,

they met from time to time

and walked up a hill

in his memory

and got hopelessly drunk

on the way home.

And on one of these trips

they reverently vowed

to step in early

if any of them looked

like going the same way.

John H Davies

10th April 2011