BEHIND  MY  BACK

A glum March morning trudged pledge-irked to press
the garden's growth.  Dressed beds that bore at best
bad blooms, raked surfaced rifts, and shackled shrubs that scrawed
the arms that tidied.  Chilled with damp, I thought,
"Before the big trees leaf this windy Spring
I'll shed ideals I served - re-routine will
to serve a shifted goal.  Yet to decide
to cease before a new end earns one's force
seems weakness, and harder nearing April to engross
one's energy in tottering resolves that lack
The smack of virtue." 

                                    But behind my back
Spring struck in pride of power, and screeching blind
wrenched roots from earth, shook walls, declaimed her mind's
refusal to be ordered, improved, put in rhyme.
Tightening hood I sheltered, braced to bide my time.
Wrack complete, she smirked and waned.  I heeled all back in hate,
replanting pre-storm, chanted, I'll set its shape, not fate.

Slowing Down 

Blithely unaware 
of espionage,  
I packed my beach bag
(books in sequence, paper,   
pencils, specs in separate slots)  
till - as if a gate I hadn’t 
opened banged behind me - 
“You’re slowing down.”  Detached,
peremptory, “Half a week  
It took you this time” - sigh - 
“To slip into a routine.”  
I shuffled through the doorway’s
sudden sunglare, “Ready?”   
Then, leaving her to follow
in her time, dumped bag in boot. 

I wasn’t irked but thought,
she’s got this wrong. You slip
into ruts. Routines
are created to do the things
you want the way you want to.
And, Madam Mistress Mine,
perpend: each morning 
as you wake and press,  
against me, I wrap 
my arm beneath your arms
across your breast and, synched,
we wallow in our warmth.  
If routine must be ruled 
innately vicious,
this warrants censure.

In Lamplight

I smell the summer evening I can't see
and  fear my want for you.
You've shifted shape and made
my wants your end, my beat your tune
and watched me weaken. 

Alright, stroke my stomach,
have me comfort what you're strong enough to bear,
and wash my stockings.
My grand reserve that
counts the metre, damns the iambs,
Subsumes what's felt to form,
admits to sham. 

Outside the garden.  Almost silent.  Secret.
While warm in lamplight
an image on the window
in a green shirt strokes a nose
that looks like mine
and gropes to tell you
things not fully tested
in words not totally explored.
I see him brace and chew his lip and bend
and my pursed pencil scratches Sweet Love,                
I fear my want for you.

Author’s Biography

Daniel P. Stokes has published poetry widely in literary magazines in Ireland, Britain, the U.S.A, Canada and Asia, and has won several poetry prizes.  He has written three stage plays which have been professionally produced in Dublin, London and at the Edinburgh Festival.