Featured Poet -  Jake Jones

THE BIRDS

The birds talk to me, I just heard my name,

Flying up so high they will not be tamed,

Not scared of the creature,

but of what it can say, 

Can you work out what the chirps convey?

A coincidence too many times, 

The same bird ‘song’, line after line,

“Twit, twit, twit, it’s you” 

I can hear the voices, 

Can you hear them too?

Flaps in my ear, then the noise disappears,

They follow me everywhere I go,

Tune into the tune of the predictions of doom, 

Then life will go more with the flow,

The chirps of threes and fives, 

Tell me how to live my life

Pecking at my brain in a rhythmic way

Make sure you listen to what they have to say

But now I know they’re coming for you!

The birds told me and they will tell you too ...

DEPARTURE

Breakdown

Barriers

The wrong track

Faces blurred

Signs

Signals

Messages

Anticipation of plans

The rumble of release 

Please, Mind the gap

Step out, step off

ENOUGH?

This is not enough

Walking to the end, but not the end of the night

Air foggy as I stay in the gaze of sight

The same looks from the night before are thrown

As I stand so very much on my own

As I stand and wait for my fate

Another day where comfort comes late.

Counting coins, I hear a noise, assessing every shadow,

Fingers frozen feel the chill and the burn from old tobacco.

My day is finally done

The long awaited time has come.

As I hold it up to the light,

This won’t last me through the night.

This is not enough.



DOORWAY DOG

We will be together side by side,

even when I’m scared and have no place to hide, 

I watch the brightlights while he takes a nap,

I feel nice and safe in my owner’s lap, 

Sometimes he gets tired but that’s okay,

I get stroked by passerbys throughout the day

But this time he slept even more,

hunched over on the cold hard floor,

I will wait and wait – he’s my only thought.

Then came Brightlights of a different sort, 

I watch him be taken away,

in comes the darkness, here comes the rain.

Shoes on the pavement, a shadow in the way 

“Hey little fella what’s your game”

I raise my nose to the voice and into the black I say

“I am the doorway dog, the dog with no name”