*Verse & Prose* that I love...

Self Portrait...A. K. Ramanujan

I resemble everyone
but myself, and sometimes see
in shop-windows,
despite the well-known laws
of optics,
the portrait of a stranger,
date unknown,
often signed in a corner
by my father.

Flight of the Firstborn...Peggy Carr

He streaks past his sixteenth year
small island life stretched tight
across his shoulders
his strides rehearsing city blocks
college brochures
airline schedules
stream excitedly through his
newly competent hands
his goodbyes like blurred neon
on a morning suddenly gone wet

I'm left stranded
on a tiny patch of time
still reaching
to wipe the cereal from his smile.

colour the water landscape...Morgan Downie

abundant grey
rain impending
sheeted blue
across the hills

blue where it touches
the sea, charcoal
the line of the horizon
the waves uneasy, gunmetal

green the drenched fields
trees irised with moisture
upturned soil ochres the ground
the distant hills, heavy lidded, indigo

here the white water falling
free from the stain of peat
each drop a jewel
as if the granite itself
could weep quartz

6 A.M. Thoughts...Dick Davis

As soon as you wake they come blundering in
Like puppies or importunate children;
What was a landscape emerging from mist
Becomes at once a disordered garden.

And the mess they trail with them! Embarrassments,
Anger, lust and fear - in fact the whole pig-pen;
And who'll clean it up? No hope for sleep now -
Just heave yourself out, make the tea, and give in.