Poems by Derek Adams
WITH WORDS
With words and
Paper and pen
I make love to youWith words and
Mouth and tongue
I make love to youI am the cunning linguist.
WHERE THE SAND MEETS THE SEA
When on holiday
I take up my camera or baitbox
and stride purposefully down the beach.
On reaching the water's edge
out of earshot of wife and children
I am suddenly
seven again
fascinated by shells and coloured stones,
the water breaking on the shore,
the salty wind that licks my lips.Quiet, except for the sound of the waves
and the cry of the gulls.
Nothing has changed.
The sand and the sea
are as they have always been
and the place where they meet
is still magic.
Calm and clear and full of interest
bits of wood, weed, glass, life or
crashing and murky and full of power,
strength, mystery.The sea stretches in front of me
beyond it lie strange countries and
dark continents.
On the horizon are ships
sailing to places as far away
as my imagination can see.
Looking back up the beach
the time warp dissolves
the present beckons
the magic is lost
but I know it is always there
waiting for me,
where the sand meets the sea.
THE VAMPIRE
I saw a vampire
on the tube today.
I know he was a vampire
because he was tall and
dark and
didn't smell of garlic.
He was sleeping.
Vampires always sleep during the day.
He travelled to the end of the line
and back again
and back again
thereby avoiding the daylight.
His clothes were old and grubby,
I expect the cleaners are shut
when he emerges into the night.
I knew he was a vampire
because...well
vampires turn into bats
don't they?
and he would have,
if he hadn't been asleep.DIRECTIONS
"Follow me," he said,
"I know a short cut,"
so I did.Never ever
listen to
a lemming.
BLOCK
Stretching behind me
as far as the i can see
a Black Lake; vast, stagnant, silent.
Where no words swim,
and beyond
the damn, damn Dam
stands so Concrete you could touch it.
i have tried to Barnes-Wallace it,
dropping a few lines
letting them alliterate along.
Watching them Bounce back,
useless against
the damn, damn Dam
so Concrete you can’t touch it.
There exist an Ocean,
beneath its crystal clear waters
great words rhyme Lazily,
immense Thesauri Shoals shimmer and change.
i hear the waves lap against
the damn, damn Dam
so concrete i have made a BLOCK from it.
MEASURING THE VOLUME OF AN ELEPHANT
A thousand people walk in different directions.
Metal boxes contain repeated images
on a glass canvas.
A million people
are paid to move numbers around.
While a child
disguised as a skeleton,
dies with flies on his eyes
and nothing in his distended stomach
but the truth.
Copyright © Derek Adams