It is here in Australia, anyway.

My own father went missing a few years ago and is not responding to messages. I send them anyway – not because I expect him to hear them but because I take some comfort in the sound of my own voice saying them.

I miss him.

My suspicion is that he has found a really good fishing spot somewhere and needs to keep it a secret. He will tell me when the time is right. When my own time has come.

And I should really have spent more than five minutes working on a poem in his honour. But he would have understood that I didn’t. He would not have judged. He would have laughed.

That’s the kind of relationship that we had.

***

Hello.

It’s Father’s Day again

Don’t think

That I’ve forgotten when

You held me in your arms

So tight

And read me fairy tales

At night

Protected me

From what you knew

Gently told me

What to do

Slowly told me

What was true

So I might one day

Be like you

***

And here’s another one from the same author that I stumbled upon. I am thinking that in not giving it a title he is trying to somehow add a sense of mystery and, paradoxically, attain some sort of credibility.

I added the picture – hoping it to be suitable.

This one seems to make a bit more sense to me but still comes across as a tad pretentious.

And that’s what worries me about poetry sometimes. I struggle to seperate the truly meaningful from the utterly inane.

Anyway, this is what it is, I suppose.

***

The sun on distant hills

Shadows like a curtain

Falling upon the stage

Upon this turning page

The light descends

This chapter ends

In sorrow

Let me steal or borrow

Memories

To take into the night

To wearily take flight

And yet

Forget

This day

That I may

Dare to dream

Until tomorrow

***

I attach the following without comment and without even the supply of the author’s name (I’m not sure that I have his permission to do so, to be honest), but rather just to gauge people’s views on it as a piece of art (the poetry, not the picture – although I didn’t seek permission to use that either).

How does it sit with everybody?

***

Sunlight through a filter

Of leaves

On my knees, as one

Who believes

In love

Manna from above

Falling again

As rain

Creating sweet rivers

Of tears

Calling, calling

To what no-one sees

Or hears

In the forest.

The falling of trees

***

**** I’ve got no idea what the picture is about. But the title appealed ***

It does seem to have been a day for innuendoes (that’s a type of exotic fruit, for those who were wondering – ‘could I have two melons, a banana and a bunch of innuendoes, please?’) and I had a brief discussion with Stella about her poem in which she suggested that she needed instructions on how men worked and how to handle them and wondered if there might be some instruction booklet out there.

I believed her claims of ignorance on the subject for maybe 37 seconds, of course, but, ever the gentlemen, I offered the advise that such a booklet, if it existed, would be very brief because, really, there isn’t much to know. This is what I said ….

There are no instructions
You won’t need a book
Just take a test drive
Or come by for a look
Pick up the scent
Follow a map
Slip on the step
And fall into my trap

Alternatively, I could furnish you with a step by step guide. But there’s very few steps involved, to be honest.

But she insisted further that a step by step guide would be helpful, so I read the whole manual out loud to her as follows

Are you ready for the lesson
Ready to be taught?
Ready now to do some stuff
You never thought you aught?
Pay attention carefully
Let me take the lead
I’ll tell you what I had in mind
And tell you what you need
Concentrate, my little mate
I’ll show you what to do
Here’s step one – let’s have some fun
There’s really no step two