Poetry by Alan Martin

JUST TOO MUCH

 

It isn’t right for me,

the torrid year of ’22.

I prefer the indifferent times

that might have been expected

when decadence brings unconcern.

 

No, too much, the blaze of guns and sunshine.

I will do what I know,

retreat into smallnesses.

 

I adjust the venetians

to subdue the starkness

of merciless rays

so to lift my comfortable murk

with an acceptable glow.

 

Good – just right now inside.

I am a creature of twilight and moonbeams

cooler airs and nocturnal praises.

 

Too much outside,

the first leaves fell mid-June.

The land now tired and dusty white,

hushed in foreboding.

It is the time of the reckoning.

It has been too much.

We should be contrite.

Carw  Aug 22.

 

 

Hope

 

In the occurrence of no hope

there can be acceptance and a shrug.

Ambition is a bomb-shelled husk.

I wander, depleted,

marvelling at unstriving nature,

reborn every second.

 

Pollination happens

when a bee happens by.

There is nothing to be done.

 

Hope has an agenda

as long as infinity

but soon we will get there

and then we’ll be free…….

 

Not for me,

I hope only to trust.

Life is implicate order.

Love has your number.

Why do we even bother?

July 22.

Alan Martin is a Pembrokeshire native who has worked in several UK locations as an engineering inspector. He now lives on a smallholding in mid-county with his wife and son.