There is a pointless opposition
Between action and consequence.
But to equate the two would be to commit
A negligence of calculation.
To imprison a solution
In a madness of mechanisms.
Like trying to look at stars
Through shattered prisms.
It would be an intrusion and illusion,
Splattered with delusion.
But what sadness would be left ?
Like the wives of soldiers are bereft,
When news of death
Is dressed up and presented,
Leaving them demented.
Their pride is a kind of solace
But inside they are weeping.
Emotions in safekeeping.
For another time,
In some lonely place,
Where dark and cold,
They seek the answer
To the calculation.             © Will Barton 2010

I know,
That on this beach,
There is a stone,
Which has your eyes.
I finger the shoreline,
Like it is a deckled edge.
Sifting the day’s catch,
Hoping to find you,
Watching me.           © Will Barton 2009

Surround my bed
With flowers.
Let the candle burn
All night.
Keep my dreams
In towers.
Let me wake
To morning light.           © Will Barton 2009

Love and hate,
Those smirking fiends,
Disguise their insolence
In enigmatic smiles.
They are a masterpiece
Of contorted portraiture.
Framed to flatter.
But in the mirror,
Their fawning farce,
Reflects the cracks
And fiction of the face.
It is their embrace,
With heads caressed,
Expressions hidden
In the huddle,
Of this mocking cuddle.
Which reveals,
The truly contradictory state,
Of love and hate.                         © Will Barton 2009

Quietly wounding
The tree of life.
Slash, slashing
At the trunk.
Cutting.
Chunk after chunk.
Bleeding the sap,
Which seeps
From the hunk.
Slitting the wrist
Which tightens and twists.
Wetting the lips,
Which bleed
As they grip.
Slutting and licking
And wanting to kick.
Finding the knife.
Then using its edge.
Cutting the brute
From the bark,
To the shoot.
Battering, beating,
Making it mute.          © Will Barton 2009

When we looked
Into the sky,
There was a dark star.
Like a closed eye
Waiting to blink.
We could not escape
From knowing,
Its quiet moons
Were tears,
Stroking the dead light,
Black as ink.
We did not see,
Infinite oceans of
Silent surf cavorting,
In timeless rhythms.
A universal link.           © Will Barton 2009

There is no memory,
To remember,
The brooding heart of earth.
Slapping at the breast of
Mountain, sea and stone.
Forgive me for forgetting,
The laughing mouth of life.
Recklessly rejecting,
The stubborn frown of time.
Stained from wounds,
War and weariness.
Then waking from
This crafty trance,
Like butterflies,
We dive and dance,
The colour of sun,
In the arc of the moon.
There is no calendar to record,
This delicate ballet,
Today,
Or any other day.           © Will Barton 2009

In the crazy,
Blood-red,
Room of history,
Nothing makes sense.
The turbulence of
Fact and fiction
Spins out of control.
The brawling brats
Spawned by
Religion and expediency,
Scrawl and scratch,
To tear the truth apart.
They see no contradiction
In the irony of their embrace.
As they pause,
Each looks the other way.
The question is forgotten.
Their only definition
Is disgrace.                              © Will Barton 2009

The autumn leaves are falling,
On the baby in her grave.
She was just too young
And brittle,
To ever have been saved.
The colour of her skin,
Is like the frost around her,
So pale and hard and crisp.
But even as she died,
Her body found the strength,
To form a little fist.
Now the wind is calling,
As it lashes at the stone.
Calling, calling,
Calling her home.          © Will Barton 2009