A Poem a Day (732): 3 Poems from Waterloo Station

 
Silk
 
The tall & the skinny,
sheer explosion of black silk.
It slides, it spills, it senses
when the world revolves anew,
as rain energises daily rhythms
from beach to urban to mountain high.
 
We are the escape from every notion
of being left behind, of forgetting,
of being stilled out of our sleeplessness,
knowing we can only be one,
all else submerged in silences.
 
There are no offerings in daylight.
Dawn washed them all away
& berries don’t wish to grow there.
 
 
 
Bower birds
 
Sometimes we are lost
& sometimes we are found
& sometimes we are beyond ourselves.
 
It’s an allegory of mixed betweens,
out of, in, and never inside out.
 
He makes a match. He never finds himself.
She never gets off the starting line.
The ever-potential of being something.
 
He leaves his suitcase in the bower,
scatters glitter to decor & adore,
struts his fancy manoeuvres to a captive audience.
We can only stand & stare in awe,
wonder how he can still pirouette,
balance, flex his muscles against the sphere,
flick a tail feather & bow.
 
The setting sun has more to do than stare.
It plants a star only the moon can see,
captures the full vesta for eternity.
 
 
 
Check out
 
Check in, check out,
newly awake & caffeinated.
Greet the naked rain in peruse.
Barefoot in the park, it echoes green.
Grass tickles, pokes itself between toes,
seeks a carpet of woes newly vacuumed.
Carve a pathway like Moses’ sea,
fenced in by sculptures of washed stones.
Crawl to walk.
 
It’s a wander into starlight,
an adieu to the beyond of day.
Figures dance in shadows met.
They cash in on nothing.
A manufactured thing is meaningless.
Grow in the knowledge of free thinking,
a knowing we can be ourselves
without the pressure to be anything more.
 
If we are never nothing
there is always something to aspire to,
even if we become invisible.
 
  
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 2, 2025