Welcome to my Poetry blog. Please feel free to comment on what you read here. Personal responses and literary criticism are welcome but offensive, inappropriate or irrelevant comments may be edited or deleted.

If you would like to publish your own poetry here please email 1-3 poems (total word limit 500 words) to stephen.faulds@bigpond.com If you wish to include a link to your own website I will post it with your poetry.       

 

 

 

 

I DON’T BELIEVE IN LOVE

 

I don’t believe in love or luck any more

than I believe in lightning.

 

I once thought it was impossible for

a person to be struck by a bolt of electricity from the sky.

 

Now I am convinced,

that despite the odds it does happen.

 

It is not a matter of belief, or faith.

It is a scientific fact.

 

 

          THE COMFORT OF A PARADIGM

 

                                                  A set of two stars

                                                  is a point of balance   

      

                                                 in a universe ungoverned

                                                 by logic.

 

                                                 Where infinity explodes

                                                 in my mind, a constellation

 

                                                 sits neatly

                                                 conceptually behaved

 

                                                 while I scare myself

                                                 with scientific understanding.

 

 

                                                              EVIDENCE

Far from being carefully designed and calibrated for humankind, the cosmos looks precisely the sort of place that one would expect had it emerged unplanned from the void.

                                                                            Damien Broderick

 

  the stars may have been an accident,

     scattered as they are on dark velvet

 

but there is purpose in my knowing

   how to read them, how to marvel

 

at the profundity of their existence

   and how we stand so still while the

 

the earth moves and love dies and

   hope springs and the thousand things

 

that flesh is heir to, make us wonder

   why we are alive and with what reason

 

 

 DECEPTION

 

The cat's mouth bulges.

 

Something unidentifiable

 

sprouts like whiskers in front.

 

The dread of approaching,

 

thinking you know what it is,

 

watching her as she eyes an escape,

 

knowing it may be too late

 

anyway.

 

A soft, deceptive call

 

and she hesitates.

 

You pounce, trying to be gentle,

 

thinking of next time.

 

Stroke her

 

and gently prise open her jaws.

 

A tiny green bird

 

flies like a dart

 

to the nearest tree.

 

 

  STILL

 

  You are still

 

  there, mingled with the atoms

 

  of the warm grass,

 

  the fluting shrikes and

 

   shifting clouds.

 

   The  vapour of a fog

 

    settles on me like

 

     memory.

 

    Even music arms me

 

    with its cadenced codes

 

    and significant nuances.

 

 

   Then there is rain

 

   on the mountains,

 

  children running

 

  and the intoxication of

 

 dying flowers.

 

           

            MORNING REFLECTION

 

            Half moon

 

            lying at the bottom of the pond.

 

            The other half, still

 

            in the pale sky.

 

 

                SMALL HUNTER

 

                Flying low

 

                undetected

 

               by falcon

 

               peregrine

 

              or misfortune’s savage beak.

 

 

              Small hunter

 

              with timid wings

 

              flying beneath the radar

 

              of disaster’s deadly eyes.

 

             Prey itself

 

             to larger predators

 

             seeking morsels

 

             feeding on carcasses

 

             no bigger than its own.