Two Poems by Nathan J.D.L. Rowark

Marooned

 

I’m beating a tune on my tin can drum, using debris from a life long ago.

The tune sounds familiar, not recognisable in particular, yet similar to the one I should know.

 

Leaking boiler interjects, for times found, yet head rejects.

The drips miss my moments aloud;

 

That has me dreaming away, of a near never happened day;

Yet marooned by the legs I’m endowed.

 

It’s a shipwrecked way, to see mistakes crossed in grey;

Highlighted footnotes are signed asunder;

 

So that I may stew to sink, and upon an irrelevant past can think;

Reliving memorised wounds I’m forced to ponder.

 

Letting out an SOS, to find it won’t save a soul’s redress;

I cling to rafters hands have barely fashioned.

 

A shelter from the storm, built in a tornados eye to form,

Whilst in penitent daze, I work out why this happened.

 

 

 

 

 

Bottle bank ballad

This doorway slept, after drunken night wrecked,

Is now residential, the loss now substantial.

On the very last day, eyes promised, slip away.

I’m left, face on stone, to now homeless atone.

 

I didn’t suppose on the death of my toes,

Just never occurred when seeing bodies perturbed,

That in future I’d see, to number they’d add me;

So I’m hunched in a corner, my bottle to morn her.

 

The kids went astray, best in a way,

Than watch doting father in a drunken stews laver.

Moved out on their own, nest no longer a home.

It’s filled up with glass, an alcoholic sipped farce.

 

The further I slipped, harder loved ones I kicked;

Kept seeing her face; shouting out in that place.

Lashing at hands, which extend to these lands;

Wanted to stay, join her soon in a way.

 

This body, rough kept, became freezing inept;

Hardships end, had others offering to fend,

Offering to pave palm, lost divinations charm;

And on very last day, youngsters begged me to stay.

 

So, on rope from bottom, I straddled strands, rotten.

Pulled myself up from the barrelled bottom rut;

Began to see clearer, my child edging nearer,

Emerging on side, where her pain moves astride.

 

One day, an ocean, next drowned by devotion;

Most found without, fine, yet took me longest time.

Crashing many false floor, from beating heart at death’s door;

Won’t drink anguish to rest, must go on for what’s left.

 

 

 

 

Nathan J.D.L. Rowark's first novel: Infatuation - The Story of the Snow Queen, will be available for Amazon kindle later this year.