J.M. Harker

J.M. Harker Poems

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Morning Song

Four circles of the old, bald cheater's clock
This morning has wrung me through.
Pensive, the pen rests a while...
So wide awake,
As the familiar spectres of Mahler's dying children drift
Ghost-like through my brain as
Pale as the iris of my eye
In which is envisioned
The waking blush of day.
From the small black box at bedside
A honey'd voice tells me
That night-time songs are done, put away in their day box
Until darkness falls again.
A younger voice steps in, toast still clutched in hand
He gaily dances Schubert across the airwaves, to wake the morning man.
The concerteer slips home, carefully wrapped against the bitter morn
As the revellers, taxi drivers, watchmen, hookers all
Are swept up by the street-sweepers, exchanged for better things:
Grocers, vendors, photographers,
Business men from abroad
Their faces flabby, moist, frog-like; unhardened by the day.
I suppose I sympathise.
For Two thousand words have poured already from my pen
And of these barely twenty holding quality
Yet everyone is precious to me,
My infant offspring, gazing up at me,
The black ink on the white, my pride and joy.
But now I close the book, my work is not truly begun
For these sweet deceiving words are naught but the fancy of my head
And do so very little to deliver me my daily bread.

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