John T Shillito

Between the toes of a tiger
is a little soft patch of fluff
Stroke it and hear the tiger purr,
that is, if you're gentle enough!
...

When pain first stole my morning walk, crippled limb and mind
All I could think was what I'd lost, how fate was so unkind
Then like a sunbeam in my heart, cutting through the gloom
a spark became a beacon, and poetry began to bloom
...

Before I step into the dark
I'll call to the dogs long gone
Of loyalty, and heart, and faith
and the good times we have known
...

No scientist can figure out just how to turn it on
it leaves no operating marks, no trace when it has gone
they have looked for it with x-rays, the surgeon had to try
they know its there, know it works, but they can't figure why
...

Where is it now, that fire that burned in my blood
sent me, careless, bare sark, to meet my foe
the battle rage that sweeps me up, and all before
or girds me in the bloody maul of shieldwall
...

Swooping, soaring, diving, in scintillating, whirling mirth
Bright, colourless jesters, mocking gravity of mind and earth
A twist, a turn and now, Black Baron plummets from on high
Challenges all to battle, claims dominance of this spring sky
...

Pale, delicate petals, so battered and bruised
Glimpsed briefly, only to be trampled and broken
Persisting, clinging, tenatious weed of the wastelands
Relentlessly uprooted, hacked, burned and poisoned
...

Silken fur, soft and warm, slips smooth beneath my fingers
Long-gone now, but down the years, this memory always lingers
Whiskers on my cheek, wake me, startled, from my sleep
So many, many cherished moments, this one I will keep
...

In the endless burning wastes, where only silence speaks
Up above the snow line, where lost souls roam the peaks
Entombed in vaulted caverns, where a mountain, eternal, weeps
There, lost in desolation, my grieving soul its vigil keeps
...