By James Bell

 

This is my first published poem that was also included in my Feature Poet slot many moons ago. Plus a characteristic river estuary poem I rather like and is recent.
 
IMAGINATION
 
Once upon a time
there was imagination
and you could dare imagine
anything you wanted.
 
Nobody said what should
happen. Then there was some
kind of snatch and grab and
nothing was left behind,
 
only a sense of an
ill-defined substance
metaphorically abused,
beaten up and left for dead,
 
only the sense that
imagination could be
a bad sort of thing
if actually used.
 
Imagine, if you dare
a place where imagining
is banned, then, if you dare,
take a look around.
 
There is just a feeling
when you look at a rose,
watch a sunset, fall in love,
that nothing more can be done.
 
 
hope in the morning
 
there is hope in the morning - the distance
from other parts of the day as infinite
as the way the cormorant begins to take flight
from the river surface it disturbs
with smooth cuts through the flat water
held together by gravity and nature
 
there is hope in the morning for it states
a coming of another day with the chance
of lasting through to night and he sees
at midday how this works out each time
 
how the sun is already fully out
and the river has dropped to a trickle
 
the gulls squat in a pool that no longer
flows like a river and life still continues