Don't Upset the Birds. Written and read by Alan Gilbert.

The Myth of Moonlight. Written and read by Alan Gilbert.

Whisperers, written and read by Alan Gilbert.

Dusk

Creeping silently

Soft fingered dusk,

Treads light upon

Moss painted walks.

Cloaking potting sheds

And greenhouse glass,

Then dulls the sheen

On apples at a pass.

Spreading effortless

Along the rows

Of beans and berries

Cardamom and thyme.

To cool the scented spoil

Of lawn mowed hay

Where languid tabby’s

Scratch the night away.

Stepping nimbly

Over lily ponds

Where keen eyed fishes

Hunted summer flies.

Now in the welcome shade

From day long heat,

An alabaster dancer

Cools her tired feet.

Copyright© Alan Gilbert 2012.

Boilermaker

My dad made the boilers

For warships and liners,

Huge prisons of steel

For the scolding hot steam.

There was pride in each rivet

Every pattern completed,

When he told me his yarns

I could see his eyes gleam.

Some days he would take me

To stand at the dock head,

He knew all the names

And the places they'd been.

I imagined us sailing

The ships he was part of,

But asbestos killed him

And ended the dream.

Copyright© Alan Gilbert 2012.

Arid As Atacama

These times of low reception 

Unnerving me somehow. 
The frailest self-deception 
Falls painful on the brow. 
Piercing through the armour 
Which never should allow, 
A fear you may forget me 
For now, and now, and now. 

Atacama has a cactus 
That thrives without the rain, 
No wells or rivers feed it 
Yet still it makes its gain. 
Now with this veil upon me 
And no way to explain, 
My soul's an arid fragment 
Becoming dust again.

Copyright© Alan Gilbert 2012.