Last poems for April's NaPoWriMo and an accepetance

Okay folks, here are the remaining poems for April.  Please vote for your favourite throughout the month.  Comments make everything worthwhile.  Be back here soon.

April 26th

At the end

The flowers you brought have shrivelled

trying to return to their pre-blooming glory

each petal closing in on itself, but I’m not fooled.

They look worn out with the effort of looking bright –

the colour still hangs on like an ill-fitting coat,

drooping at the shoulders.

The water is putrid, no wonder they close up.

Bad relationships leave bad odours.

********

April 27th - Sonnet

The Long Man

No book can ever keep me from this view

No story line can drag my eyes away

For every time it’s like I see it new

And when I reach this point then come what may

I cast my book aside at Hayward’s Heath

Where this train will divide and split in two

And Sussex lies before me and beneath

In grassy downs where I look for the path

That carves into the hillside where he stands

The man of Wilmington who bears his all

Once phallus hope for women in these lands

Whose fertileness would answer to their call

Whatever else may change he’ll still be there

And folk will marvel at him, stop and stare.

*******

April 28th

Waterlogged

I’m down in this squelchy brown clay

stuck fast, gripped by wet goo

in all its sucky-sucky quicksand feel,

entrapped and directionless. I pull in panic –

the earth will not let me go.

If the sun comes out I’ll fix a pose,

become part of the landscape,

baked dry, entrenched, a human sculpture

plastered and entombed.

*******

April 29th

Surgery

Stark brown limbs in March;

amputated wooden stumps

await their new growth.

*******

April 30th

Traces

He is still here imbedded in the carpet

like tinsel months after the Christmas tree has gone away,

impregnated into sheets however many times I wash them;

the dent on his side of the bed still looks new

as if he’s just got up.

Somehow he has seeped into the walls

and his eyes watch me in every room.

The TV churns out his favourite shows,

the radio his favourite songs.

In the kitchen his mug is a lonely sight,

I’ve put it away but I can still hear its accusations.

I’ve removed everything of his that he’d not already taken

but he claims every inch as a silent ghost.

For a while I would got out every night to avoid him

but there’s nowhere to go where he hasn’t been

and been with me.

Finally, I have had one of my poems accepted for the Open University Poets Anthology which will be published later this year.