A different medium. Some of the 2016 collection can be downloaded here:

Or you may enjoy these from 1999..

Sad

Sad, empty, despondent and impatient

waiting for the ceaseless flow of time to

take the past. Shake it, shape it, leave at last

a flattened even land on which to build

a future. Something solid, something big,

something beautiful to stand in place of

what has gone: kill the thrill that lingers on

and separates the future from the past.

God, Nature, greater powers will have their way

and from the fallow field eke out new life

and grow it. Live it, love it, even though

you know what could have been will not now be.

Empty and impatient.

Sad.

Bart, 1999

Morning Light

When I wake the silver

morning light is harsh and bright.

It looks on me unforgivingly

and doesn’t spare my feelings.

After a while he knows me better

and starts to feel embarrassed.

He hides his eyes and gives me grace

to climb inside my private space.

We decide to make our separate ways

and venture slowly through the day.

As I go I start to see

the world illuminated in a softer

and more natural way.

By the time the afternoon turns to evening

we are two of a kind, the day and I.

My eyes and mind are finely tuned,

receptive, perceptive, intuitive and sharp.

Meanwhile he finds unexpected details

and throws them into sharp relief,

bringing strange and mystic shades,

producing shapes like hieroglyphs.

From there we move together and dusk brings on a change:

The darkness ushers in a phase in which the rules are rearranged.

An altered style of lighting for an altered state of mind.

roses, reds and warmer colours lend themselves to comfort.

Their hues induce reflection and light up worlds of wonder.

But overnight while I’m asleep

the colour’s somehow washed away.

The reds turn back to white, and in the morning

I face again the cold and silver light.

Bart, 1999