Poems - Paul Heaton

Poems

Don’t sit by river

Aren’t there to be picked up by poets who pass

To find them on bank

And I’m

Not built to deliver

When stepping stone love in need

Of a bridge or a plank

Youth

The stream so much wider

Thought you could slow down the flow

If you drank and you drank

Middle age

Still unable to find her

The words on the stone that you skimmed

So heavy it sank

The ripple

Hesitation creates

The unposted poem with message

So clear yet so blank

Love will come

Not to he who just waits

For mouthing from bank side seems safer

Than living in tank

Thoughs

We understand were preserved

Rotted and quickly moved on

To a less cluttered bed

Rust

Somethoughts never deserved

But treated no different to ones

You kept in your head

Couldn’t master me a classical piece

My brain’s well oiled buts its never been greased

Popular but not fighting for seats

Pays the rent but never the lease

Never classed as a work of art

Unlikely with the slowest of starts

Good progress if he ever tok part

Schooldays when you live by your heart

Those

Strong and able to survive

And so at the expense

Of fiction and art

Dissolve

Unnoticed to sea

As time eats the evidence left

That we even took part

Poems

Don’t sit by river