Fall and Rise

Turn away
   when I stumble
   down purple lanes
   or succumb
   to the siren's call.

Close your eyes
   when the quick-sands
   pull me down
Close your ears
  when I totter and fall.

Yet whatever I do
   or wherever I roam
   still, I know you'll be there
   when my shame
   brings me home.

© Sheila Rogers
All rights reserved 

"I'm so sorry, Mrs Pratt"

Brand new, you say?  Well, if Britney had hung her coat up on her peg as she's supposed to, it wouldn't have got mixed up with all the other garments brought in for the collage, would it?  Yes, I appreciate she's only five - but how were we to know? And it does add a lovely splash of colour up there on the wall..."

© Sheila Rogers
All rights reserved 

Reflection (or: Nyumbani)

Bright-eyed and eager, you welcomed us to your palace.
"Jambo," you chorused; "Jambo," we replied.
And for the time it takes to drink a glass,
side by side, to laugh,
or for a lion to lift his head and roar
our lives touched.
As we drove away in our 4x4 you waved;
And I felt ashamed.

© Sheila Rogers
All rights reserved 

Journey's end

"Are we nearly there?"
"Not quite. Just a bit further."
"How much further?"
"To the end of the road."

"I'm hungry."
"Well, have another sandwich."
"Yuck!"
"I'm bored."
"I need a wee."
"Stop! I feel sick."
"Ow! He pinched me."
"No I didn't. That's my I-pad. Give it back."
"Children, children!"

"Are we nearly there?"

© Sheila Rogers
All rights reserved

Don't do that

I've told you before, dear, don't do that.  Because it's rude.  And because I said so. Yes, I know Tommy does it, his Mum lets him, but in my house...  If Tommy rode his bike over a cliff would you follow him?  Now that's being silly.  What do you mean, Daddy does it...?

© Sheila Rogers
All rights reserved 

Hope

…is holding on when all else has fled;
sun shining through the rain
clouds lifting, drifting into skies that have no end
nor ever yet began;

small window in a pall-black room
birdsong no chains can ever bind
speck of light on a distant shore.
Hope…
is ‘When shall I see you again?’

© Sheila Rogers
May 2016
All rights reserved

Mona Lisa

She smiles; the world surveys in wonder
wondering why;
why the fabled enigmatic smile
so sad, serene, naïve yet wise,
harbinger of some atavistic yearning
held deep within her soul.
What worlds lie cradled behind, inside that smile
we’ll share yet never know;
the universal smile that says all
but tells nothing.

©  Sheila Rogers

All rights reserved

Writing

W ords

R un helter-skelter round my brain like eager raindrops that

I nvade the dried-up wells of subliminal id.

T hey gather, rise and overspill, subsiding as they diffuse

I n myriad rivulets across the fractured channels of reflection to

N ourish, quench and be siphoned up at last into a 

G roundburst of breathless cohesion.

© Sheila Rogers
All rights reserved

The Secrets of the Deep

No lines, no contours mark the ways 

among the roaming mountains 

 'neath the 

swell 

 where ceaseless 

travellers 

 glide and hunt in silent 

realms 

 that shun the ritual 

binds 

 of human sway.

No maps, no beacons, 

no left 

or right or wrong, 

no precious 

laws disturb 

God's dark 

kingdoms of the deep.

© Shelia Rogers
All rights reserved