Roy Ballard Poems

Are you a dark moth from a silk cocoon,
the flower wanderer of the midnight sky
who drinks from honeydew beneath the moon?
Not so, you are my Lady Butterfly.
...

‘Of writing well, be sure, the secret lies
in wisdom, therefore study to be wise'[1]
but what is wisdom how can it be got?
It is not learning; cleverness it's not;
...

The rose that scents the summer day
and flaunts her colour to the bees
knows nothing and has naught to say;
her only talent is to please.
...

The bracken and the mountain ash
cleave to an open shaft;
a dropped stone makes a distant splash
as if a miner laughed
...

‘I was told by Socrates'
said Plato once to Aristotle
‘Something called the axolotl
dwells beyond uncharted seas'
...

Blacks beyond black there are and more beyond,
blacks blacker than a lake of bitumen,
wide firmaments of tar and pitch, despond,
asphalt infinities that swallow men.
...

The moon sets; the stars fade; the midnight owl has flown;
the hours creep and she's afraid for Sappho sleeps alone.
She fears there is some shallow maid, some wretched girl unknown,
some artful charmer who has made poor Sappho's love her own;
...

King Winter stripped the boughs of Spring's green leaf,
uncluttered every twig and left it clean.
Now naked skies are etched in sharp relief
with secret writing hitherto unseen,
...

Yes, I remember bluebells; in the month of May.
Leaves overhead, unbudding, were still thin.
The lane was mired in puddles on soft clay,
reflecting sky and swallows, cumulous,
...

My lady's frown is like a day in June
which should of all the year be full of light
but all is shadowless and dim at noon
for grey skies dispossess its natural right.
...