Mark Heathcote Poems

What is there to shelve but our memories?
At first, we fill a dozen albums a year
Seems easy; like teaching knowledge at Emory's
But as age surpasses our smooth veneer
...

My heart fossils alive…
Like an empty conch shell
It'll sing in this world or the next
Before it rots or burns in the bowels of hell.
...

I could, but I won't confess I'm running out of breath
My heart has no more buoyancy left
I could dither and just silently drift away
But that is not my way
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When a willow breaks in the storm, it makes new roots.
I am warming my hands in yours
I am a moon trembling after midnight
it's part of the course
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There is a statistician in everyone
who can remember and count the bad times
but it's-remembering counting the good-times
divided from the bad that counts and matters.
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Overwhelmed, I think what's there to live for
why do I cling like ivy to a stone?
Why serpentine the sky or the seafloor,
why am I not also on methadone?
...

Orchards in the sun close to beehives
They were always on my childish mind
Centipedes on my skin
Stopped me; from sitting still
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A fish has entered our minds
it mouths the words - you must swim
life is a great flood - you must swim
swim for your lives.
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Each-day whispers in its benevolence
Coughs in the daylight; spills out the night:
Much like a Morello, cherry stone - stoned.
'We hold it up by hook or by crook…
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What is fit that a heart might worship?
Did you ever ask an infidel?
If he/she
'Loved their mother and father just as well.'
...