Who
Out there
Shares
This time
With me?
4:10am
In the black
Suspension
Where counts
My heart.
Peopled by
Surging shards
Of troubling voices,
Agitating this
Indignant me.
She, sleeping
As I, driven
And pestered by an
Inconvenience
Of frowning memory.
Pinched by failure
By duties missed,
My mouth protesting
Wordlessly.
Why, silly me.
Am I waltzing alone,
Tumbling, trapezing
Along Space and Time?
Lord, grant me
Resolution by 5:10am!
Look!
Our sky has fallen
Crashing down
Wounding loyal souls
Of many nations.
Submerging us
Deep below
Through swirling mists
Of darkened tempers
In uncertain minds.
Yet in resilient hope
Our bounteous Queen
Trails rainbow glory
Across our hearts
And lives true within.
FOR OUR GLORIOUS QUEEN DEPARTED
Now that she’s left us
Bereft
Alone in our millions
Contemplative
And destitute too.
Finest of Monarchs
I’m holding you close
Charged all my life through
In honour bound
This Marine attends you.
Tears fall fast
For her closing of eyes
Our great Queen departed
Yet Death is outsmarted
A pure voice replies.
Mne Johnson King’s Squad, Royal Marines
Good God Almighty! My dear wife Cath
Caught the disaster from the garden path
The flamin’ dog’s eaten my darling hat!
Distinguished bowler’s torn to shreds
That earlier perched on illustrious heads.
Savaged by our dreamy English setter
Incapable of making the damn’ thing better
The bowler’s exquisite and forbidding crown
Is deep in the dog in digested pieces
Hot tears coursing my face’s creases.
Amid the shock of the hat’s demise
My grief, my anger and my deep surprise
I thought I saw the comic side of things
The bowler shredded and an abject wreck
A tearful laugh, oh what the heck!
There you are
Upright
Implacable
Waiting.
Your hose arm
Curved
Skinny when
Compared.
Your cylinder
Ruddy
Shiny
Explanatory.
Explosive
Foaming
Action
As needed.
Invisible
Unregarded
Passed by
Yet crucial.
Fire! Fire!
Grab it!
Whoosh!
Escape.
The shadow ship slips silently
Across the deathly bay
And from her spars, amid the ropes
A tune was heard to play.
The tune piped out so mournfully
As night replaced the day
And from her depths the shadows came
To dance the night away.
The shadows bowed and whirled around
Their hazy coats pale grey
And tripped a hornpipe to the stars
On the thirty-first of May.
While mirthless was their laughter here
While fiendish was their play
My heart was filled with sadness deep
For the shadows of Botany Bay.
There once was a girl from Madrid
From whom all secrets were hid
She thought New Malden was north of the Mersey
And Gibraltar somewhat closer to Jersey
Which stretched even the patience of Syd!
Perhaps I shall
See you once more unvexed
Unstained
Freed from the hurt of those
Smiling intoxicants
That, inter-laced with
Hateful drugs,
Have ravaged you.
You, if only now I could
Unhook you from
This Devil’s claws
Undraw your present state
Unwrite your foolish past
Wipe clean the pain
From your dear, wounded self
And those who weep for you.
Damn those untouchables
Whose harvest is
Our casual, vacant youth
Entering each viper’s lair
In bloated stupefaction
Insensible
Of their fateful stroke
Along the Devil’s mane.
Had I perhaps the blessed powers of Prospero
These maddened children saved; the Devils go.
She was never averse
To some scurrilous verse
Cursing the Count who had wronged her
She wished hot coals on his head
And dreamt he was dead
In Hell she believed he belonged there.
A wet herring could have knocked us down
When laughingly the girl leapt
Into the decembered sea
From the pier’s bleak end
On Hogmanay.
How mad is that?
Into the swell from our ice cold pier
Micha stepped out
With her plunging and deep sinking
And her late, late surfacing
Gasping and electric
Shrieking cold, with winter water burning.
“Aye, my flesh is dancing with delight
For the sea took me straight
Cutting down through weed and eels
Down, spiralling nearly to limpety rocks
Then whooshing up to life’s grey light
Super-shocked, I shout for joy!”
Fast drove we by car
When
Out stepped the hare
Long legged, dainty
Such liquid grace
With casual stride
It nimbly jumped
Verge and foliage
Then, like a prince
Was gone.
Around the bend
Ours and other
Murderous cars
In pincered rush
Missed the hare
And simply
Motored on.
Moments
Of innocence
And beauty
Made fast away
To run in majesty
Through a memory
Deeply
Not forgetting.
The aforementioned had the strangest of feelings
That somewhere she’d been spoken about before.
We can’t yet be sure what make of sheep you are, my dear
With your long legs so typical of those that leap from rocks
In streams and boggy marsh grass unperturbed, untroubled
With ease and grace of movement that makes you splendid.
And there again, your black face and ears so keen to study
The human staring at you too, making an absorbing picture
Of connection between our species as you urgently wonder
What kind of man am I that may bring dangers or delights.
And also, your marvellous fleece so trim, yourself so athletic
We do believe you are a Swaledale ewe my dear, or perhaps
A Rough Fell and think perhaps you know which ewe is you
Hoping you’ll be kind enough to make this information known.
Your shepherd surely knows but has he the time to greet you
Addressing only you on just your parentage and genealogy?
When hundreds of your kind are in his mind and apprehension
Is this your final call or spared for one last round of breeding?
Well, it seems to me that all these questions wait on answers
For we have met and hope to meet again near Padley Gorge
Up here on the High Peak is surely something to desire again
As Winter fades and Spring bedecks her glades with flowers.
Jess
Hey ewe! Standin’ there
Givin’ me the once over
What’s yer flamin’ game?
Ewe woolly-back, paradin’
Long legs an’ fluffy jumper
Starin’ at me now ‘n’ forever.
D’you want a chase, like?
Through the trees to the gorge
An’ back ‘ere as fast as light.
Ewe are one smart woolly tart
An’ no mistakin’ that, gal
Yer’d make many mincey pies.
I’d race yer to a standstill
If me collar weren’t attached
To me lead me Master’s got.
Or if ‘e’d got another collar
Would yer come home with us
An’ be me pal forevermore?
I found you watching from within those trees
One captive soul from someone’s captive flock
Yet free to run and question why indeed I’m here
Free to race on skipping feet to place a gorge
Between your panting self and those who might
Wish you dark misfortune on this dazzling day.
And yet, proud ewe, I’ll have you know my peace
To you and all your kith around us grazing here
That I, who passing by, a stranger to your fell
Admire your haughty self and sunny, upright form
And though your captive fleece be taken soon
You keep your place to outstare our future selves.
That passing moment caught when we two beings met
And yet again before life’s curious circumstance is set?
Slenderest forms of silver birch
Searching, stretching skyward
Aching to reach this azure sky
Fearful their beauty lies unseen
They vie to breast the gritty crop
Each crowned a swaying queen
Of silvered day and blindfold night.
Hurtling north on the packed M6
Not chosen as the best of picks
Hurtling onwards at forty or fifty
No space at all to be extra nifty.
Northern loaves south speeding ever
Always onwards, it’s all so clever
Others northbound or east or west
Do they speed to where it’s best?
Slab sided lorries like dinosaurs
Appear to sprint to savage wars
Snarling grills and flashing tails
Pressing north or west to Wales.
Bread lorry sides adorned with signs
Promote their goods with fine designs
With special loaves quite gluten free
That taste like ceiling tiles to me.
Then there’s glorious ‘artisan’
Part of some cunning master plan
To part us from our common bread
Choosing pretentious hype instead.
First French baguette and now Italian
To delight the ever discerning man
Up north, down south or east or west
The lorries rush to consume each test.
Can such fierce and unrelenting action
Do more than feed sad dissatisfaction?
There once was a fine Greek called Euclid
Whose slick mind was mathematically lucid
On completing the search for his soulmate of choice
He ventured to screech at the top of his voice
‘I’m thrilled to announce that it’s you, Sid!’
Ever so high on the dusty wardrobe top
Entirely motionless for ever so long
Sat a furious hat in a silent strop
But to whom did this splendid hat belong?
You couldn’t tell what the hat resembled
So wrapped in tissue with its muslin furled
But it missed the wedding then assembled
And lay unused in its own private world.
Now suddenly life changed for the snoozing hat
Down from a height, unwrapped on the table
She heard a voice cry, “Just look at that!”
As hat and wrappings made the table unstable.
Her silky grey tower showed no sign of ageing
No sign of fade and with lace exquisitely plain
Just a lack of occasion worthy of staging
Is this the hour she’ll be resplendent again?
With late hopes of glory improved by a daughter
Whose cool eye sensed an alternative morrow
At Barnardo’s, where the daughter brought her
Beckoned hen nights aplenty to buy or to borrow.
Amazingly so, our hat enjoyed her new hobby
Taking to hen nights with consummate ease
A drenching by Prosecco and arrest by a Bobby
Couldn’t alarm her, she’d become a real tease.
Give back the rock
Send back the frock
The wedding’s off
The wedding’s off!
Urgent action take
To freeze the cake
The wedding’s off
The wedding’s off!
Cancel the flowers
And hats like towers
This wedding’s off
This wedding’s off!
Forget those classy photo-shoots
Email those who are in cahoots
There’s now no need
No need for greed.
No need for fancy, sleek limousines
Or many vulgar unpleasant scenes
All’s cancelled now
There’ll be no vow.
The Vicar’s booking terminated
And all that we have instigated
The church and all the rest is off
And afterwards what’s posh is off.
My God, the fab reception must be scrapped
The vol-au-vents and veggie burgers bapped
Such extensive and expensive waste
Of all the finest dining taste.
The role of mother-in-law suspended
And all that artificial joy pretended
All over now though she’s in shock
All over now for her snazzy frock.
Return all bookings for the honeymoon
There’s none to celebrate or swoon
But hold on fast! A twist exploding!
A thunderbolt that needs decoding.
Good Lord! Reverse all recent actions
The wedding’s on, what contradictions
Get set for massive retro-action
Fast forward fragrant satisfaction!
The rock, the frock and all the rest
The flowers, the Vicar full of jest
Shall save the day and let us pray
Just as before, let others pay.
The mother-in-law and all her rivals
Can weep and pray for marriage survivals
And make more hay in the shining sun
Who’s the culprit with the smoking gun?
Who’s to blame for this freak disaster?
The best man’s as pale as alabaster
It must’ve, could’ve, will’ve been him!
What madness struck? And on a whim?
Or may it have been the groom or bride?
Perhaps there’s something they’d wish to hide?
For all our sakes give them a break
For pity’s sake, for heaven’s sake!
However, now this electric story’s ending
And all our comic disbelief suspending
Love conquers all and all may yet be well
Love conquers, while we are within her spell.
These shocks resolved, there yet remains the thought
That we, as humans, are forever caught
Within the turmoil of some celestial game
Wherein our fates are tossed for others’ fame!
It’s here that life and death perhaps, weigh upon us, strangely still
So silently the twelve souls tick and measure snail-paced time
Until two more arrive to break the heartbeat of the ever waiting room
And so another joins and jolts us with her muted, half-heard voice
Not vital matters of the State but just an irksome quaver overheard.
Another, close by me, clicks her polished nails upon her shiny chair
In clicketty beat known only to her inner orchestra now grandly playing
Until she’s called, leaving the empty chair recovering from her form
Resuming life as a patient chair desiring to soothe, once more, another
As the twilight of time itself clicks on another notch with we who wait.
His children hold close
The Arctic Star
Gleaming new
With bright ribbon,
Conjecturing.
Roaring night embraces
Each shuddering hulk
Battling to the death
A fearsome, screaming ice
Now beckoning.
No lessening of the dread
Hunting and pummelling
And surrendering
Unto the life hereafter
Of valiant men.
Within this heaving Hell
Of hilly seas
Screaming, slavering, salty wolves
Devouring in their dreams again
Our frozen boys.
And so many souls are fled
And so many bodies sunken
Embroidering
The ocean bed
With weeping valour.
Beyond all possibility of mercy
The grimacing ships
Grind ever onwards
Peopled by pounding hearts awaiting
The hideous seas of certain death.
Tenacity beyond all measure
To venture onwards
And break the challenge
Of the black and bloody sea
Brings triumph at the last.
And still the green eyed wolves
Venting their spume
Roar loud their throaty snarls
And pray for plenteous drowning souls
To bedeck their ravening lairs.
His children turn their eyes to me
Triumphant too
That this Father had
Against a multitude of savage odds
Survived to bring them forth.
Beware, beware
Those flying castles
Lying in wait
Somewhere beyond
The garden gate.
Revolutionary
In their defiance
Of Einstein
Who
Like the rest of us
Is gravitationally
A prisoner.
But they
Freed from a tiresome whim
Of a fanciful god
Hurtle
Tardis-like
Somewhere
Just beyond.
They might plague us
Hoping to entice us
To hop aboard
Sallying forth
Across the Forth
To circumnavigate
Wild galaxies.
Depositing us
In their own time
That might not be our time
In an unglamorous heap
Trapped once more
With Einstein
And his descendants
In an E=MC2 morass.
Castles in the air
Might or might not
Be a good thing
For me.
Prince George, indeed our lovely George
Feels his steely armour strappings
Snap in place
And mounted now, the Prince surveys
His mighty host laid out before him
And moist his eye accepting loyalty
From this warrior multitude.
We shall not fail him, we have sworn
Only triumph, majesty and justice
Shall adorn our newest Prince
And he, gleaming, shall lead us forth
Trotting on silver horse on silver hooves
Remembering the virtue of our Elizabeth
To keep her memory fresh.
But all this lies ahead for our infant Prince
As he, snuffling in his Mother’s arms
Is blissful, unaware of future power and glory
And we, his beaming subjects, pledge
Our dedication, love, support and strength
To help his boyish laugh reveal the story
We toy soldiers shall replay past victories!
Regiments of toy soldiers in the Royal Collection and
elsewhere await the Prince’s pleasure in coming years.
Glancing rightward from the hefty bench through thickets of dog rose
Towards the yellowed, mellowed castle
Feathered speedsters hurtle past, not silent but on fast, burring wings
While beady-eyed multitudes, hidden in bushy, flowery places give voice
In tongues we know not of, living life in this glorious walled garden
Singing cantatas and requiems, chit-chattering and perhaps,
Knowing they are instruments of Nature, embroidering everything.
And we, attuned to our walled dominion with its fruits and hidden places
Marvel at lumbering, hurrying Dumpies rushing a path towards us unaware
Until, confronted by the camera lens, ruffle and squawk their escape
Displaying a riot of dusty, spotted feathers, indignant and all fluffed up
Demanding, like Garbo, to be left alone, contemplating the laying of eggs
Alongside violets, under cooling ferns or in places only found by hens
Following their fancy, chuckling their secret joy at such clever hiding.
The day drones and drifts, pleased by the flickering of butterflies and moths
Deftly parallel with stripy, urgent flying machines that hover and dart buzzingly
Finding scents and nectar they crave before disappearing to drink before
Sluggishly applying vertical take-off, seeking other wells to worship in.
Still on that bench, a human acknowledges the slowing pulse that watching brings
And gathers in the swarm of movement, sounds and busy lives beating so
Leading us to live and let live, through journeys seen here in others’ lives.