Red riding riddle

I sat in the wood

with my favourite hood

eating my four finger nail

Along came Caesar I said hail

Now there's a bad wolf

doing good

There's a sad ship and no sail

On a penniless farm

where they raised the animal alarm

My old mother she ran

the cooking of food

then said the bear

what's on the menu,

is it hen stew

No said good locksy

who's treasure is under

lock and key

Its paws rich or porridge to you

You must find old Noah

He knows Frank owes him the key

or else he is the key buried in the sea

Now there was bad Jonah

up to no good

Lost a lot of diamonds in the sale

they might be up my sleevies

but I'll borrow an army

Said Noah well I owe you a flood

Then Frank from the ocean cried

What's the commotion

I saw Jonah he says he's

locked in a whale

So Noah said now Frankie

you know you can be coy

Let him know you are the key

Be a good boy

But old bad Frankie he wouldn't

touch the sea

He said I prefer sun sets not set sails

And full of this mirth he remained on the earth

Until Jonah could recover his tail

Noah said somewhere I left my head

It's buried in a book I read

I think they may have called it good

said Locksy with a smile

I'll see you after a while

just in time to collect your flood

It's been brewing inside me

but from it you cannot hide me

I felt nauseus so thought

I'd go downstairs

but without my barometer

it's cold and no thermometer

beside the wood is now covered with bears

Oh Holy medallions said

the Spanish galleon

who'd just finished circumnavigating

the globe

I cannot even count all of them

the treasure we've on board of 'em

Now help me unload Noah

don't be scared

So the two of them unloaded

both Frankie and him that’s exploded

And shook the star dust

from their hair

Now there's the sea I owed you

I'll thank you to abode me

while I chase Goldie locks from her bear

There's Cantonese surprises

and witches of all disguises

A wizard you may be and I shan't care

Just shave me and delay me

My boat doesn't leave till Tuesday

And Mrs Noah's anxious I'll be there

Can I beg you for my disguises

I've loved but without surprises

And now Locksy's just cut off

her golden hair

Now Frankie he is the key

but to be sure of sanctuary

You got lose the honest

crop to share

there may be no surprises

and the nose and thick rimmed surmises

will point to the tower with

the spiral stair

and up in its very topmost quarter

is a king's long haired daughter

and she may throw down her curls

to a worthy dare

So pluck up your courage

Frankie boy

be honest its not a decoy

the real treasure lies with her

up there

And sure enough they made it

into the sunset now they've faded

Frankie boy and his long-locked lady fair

There is nothing happening

The willow wilts beside the pine

The sure man steps over the line

The pair of lovers kiss then recline

And it happens in the prism of the mind

The face falls softly and is buried in the snow

The owl coos gently to the summer crow

And faintly a heart is heard beating in their tow

Like the sheep bleating in the field

Or the pig searching for the sow

The moon is cousin to the kicking sun

The stars and satellites are burning

Like a torch of marathon

The needles are in the hay stack

And the wine is in the cellar

And the porter on the station platform

Is talking with the newspaper seller

Couples disembark trains and meet

As in a garden old friends greet

The spring turns slowly into summer

As April days end in rain like a beating drummer

Firemen roll up their hoses

Old ladies at bus stops blow their noses

Bristol Temple Meads to Newport

The dark steely rails that shone out before him

The train rolled on its wheels,

That hummed and strummed on their pins

The station arches were open

Like the vaults of a cavern

And soundless syllogism of sibilant terms

Work men in work clothes

Brickwork in patches

Faded green grassy slopes

Hunker down under bridges

Discarded rusty rails brown as old ropes

Tangles of brambles below

Telegraph pylons

And electricity lines run along gravel ridges

Caged in rocks like some bland modern art

Stand in their furnaces

Burning hopes and hearts

Of the people of Filton Abbey Wood

Trash and smash and iron railings

Barbed wire fencings of Patchway

Through tunnels with runnels

Dark and foreboding

Never opposing lamp light

Quenched paths beneath rivers and valleys

And gullies reposing

Stuck with unknowing the emptiness vast

Is somewhere a train like a snake that is glowing

Whistling wind in the breath of the dark

And fortitude comes on the tracks while its snowing

And the breath of a storm, like a hope that won’t last

Then the bright welsh day light

Of the Severn Tunnel Junction

Cattle in the fields stand or chew grass

Little Welsh houses in low flat country

Dark deserted woods and piles of stones

Crops of newer estates appear by the trackside

As another train whizzes past

Then the dead dust of pastel greens and straw

That lie in fields as in seas

And little hills though no great spills

Will be toil for the train as it yet runs fast

The sense of more tight-knittedness

In smallness of place and collection of people

In location greets you or else

Is coloured of what you know of the Welsh

More slate walls with pigeons resting

King Alfred

Many times I've hid away

Many times I stand and fight

But if this were yesterday

Tomorrow would be alright

Its just been a nagging

this wilderness in the back of my mind

Someday soon I'll journey there

And see what I may find

I dreamt:

I was a great king in the past

When heroes walked the land

And ships carried two ton masts

When men were born and died in reigns

That neither victor nor defeated

Could buy in vain

This grist that etched old Briton

As was how we called her

Was beset with Tribes and Factions

Though in strength together I did bind them

For we faced a common foe

That of the Dane who's greatness came in tow

And not more did commoner or saint

Have the wear with all to weather that complaint

I being of Christian heart

Fought hard to see a peaceful way

But tethered to the mortal spell

The fates decreed another path to tell

And so into ditches up to our britches

We wandered now

Then finding a friend with a long canoe

Up the rhines and river we did plough

Coming at last to a fateful place

Named Athelney then gave up the chase

For thought I, with mind bent on War

The military advantage proved most likely to endure

With treacherous swamp and tidal rills

Surrounding us always even up to the hills

And no enemy could find or try to invade

An army so well fortified by barriers nature-made

Therefore there did we rest with what was left of our number

Until we could regroup and gather strength and make weapons of lumber

Then we might be the one with the power

Of choosing time and place to fight a battle

At what’s now called Alfred's Tower

The long nights passed

And my resolve it did last

Until I was ready

To charge down the Eddy

And whirlpool of damage into the Danes

They stood there now in the screaming battleground

 Which forever I'll see in my dreams

As match sticks on the burning horizon

And all did us surround

Like frozen mirrors their armour

catching the sun's gleam

Yet this symbol I saw rising above me

Was the risen Lord now on the cross

I know without doubt, the Lord was on our side

And, though battle and bloodshed were our lot

We would not come to great loss

So I remember well the Saviours Land

Who felt our weary footfall

Those levels of the Summer lands

And Athelney's borough above all

No rich merchants did abode us

For they were all lost at sea

When Briton's hour was at it's darkest

Who saved us were the poor folk of this sweet country

They sheltered and clothed our soldiers

Gave them food and warmth

And when time came to turn the tides of War

So too the waters they did part

Like the Hebrew tribes of old

When Moses led them away

The sea again did save God's people

Until their judgment day

And like the Tribes of the Pharaoh

The Danes were smothered in the wash

To show that all of the unworthy

Shall be dashed upon the rocks and their forces quashed

So let this be a reminder to all those who come here after

This land was once so holy

And filled with a people's happy laughter

That it's essence is in Nature

That will provide food enough for man

And protection when times are hardest

This holy sacred Land

Poems of Tudors and Tunics

May you be better than the evening

You find yourself in

May the mite which crawls upon your page

Be as a minotaur from the ancient age

Labyrinths and maze

Go fuzzy in the minds haze

Timeless yet poetic in the lime slice

Of pot pouri barmen

Who drum their fingers on the tum

Of the solenoid thief who steals your magnetic presence from the bar

Dividends and virtues break like ice flows

Inside the minds of those who know you

While sycophants and beaurocrats

Tail rail road robbers

On the back of cat burglaries

In side-winder glances

Across a pale moon

Faceless in this town of fine times

Leaders in the roseless alley

Rollers in the guileless galley

Hone their moustaches to the signal radio waves of Aliens in haystacks

Like needles in a compass

Trying just to find their way back

Journeymen conquered, opponents out-smarted

Who is encumbered by the looking glass?

Talismen and hyenahs canoe the river seine

Jack ponied and phony

The camels rasp, in bitter winds

That tick-tock the glories of the desert

And are wept for by heaven

And all that is gold on earth

Is eaten by a raven

Who was sold for six silver coins to the pie man

Feb 2014 Hares

We watched the March hares

Bounding on the plain near Westhay

Hunkering down between rows of corn storks

Then leaping up to mate

As if to juxtapose the desolation, they procreate

In the ruins of winter

While the Spring time comes in to take its turn

Then they bound away

They leap ears back or flat to the wind

At play now

Nothing but them the sky,

The field and the day

Here  

Are the roots and the rabbits

Here are the gulls, the creatures of habit

Racing the wood pigeon

Here is the grave Buzzard

Searching the grassy bed, for the bodies

Of the dead

Grave of heart, grave of bone

If he has a heart it is made of stone

Tomb stone eyes, that bury its look

Deep into the earth

Like the sea with a hook

And here is the cormorant diving down

Fisher of the undying lands

The greedy fish filled hands

Of the Sea

Catching the crab, beneath the rock

Cancer crawls and sidles, escaping

Grappling hooks, holds tight on

Pincers lock

Tiny molluscs, Whimberel,

Hermit crabs moving shell

Prawn and shrimp

Sea lice too, grown big

Like pigs in the rock pool zoo

Animal empire

The Sea is emperor

Flat holm Island’s umbrella

Shelters small fry

From the wild sea’s lair