Poetry

Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts

Sunday 24 September 2023

Haycation - now that's a bit corny

 haycation noun [C]

/heɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
a holiday spent on a farm, during which the guests sometimes help out with the farm work

Thursday 18 July 2019

Because you said that thing to me


Because you said that thing to me
Because you did and meant it
The words that left the orbits spin
Flew off and I got dented

You see I've been off in space somewhere
Exploring darkness
Isolation, despair
And I was hit by
Your space debris
Which reminded me
Life is so fragmented

Pieces hit and bounce around
We all spit
But not all hits the ground
And Some spaceship
Ends up in lost and found
Because you said those words to me

Just little things
That make the world go around
Little words
Little sounds
But they turn great cogs underground
And water wheels
Flood with oceans pound
And enough of mud and blood
Its drowned
Out by the echoes
Of your words to me

Tuesday 24 October 2017

Book line and sinker

You caught me book line and sinker
With that sentence of yours
Turned my cheeks a bit pinker
With that fish verb doing its best
To escape the nets, and nest
Of the dark owl of Grammar

In your forest of words I was lost
For a moment that lasted an hour, or days
I cannot tell,
They were like little bells
Tinkling in the trees of a's and b's
Then like soot
These burnt words fell, their fire
Having died out
Like ash, they lay on the ground
White words pale with memory

I kick them and let the dust fly up in a cloud
Translation is soft, it makes little sound
Remembering understanding is quiet, not loud

Friday 21 November 2014

Some of me poems



Journey Poems

Ocean's eleven -or Rhyme of the ancient mariner Revisited
I set off for eleven oceans
After I'd sailed seven seas
Four more I could not fail
I thought it would be a breeze

I was a lonesome vagabond
in search of riches, tourism and drink
But on that eleventh ocean
was where my ship did sink

A-drowning I was ship-wrecked
my raft it was marooned
upon the shore of a far off Isle
by a whale I had Harpooned

For where is this poor countree
that ye have towed me to?
He said well lonesome vagabond
I've towed ye to Peru

Peru I said and startled up
Where canst a man walk home?
Neigh dear lonesome Mariner
For too far have ye now roamed

But Lo what Majestic sky turned out
When I did turn me Head
For Heaven displayed a plethora of stars
One if followed must home me led

To orient I fixed the whale
Again out on the ocean
And told him hence to beat his tail
And thus from this dark Isle we shall give motion

And so on the crew of one did wend
It's starlit toiling passion
For the sea was as green as a wild monster
Calling my heart's courage to ration

Never a boat had thus put sail
Upon these treacherous seas
Nor chart or map to orient
Our pathless way to ease

We journeyed on without rainfall,
Our mouths were parched as sands
And the rats which fled from my raft
The searing heat they could not stand

Then to me appeared a visage of a friend
One I had known but now long lost
A man I had betrayed in love
And now before me visited his ghost

Accusing eyes they pierced me
And cut me to the quick
That I should live, while he had died
No candle burns a faster wick

Then flames in cohorts filled the scene
And seemed to set a light the timber
And in each flame a visage appeared
Of a man who was my crew member


They called to me and cried still worse
Why have you forsaken your brothers?
Because your life and his were tied together
Now his death will be your curse

So, on I fled, crying “take me away from this guilt”
And soon from the air came a wandering dove
The evil which gave voice to these spirits
Had been dissolved by a face of love

The mermaid (dove?) joined my vessel and led the
Whale towards dark cliffs,
“It is land “I cried
And so grateful was I
That no line written could tell of my bliss

Thank you said I, but then down had he died
Exhausted upon the deck
My future still lay in the balance, so for luck
I wore the bird around my neck

The Island was old and grey from a distance
But with speed became more familiar
It was the very spot I had sailed from
In June fifteen long years past clear

The wedding guests had arrived and there
I went with upmost haste
Now to you I regale my tale
Of eleven ocean's to which I lay waste

The Brown Water Brook – Of a December train journey from Bristol to Aberystwyth
Brown water in the brown brook
Flowing fast like a runaway crook
Swallowing hollows
Peaking on the tree lines
Of Alder, Ash and Willows
Grasses systemic in fields
Like primitive rice
Turning to boggy marsh land
And edges of birch bark
Damp and dark
With wet cloud covering everything
Up to the hill tops
Hedges black and dark,
Boarder fields there,
Crows in a pair
Tip toe and muzzle the earth with their beaks
Nowhere near the brown brook with the white crest peaks

Then the brook washes down again
And is seen from the train
Like a mane
Of a wild horse
Flowing down the mountain

Where Christmas tree shaped skeletons of birch fill a valley
Like forgotten Christmases past and lost to memory
Only sighted from a journey, East to West
To the Saturday noon, the moon past it’s best

And Ivied trees slender,
Others covered in moss
The dead brown of leaves
Lends a feeling strong with loss

And shadow to a crumpled land
By the wind and weather
Yet I am a changed man
Like the wind carrying a feather

It is a hope for the land
As back to view comes the brook singing
As it tributaries a larger river
As I see sheep on the hill side running
Scared from the train
The brown river running fast
With the falling rains

It is yellowy cream of churned butter,
The surface scum
That tumbles and turns
In troughs and gushes then
Like spreading fingers departs

And then it leaves the train’s route in yarn spools
To only standing water in pools
And Black slate walls
Damp

Then reeds and long grasses,
In the marshes by Macunthlyth
And Dovey Junction, fen land high
Firs in mist and fog and the sense of height
Mountain tops beyond sight
Hidden behind a curtain, a veil of white cloud

Then flat ground, flat as a fen
As the lay of an ocean bed
The wide flat river passes
Like a Mississippi over the plain

A solitary chapel on a promontory
Of a little headland into the flood bed
That is green with grass but not lush
Brown as well
And sculpted up into gentler hills

The brows of tarmac roads
And grey/white stone built houses
Start to populate and change the landscape

Into modern houses
Community greens and football grounds
Then the brown babbling brook appears again
And look as it follows the train
Down to the sea
Criss-crossing under bridges from
The crow’s path
Turning the Ystwyth
Into Aberystwyth




Why is your country so Isolated
As a Pariah State
Come bathe in waters of Forgiveness
My lady of the lake
The salt heads are melting
In the towns strong heat
I come back to you
With my heart on fire
From the Raging in the street
The hills are so old
Their eyes are so weary
From the Loves gone cold
Spear heads and Strong guards
hold talismen for mistakes
Come defend your island of the past
Let the tallow candles flake

You are so North sea trawler
With your ice diamond slippers
And your sequin shawl on your shoulders
You like to race your fish of diffidence
in an ocean school
Well you treated them so bad
The best they ever had
You know you were a fool
There are no more tears
to drop or fall
The skies are dried up squalls
As are the mouths of the sea gulls
when they sit upon your harbour walls

The hour Your Hands in Mine

Ten o'clock forget me nots
Draw shadows on the wall
Well I'm a wall flower
To the hour
That your hands in mine

The birds that twirl
Inside the clock
Do sing cuckoo to the chime
Well I'm that song bird on the hour
That your hands in mine

The sun that climbs
upon the dial
Can cast a shadow of time
well I'll be fine on the line
The hour yours hands in mine

Why should you be so atlantic?
When the cold pacific is past

The sea is a whale of a joke
a pale past of some
cigarette smoke
Well when will you
try to be my pacific ghost?
The turbines turn on heavens shore
Rivers of mercury
flood in last
Diablo riches, oceans witches
Joker kitches down rollo's coast
Freeze as the arctic
Why must you be so atlantic
And believe my Frantic Host

Oh Blue caesar
Come down off your throne
You've been to honolooloo
And it hit you like a stone
Sent ripples of your innocense
through the ocean alone
Yet you are so atlantic
But Pacific future unknown
The doors are empty,
Now so is the throne

You're like a sea that flows so frantic
And the ship in the glass
Thats a captive romantic
Well don't it sting
When the sands run fast
I have you here
In my inner ear
You nautiless shell
in the cross winds cast
You fear to tell
What the background static
Will sound to one
who hears you last

Those nubs of pens
that do prick the surface
then spoil the ink
with oil slick
the rub fire mountain
yields its magic
from the point of moses staff
Yet why must you be so atlantic
And draw the oceans apart
And here am I so salty wounded
Mindful of the hateful starts
Lets bring it again
to the nailed Judas
Who first kissed your
sea-scaped mouth

Slowly standing in shadows
singing sullenly to you
Where rushes hush
the harps and harmonies
and wood wind reeds
hum the tune to the tumbling dark
As day brings its mantel down
And the ground swallows the light
I cannot hold its brightness
And must give out to night
As in the blowing wind
The dog loses its bark
And the colours of the clown
have turned from blue to white.

I heard you cry
In the court of clowns
Why were you in contempt
You know well it is a crime
To let me down
When I stand in the dock
While you slept through the hours of the clock

But believe not my lips
For as the past they may lie
My heart is sunk upon
Your bleeding ocean
Our future the judge's sentence remain
And I carry the ball and chain
Like a convict to your love
My heart gives motion
In that freedom's cry

The road map stole
the way to her lips
Her breasts the mountain pass
Her throat the land ladies tenement
I have no rent to pay the toll fast
There were no potholes
That left black mouths
Her skin was my motor oil
As I drove on through her laugh
I lost my map at her heart
But could not turn back there
So I kept on going to the velvet underground
and her beautiful
mole black hair

There may be no heaven
and may be no hell
But baby when I'm near you
Then why can't you tell
I'm in love
I am in love with you

The stars in a sunder
Go wheeling under
That bright blessed moon
Now I've never seen a were wolf
but I believe I'm not all man myself
because under your spell I swoon
Oh baby I'm in love
I am in love with you

The lecturers in Parliament
do pass laws that govern us
Dictate our lives and our moves
Well I'm no chess player
but I've seen Kasparov
and with your stealth
You could show him a thing or two
Because like him I see in black and white
There is only wrong and right
And thats why I'm checkmate of
The love you give to me

The sun shines out strongly
With the Pitch fork Bishop Berkely
tells us we all belong in existence bubbles
But round a cauldron witches talk
of loves labours and loves troubles
And no man is an island
is uttered more than twice
Yet William Blake was not among the coven,
though the cockrel crew thrice
As Judas betrayed his brother in the garden
And quite a mock went all of Eden
Decorum out the window
Love was not troubled to be made
Love was the great parade
and then was left in shadow
The men who with their sharp words crossed
The stolen covenant of rich night
To the stair case of moses
in a mountain high
Did force retribution from
a punishing God
The torment who long ago
held Aphrodite as cousin to Zeus' Rainbow
And laid down alms in the hands
of the poor
Before killing their own mothers
And marrying their fathers whore
To beg at beliefs southern face
While others ascend her summit
Is to believe that she has a limit
While others have no wish to scale it
And yet with all your wisdom
Your faith cannot move it
For only love is out there
waiting in the dark
Love is wanting you to prove it
And silence is jeopardy
As beauty is a knife edge
Both cut your talk eventually
If the line you sleep walk inside your dream
is not true to Loves country
She will set you on an island
And leave you there drowning
In the stream