Poetry

Sunday, 26 September 2021

Homing pigeon

 When the pigeon flew through the hole

When the doors were well open

And the ten Commandments scroll

Had been spoken

When you understand you don't control your life

You'll stop flapping around 

In the house of the Lord

Whether you're a pigeon or a mouse

You can neither fly from nor hide from

The word

Let it be, he is here with you

Even the lowliest shrew

Even in the turn of the screw

There is no escape for you

Read from the ten Commandments


Know the beginning and end

Are not different departments

But all tied up like a shoe

Like a pigeon that's trapped

Got lost on the map

But flew

Straight home to you

Saturday, 25 September 2021

The river sheppey

 The ducks on the sheppey

Down in the valley

Flowing right up by aunt sally


Walk up from Bowlish

And then to the hill

Where the Windsors are ruling

Through the winter chill


Down in the valley where the brambles grow thick

And the lilly pads ralley

Amongst the Bull sticks

And the rushes are happy

And the flushes are drained

And the green nettle lushes

Down through the rains


Down in the valley where the river Sheppey runs

And up on the hillside where walk the white nuns

Singing their choir songs of hymns for so long

About the green Sheppey that trundles along


Through all the houses and the winter time's plain

It runs with the mouses where the old bridges lain

And the mill stream of clemency and forgiveness' name

The green Sheppey whispers out her sweet name


The heart's road

 When I go away I try to forget

All of those pieces of memories of regret

When I go away I can hold them at arm's length

And say you cannot hurt me, you cannot touch me

You cannot hurt me today


But I always come back, back to the fold

To the font of the cradle of birth

I always return to the home and the hearth

And the place where I first knew the hurt


Now you can be travelling a long weary time

You can be holding his hand or mine

And this can be our way together or apart

But that's just the road of the heart


When I am travelling down the country mile

I look for the clouds, then I burst into a smile

When the sun is all shining and the birds are in song

Then I'm reminded that nothing is wrong


When I am travelling along a steep hill

And the ridges are vast with an emptiness that chills

Then I see your hand in the sky high above

And I know it's all just a plan of your love


When I am travelling through dale and through den

And the trees they grow over and they are my ken

I know you're near me, because I feel at ease

With the summer behind me and the autumn's breeze


When I am travelling far from my home

I can forget all of those feelings I own

Nothing is stronger than the pull to return

From where I've been travelling the heart's road that burns



Forty something, don't call it out

 Love forty-

40 love

40/15, need an ace

40/30 maybe enough

Over the line

Let, first service

Let, let me be

Let us pray

Let his love show

40/40

In the midst of life we are in death

Advantage life

I've served my time

Timed my serve

All in the toss and the fall of the ball

The spring and the shot

The lob and the call

Don't call it out

I love the game, don't worry about it all

set point

Match point

Rain stops play

But I want to see the end!

Cliff Richard, strawberries and cream

We're all going on a summer holiday

Hooray!

The net is always there blowing in the cross wind

The dividing line between you and me

Between life and death

Strawberries and cream

Just look at the crowd

Watching me and you

eyes back and forth

Don't take your eyes off the ball

Forty, each fight for a point

To score

To leave your name on the board

But just play for the love of the game

You're only forty after all

Thursday, 23 September 2021

From the prison

looking down from the prison

I'm still waiting behind these bars

I'm still waiting inside the prison


And I see all the pennies rolling down the cobbled street

And I see the mermaids leaning up against the lamposts

And all them rough sailors telling all their lewd jokes

But the mermaids aren't listening

Looking down from the prison


In my life time I have committed no crime

Unless it was the one that took away my prime

Love is a free bird

But I don't pay it any mind

Not while I'm looking at it and listening

From inside the prison -Looking down from the prison


There are the sailors who come in on their ships

And throw salt into the wounds

Where women sway their hips

And I think of mountains when I kiss her lips

And I lie in valleys when she touches finger tips

But I can't be doing with gems glistening

Not from my home inside the prison


Yes I got your letter yesterday

And I wrote you one too

Just like the monkey from inside the zoo

I here that you're doing well

I am too, just a little bizarre behind these steel bars

Looking down from the prison

Forty something

 Forty something

Forty something

It could be forty and one,

It could be forty and two

I'm forty something

It could forty and one day

It could be forty three

I'm forty something

I'm in my forties


I think I meant that you were better

When you were younger

But actually I think now

That you were worse

You are getting better like a wine

Something about the vintage is fine


There's a delicacy about being forty

It gives you an edge

Like a cut hedge

Until you are forty one

And then your edge has gone

It comes back at forty two

When you get an edge on your shoe

Because you bought a better one

Than the one before


All you are are your shoes

By the time you are sixty

There is very little else left to give you an edge

You are too round by that time

And then you must buy a hat

And perhaps a jacket after that


Then when you are sixty two

You will need a walking cane

A new brain, and a bus pass

But you are in your forties

You are forty something

And you do not need to think about that yet

It is not part of the furniture of your life


Grow a beard when you are forty five

And shave it off the next day


Wednesday, 22 September 2021

Changing of the guard

 She clung onto her soldier as he was changing guard

But a man cannot shoulder blame that falls on so hard

The Palace has been stormed

But the watch is on the ramparts

The ghost of a former world

Is drifting through the walls

The palisade is broken

The hill is on its knees

And the river it has over spilled

Out into the seas


Hold on to your soldier as he is changing guard

Don't you turn your back on me

We must protect the Queen in our own back yard

And country is a religion

For the nationalists are at the gate

And they're storming our own barricade

Shouting their lies and hate

And the patriot is dying strung up in a barbed wire fence

And they're burning the flag of liberty in a fire of ugly sense

We must be the watchdogs of a thinking common sense

We must show the courage as the guard changes post

And the 21 gun salute goes up

The ship of state does birth

And all the men and women gather round liberty's bright hearth