Poetry

Thursday, 28 December 2023

light

 Well the birds would sing

And the night disappear

It was the usual thing

The thing I like to hear

And it left me, with a feeling of glory

As the dance continued

And the storm breathed on

And the rain in it's legions

Dropped on us like bombs

But we found the meaning so clear

On our trail with the snails

across the garden path

And the creatures taking comfort 

From a water bath

I saw the Magpie's eye spy

An early worm

I saw an earwig leap at the crack of dawn

As a beetle creeps under a stone to stay warm

And it was a telegraph of buzzing flies

Upon the ceiling when I opened my eyes

All there ready to die or get born

In the cycle of life you don't ask twice

You take what your given including good advice

Its just that sometimes it would be nice

To be warned

If I am reincarnated as a bee or a bug

Then let me know the morning dew

From a night's dreaming there's the rub

Would I dream of being a human?

Does an ant have a fantasy of being a cat

Does a dog wish that actually he could have been a bat

As he chases butterflies through a field

Would a rattle snake that shivers rather be a whale

Would a leaping pony rather learn to sail

How do we know this is not what animals feel?

Whose to say their dreams are not like yours or mine

Perhaps they dream by day while the sun shines

And that is what drives evolution

Because you have to have a dream, to make one come true

You have to cling to hope no matter what you're going through

And it's in these final lines that reminds me to sing

It's through the cracks as Cohen says that the light shines in 

Knit-knacks

 It was cut and run

In the sewing circle

She would sort out their mealy mouths she thought

With a swift joust here

A dagger, dagger stagger fall

There

A needle knit between the brows

Don't knit your eyes at me you cow

She exclaimed

As they blamed one another for the blood bath

Whose red satin scarf is that around your neck?

Not mine?

Not yours?

But your gaudy blood I expect


It is slash and burn

In the fabric aisles

Rollers torn, and carpets shorn

The rending of the cloth

The tearing of skin

The knitting

Of a dead thing

Into life

Taxidermist like

She loved her lover

She gloved her mother

Turned her into a leather cover

For her book on knitting yet

Birdie, birdie

 Waxwings in the supermarket car park

Directing the traffic

Seagull on the trolley

Pushing his family to go Christmas shopping

Buzzard at Mcdonald's picking up

his happy meal

Blackbird prittle-prattling in the planted pot

Crows flick-flacking on a lamppost

Below a pied wagtail strutting its stuff

Busy birds bush whacking the red berried trees

Off the M5 motorway service station pit stop





Wednesday, 27 December 2023

Crossing bridges

 The railway embankment rises

From behind the gardens of the estate

A long corridor of brambles and green leaves

The pale, pastel barks of the Ash saplings

That still sprout and grow vigorously

Goldfinch carousel about the branches

Each limb is like a path to another town

Another bud is ready to burst into life

But now waits in earnest expectation

Of the spring

Biding its time

On the Strawberry line


I am conflicted, in two minds

Because on the one hand we are bringing

access to the countryside, linking up

the hubs and nodes like a network

Of underground roots

And on the other these natural corridors

will inevitably be somewhat diminished

By the human wish to spread its own branches

To feed its own systems of growth

And repair its own faulty pathways - the roads

Industrial, smoke breathing cars

That flash and wizz past the parapet of the 

Once-bridge below


They will resurrect this bridge back from the grave,

And like an old giant remembering

Something of the spirit of the railways

Will come alive again

As people will walk their dogs along it

Will cycle their bring-a-bring bikes

and maybe the hedgehogs and squirrels

And scurrying things, will likewise

Cross the bridge and discover new worlds

beyond the boundary of the road 

Tuesday, 26 December 2023

Elsewhere

 Well the buildings they breathed, photosynthesized

In the forest of the city

Sky scrapers sprouted limbs

And stretched out to greet the new dawn

Bridges hummed in the wind

Giant bumble bees flapping their

Rotar blade wings

Danced between

These new plantations

Seeking out the giant flowers that the covered football stadiums

And Opera houses

Planes stood upright and preened themselves

Qantas

Pan Am, British Airways

Ducked and dived in the Hudson river

Where oversized water boatmen police boats rowed themselves

Up and down leisurely

Other plane-birds rolled around in the enormous dust baths of quarries

Cars became inflated beetles that opened out

mechanical wings and zipped here and there


And altogether elsewhere

The forests and the oceans breathed a sigh of relief

Because they could finally relax about

Keeping the whole planet going on themselves.


Tuesday, 19 December 2023

Don't pull the wool over your own eyes, it's all unnatural

 Who are those cows in the shed,

 Little calves lying on the ground, 

tags in their ears

Mothers looking down

Begging

Shouldn't they be in a field?

Shouldn't they not be carolled

But we all like to drink our tea

With milk

Therefore here's a dairy herd


Who are those sheep in the field?

Can you imagine them long ago

Roaming around by themselves

No particular place to go

Ewes separated from their babies

Sadly bleating on

But we all like a lamb chop

Or a leg of mutton

Even more we are keen on a woolen jumper

To keep warm in


You can't say that these are natural

Man's dominion of nature

But we do what we can and we must to survive

Except now that threatens the planet

Rose Dawn

 On the Rose dawn

Was when Christ was born

And Joy spread through the world

From the desert sands of Jerusalem

To the oceans beds of old Siam

Word was spread, yes word was spread

Jesus Christ was born 

The birth of the great I am


In the rose dawn I saw the light

Like a flock of birds risen in flight

And shoulders of lamb tender to the bite

Born was Christ Jesus and the great I am


Following the flock and flecking the fight

Little blood spots trail along corridors of might

And he carries the cross and he bears a shroud of white

Holiest of spirits come in deepest night