Poetry

Sunday, 1 September 2024

Just passing

 I saw a twister in a field of grass

Just pass

Like a spirit

On your funeral day

I looked at the sky and saw

A helicopter cut the sun like glass

I saw it

Just pass

Like a broken vase

It cracked the sky


I waited outside the church

Then sang the hymns within

Listened to the your eulogy

And yet I can't begin

To unravel what it all

means to me


It is strange not having a thing

Is not the same as losing it

If your bonds of affection were not

tight

Holding the cane

Letting it fall

picking it up again

Letting the good times come

and go

and just pass

Passage

 Gonna make that final passage

Out of the salt sounding seas

Up into the skies 

Sail my ship

To heaven's shores

I'm gonna weigh anchor at the gates of Saint Peter

And I'll clamber out 

And get down on my knees


Oh the passage is a hard one

And I've worked my journey

Sometimes my cards won

Sometimes I pushed the gurney

But nothing sounds better than

than the snap of a sail

Like the belts of Spanish leather

In the wind of a gale


I've worked my passage and I'm on my way now

To the promised land of freedom and eternal ease

I'll not scrub the decks nor haul on the line now

For I'm following the light of the beckoning seas


The Gondolier's chat

 The Gondolier's song

You sticka ina de pole

You take a outta de pole

Hey presto

You are a Gondolier


Punting round the Venice canals

Blocking up the waterways

Punt the summer holidays

Punt oh punt away

Ye Gondoliers


Taxi drivers of the canal

LIfe for a gondolier is far from banal

Do you know who I had

In the back of my Gondola the other day?

South of Venice

This time of night

With this much traffic

You must be joking


Thursday, 29 August 2024

My own worst enemy

 I fought him on the battleground

I found him out, I found him down

I brought him up, he beat me down

He's my own worst enemy


I bought him gold, but me he sold

Down the river bound in the hold

Like a product, a pound of flesh

I'm my own worst enemy


I fought him off, but he came back

All guns blazing, I should've guessed

He would attack

I locked him up under my bed

He's my own worst enemy


Some call him their shadow

They shadow box their soul

Some see him fly in through a window

Then break it when he loses all control

Sometimes I witness him in the mirror and

Ask myself, but I am unresolved

Whether to once and all do away

With my enemy, for without him

I would have little left at all


He kicks me out of bed in the morning

He slaps me in my face when I'm yawning

I try to drink a glass of water, he pours a bucket

of it over me

He's my own worst enemy

Orbit

 Living in the twilight zone

Nothing to me seems real

It's like my flashlight is on

But the wagon's lost its wheel


There's only so much psychic space that can 

be kept upon a hill

Eventually the bowl fills up

And then it overspills


And the witches they are circling

Upon their broom sticks in the night

Tying threads

And loosening them

As we're a sleeping tight


And we orbit each other 

like planets round a sun

Passing

sometimes like ships

Sometime together

Then alone as one


Each of us is a comet

An asteroid on its way

But the orbit round the solar field

Lasts 2 maybe 3 years they say

Then they come back into

our own gravitational  pull

And somehow we collide

inescapably like a fool


What is it we are all circling?

Is is some central sun?

Or is it a buried moon rock

Left over after each generation

Is it an empty sense of self?

Space is a vacuum they say

And nature abhors a vacuum

It must be filled in any way


Life is inevitable

It must carry on

Death just recycles

Energy back into the sun

Tuesday, 20 August 2024

The game

 Is it all just a game?

Just a game we are playing

Oh I wonder if you feel the same

It's just a game to me and you


Sometimes I feel shame

In the game we are playing

Sometimes I feel the pain

When I get hurt

Sometimes I take the blame

For the game we are playing

It's all just a game

Only a game, love's its name


You deal your hand

Queen of hearts

Am I Ace of spades?

I fall apart

Dig myself into an early grave

But I know my turn will come again

In the game we are playing

For love is like a year

Always turning, always changing


Sometimes love will grow

Like a garden for a showing

Sometimes love goes slow

Like an oak tree growing

But it's all just a game

Just a game oh love is growing

Like a willow it sometimes weeps

Like an aspen sometimes trembling

Sometimes love falls a sleep

On the wing a swallow resembling

But it turns, turns again

Like in the spring when they're returning

But it's all just a game

Yes love's a game we both are knowing

So do you or don't you feel the same

When I see in your eyes it's showing

River Brue

 Will you take me river Brue

To the other side 

Will you meet me at high tide

Where the Parrett meets

The Highbridge Clyce

Will you take me river Brue


Will you take me river Brue

I've been waiting on you

Will you take me by the Somerset rhynes

Will you take me river true

Will you take me river Brue


Oh I will meet you by the Brue

I will walk with you along her banks

From Bruton town 

To Meare's fine flanks

I'll walk with you my bride


Will you take me river Brue

Will you take me to the otherside

Will you meet me too, oh River Brue

Yes I'll meet you at low tide


Will you walk with me across the sands

Across the Berrow sands

Will you walk with me the paths of Brean 

And look out over the estuary

And look out over the estuary


Will you take me river Brue

Will you take me Parrett too

Will you take me out to Burnham-on-Sea

And will you meet me at Castle Cary

Will you take us to the other side

Will you take us across the estuary