Dec 31, 2009
Dec 24, 2009
Dec 9, 2009
White Christmas, Anyone?
Five "Snow" poems.
"London Snow" . . . . . . Robert Bridges
"Snow in the Suburbs" . . . Thomas Hardy
Dec 2, 2009
I cannot find the following poem on the Internet, so I cannot link to it from its title. I break my rule, therefore, and post it in full. I heard it on the BBC, in the summer of 2009, in a programme fronted by John Prescott, formerly our unlamented Deputy Prime Minister. Bloggers from outwith the UK may not know that Mr. Prescott was formerly a ship's steward, then Shop Steward and thence to political prominence as representative of "Old Labour" in the Blair government. The poet, Maurice Harney, was an engineer in the UK Merchant Marine. This is a lovely little "regret" poem . . .
A Time For Sea
I shall acknowledge age
when the call of far wild seas no longer stirs my blood,
when I shall not see as a boy would see
the beauty of homebound ships harbouring on the flood.
Only then will I sit in the lee of warehouse walls,
Only then will I sit in the lee of warehouse walls,
Conjuring dreams from the river's mist.
Only then will I weep an old man's tears
For times that I have known,
For lips that I have left unkissed.
Maurice Harney
Nov 29, 2009
Him Downstairs
Him downstairs knows everything.
He stalks me. But when his sandals
rattle the gravel, I don't stay
to canter through old times
or take the "by-the-ways" that bait
his nattertraps. I don't need
doddergenarian advice.
I'm too young a dog
to be taught old tricks
and I've been caught too often
in his thickets of yesteryear.
So I skulk downwind or use
sly footwork to dodge
his monologue lassoos.
If snared I'll haw and hum
and keep a weather-eye
for the venom that stipples his view
of Empire, lawnmowers, schools,
and men who aren't men
if they can't use tools -
till he grumbles off to hunt his wife.
Once she plucked my sleeve and gently
hoped I wasn't bored. "It's his tongue,"
she said, "his years. He's so handless.
Stubborn." I hummed and hawed,
and we stood there speechless -
I at her loyalty,
she from her life, her tears.
Him downstairs knows everything.
He stalks me. But when his sandals
rattle the gravel, I don't stay
to canter through old times
or take the "by-the-ways" that bait
his nattertraps. I don't need
doddergenarian advice.
I'm too young a dog
to be taught old tricks
and I've been caught too often
in his thickets of yesteryear.
So I skulk downwind or use
sly footwork to dodge
his monologue lassoos.
If snared I'll haw and hum
and keep a weather-eye
for the venom that stipples his view
of Empire, lawnmowers, schools,
and men who aren't men
if they can't use tools -
till he grumbles off to hunt his wife.
Once she plucked my sleeve and gently
hoped I wasn't bored. "It's his tongue,"
she said, "his years. He's so handless.
Stubborn." I hummed and hawed,
and we stood there speechless -
I at her loyalty,
she from her life, her tears.
Nov 28, 2009
The End of Ambition . .
As Dubai sinks in its sea of debt . . . a reminder from a bygone age!
Ozymandias . . . . by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ozymandias . . . . by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Nov 14, 2009
Nov 8, 2009
Nov 4, 2009
where gravity forbids a single step
interrogates the breeze, then ventures.
There's a lurch than churns the entrails, till
blind trust in the wing thats vectors
earth and air arrests the chasm plunge
and lifts me, harnessed to the wind's trapeze.
Night is as indigo as dreams.
I might be manta, bat or privateer
with all seven stars to plunder,
a scaly dactyl rattling down the thermals,
spars like grating talons clamped
on a nightmare Icarus. I swoop
where small lights blink, where pines conspire
with the wind's edge, indistinct.
I shift my emphasis.
My laugh drifts from the ridge.
A farm dog curls into his own fretful whine.
Perhaps the goodwife, spine chilled, gaze upthrown,
will glimpse my witchcraft split the risen moon.
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