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On The Train This Morning
On the train this morning
I sat alone, by the window
Where normally there’d be coffee, warm
and all the world’s news in my ear
Instead, I chose dry silence
I chose the undulating wildness
strobing past my view way
I chose high green hills
and glinting mirrored rivers
I chose lone trees, centuries old
strong against the elements
I chose lambs and sheep
moving in pairs or herds
I cho...
Monday 10th June 2024 11:09 am
A Nidderdale ramble
A poem generated from random words over the course of April. See comment below for full details of how I wrote it.
A chilly April morning. Lazy lambs
couch lifeless in the fields like balled up fists
in woolly mitts. I need no diagram
to clarify the Spring: the tousled strips
of trees beside the river view an uproarious
theatre of water, the riot of the weir and lak...
Tuesday 3rd May 2022 3:22 pm
Waiting
Documenting the silence
the bus stop is almost reclaimed by nature
until the bus arrives after a long conversation
with the broken country path
in a meditative rhythm each morning
disgorging the mood
its wheels on cast aside leaves
inbetween the sun barely awake
in the early morning sky
and the sinking moon
recording the moment afterwards
restlessly in symmetries in gentle wind
...
Tuesday 6th July 2021 6:09 pm
The "Tourons" Great Day Out
Touron........A tourist who unfortunately also happens to be a moron!
The “Tourons” made up a picnic of all their favourite food and drink,
they brought along everything from home except the kitchen sink.
Bags bursting with goodies, enough to see them through the day,
but they left behind the empty packaging for others to throw away.
So much effort taken to pack everything...
Saturday 27th June 2020 4:36 pm
Our Countryside
This our countryside we must revere.
What would we do if it was not here?
It should all be loved and all be preserved,
To show to everyone it is deserved.
There is no more lovely pleasant scene
Than hills and vales - all covered green.
View the flowers and trees - don't take for granted
All of the things that have been planted.
And if there's something that should...
Saturday 11th January 2020 7:39 am
Sunday
The pomegranates
are ripe on the tree
across the road
and the swallows
are skimming beneath the power lines
and the soft blue sky
The washing on the balcony rail is dry
The village dogs bark
Church bells summon summer in
and the early morning peace
is broken as a tractor heads for the fields
The sun heats the soft grey
feathers on the pigeon’s back
and he leaves his chimney perch
abo...
Sunday 15th September 2019 7:13 am
Letter From The Lake
Dear friend
a sigh is leaving me
I can concentrate now, finally
a statue standing on the jetty
the lake’s slow wash below the boards
hypnotising me
I feel freer now than ever
more than I did back there
I don’t know how you toil on
those boiling days below the city
tinned-life crammed searching for air
You wrote of the love you found
that you always dreamed was waiting
head cocked ...
Monday 4th March 2019 7:47 am
The Shed
Hanging in the shed
Are four dead pheasants and a woodcock
On a makeshift table
Some half-eaten sandwiches and a thermos
A drab green waterproof
Hangs on a nail above some boots and drips
The man sits talking to a friend
And rubbing his damp hair with an old towel
Outside dogs are sniffing around the cars
Ignoring the rain one man is hunched over his ...
Friday 8th February 2019 2:15 pm
The Old Field Gate
I rejoice to see that old wood five-bar gate
that still stands guard beneath the ancient beech
to a field sloping gently down the hill.
The gate from an old farm track - now lost to time -
has seen so many seasons, so many harvests pass
and must have known an age of scythes and stooks
of horse drawn harrows, ploughs and wooden carts.
What could it tell of the village...
Wednesday 6th February 2019 12:08 pm
Snow Fields
The soft blown snow that fell five days ago
Crisp frozen now by these five frosty nights
Still blankets all the fields and moors to show
Where pheasant clattered off on noisy flights
While footfall of the lesser birds is scribed
Less deep; and here a small bank vole has run;
There passed red fox and rabbit side by side
Though time kept them apart and saved the one
At the wo...
Tuesday 5th February 2019 9:53 am
One Last Frozen Tear
"Heavy Snow in Wales": 30th January 2019
A sheet of pure white covers her face: that land I thought I knew
frozen beneath its covering, buried ever deeper in its icy tomb
the contours I know so well:
every dip and valley; hill and gully
smoothed by this mantling shroud that descended
as time slipped slowly away, locking us in its white eternity
One last frozen tear d...
Thursday 31st January 2019 3:00 pm
Early Autumn Lake
Below the incurious sheep on the hill
that stare at me as they endlessly chew
The sun is warm and I perch on a stone to watch quietly
As it is reflected off the surface of the lake:
the part not covered with pond weed
where flies dip and buzz
dragonflies and damselflies dart
and hover:
...
Tuesday 4th September 2018 2:46 pm
Vespers
As I pass beyond my summer wall
Once more the land embraces my spirit
And its silence becomes my prayer
While I and heaven hear
The wind whispered psalm
As dusk caresses the tree tops
That surround my field fane -
I walk slowly through its grassy nave
Lost in my old memories
And pause at the far gate:
The sun sinks low behind me
And my long shadow stretches out in ...
Wednesday 18th April 2018 9:52 am
Esgyrn Eira
The thick ice on the pond is dimpled on its face:
The same snow that coated the field
Had landed on the frozen pool to yield
To ice its fragile beauty and feather grace
As dents
Body gone, only the skeleton of the snow is left:
The same snow that covered all around
Has lost its substance to the earthy mound
But dull white bones still haunt Spring's heft
As wraiths
...Friday 23rd March 2018 10:32 am
Pastoral
For Gwen, Anne and Eryl
In that happy heady grass-green Spring of my years
A time of lambent lamb slow lamb full days around a whited cottage
Lent us space and ease beneath the sun long sky
Golden glorious hours together in a single thought
With close chicken scrape and distant herd
When the swallows dipped to the fly buzz
When the kite climbed to a gliding speck
...
Thursday 22nd February 2018 12:30 pm
GIRL OUTSIDE
Have you seen her eyes?
Like searching grass stains
Reaching, reaching up the bark
Of her rough touch, rough hands.
Legs like hay, the hairs like needles,
Could lose thoughts in them, do you understand?
Oh, have you seen her eyes?!
Like dancing lily pads,
I once tried to catch them in the lake.
Silly mistake, oh big mistake
Because she can be a swamp,
Her pull like...
Thursday 10th November 2016 5:27 pm
The Dance of The Bells
Flat chimes ring out,
As hammers beat gainst metal forged in mankind’s heat,
Singing village tunes over river and hill,
As sunlight beams burn where mist lingers still.
The call rings out from hamlet village and town,
We are here, know us by this resound,
Like feral packs at bay sounding out,
The familial call of belonging-metal signals about.
Then the bell dance ...
Tuesday 3rd May 2016 5:54 pm
A MOUSES TAIL
“But it’s not my fault”,
cried the mouse in dismay,
“I though I knew where I was
but appear to have lost my way”
Sat at the foot of my bed
with his hands under his head,
he tried through his tears
to relate what is here.
*
I set out early this morn
after nibbling on some corn
for my breakfast, on the cob is best.
I was raring to ...
Friday 19th June 2015 12:40 am
In Keswick I Walked Tall
In Keswick I Walked Tall
I walked the streets of Heywood
In my paper-round years,
I walked and walked, mimicked the dogs
That snarled at the letter box,
But none of it was my choice.
My Siddal Moor Schooling was
An escape from Sutherland
Where the boys and the girls from
The council estate,
Snarled at their world of a
One by one clic...
Friday 18th November 2011 7:49 pm
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