Resolutions

 

Not faint or fool to harsh regret,

No guilty feelings come to call,

The cards once dealt I seize and play,

And win or lose I love them all.

 

Contempt’s contentment stills the soul,

As bitter herbs the palate pall,

But better still to crush the doubt,

And blame the serpent for the fall.

 

This tapestry we call our lives,

Is threa...

Read and leave comments (2)

Spider

 

The spider that clung to the stable wall,

Knew nothing of the day,

All she knew was the tail of the ox,

Had carried her web away.

 

The spider on the manger rail,

Knew nothing of what was said,

All she saw was a crying child,

As she fastened another thread.

 

The spider ringed by her silken trap,

Knew nothing of shepherds there,

A...

Read and leave comments (0)

Patrick And The Devil

 

He was drunk every morning as everyone knew,

He was drunk every evening as well,

And sure as tomorrow as everyone said,

Old Patrick was destined for hell.

 

The night before Christmas the wind it blew cold,

And Patrick sat home all alone,

When the devil came in through the living room wall,

Saying Patrick I've come for my own.

...

Read and leave comments (1)

Twelfth Night.

 

Its almost twelfth night and I’m feeling quite sad,

Said the fairy on top of the tree,

When your way past fifty it quite gets you mad,

When you see what they’re doing to me.

Hauled out every Christmas and tied to a twig,

It’s hardly a yearly surprise,

And I’m not even dusted, they don’t care a fig,

So what would a poor girl surmise?

 

...

Read and leave comments (1)

 

December Musings

 

The Santa was fat and lugubrious, his beard was nylon spun,

He stood beside the grotto gate his duties nearly done,

The light had faded from the sky and dappled it into night,

And icy drops of chilling rain were putting the crowds to flight.

 

The credit cards had done their worst and the shelves were nearly bare,

The rich had loaded the ...

Read and leave comments (2)

 

The Heart of Winter

 

A light to the gentiles, a light to the world,

A drum to be beaten, a banner unfurled.

A cross for crusaders, a pyre in the night,

A faith with a reason to brace for the fight.

 

Such humble beginnings a stable and stall,

Is that best forgotten, no matter at all,

With prelates in palaces, bishops on thrones,

And so many...

Read and leave comments (2)

BACK ACHE

 

For two years or so and some two years at least,

I’ve had a companion a sabre-toothed beast,

It bit at my backbone and gnawing quite deep,

Impinged on my patience and severed my sleep.

 

But miracle medicines dealt it a blow,

From which no revenge ridden river could flow,

But it made me recall from the days that are past,

The unwanted companio...

Read and leave comments (1)

A Common Prayer

 

What then of Cranmer, what to say

This man who helped an age to pray,

Who set  to word the ageless song,

And paid the price for being wrong.

 

Proud Oxford burned a holy sage,

As balm for Bloody Mary’s rage,

If hands offend ‘not his I’d swear’.

And if they did I cannot care!

 

Oh yes, he served his King too well,

Some truth ...

Read and leave comments (0)

Disaffection

 

I spent all my youth in the city,

Caught up in the pounding and pain,

And living full round in its rhythm,

I danced to its raucous refrain.

 

In its concrete and in its confusion,

I found refuge and bitter relief,

The streetlights all shining like diamonds,

With daylight the intruder thief.

 

For this asphalt and asbestos jungle,

...

Read and leave comments (0)

Sappho, Salome and Sisters

 

Rambunctious women everywhere,

The brash the bold the fearsome fair,

The dominatrix with her whip,

The nymph in silk and satin slip.

 

You can’t go far in this good land,

Before you meet their motley band,

From childhood they have filled my days,

But I have never learned their ways.

 

My mother, grandma, cousins’ aunt...

Read and leave comments (0)

ECCLESIASTES  3

 

I watched them working in the fields,

The gatherers of stones,

The autumn mist was in the air,

The winter in my bones.

 

A time they say to gather in,

A time to cast apart,

Such stones are like my memories,

And whispers from my heart.

 

You raise your stone to build a home,

A fortress or a wall,

Then take the ram to brea...

Read and leave comments (0)

Winter Fever

 

This was the year the bankers cried,

We never cheated, never lied,

Our bonuses were fair and good,

Not sucking on the nation’s blood.

 

Our politicians feel no shame,

It’s just the system they disclaim,

Needing first and second house,

Like parasitic flea and louse.

 

Schools they say have failed a few,

But stating that is nothin...

Read and leave comments (0)

The Timepiece

 

I wake in the morning at three twenty-three,

The clock by my bedside starts glaring at me,

It whispered good morning and go back to sleep,

The hours of the darkness to count up and keep.

 

I think of the clocks that have noted my age,

The hours and the minutes, the pleasures, the rage,

The fear and foreboding, the terror and pain,

Their s...

Read and leave comments (0)

The Heart of Winter

 

A light to the gentiles, a light to the world,

A drum to be beaten, a banner unfurled.

A cross for crusaders, a pyre in the night,

A faith with a reason to brace for the fight.

 

Such humble beginnings a stable and stall,

Is that best forgotten, no matter at all,

With prelates in palaces, bishops on thrones,

And so many churches with...

Read and leave comments (0)

A Strange Sort of Baby Food   It’s just where to start, just where to begin, The boy with a bomb in the Ostermilk tin, With a chemists collusion the passing of cash, Salt-peter, sulphur and ground charcoal ash.   The boy was quite young being just eight or nine, The making of gunpowder well in his time, A bomb or a banger ‘just questions of scale’, And th...

Read and leave comments (1)

A Sixties Adolescence

 

Just fourteen and not yet shaving,

Awkward at the youth club dance,

Older girls in floral dresses,

Knowing that I had no chance.

 

Harder grind at daytime lessons,

Can’t do French its such a bore,

English homework that’s a pleasure,

Simple signs of what’s in store.

 

Khrushchev settled in the Kremlin,

Shadows of t...

Read and leave comments (1)

A Fifties Childhood.

 

Walk to school by field and hedgerow,

Cap pulled down against the rain,

Eating rhubarb dipped in sugar,

Eke the rations out again.

 

Boxy cars with side-valve engines,

Temperamental at their best,

Petrol one and nine a gallon,

No real need to pass a test.

 

Fridges proffered by the gas board,

Gas flames generating...

Read and leave comments (1)

Progress

 

I stood on the fortification,

With the battle sound brave in my ear,

And my chieftain safe in the earthworks,

Sent me a flaming spear.

 

I threw the spear with a vengeance,

Not knowing where it would go,

And my liege lord safe in the castle keep,

Sent me an arrow and bow.

 

I fired the arrow skyward,

And looked to see what I'...

Read and leave comments (4)

Hope

 

I’m looking for the killing fields,

The stranger said to me,

The ridge of stone is cold and bare,

And barren stands the tree,

I wander on a dismal plane

Mans monuments are rust,

And all his creativity,

Is vanity and dust.

 

I took him gently by the hand,

And led him to a hill,

To see the children playing there,

Quite heedle...

Read and leave comments (4)

All Downhill From Here

 

The summer I was twenty was the time I saw things clear,

A motorbike and rock and roll and all downhill from here,

A girlfriend with the wilder streak who’s scent was like the night,

And I was Ajax sword in hand to set the world to right.

 

We sang of revolution and we revelled in our youth,

For we had faith and fortitude and we had ...

Read and leave comments (2)

YEAR TEN

 

I walked amid my ruins in the waning evening light,

My road is like a river as the day gives way to night

The mists have gathered coldly round the home that is my heart,

And winters winds that find my soul are chilling every part.

 

The year is gently turning but my dreams are of the past,

Submitting now to emptiness where none but hope may last,

...

Read and leave comments (0)

Tadpoles In A Jar.

 

I very nearly killed the child,

The child with tadpoles in a jar,

Whose dog was just a breath away,

Who walked beneath a different star.

 

This son of man with raven hair,

Who offered life a faulted grin,

And emptied books like whiskey jars,

For words to shout above the din.

 

I watched him then when aged just ten,

H...

Read and leave comments (2)

Mendacity

 

St Fibbulus the Greater pours a blessing on the age,

The muse of politicians and of prelates and the stage

He fills the lines of packaging each cranny every nook,

And every type of magazine each paper and each book.

 

St Fibbulus the Greater knows the child upon your knee,

He opens up the iron gate that sets the prisoner free,

The social sci...

Read and leave comments (0)

Road Kill. or ‘A Lapin Lament’

 

I was driving down the highway and with nothing on my mind,

The traffic moving slowly and with quite a queue behind,

When a rabbit with a death wish or a suicidal bent,

Came rushing from the hedgerow and beneath my wheels it went.

 

The bump it raised the front wheel and then the rear one too,

And stopping rather quickly I f...

Read and leave comments (3)

Swansong

 

Full thirty-five in number they made an eerie sight,

Wild swans like ghosts all wing on wing,

Pale horses from the night,

And through the mist a silent song came crying down the years,

An end to all that was to be,

A sacrament of tears.

 

Rejoice then for submission now will bring an end to pain,

And love will never touch a hand,

No...

Read and leave comments (3)

The Passions and The Place

 

Such strangeness in the passing years,

We toast the gladness mourn the tears,

And with their flowing growing wise,

We ease the pain with pointless lies.

 

What does it matter in the end,

To choose to give or choose to spend,

The coin that’s mine, just mine today,

Tomorrow will be far away.

 

The things I own w...

Read and leave comments (5)