In Kythera 2019. For Helen Carey.
Posted: November 27, 2019 Filed under: Poem, Uncategorized | Tags: Greece, Helen Carey, Kythera, Poem, Poetry, romance 5 Comments
We met on the Greek island of Kythera ( pictured above) in June 2000, and returned, for the first time in 14 years, this June. It was magical when we met, and it (all) still is. On the same trip we met Hera, but that’s another story, maybe another poem. But for now, this is for Helen, who has my heart.
How did two decades
All but a year,
Slip by?
Filio laughed and hugged us, even cried,
The bamboo drifted in the soft breezed warmth
You and I, beside.
The taverna table laid up for two
Where once I waited
And the taxi ( thankfully)
never arrived, instead,
There was you.
As the wild thyme keened the air,
The kestrel plummeted
Geese hissed in a dust bowled olive grove
and the first cicadas of the summer began to drum.
Bees, drunk hummed on myrtle sipped nectar
Seawards spiralled
The blue and yellow collided
Over Kapsali mountainside.
Near Mitata, the church tower split, stricken,
We walked a new path
Crunched ancient shells underfoot
Stressed from the strains of bygone volcanoes
Tiny flowers grasped life from thin soil
A goat danced, windwarded.
How graceful you were
As we spanned the unknown
Having walked the Englishman’s Bridge
Revisited a love story
Writ large.
On the island where love erupted,
Bloomed, prospered, sun soaked
No longer alone.
Mediterranean delight,
Grecian pleasure.
We wrapped it tight,
Flew north,
Made it home.
Now, needs must
That I guard the treasure.
A poem for Remembrance Sunday
Posted: November 9, 2019 Filed under: Poem | Tags: Army, civilians, Navy, Poppies, Poppy Day, Poppy Day Remembrance Army Navy RAF WW1 WW2 WW11, Remembrance Sunday, WW1, WW2 4 CommentsThis is an older poem, but the sentiment, for me, remains the same. I hope it is worthy…
Remembrance Sunday.
What would you have had us remember?
As you mustered in the trenches,
Around the gun emplacements.
As you hopped into the cockpit
And flung yourself skywards,
Or plumbed the depths
Submerged and submarined?
Should we remember your bravery?
Your mockery? Your cynicism in the face of duty?
Your gut wrenching anxiety,
Your fear, your mortal pain,
As you were killed and wounded,
Again and again and again?
Do the flags, the parades,
The preachers, the cavalcades,
Act as sufficient homage?
Or would peace, justice, equality
Be more deserving of your patronage?
But whichever,
It is true.
We must continue,
To remember you.
Brexit blues, November 18
Posted: November 7, 2019 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Brexit, Europe, People’s Vote, Politics 4 CommentsAs there’s both a General Election, and we are still ( thankfully) part of the EU, I’m taking the liberty of resharing my poem, written in 2016. Inspired to do so by an article in the Guardian newspaper suggesting that Brexit poetry can help. I wonder.
They seek it here
They seek it there
An elusive answer
Maybe even a prayer…
For some
Salvation
For others
Despair
And
Or so it seems
There’s them
Apparently
Who just don’t care.
A 100 years before
Europe completed a War
But some, dared to dream
Dreams
(Beyond passports and borders
Economics, migration
Project Hope and Project Fear
Leave or Remain
The results unclear)
Of a time and a passion
Where all people could fashion
A desire to end up
At
The same destination.
Whatever your politics
Your strength of conviction
The things that you value
Your own inclination
Let’s hope that our leaders
Can find some contrition
And guide us towards
A reunited state
An undivided, egalitarian
Non sectarian
Nation
Oh my!
A Nation….
But despite these views
I’m afraid to say
(Judged by the news
Speculation, analysis
Guesswork, bad temper
Reasoned debate
Irrational hate)
Day
after day
after day
We are all headed for
The Brexit Blues.
I can only trust
That, we don’t end up
With a terminal case
Of national paralysis.
Singing for Reg ( Newport, 18 10 19)
Posted: October 25, 2019 Filed under: Uncategorized 6 CommentsThe ceiling of Ebenezer Chapel is decorated
In soft pastel creams, sea green relief
Golden sand colours abound
The soft lights, as sunshine through still water
We sit, gathered to think on you
As the choir and singers render your memory
Music lover, medicine man, historian, humourist
Think that you’d have loved the Rossini, the Puccini too
” My Little Welsh Home” rang poignant, so true
” The Girl in 14 G” blew the night shades away
Would that you’d lived to see this day.
Sleep well, sea billowed, tide caressed
Beyond music, pain, distress.
Are we one payday away from being homeless? – The Society of St James
Posted: October 24, 2019 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: homelessness 2 CommentsA long time ago I worked for this charity, and I still follow and admire the endeavours of all concerned with interest and affection. Recognising how, in all our lives, perilously close to the wind we sail underpins a lot of my thinking, and some of my forays into poetry. So, I thought I’d take the liberty of sharing this piece here on my ( currently, somewhat neglected) blog. It’s well worth a read.
Meantime, new poems are brewing….I’ll keep you posted!
Are we one payday away from being homeless? – The Society of St James
— Read on ssj.org.uk/are-we-one-payday-away-from-being-homeless/
The Gathering – dedicated to Granville James
Posted: July 13, 2019 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 CommentsI have a friend and neighbour, John, who is a sheep farmer, with a flock on Carningli. His family have lived there for many years.
From time to time I adopt my temporary guise as #theoccasionalshepherd and help him with sheep related duties. For me, it is one of the greatest pleasures of living here in Newport, Pembrokeshire.
Two or three times a year a group of local people, often graced with the presence of Anwen and Chris, help John,and his sister, Aeres , to gather the sheep off the mountainside. Until this spring we also always had Aeres’ husband, Granville, with his ever gracious smile, care and concern for all, and delight in the mountain and all it’s ways.
Sadly (an understatement if ever there was) Granville died in May this year. This poem is for him, for Aeres, Anwen, John and Chris, and for all who help out this delightful family. It comes with love.
The Gathering
We are walking the old ways
Bracken snatching at our heels
Stone stumbling across the narrow tracks
The sun on our backs
Feet sinking occasionally in rushwards marsh
Sticks swishing bramble, as we make the pass
Larks rising abundant, trilling
A red kite patrolling the sun split skies
Crows flap, unwilling, it’s all a bore
Quite sure, they’ve seen this all before.
Is that a rock, recumbent?
Or a ewe, two lambed
Blue hooped, bread rolled, sometimes sooty from burnt gorse
Woolly marshamallowed, on matchstick legs
Stirring grumpily from a sleepy hollow
Answering the call
Her Master’s Voice
As John whistles, shouts, limbers, long shanked
Swiftly
Carningli’s highways and by ways
On the back of his hand
Whilst we follow, as best we can
Shepherding by osmosis
Sometimes instinctive
To the sheep, his tones, distinctive
The flock moving on demand
Alive to his ever familiar command
Labouring on
Sweating slightly with the July heat
The Bay below,
Curtain called velvet blue,
The sky frames paper triangled sailing boats at play
Church and castle
At our feet
Maybe they hear us working?
In the graveyard, the tall trees bend to listen too.
Now we turn, the flock funneled towards homecoming fields,
Sweet grassed, comforted, steadfast and settled
They’re in!
A few rebels
Break for the mountain
But are black bag flapped through the 5 bar gates
Too late!
Baler twined and strung in
Scurrying, heel kicking, stream leaping
Left now
To dot the meadows
An Impressionist painting for the Pembrokeshire hillside
Above beach, and town
Seeping sandy time and tide.
We leave, turn away
Even though there’s more, much more to do
(Shearing, dipping, marking, treating)
But maybe not today
That’s all
For even farmers
Have to play
Leave the flock to graze
To raise the bleating clarion call
Dawn to dusk
By night, by day.
The wind, sweet heather breathed, new credential
Steeps and gusts above Stone and Castle Hill
Sighing gentle benediction
The Gathering complete
Under John’s direction
Yet we all missed one element, essential,
It leaves us, still,
Our friend, coralled, slumbering long, elsewhere
And now the feathering breeze
Whispers one name
Granville
Granville
Veterans – a D Day tribute.
Posted: June 6, 2019 Filed under: Poem | Tags: D Day, France, Helen Carey Historical fiction WW2 WW11 Sagas, Poetry, Remembrance, Veterans, WW2, WWII 3 Comments75 years before…….
Young men stumbling into the shell bound surf
Silver flying fish
Stunned
The boys, wading on and in
Falling, camouflaged no more
Booming, battling forth
Whistling bullets, the siren song of war
Deafening the ocean’s unerring roar.
Years ago
in Juneau
I watched ‘Saving Private Ryan’
With Pete Bibb
Self appointed ‘old timer’
Who left the movie house
“Cannot watch this, have to go”
he muttered
As the faux machine guns
Cinematically stuttered.
This D Day morning
The robes of priests, clustered
The coat tails of politicians
And hats of royalty
Fluttered
As the bemedalled veterans
Mustered
Attendant, attentive,
Old men now
Memories shared, perhaps, despairs
Some stood and stared
As the peace yearning prayers
Were uttered.
In the fields at home
The buttercups, the thistle heads
Were bowing in the stiffening wind
That blows across the Channel
Westward, ho!
The clouds scud seawards
A breath of memory passes
Back across to France
Where death gleaned a mighty harvest
No respect for rank, for officer classes.
The flags and flowers
Half masted
The crowds lost
Perchance
In collective trance
Subdued respect, even awe
For
Our veterans.
And own them all, we all surely must
Those alive
Others sand blasted,dust
Their debt, in full, is met
Our account
Ever owed
To remember
And not forget.
D-Day – a link to Helen Carey’s blog. Recommended reading!
Posted: May 29, 2019 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentvia D-Day
Making it to 60
Posted: May 12, 2019 Filed under: Ageing issues, Poem | Tags: birthdays, Friends, George Carlin, Ian Dury 4 CommentsGreetings to all friends who are generous enough to follow this blog of mine. I appreciate it very much.
I (hopefully) make it to 60 today, 12th May 2019 (and a quick hats off to the late and great Ian Dury, with who I share a birth date and who gave me/us ‘Reasons to Be Cheerful’).
I have always loved George Carlin’s piece below, and it seemed like a good day to share it!
Meanwhile : Marc Mordey’s song….
60 years on,
In the merry merry month of May,
Managed a little work
Enjoyed a great deal more of play
Been drenched in love and affection
Avoided most harms and misdirection
Laughed, cried, not much denied
A small measure of pain
Bucketfuls of joy
Tried to be a man
But better at being a boy!
(photo : Helen Carey – the Queen of my dancing days – and I, in Aruba, February 2019)
George Carlin’s views on Ageing
Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions. ‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m four and a half!’ You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key.
You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. ‘How old are you?’ ‘I’m gonna be 16!’ You could be 13, but hey, you’re gonna be 16!
And then the greatest day of your life … . You become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!
But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There’s no fun now, you’re Just a sour-dumpling. What’s wrong? What’s changed?
You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you’re PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it’s all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.
But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn’t think you would! So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.
You’ve built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it’s a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday! You get into your 80’s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30 ; you REACH bedtime.
And it doesn’t end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; ‘I Was JUST 92.’
Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. ‘I’m 100 and a half!’
May we all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!
