Category: My Work
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Silks
Silks Nimble fingers push and pull The coloured threads Through woven squares Of precious finespun silk Creating memories and mementos For lonely khaki-coloured strangers Both feared and welcomed Before their dying. For a few francs or guilders And the smile of a pretty face, A card adorned with flags and bunting In patriotic Red, White…
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Maddy
Maddy Prior A voice she plays as an instrument Sliding over the frets, Pulling them, stretching the strings. The words don’t matter. It’s that voice from a medieval village fair, Rising above the noise and chatter Of the market that beckons. “Come, buy my wares, Fresh produce from tree and garden. Chickens live or plucked…
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I Hear Them
I Hear Them Faint voices calling from other shores In voices thick with heath and heather, They beckon those whose roots first grew In a land that didn’t want them. A land of mostly barren stone Amidst a turbulent sea of strife, Generations still called it home. In fierce determination to make it so. They…
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I Must
I must approach a difficult question. I must consider what is be done When the clock winds down, the buzzer sounds The checkered flag waves in the breeze The bottom of the ninth, the count is 3 & 2 And the game is over. Unpleasant possibilities and no escaping that certainty. No lead-lined box nor…
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Not A Task For Old Men
Not A Task For Old Men.Too late. Too Quick. No More. Had I only known. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.Left with the mistaken belief thatI may approach their skill,I pick up the beast,Throw the drones over my shoulder,Reach for the chanter and try to followIn their footsteps.Too late. Too late. Only the young…
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T. S. Eliot
On Hearing A Recording by T. S. Eliot I have recently listened to a recording of T. S. Eliot reciting his eponymous piece “The Wasteland”. I love his poetry, perhaps because of his style: short staccato phrases, pieces that neatly fit into a nutshell, interpreted succinctly, that I have tried to mimic. In person the…
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If I Should Die
“If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take”. Preamble The first proposition is a certainty. I don’t have much more to add to the debate. The second is a little more problematic. Except for the wave of grief Spreading out in diminishing circles, And for this I apologize…
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Gulls
Gulls wheeling overheadCarving patterns that never collide Calling each to other in weirding cries,A raucous chorus that haunts the air Dipping and diving, rising and soaringCarried aloft on unseen stringsBy myriad unseen puppeteers.They follow the boats far out to seaAnd signal their return to port.Regiments in white and blackArrayed in untidy jostling ranksThat hover in…
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Stones
Stones Stones laid one before the other According to my plan. A plan, not drawn in indigo and white, Marches on in halting steps Towards a goal that I design, The line, straight as I am able, True as my eye can see. Stones laid one on one Climbing up to heaven Aspiring, perhaps, to…
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Out Of Hand
Out Of Hand This writing thing has gotten out of hand. There are needs that call for my attention But I have little appetite for them. I am distracted, otherwise engaged, Put off the scent and lead down trails That consume me to exclusion of all else. The fox, forgotten, the scent that is in…
Palimpsest 