Tuesday 20 August 2013

August Morning Walk

On the sloping bank of the river,
a thousand purple thistles all a quiver,
their furry faces turned towards the sun
and a peacock butterfly on every one.

Wednesday 14 August 2013

On seeing a photograph of a friend before he went bald.

How sad it is to see
A middle aged man as he used to be,
Before he ever felt despair,
Before he ever lost his hair,
When he was young and didn't care.

Tuesday 13 August 2013

GEORGIAN SIDEBOARD


Cuban mahogany, dark as night,
Close grained intensity,
Hard as stone,
What strange perversity,
That your own destiny,
Reflects the history,
Of an iniquity,
Not yet well known.

Cuban mahogany,
Smooth and tight,
Innate solidity,
Deep red-brown,
What classical symmetry,
Derived from geometry,
Solves an equation
By balancing cruelty,
And demands that your history,
Shaped by your density,
Mirrors a fate that is not yours alone,

Cuban mahogany,
Pillar of strength,
Scented with beeswax,
And strangely intense,
Felled in maturity,
Sapped of vitality,
Brought down by gravity,
Used with alacrity,
In your capacity,
As a provider of weight, so immense,
You served as ballast,
To weigh down the trade ships,
Whose cargo, let out of the hold,
Had been....
Sapped of vitality,
Brought down by cruelty,
Captured impassively,
Split from their families,
Deprived of dignity,
Beaten at length.

Cuban mahogany gleaming and bright,
Straight grained integrity, forest grown,
With what vile insanity,
Born of barbarity,
Was this obscenity,
Man’s inhumanity,
Twisted intrinsically,
Into this rarity,
Pleasing our vanity,
Showing our stories,
Aren’t ours alone.


Wednesday 7 August 2013

Dartmoor



I shall roam no more on the moor,
For I have had my fill,
A moor is a moor is a bore,
Barren and bare and soggy,
Desolate, empty and boggy,
Cowy and sheepy and pony,
Gritty, and rocky and stony,
Reedy and marshy and poor,
A tour of a tor is no better,
A walk by a stream is just wetter,
And so I have come to regret a
Day spent on the top of a hill.

Tuesday 6 August 2013

Dartmouth



I shall walk no more on the quay,
For I have had enough
Of chandlers shops and fish mongers and all that seaside stuff,
The light's too bright to see,
When you're at the mouth of the sea,
And it's yachty and boaty and dinghy,
Knotty and ropey and stringy,
Crabby and liney and netty,
Harbour, pontoon and jetty,
And wealthy locals with money,
Who sound like yokels - funny.