Thursday 6 April 2017

Some Form Of Umbrage




Some form of umbrage can always be taken,
And the small, perceived slight will always awaken
The mind to another small grudge, stored away,
Wrapped up with care, 
For a special occasion.
And the slighted are right, they are never mistaken,
And poke at their wounds all day
And dig in their heels and will not be shaken,
Enjoying the sense of grieved frustration,
Believing themselves alone and forsaken
By friends who might dare
To suggest that they are 
Victims of their own, 
Petty, imagination.




Monday 3 April 2017

"The Road To Somewhere".



They shut the road through the woods
Thirty years ago
And didn't try to explain, 
why we wouldn't need it again,
Looking from afar, you would never know
It was there, the road through the woods.
Now the woods seem only trees.
The road's beneath the coppice and heath
And the thin anemones.
There is no keeper who sees
That there's aught worth keeping at all
He dismisses the place with ease,
"There was once a road through the woods."
Yet, if you enter the woods,
You will find it teeming with life
And people, walking, who say, 
That they see the road clear as day
A metalled surface on well trodden ground. 
There's a young man and his wife
And their children grouped around.
There are friendly neighbourhoods
Where people will welcome you, 
If you respect their way.
You might hear the beat of a horse's feet,
Or the swishing of skirts in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
As over the road to somewhere they go,
These people who perfectly know,
As you once perfectly knew,
The old lost road through the woods.