POETRY

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Here's a selection of my poems for OCTOBER

I update this website at the start of each month with a fresh selection of my poetry.   

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OCTOBER

And overnight, the weather changed…
October rode in on a squall
with gale-force winds and teeming rain
that marked the end of Summer warmth.

Gone, late September’s blue-sky dawns —
grey cloud restricts the morning light;
with sun now absent from the day
the Autumn air is chill and damp.

A gusty wind stirs aspen leaves,
contrives that unique quaking sound;
elsewhere some trees are blazing gold
as chestnut leaves become rust-brown.

Hostas turn yellow overnight,
the acer shows its Autumn red,
and acorns, crunching under foot,
were ripped to ground by last night’s storm.

Blackberries shrivel in the hedge,
fat sloes are taken by the thrush
and furtive deer, their bounty found
in wind-blown conkers on the ground.

IVY

The late September mists are slow to rise
but warming sun brings insects from their rest
made lively by this summer’s slow demise,
they swarm the flowering plant that they like best.
The ivy-covered fence is full of bees
whose season is devoted to these flowers
and many butterflies come here to feed
preparing for their sleep through winter hours.

Below the fence the ground is turning pale –
the pollinator’s work is almost done;
the nectar, insects’ soporific dwale,
assures that berries ripen in late sun
providing winter food for starving birds,
ensuring New Year’s song thrush will be heard.

Dwale – an ancient term for ‘sleeping drought’

ROSARY

I watch leaves fall from wind-blown trees,
my children gone, their voices fade;
as memory and light degrades
late birds depart, lost to dark night.

Slowly the nights are drawing in –
times are quiet with less to say
than mornings of those spring-shaped days;
gardens made ready for storms ahead.

The blinds are drawn as lights come on,
books and summers are packed away;
only echoes and ghosts will stay –
each day a prayer to tell like beads.

PERKINS’ FARM

Trespassing. Secret borders of the farm
where boys from our estate would stray between
banked dead nettles, cow parsley and the stream.
Beyond the cinder bank the broken barn :

ramshackle cars, forsaken old machines.
Nearby, deep water channelled over rocks,
splashing bricked sides below the ragged docks
and once, dream like, kingfishers here were seen.

Above the rocks the stream more calmly moved :
watery home of rat and vole, hunting
ground for adventurous boys with working
slug gun, catapult, stones... and aim unproved.

Then there was our Tree : a crazy willow
leaning giddily across the stream, an
unsupported ladder of green fronds — span
for the stream that flowed dark and deep below.

High in the crest (some said where lightning struck)
the trunk had split : a hollow gallery.
Here we perched, The Boys, full of bonhomie :
joking, boasting of girls, cursing our luck.

It was The Muckers tree — formidable
to climb, with bark worn smooth, nowhere to grip,
the sloping trunk.....and water should you slip —
crow's nest view : prize for the brave and able.

But then the farm was sold. Our Tree dug-up
when brook was channelled, dredged and gentrified.
Farmhouse and barn were bulldozed down. We sighed
for lost forever fields of buttercups,

the herds of Friesian cows, and meadow sweet.
When land was levelled – hedges all grubbed up —
school replacing orchard and pond’s kingcups —
Our landscape turned to houses, street on street.

Today, more suburbs march across green space.
We concrete over land our parents knew;
but landscape should be children’s rights and due,
yet more and more is lost without a trace.

Muckers – Gloucester dialect for friend or mate.

IN THE LONG RUN

Having taken best advice,
excelled at all his training,
he was ready for the start,
relaxed and clearly toned.

Perhaps he set off fast —
anxious to prove himself —
but soon he found a rhythm
and a pace he could control.

Like so many things in life —
there would be some casualties —
a few of those less primed
dropped out along the way;

but he had adapted well —
was in it for the long run,
took time for refreshing breaks
to help him on his way.

So, imagine his surprise
when, looming in the distance,
was The Wall he’d heard about
that could derail his plans.

No way over, round or through :
The Wall meant Retirement,
an end to all his efforts —
a change to all he knew.

And so it came to pass
his ways were changed for ever —
his knowledge and his training
count for nothing in the end.

“People who retire earlier than planned
are more likely to experience decreased
psychological well being entering retirement.”
From “The Psychologist,” The British Psychological Society.

WORD TO THE WISE

On the clock, life’s needle’s gone by eighty
the passing days now seem to be a blur;
the seasons merge, judgements grow more weighty
as daily problems more frequently occur.

And yet, as life has tried to make me change,
deep down inside I’ve always stayed the same…
I feel sixteen, I know that may sound strange,
but being me has always been my aim.

Just as an oval ball will not bounce true,
you’ll lose if hard-earned skills decay and rust,
remember all the things that make you ‘you’ —
a counterfeit is not a thing to trust.

And what’s my point? — To save you from a con —
you won’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone.

   CLOUDS

“Rows and flows of angel hair  /   and ice cream castles in the air”  *

shapes that shift and never stay —
Joni looked at clouds that way.

They’re metaphors for fleeting time,
shifting feelings, hills to climb;
dissolve like thoughts, are quickly done —
though some remain to block the sun…

All clouds above have fancy names,
but fog’s a cloud, it’s just the same:
a vapour that is simply “eau”
that falls as rain (when cold it’s snow)

They’re airborne ponds? — Too prosaic!
Clouds reduced to formulaic!
Give them back their mystery,
preserve their magic… witchery.

* Lyrics from “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell       

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