A plea to Will on his birthday

Come on Will – put us out of this misery

We lieth within.

There are those unbelievers who pose

To denieth thou bin, to some part

A Lancastrian, having dwelt

In the county where women

Apparently die of love. Hooray for that!

Spools the tragedy spinner.

The library at Houghton knows the truth,

Aired with your mystery. Woven by

The incense of your playing. The lute

Bequeathed to you by Alexander

Your employer, friend and master

Of the Tower. Stratford has had its

Share of glory (and, it may be said, money)

So let us now redress the scales and

Give the fair county it’s due. Perhaps

A blue plaque, a living museum,

Or even, heavens above, a theatre!

Hoghton Tower

In a Stew

The skirt danced, seemingly by itself

An Argentinian tango is like that. You

Need to be in the groove. Here,

In Buenos Airies, it was ok. Andrea felt

The tiny droplet of sweat on her forehead

And she thought of her fathers birthplace

In Ireland. The peat, the hills, the potatoes

But most of all, the people. Independent,

Proud. It wasn’t always like this. Leitrim,

Famous for linen and coal mines

Only became a free state in 1922. Governed by

The Queen’s lackey boy, the Lord Lieutenant of

Leitrim – she doffed her cap to the grey

Unyielding stare of the English Parliament.

Perhaps they thought, (the English that is),

That the Irish lacked the capacity to rule.

Like the wild utterances, gesturing and

Insane time signatures of the math-rock

Band, “A Minor Forest” raising the roof

In 1992 – they needed taming – like the

Modern purveyors of the Argentinian Tango.

I Contain Multitudes

The hours collapse into one another,

Dominos anticipating the big push,

A gentle nudge from another’s leaning.

The milk rises to the top of the pan,

Looking for escape. The custard powder,

Waits. Rehearsing it’s thickness.

Hard to find in these strangest

Of times.

Richard Thompson speaks through

The ether of his New Jersey home

Beret, beard and baritone

Booking a face to face meeting

Embarrassed by the weirdness

Of the lines.

Even Bob Dylan, in outlaw mind,

Is releasing his muse onto a YouTube

In praise of Walt Whitman

Containing multitudes,

Seeking connection,

Honouring reflection.

The minutes pass away,

And history becomes our future.

Walt Whitman

Question Time

Where is it?

The thing is – there are very little clues?

Is the fleeting glimpse of the painting of Eilean Donan castle drooping it’s oil in tiny sparkling rivulets to be relied on; the black background mountains to be believed?

At what point does anything become certain, solidifying into squares of Lego like matter in our brains, seeking roots?

Perhaps when the nighttime gives way to the burgeoning dawn, the answer might reveal itself?

Until then the shiver of the morning air poses yet another question to be weighed, not answered, does it not?

Eilean Donan castle

Hiding

New Life

Bella was keen to get out this morning. Her bark tearing the air, She romped up the stone garden steps to find a place, her place on the lawn. The celandine nodded appreciation of the company whilst the flowering currant in all its fiery red splendour shook at the passing of her tail. A Portuguese mountain dog, she claimed her territory and sat as a guardian of the isolated camp. A wet nose hunted the signals carried in the still warm morning air. The blue sky beckoned me forward but the job still needed to be done. The bench was rotting. The rough edged timer snapping away in rivulets of crumbling pine. A couple of coats of Ronseal wood preservative would do it – perhaps giving us another year or so of use. The clean brush dipped into the brown liquid as a piping noise turned me round.

after brushing Bella

the coal tit pinches

a cosy coat for her babes

The view from the Tilley hat

I fit him a treat though

the chemotherapy

shrunk his head a little.

Summer is the best time

When, coming out of

hibernation I allow the sun

to soak my nylamtium fibres

held with British brass

and made with Canadian

persnicketiness (or so it says

on the inside label.)

We’ve had adventures.

He lost me once but

little did he know

I was throwing a jealous spat.

It was that engineers cap

he insisted on wearing:

grey and sweat-laden.

I didn’t get it – his fascination.

After all I’m the finest in

all the world (or so it says

on the inside label.)

Things are better now.

But I still keep out a

brass eye open just

In case. Just in case.

Pow Beck

It’s hard not to take you for granted

Remembering when, allowed to drive,

We would comment on the yellow

Lines heralding our arrival.

What Wordsworth would have made of it who knows

All the fuss – maybe he would have approved

Or maybe, tutting neath his breath

He would have hated the formality

And man-made precision of the lying.

But in the tranquility of Pow Beck

The sanctity of nature’s lemoning strikes home.

These are nature’s unspoiled trumpets

Sprouting from the mossy banks

In unmolested purity.

They speak of the letting go, the untrammelled

Beauty of being. The green and the yellow

Monopolising the eye’s palette and the

Easing of the mind.

Served with potatoes

Today’s hint from the Poetry Society for National Poetry Month is to create a blackout poem using pre-existing text. Here’s my effort:-

The Olive Trees

We have all seen it before of course,

In the art books at school,

Or as a print in a gallery.

But this morning there’s something else

Besides the blues, and the wind swept

Shapes there’s something unseen.

An energy of nature speaking direct.

And my mind shifts back to

Dave Pearson’s recreation of

Van Gogh’s bedroom in Haslingden,

Lancashire, to the finest detail

Exact and time-travelled .

Recognising the transmission,

Of a truth that great art is

Born of the heart not the head.

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