Off.

Echo:

Hello

Oooo

Oooo

I was to write about my

Hero

Ooo

Oooo

Narcissus

My chance to show

Owww

Owwww

Too late

That’s fate

I mythed it.

#Glopowrimo Day 20

Poet Unblocked

There came a day when I was SO

A Poet

That I felt in incumbent on me

To Be Word Perfect.

This led to .. Problems.

Honest but ordinary joys like

Smelling the flowers

Listening out for church bells

Holding the babies –

Those kind of things, were,

Well, just too mundane.

For A Poet Like Me!

I felt sure, given a moment

I could outdo Tennyson and give

Betjeman a run for his money

Wax lyrical on grand occasions

Make a mark in literary circles and even – You know –

Be Published.

Bugger it.

I LIKE what I

Used to write before I was

A Poet.

It wasn’t capital letter great, but it was me.

Flighty, Flirty a Little Bit Dirty …

Full of Spring and things that

Sprung to mind. Like say

Love and stuff.

So, now my fingers are flying across the keyboard again

The church bells are ringing in my head, The babies are asleep in my memory and the flowers are once more stimulating my olfactory nerve. We’re off!

Thank you.

🙂

#Glopowrimo Day 18 Thirty-three Minutes

I have my muse on speed dial.

“Look,” I said, trying to keep

Desperation out of my voice,

“I have thirty-one minutes in which to compose a poem,

So please put on your thinking garland and give me a hint.”

There is a stirring, down where the poems come from,

A rustling, and unless I’m very much mistaken, the sound

Of a cigarette being stubbed out.

Slowly at first, the ideas flowed upwards …

A starry night

Daffodils (Not AGAIN!)

A shipwreck,

A convoluted tale involving an astronaut and a nun,

A soulful journey …

“STOP!” I cried, (Yes, real tears!)

“This simply will not do! ! I thought your job was to inspire,

To set me on fire.

To be blunt, I am definitely not ablaze and

Outspired is closer to the truth!”

Silence.

Oh well. Only twenty- two minutes until midnight.

No chance of getting anything written now.

Goodnight all!

#Glopowrimo Day 17 A Stroll Through The Dimensions

My Aunt Mary had second sight, and believe me, I could tell you a few stories about HER …

Bot I will restrain myself, and instead regale you with a tale she told, and swears is true!

Charlie and Ellen are ancestors of mine, they both hailed, I say with pride

From the working class. He is down as “Labourer” on his marriage certificate- and she “spinster’. Anyway,

They are courting, as was the custom back then, and as our drama opens taking a walk on the path beside the Severn, which flows slow and wide, in Summer, through Gloucester.

I imagine they are chatting idly about the ordinary things of their day … the latest Royal Baby, the Suffragettes, Barton Fair … that sort of thing.

Charlie may have daringly reached for her hand, Ellen might coyly have refused it.

Or they may have been arm in arm, in animated discourse about the upcoming ceremony at St Stephen’s . I prefer that: let’ s go with it.

So, to recap, Charlie and Ellen are strolling arm and arm along the path that meanders through the water meadows beside the River Severn, in Gloucester on a warm summer’s evening, at the end of the nineteenth century.

Approaching a style Charlie takes a step, as any gentleman would, to go in front, and assist a woman encumbered with skirts, but no. Ellen stays him with her hand, and without looking behind her (you’ll find out soon enough why this is germane to the narrative,) says, quietly:

“Move over Charlie, there’s a lady as wants to get passed.”

Charlie looks back, and takes off. My Aunty tells me he left Ellen standing, and ran all the way home.

The Lady was not in possession of a head, and strictly speaking she lacked a body too. The Grey Lady we call her, and as there is no other reference to her anywhere else, I guess she belongs only to us.

One of the family, you might say …

Shove Ha’penny

When I wander into the Penny Farthing for a cider and black, I hear, I swear, the.”shiff” of the ha’pennies as they career up the board, and I nod appreciatively at the ghosts of the old men in smocks, who passed this way, and played the game.

I am writing this poem in sepia

There ARE colours: those of a Victorian painting hung in a dark study …

Old men with clay pipes robed in the workaday smocks of farm labourers, stooped over their tankards

(A session ale, hoppy and light in colour. Taste it!)

Deftly, with a precise slap of his hand Dobson pushes five half-pennies up the ice-smooth slate.

One, and Two, and Three, and Four, and Five …

He’s good at this: there’s barely a moment’s pause between each shove.

Though not much given to exuberance, for he is a solemn man,

Dobson allows himself a nod of quiet satisfaction as he lays each coin to bed.

Two in One.

One in Four

One in Seven

And – drum roll –

The last in Nine to claim the game!

#Glopowrimo Day 15 Take Something

Take Something

Take something quite riduculous

And fashion a poem with it.

I have an idea!

Conjure from the fume

An Oracle: dreamy-eyed and high

She speaks in riddles,

To hold you in a net suspended over a Couldron of wish-fulfilment.

“A great Empire will fall”

Assume your enemies end

For who would imagine, drunk on power,

The demise of his own?

Now, I will bring you back, laughing,

From this grave imagining, though perhaps

We should repent and weep.

For, Have you not heard, the

Doomsday clock is set at 2357?

THAT’S three minutes before apocalypse, to you!

Don’t be alarmed, this is a nonsense poem.

Isn’t it?

#Glopowrimo Day 14 Dream On

For some time, I used an App

That claimed to induce lucid dreams

I thought it would be fun to walk awake through my

Somnolent Consciousness.

It didn’t work, and I have to say, I’m relieved,

Who, would actually WANT to be awake

When an armoured vehicle, that

Looks like a teacup, fires

Sharks at seagulls

Robustly defended by Dentists?

Not me.

#Glopowrimo Day 13: A Word In Season (And Out)

One swallow doesn’t a summer make, although a bird in the hand IS worth two in the bush,

A miss is as good as a mile DESPITE the fact that a journey begins with a single step

All that glitters is not gold: NEVERTHELESS , a pot of it lies at the end of every rainbow,

Fine words butter no parsnips ESPECIALLY when the pot is calling the kettle black.

Last but not least, I have reached the END OF THE LINE!

#Glopowrimo Day Eleven

On the Eleventh Day I

0645

Woke up to birdsong, opened my smartphone and checked for breaking news, then

Wished I hadn’t

Posted on Twitter a witty piece marrying Trump’s Upcoming War with Tom Lehrer’s

Cold War Song with the amazing rhymes ”sooner’ll ‘ and ‘funeral’

(Check it out, I WILL use it one day ..) and my Bucket List.

O7:30

My grandchildren appeared soon after, requiring  breakfast

Porridge and boiled  eggs, with fresh fruit, just for the look of it, which I ate.

0940

I returned them to a grateful father, then camee back home to clean house.

Hours later, I had steak and chips at the Longford Inn with my brother Mervyn who’s adopted son is dealing drugs.

I sympathised.

Oh I forgot! Ten o’clock:  Mass where I served on the altar, forgetting to ring the bells at the consecration,

Then kicking them with my foot at a later, and highly inappropriate moment.

Ding Dong.

Drugs and other business dealt with, a mad dash to meet up with fellow catechists for training in Bristol.

1800

Which was good.

22:46

I met  my daughter Jen off the train from Paddington and dropped her home.

2347

It’s nearly midnight, I’m done.

After declaring tomorrow

A Sabbath.

#Glopowrimo 12 Haibun

Two lovers meet. Late September, late afternoon, the dimming rays of the sinking sun pierce the golden leaves of the ancient beeches, and set them ablaze . Handfast, two hearts beating as one, this moment, freezes in time, and here am I, remembering:

Long ago: remember

Love, how we were certain that

Winter would not come?