Here is a selection of my poetry for NOVEMBER

BLACK DOG

We are not strangers now, black dog.

Others have known you too : slinking

From the shadows, snuffling and thin,

Persistent in your following.

Trotting along behind, biding

Your time, you are prepared to wait

To seize your opportunity –

Cleverly you ingratiate

Susceptible hearts, guileless minds.

Shouting never frightened you or

The hex sign. Closing eyes is fine

Until, opening them once more,

Finds you still here. Deep breathing calms

The mind, but then you sit and whine –

Nothing I do makes you disappear.

So finally the bottom line

Is knowing that you’re here to stay –

Best to ignore you, come what may.

Each cunning sidelong glance reveals

You resting, head on paws today,

Or idly sitting scratching fleas –

Each time you’re always watching me

With eyes half shut, never asleep :

Unwanted friend waits patiently.

Then sometimes, with the longer days,

You leave, abruptly disappear,

And I relax in summer’s sun

And savour this changed atmosphere.

Yet still I know it cannot last

‘Though I’ve escaped from time to time,

You’ll suddenly appear, black dog,

And nuzzle me as if you’re mine.

In autumn, with the falling leaves,

You come. When copper sun rests on

The trees I see you gliding through

The wood, knowing, with summer gone,

You’ll seek me out – it’s understood.

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.

 

AT THE ALBERTINA

Through the field gate,

turning along the hedge,

I almost step on a young hare.

 

Perfectly still,

sheltered below hazel,

it crouches in its hidden form:

 

long ears erect,

that coat of browns and black –

its camouflage since being born.

 

Down corridors,

passed pictures large and small,

today I walk grand marble halls.

 

From an entrance,

tracking the carpet’s edge,

I’m face to face with A Young Hare

 

which instantly

evokes my leveret –

caught between paper and mind’s eye.

 

Careful brush strokes

emphasize the detailed

whiskers, ears, eyes and glossy fur…

 

And I am held:

trapped by memories

and a five hundred year-long stare.

A Young Hare by Albrecht Durer is on display at The Albertina, Vienna.

 

BRIGHTON SUNRISE

Nothing moving on the road,

Summer’s vanished from the beach.

Drizzle’s hanging in the air,

I know you’re out of reach.

Everywhere this town’s shut down –

I’m driving roads alone,

I pass places where we met –

Reminders that you’ve left, gone home…

 

But, I can hear you,

You’re still singing our song,

Sea breezes in your hair –

Big shades on…

 

Please believe me, my love for you is still as strong

Even though our summer days have gone.

 

Out on a winter road

The radio plays our special song,

Inside I’m a hopeless dreamer,

Forgetting why it all went wrong;

I thought I understood love,

Was I surprised?

I guess I’ll go on searching –

Seek another sunrise…

 

But I still hear you :

Our song, whispered by the trees,

Your smile glints from the sun,

Your touch : the breeze…

 

Please remember, my love for you was always strong

Even though our summer days have gone.

 

THE GHOST SHIPS

 

 

Woken by the moonlight from my window,

 

 

I stumbled out of bed just half awake.

 

 

Rubbing eyes, amazed to see the Swallow,

 

 

the Fox and Frolic, Sandwich and Sheldrake.

 

 

Packet ships are filling all the moorings

 

 

in shadow ranks across a silver sea,

 

 

Cygnet, Redpole, even Francis Freeling —

 

 

the masts a forest out from Greenbank Quay.

 

 

Not one light illuminates the cabins

 

 

of the spectre ships that have all come home,

 

 

some battle scarred, some as floating coffins —

 

 

forever in the darkness they must roam.

 

Perhaps this will not be all that it seemed —

by morning, when I wake, I’ll know I’ve dreamed.

 

Britain was almost continuously at war during the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Fast, lightly armoured packet ships carried mail from Falmouth to the

British Embassies and the colonies. These ships had to run the gauntlet

of attack and capture from Britain’s enemies and opportunistic pirates. Many

of the Packet Ship Captains stayed at what is now The Greenbank Hotel.

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