Strictly for fun:
There once was a man from Athlone,
Who worked best when he worked from home.
His boss thought it a sin,
And wanted him in,
So the man started up on his own.
Ba Bum.
Posted in My Notes, tagged ditty, fun, limerick, poem, wfh on November 29, 2022| 2 Comments »
Strictly for fun:
There once was a man from Athlone,
Who worked best when he worked from home.
His boss thought it a sin,
And wanted him in,
So the man started up on his own.
Ba Bum.
Posted in poetical sketches, tagged cat, poem, poetry, verse on October 7, 2022| 5 Comments »
In this, the wide tumbling wake
of suffering’s ship,
there bobs the newsman,
with the machine gun smile,
and the net pot-stirrer,
whose manic guile
thrills to trigger and engage.
They have us beat our chests at dutiful pace,
while the wedge of woes they drive divides,
and turns both parted sides
to hate, and rage.
There is no respite
even in the velvet deeps of sleep
where, amid the churn of day-spun things,
we might yet coax the quiet cat come lay,
across our laps and, deep-vibrating,
purr our fears away.
Night-forest black, cautious, fey,
it gazes, curious, upon the fires,
and at the ghoulish dances of our kind,
then turns its head, and stalks away.
None sees it come or go, but it’s our fate
that all shall feel the void it leaves behind.
____________
(Photo by Denishan Joseph on Pexels.com)
Posted in poetical sketches, writing, tagged mirror, perspective, poem, reality on July 28, 2022| 2 Comments »
Do I see only a reflection here
Of my own place in time?
Is it impenetrable,
And mirror to my whims?
Or is it a portal, a way through
To something new,
Beyond these bland, trinket-hung walls
Of an already blurred understanding?
Can I render myself small enough,
Do you think?
Atom small, let’s say,
And squeeze through?
Or might I only observe from here,
Anchored in this half seen corner
Of the world?
How can I discern the truth?
Test the evidence of my eyes?
Can I reach out,
Attempt a crossing to that other place
At risk of smeary fingerprints,
Marks of bruised rebuff upon the glass,
Witness then I could not pass,
And skittered back to grey?
Better to pretend I see nothing.
Feel nothing,
And thus guarantee,
I do nothing to offend.
Originally published as “Doing nothing to offend” at Visual Verse.
Posted in poetical sketches, tagged combative, fighting, poem, poetry, pride, thoughts, vexation, waspishness on June 19, 2022| 5 Comments »
A stinging thing, these waspish thoughts,
They built the castles, and dug the moats.
We churn them round, we thrust them out,
Those waspish thoughts, without a doubt,
They fell the mountains, burn the earth,
Stunt the spirit, and still the birth.
If only all could go our way,
Those waspish thoughts, to win the day,
Then they, who’d dare to do us down,
Would fall into our moat and drown.
Or so we’d think, but so it goes,
With never a day without some cause,
Some hook on which to puff our pride,
To dig our moat so deep, so wide.
We stand there thus, our pride to sing,
‘Mid clouds of wasps, to buzz and sting
When should we not, to be our best,
Heal first our selves, and forget the rest?
Posted in poetical sketches, tagged light, making things, poem on May 10, 2022| 5 Comments »
I made a little lantern,
From an old glass bowl I found,
In a charity shop,
For a couple of pounds,
And rice lights, two hundred or more,
Solar ones. A tenner,
From the bargain home store.
Builder’s silicone,
Keeps out the wet,
All wiped neat and clean,
Before it could set.
Then I found some old copper wire,
Which I bent to a hanger
With a stout pair of pliers.
By day, it sits out,
And feeds from the sun.
But at night it comes in
As the darkness comes on.
It’ll take a long time
To catch up the cost,
But it’s pretty,
And persuades me
That all is not lost.
That so long as our minds,
Continue to spark,
There’ll always be something
To light up the dark.
Posted in Mysticism, poetical sketches, spiritual, tagged poem, poetry on January 24, 2022| 6 Comments »
As I’ve grown old and hard,
She has softened sweet,
regressed to sleight of youth,
and dances now,
thin-veiled, in the forest of this,
the moon’s first crescent whim.
And she teases with her fluid hips.
I did know her, once,
when we both were of an age.
But she has grown so young,
of late, and wise,
and I can no longer enter in
that forest’s ferny shade.
For I am grown too slow,
to bide, and dance such fevered reels.
I must, alone then, brave
this slower time of turning, and
the wilderness within.
Posted in poetical sketches, writing, tagged contemporary, observation, poem, poetry on January 13, 2022| 5 Comments »
The payers, grown lean of late,
Fall to the myriad blades,
Of this, their unfortunate fate.
They perish in great number,
Rule takers, not breakers,
While the players, and rule makers,
Wrapped in capital colours,
Prance, booze faced, and hearty.
They make large and party.
Meanwhile, in the hollow land,
A bare tree claws the last warm rags
From a sinking sun.
A kestrel shoulders air,
But – nothing worth the dive –
Moves on.
Posted in existential, poetical sketches, writing, tagged beach, beauty, humanity, poem, sunset on July 21, 2021| 15 Comments »
Hot day at the beach.
Blue sky and a hard sun,
softens now to haze of golden evening.
Skimpy girls twirl
in summer shimmerings,
and kiss-me colours,
while tanned boys
with sharp beards
point their chins in strutting play.
A medley of tongues,
and skins drift,
arm in arm, dreaming,
towards the pier’s westward end.
How beautiful we still are,
When our hearts transcend
the fear.
Posted in existential, journal, philosophical, poetical sketches, writing, tagged lantern, moonlight, paper, Pen, poem, poetry, puzzle, sunset on June 26, 2021| 5 Comments »
I want to write poetry,
just like in olden times
with a notebook, and a fountain pen,
and a book of common rhymes.
I want to watch the sunset,
across this folded dale,
with a lantern at my elbow,
as the light begins to fail,
and the sash taps out in whispers,
the ciphers of the muse,
dot-dot dash, dot-dot dash,
at the rising of the moon.
And if I pay attention,
yet resist that grasping urge
the pen might yet decipher
an authentic string of words,
a pattern in the ink strokes
on this smooth vanilla page,
a thing we can hold onto
at the fading of the age,
a string of understanding,
timeless and complete,
indelible and indifferent,
to control, and alt-delete.