Poems

I used to be active on the BBC poetry board.

 

What a lovely thread, thank you @shiney. I have enjoyed reading the poems but I'm no good at composing them.

 

Discovered this thread for the very first time. It's great to read peoples' verses & rhyme. I have written some poetry over the years, much of it too personal for everyone's ears! I guess I have to be in 'that zone', through sadness, anger & definitely alone. A scene can often truly inspire, i find my brain becomes a livewire. My garden for one is a natural source, I guess I should share it now, of course. (See what I did there? )

A perfect Sunday afternoon
Goldfinches chirrup a delightful tune
Bamboos rustling in the breeze
Like something creeping up on me
On a coloured banquet my eyes they feast
Purple-leaved Ensete, overlooked by "The Beast"
Flowers extol their orangey hue
Crocosmia, Helenium and Canna too

I sit in the sun, watch and relax
As bees are filling their pollen sacs
It's such a delight I know quite a few
The Leaf-cutter, the Common Carder to name only two
The deep amber shade of the Red-tailed bee
Such industriousness captivates me
That delicate buzz, from hour to hour
Their toil it is to visit each flower

At my side is a fatsia tree
Stretched out "fingers" welcoming me
The virginal white trumpets of the Nicotiana
Night-scented flowers add to that drama
The dazzling red of a lonesome dahlia
Its late appearance we'd considered a failure
Mother nature and her mysterious ways
Bringing life after these rain free days

Our tropical garden, tree ferns and all
Just lacking the sound of exotic bird call
Crowded beds, many things they disguise
Like a magician's hand deceiving the eyes
At dark hedgehogs roam almost unseen
Hidden from sight by the evergreen
Each year the plants will slowly mature
Adding new mystery that is for sure.

 

The Seasons of Life

Summer means life is given,
Spring, a joy every day.
Autumn means time is passing,
Winter, life is taken away.​

 

Found this one again.
Last winter, when I was in bed with the 'Flu

And a temperature of a hundred and two,

I was telling the gardener what he should do.

You must keep the Neurosis well watered, I said.

Be certain to weed the Anaemia bed.

That yellow Myopis is getting too tall,

Tie up the Lumbago that grows on the wall.

Those scarlet Convulsions are quite a disgrace,

They're like the Deliriums—all over the place.

The pink Pyorrhoea is covered with blight,

That golden Arthritis has died in the night.

Those little dwarf Asthmas are nearly in bloom—

But just then the doctor came into the room.



Reginald Arkell 1934

 

My version of Arkell's ode.

More Flowers of the mind.


The Hysteria's pulling the support from the wall.

You can't see the Fibroids, they are covered in soil.

The Hepatitis grow better when planted in shade,

And the red Alopecia is starting to fade.

That Colitis is badly infested with twitch,

And the state of the Scabies is making me itch.

The Rubella berries have gone past their prime,

And the Toxaemia refuses completely to climb.

But just when you think it can't get any worse,

I have come to the end of my doggerel verse.


E.G.M. 1999.

 

I like that one, @shiney.

 

One of my favourite poems, and very relevant for a gardeners' site below. Clive James wrote it after he had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. It was published in the New Yorker magazine in a week when their paywall was suspended and Clive, ever modest, put its success down to the fact it was seen by a wider readership than would normally be the case. Clive lived on till October 2019, and during his decline wrote two short books of poetry (amongst much else) called Sentenced To Life and Injury Time. Most libraries can order these in and they are well worth reading.


Japanese Maple


Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:

Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?

Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that. That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:

Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colours will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.

--New Yorker, September 15, 2014

 

I used to write poems in the 60’s.
This is one I wrote ,not exactly a work of art but it made the local paper and our then MP Eldon Griffiths wrote to me saying how much he enjoyed it.

Spare a Thought.

A world of pity
Bombs and cities
Love and hate
and crime to state
Just a few of things
that make this world
go on and on.
Despite the strikes
and work to rule
Life goes on
It’s sometimes cruel
to see the toil
and bitter terror
Exposed exclusively
to human error.
Debts and tax
someday perhaps
will come an end
to frustration,indignation
on which life alone
must so depend
Racial hate ,discrimination
Human minds
and crime temptation
Tory ,Liberal ,Socialist
To fight to win
to find the best
But behind this great endeavour
this world of ours goes on forever.

Written 60 years ago……….
I don’t think a whole lot has changed.

 

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein