What I writ on my holidays - Part 4

Continuing my stream of bucolic thoughts from here...

Spring in Woodchester Park

Steep wooded slopes hide
Rare box-tree copses,
Ancient yews and ramson swathes,
All bluebell-blanketed;
Here and there, violets, wood-anemone and columbine
Complete the palette,
Woven through with forest trails,
Snaking down to chain-strung ponds,
Valley-sleeved
And still,
But for the raindrop ripples
And gentle wakes of drifting waterfowl -
Shadows of over-arching boughs
Loom large,
Darkly conifer-toothed -
A surprising moment of menace,
But fleeting
As squall gives way to sun -
Derelict boat-house now leaf-dapple lit,
Spider-spun window-shutters,
Walls web-claimed,
Rusted hitching-hooks remain beneath,
A reminder of more rowboat-rowlocked days
Passed in quiet contemplation
Of the bark-brown and greening
Capability of trees.

What I writ on my holidays - Part 3

Continuing from here...

Hetty Pegler’s Tump

In the corner of a farmer’s field,
A green-grassed mound,
Five thousand years above the plough,
Elliptical and ancient –
Enter thou, by twin-horned crawlway,
Slab-tunneled,
Pitch-dark void beyond;
Walls part, vault lifts,
To permit a penitent crouch –
Proceed by touch,
Small chambers open to the sides,
Once bone-alcoves,
Reliquaries for remains
Of the skyclad dead,
Clean, raven-picked
And collected,
To what chants and drums
We can never know –
Mourned, revered or celebrated,
Now empty but for Neolithic echoes
And us.

A poem for the Glitterarti

A short verse for Nina Fraser, face-painter and commissionee of creations...

Full-face a fiver,

Two quid a cheek –

Colour me, fork-lobed lady

With your pram of party-pigments,

Perambulating festivals and fairs,

Today I’d like to be a beetle,

Possibly butterfly-browed,

Or maybe a big fierce polar bear –

Can you work around the hair?

I’m sure you can;

You can paint the crowd.

What I writ on my holidays - Part 2

Following on from here - inspired by the sonnet On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer by Keats which you can find here, including a facsimile of the manuscript.

Standing on a ha-ha at Hidcote

We have taken the Long Walk,
Courted in the yard
And crossed the Wilderness;
Been amazed
By round-topped pillar and box-cut stilt,
Sheltered Italianate, surrounded
By trompe l’oeil classicals and players,
Stopped to reflect on
The Round, The Old, The Walled,
The Red and The White
Circling underfoot,
Poppy-sated, maple-palmed
By rock and pool and stream,
Now a grand oak-pastured vista,
Sheep-studded
And speckle-cloud umbrated –
We watch and wait.

On with the noir

Last month, I wrote a noir-themed poem - here's part 2, more to come...

Colour Me Noir II: The Witness

Diner double-shift just finished -
Too many dishes -
Home for a well-earned (if illicit) gin;
Take a short-cut,
Cut off five precious minutes
(The boss takes more,
Even from the tips, I’m sure).

Faint fume-edged sounds
Echo down to ground
(Or was that ground-down?)
Level,
A party of swells,
Yeah, that’s right -
Bombshell on the balcony,
Coulda been me...
Ahead, grimy light obscures
(Not quite)
A huddled pair o’ guys
In broad-brim hats,
Little more than silhouettes;
Then a scuffle,
Parenthesised by heated harsh exchanges -
Both step back -
Muzzle-crack,
The bigger one (no gun)
Slides down the wall.

Seconds later,
Suitcase dragged from still-twitching,
Near-stiff fingers -
The Small Man stands,
Draws on a cheap crumpled-packet cigarette -
Its dirty orange glow highlights
Worn silver letters on the case -
J.M.H. -
I realise I’ve stopped,
Not quite shadow-safe;
He sees -
Teeth glint in
An it’s-your-rictus grin -
I kick off my heels and run;
This story’s just begun.