Had and Lost

In stanza four, "land and sea's intrigue," i.e. one's intrigue, fascination, with the land and sea. And in stanza six, "Near eighty," a bit of poetic licence though getting closer by the year.

   Another poem about endings and life's consequences is "Down to Death," written in May 2015 and posted here an 11 December 2019.

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There are some who never had,
And therefore never lost,
But those who had and lost
Know all too well the cost.

I mean not this-world things,
Its toys and plated trash,
Its lust for hoarded cash;
Those things are merely ash.

Rather the self’s delight
In what a woman gave;
But love would not behave
And so left nil to save.

Then land and sea’s intrigue,
Cliff’s height and plunge of gull,
But creatures’ ruthless cull
Left only bones and skull.

And soul’s unworded glimpse
Of what’s behind its meaning;
But all mind-effort’s gleaning
Missed Truth’s awaywards leaning.

And now old age intrudes:
Near eighty, frayed like rope,
I shuffle, mumble, grope,
Juggling from scowl to hope.

Might those who never had
In fact have had the best?
Dodging life’s anguished quest
They lolled then died at rest.

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© April 2025

Magpies in Winter

Among my many poems about birds is a 256 line blank verse one about a closely observed robin and therefore entitled "The Robin." It was written in November 2014 and posted here on 10 October 2018.

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   In iron-hearted February –
   That bone--incising cold! that frost! –
   All seeds, all slugs and the last berry
      Long eaten, magpies, proud
      But starved for scrap or crust,
   Deign statelily to strut my yard
Seizing the pigeons’ perks of tossed out bread.

   Those black-coped muggers, flashed with blue
   And green, their broadsword tails like threats,
   Ignore the pigeons’ huff and mow,
      Thieving those torn-up scraps
      Which later-year they’d nitch,
   Though poised for human sight or steps,
Rushing with clatter-cries to the bare trees’ tops.

   Gulls, though, are trumps! One, dropping down,
   Claims gull rights, wolfing fast. The ’pies
   Fall back, enraged, their status gone,
      White belly feathers raised:
      That gull taught being’s truths –
   The bigger bully feeds; deprived,
The rest must crave, searching what’s dried and bruised.

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© March 2025

A Beach Log

This massive log, perhaps a trunk, lasted almost a year before another exceptional tide swept it away. In stanza one "bronto" is short for brontosaurus. I have always pronounced "tousled" as "tossled." Therefore, in stanza two, line 5, it rhymes with "fossiled" in line 2. Another poem about tree trunks is "Tree Bark," written in October 2013 and posted here  on 11 May 2016.

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Stranded by storm and spring high tides
A sea-blanched log lay bald
On the shingle’s wave-cut scarp.
Full eight feet long, its pumiced sides,
Rutted and galled
By the sea’s warp,
Were almond-stained like much-aged skin:
Stark as a bronto’s shin
It sprawled, forgot by time’s discharging strides.

Its root ball like an old man’s fist
With stretching fingers fossiled,
Described a surly claw
Seasicked by the waves’ throw and list,
Their slumpings tousled
On the jostled shore:
Distrained, that sea-tugged hand made sign –
A French “merde!” yes, and mine! –
Braced for the beach’s grind to crush its gist.

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© February 2025

Near of Here/Ne'er of There

The phrases "near of here" and "ne'er of there" came to me in a night dream on 31 December 2024. "Near of here" = the earth, this life. "Ne'er of there" = hell. Therefore, "there" = Heaven. Another poem on a moment of realization or discovery, written long ago in March 1980, is "The Sudden Man." It is linked here. It was posted on 24 November 2011.

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What happens in the near of here,
Self-willed, self-preening, self-absolved,
My hates, revenges – laugh or leer –
That out of Eden once devolved,
When judged by One whom none outstare,
Condemns me to the ne’er of there.

And clamoured in the ne’er of there
Throbs torment’s truth: all that was done
Cannot reverse, for self’s forbear
Is neutered now that hell’s begun –
That folly when the days were dear
Of basking in the near of here!

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© January 2025

Pied Wagtail

On a tricksy note: lines 4 and 5 in the first stanza have 2 and 3 stresses, and lines 7 and 8 have 3 and 2 stresses. These four lines have feminine endings as do lines 9 and 10. Conversely, in the second stanza lines 4 and 5 have 3 and 2 stresses and lines 7 and 8 have 2 and 3 stresses. Again, these lines plus lines 9 and 10 have feminine endings.

   The exclamation mark at the end of line 1 in the second stanza acts as a full stop so that the second line - "A hardy blip" refers not to the bird's tail but the bird itself.

   Amongst my other bird poems is one om the long-tailed tit written in April 2015 and posted here  on 31 October 2019.

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      Oh wagtail, where have you been?
         Through summer’s hale
      You’re nowhere to be seen,
         (up country, feeding
      When the flies and mites are breeding).
   Now, in winter’s dank and gale
      You’re back, the sea’s lip being
         To you agreeing,
   Mild if wet; and quick zig-zeeing
   On prom or beach, advancing, fleeing,
         With “chip-chirp-chip,”
         Whilst the waves rail,
You pan for food, stopping to prod and sip.

      That uncease tail – tap, tap!
         A hardy blip –
      Black-bibbed, white-tuckered, slap
      And thrown by the wind’s whipping,
         Dodging and flipping
   With whirry legs in Triton’s grip:
         To next year’s seeking
      For mates, beak-to-cheeking,
   Breeding and egging, and scarce grits eking,
   Will you survive through winter’s screaking?
         For all that’s to do,
         Like a callous quip,
Is go on, go on, till flesh and bone unwoo.

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© December 2024

Months: The Sea: August

In 2012-13 I wrote a series of shorter poems on the months of the year using a similar form for each poem. I posted the complete set of "Months" on 6 February 2015 and it is linked here.  In 2014-15 I wrote a series of lyrics on the year's months, called "Months: Lyrics" and that series was posted on 11 March 2016. It is linked here. Between 2019 and 2024 I wrote a third "Months" series, this time concentrating on the sea and littoral and using a wide range of forms. The poems were also much longer and much more discursive. I am now posting them as I revise them. I will put some notes about each poem's form and references at the end of each post. The first poem in this sea series (for March) was posted on Friday 25 May 2025, link to it here; the poem for April was posted on 28 July 2025, link to it here; that for May, posted 20 September 2025, is linked here; that for June, posted on Monday 27 April 2026, here, that for July, posted on Thursday 18 June 2026, here.

   There are four epigraphs for the entire "Months: The Sea" sequence and they are posted at the head of the March poem.

   Each poem carries an ascription of the liturgical importance of the month. These ascriptions were widely used in the pre-Vatican II Church: they were yet another casualty of the destructive consequences of that foolish Council.

   I have written a handful of other poems about August. But first an ancient poem, from October 1981, which is non-specifically set in summer, is "To an Acquaintance Gone Into the Country," posted on this blogsite on 14 July 2012. It is linked here. Two more recent poems are "On a Hot August Day," written in September 2013 and posted on 23 December 2015 (linked here) and "A Mosquito Bite," written in August 2014 and posted on 8 May 2017 (linked here).

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(Month of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

Hwæt!

August for the people | next the purple sea:
The seasons have found stasis, | if sort of, only;
The people, fagged, | have flocked to the resorts,
Blanking the nay-sayers, | their “never send to know...,”
With a grunted guttural | “give us a break;”
Hence, this Sunday | several only
Will chant in church, | in chapel, hosannas
To He who makes clean, | He who invigorates,
(“Were not ten cleansed: | where cloister the nine?”):
Rather, by nine, | wrangling families
Or passing alliances | of loosely-made friends
Will stake the beach, | assert dominion
In the house-high dunes, | foot-hot already
For already the sun | like solder, heat-white,
Has swaddled the shore | with a steam-bath fug:
Like travellers pitched, | there’s towels and chairs,
Windbreaks, barbeques, | and blankets thrown,
Chill case and sunshades | and smattering boom-box:
Bodies are stripped, | bloated with feeding,
Blotched with yesterday’s | blistered sunburn;
A few are toe-paddling | the temperate sea,
Wary so soon | of a wet-body plunge,
Though sterner, task-rapt, | two kayakers
Are pulling their craft | from their portable sheaths,
Eager to engage | with the easy-fall waves:
Haply, the Azores high | has hoist itself
Across the earth’s camber, | accruing fine weather,
If temper-trying heat, | for non-torrid man,
The speech-bearer, now sotto-ing | expletives as midges
And wasps ferret | his pheromone-sweated skin.

Along the beach, | a black-head gull
Winnows a wing, | wobbling on one leg,
The other stretched: | widely, it yawns,
Its brown head moulting, | mouldering to white,
Leaving two dots blobbed, | backed behind its eyes.
The immature herrings, | haphazard in plumage,
Brown-patched as ticking | pulled from a palliasse,
Bully among themselves, | squeaking their long-calls
Like unoiled screws turning, | ignored by the adults
Perched on groyne posts, | picture perfect,
Which, sylphed with glistening | girls’-hair weed,
Slope out to sea, | sinking beneath
The glass-clear water, | graving shadow lines
Like ribs under flesh. | A rich haze
Hangs at the horizon, | happenstancing the distance –
No sky, no sea, | just a screen, pigeon-blue:
A trawler, full-loaded, | levitates through heaven,
Returning to harbour | to unheave its catch,
Its engines evenly | echoing the waters,
A “V,” bay-wide, | vectoring from its stern.
A harrowing heat | like a hand’s clench
Has wrapped all bodies | in its rivelling sweat,
The windlack beach | is a’broil and buzzing
With sun’s radiation, | simmering and raw:
On the prom, a flung | flash of light
From an opening window | pierces a watcher
With a seared lance | of locused heat,
As if Transfiguration | had torn Its way
Into this Adam’s world, | adumbrating truths
Which beach-fun humans | are huffy to resist.

The holiday funfair | is hollering loudly
By noon. The Sizzler, | XLR8TR,                                              [= Accelerator!]
Xtreme Power | and Project Orbiter,
The Super Waltzer, | the Speedodrome –
All scintillate | with screams and laughter,
Cannonading music | and cataclysmic lights,
Dry ice irruptions, | all detonated by
Jammering generators. | Generations mell,
Close-crushed, careening | the colour-bright stalls;
Dazed dogs leapingly | dance on leads,
Gulls corkscrew between legs, | levering up scraps,
And wheelchairs and buggies | byway the crowds,
Dumbfaced as dodgems, | for the dense, the young,
The aged, the crippled, | all aggregate a role
In this middle-earth’s microcosm. | Maddened by fun,
Inebriate of excitement | and odour of meats
Charring at burger stands, | these champions might laugh though
At the groans of Laurence | grilling on an iron,
The moralled animal | murderous to pay cash
To baste him bellowing | in his browning juices,
“Amo” now “odi.” | All afternoon
The humid hug | of the hammering sun
Has hotted the sands, | hammed with folk
Like stolid homesteaders, | stubborn to flee
The stink of the seine nets | slung up to dry,
Poled at the beach top. | A brown bloom
Of suppurating seaweed | slops in the wave-break,
Draping the bodies | of dipping bathers:
A huge crab | in its crenellated shell
Scuttles from the teasing | of a troublesome child.

The Microwave

This short piece uses the tanka stanza with rhyme added in the last line of each stanza. In fact the microwave lasted for 23 years which I trimmed to 20 because of the exigencies of the tanka form. And for many of those years I did not bother with a cooker but used the microwave for everything: so it was good value. How long will the new one last? The shop keeper told me if I'm lucky, 4 to 5 years for, admittedly, a lower priced model!

   A much earlier syllabic poem (written in January 1982) about the separate life of our gadgets is "On the Intractability of Things," written in January 1982, posted on 23 January 2013 and linked here. Its line endings are looser than I would tolerate now.  A much more recent poem, which cuts out the gadgets but keeps the disabused attitude to life, is "There is Nothing More Louche," written in August 2016, posted on 19 October 2021 and linked here.

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My companion
Of twenty years – not a wife
But a microwave! –
Suddenly died, leaving me
Forlorn – like a spouse indeed!

A kitchen fixture
So long, its demise made me
Rudderless: how now
To heat that half cup of soup,
Or that sausage roll at speed?

Happening hot on
My seventy-fifth birthday
It seemed portent of
Another death, escapeless
And nastily conclusive.

For think: at that death,
The mental enmesh which forged
Meaning – home to both –
Will void: soon, others’ recall
Of each will be illusive.

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© November 2024