Re the third stanza: in the heady 1960s (what a disastrous decade that was) I was indeed a "peace'n love-ist", and the Rev. Donald Soper was extremely well-known as both a Methodist leader and pacifist. He was very helpful to military types who wished to leave the armed forces on conscientious grounds, but he was no push-over: he inquired carefully whether someone was genuine or simply "swinging the lead." The fact that he is now totally forgotten is an indication of the speed of de-Christianization in Britain, enforced by our political and cultural "elite." But a heavy price will be paid: there is no such thing as a genuinely secular or atheist society; and in the West, Islamization will be the demographic result.
I see this poem largely ignores mention of man/woman relations. To show there were such moments here's a link to an early poem, "To His Wife," (actually four sonnets) written in January 1980 and posted on this blog on 15 April 2013.
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Ah, dinghy sailing in the Solent’s waters,
The rain-specked wind athwart your cheeks,
Rolling and yawing in the steepling waves,
Tacking for shelter in the sandbanked creeks:
With childhood friends I now no longer know,
I did that many years ago.
Girlfriended at the Tate to look at pictures,
Shamming a tout I barely felt;
A hand on back or arm to test my luck,
But fearing what her calm indifference spelt:
It was a crash course in the female “no” –
I learnt that many years ago!
A twenty-something peacenik, I abetted
A squaddie’s wiles to leave the force,
Pleading his tale to Donald Soper who,
Hard-hatted, quarried what was true, what “sauce”:
Fooled and turned-over by that squaddie’s show
I felt hate many years ago.
Then love! For chancing to the western wetlands
I found Penzance ensea’d and grey,
The damp winds, gleaming streets, even the mists!
Engulfed my heart and hold it to this day:
Life’s "once" – pure gift – stark at the land’s far toe,
Remade me many years ago.
Well, this or that I did, the list is endless,
In age there’s much that crowds the mind;
All, though, comes welling from the years long past,
There’s little recent that seems gold and vined:
The old live severed from time’s busy flow –
Their present’s many years ago.
===============
© February-March 2022
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Ah, dinghy sailing in the Solent’s waters,
The rain-specked wind athwart your cheeks,
Rolling and yawing in the steepling waves,
Tacking for shelter in the sandbanked creeks:
With childhood friends I now no longer know,
I did that many years ago.
Girlfriended at the Tate to look at pictures,
Shamming a tout I barely felt;
A hand on back or arm to test my luck,
But fearing what her calm indifference spelt:
It was a crash course in the female “no” –
I learnt that many years ago!
A twenty-something peacenik, I abetted
A squaddie’s wiles to leave the force,
Pleading his tale to Donald Soper who,
Hard-hatted, quarried what was true, what “sauce”:
Fooled and turned-over by that squaddie’s show
I felt hate many years ago.
Then love! For chancing to the western wetlands
I found Penzance ensea’d and grey,
The damp winds, gleaming streets, even the mists!
Engulfed my heart and hold it to this day:
Life’s "once" – pure gift – stark at the land’s far toe,
Remade me many years ago.
Well, this or that I did, the list is endless,
In age there’s much that crowds the mind;
All, though, comes welling from the years long past,
There’s little recent that seems gold and vined:
The old live severed from time’s busy flow –
Their present’s many years ago.
===============
© February-March 2022
