Two other folk-like poems from decades ago are "The Explorers," written in July 1980 and posted here on 26 September 2012 and "Love's Imprecation," written in December 1979 and posted here on 26 April 2013. Both these poems are written in trochaic tetrameter.
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In Penzance town when autumn’s come
All’s damp and grey, all’s chill;
The wind’s an endless gusty hum,
There’s rain on door and sill;
And each thin dawn of leaden hue
Brings the foggy foggy dew.
The granite streets are tight of face,
Folk trudge against the wind;
The sea’s like slate whose cold embrace
Hides bodies bloat and skinned;
And early risers hunch askew
In the foggy foggy dew.
Well, through that fog there walks a wife,
Time-worn though still petite,
Fearing she’s never lived her life,
That men are all a cheat,
That joys or sobs, and all that’s true,
Are but foggy foggy dew.
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In Penzance town when autumn’s come
All’s damp and grey, all’s chill;
The wind’s an endless gusty hum,
There’s rain on door and sill;
And each thin dawn of leaden hue
Brings the foggy foggy dew.
The granite streets are tight of face,
Folk trudge against the wind;
The sea’s like slate whose cold embrace
Hides bodies bloat and skinned;
And early risers hunch askew
In the foggy foggy dew.
Well, through that fog there walks a wife,
Time-worn though still petite,
Fearing she’s never lived her life,
That men are all a cheat,
That joys or sobs, and all that’s true,
Are but foggy foggy dew.
She married, sprogged (just one), her man
(A drinker) though soon ran;
For years to please she freely span
But none was gentleman:
Sometimes she ended black and blue
Like the foggy foggy dew.
Scraping a living as a clerk,
An admin drudge of sorts,
She slaved to build a shaky ark
For self and child, both noughts,
For all around like bills now due
Was the foggy foggy dew.
And now past sixty, daughter gone,
Solving her drought of cash,
Her man returned; much put upon
She felt again his lash,
Resigned to what she always knew –
Life is foggy foggy dew.
But all those years, close by was one
Who fumed and held his tongue,
Who wanted her and might have won
If he had fit among
The tough she sought, drinking their brew
Dark as foggy foggy dew.
So, baffled, sour, down Causewayhead
He limps each lonely day,
And if they meet there’s nothing said,
They nod and look away:
Out in the bay in slew and slew
Curls the foggy foggy dew.
===============
© August 2024
(A drinker) though soon ran;
For years to please she freely span
But none was gentleman:
Sometimes she ended black and blue
Like the foggy foggy dew.
Scraping a living as a clerk,
An admin drudge of sorts,
She slaved to build a shaky ark
For self and child, both noughts,
For all around like bills now due
Was the foggy foggy dew.
And now past sixty, daughter gone,
Solving her drought of cash,
Her man returned; much put upon
She felt again his lash,
Resigned to what she always knew –
Life is foggy foggy dew.
But all those years, close by was one
Who fumed and held his tongue,
Who wanted her and might have won
If he had fit among
The tough she sought, drinking their brew
Dark as foggy foggy dew.
So, baffled, sour, down Causewayhead
He limps each lonely day,
And if they meet there’s nothing said,
They nod and look away:
Out in the bay in slew and slew
Curls the foggy foggy dew.
===============
© August 2024
