TIME AND TIDE

I read this one on BBC radio a while back and it seemed to strike a chord with a number of listeners. I suppose that many of us fall short of our earliest hopes and dreams and discover, often too late, that time takes no prisoners. 

SHIP IN A BOTTLE

He dreamed of oceans as a child;
would run away to sea when grown;
might sail the chill Atlantic, wild,
or broad Pacific, tempest blown,

but grown to adulthood, he failed
in everything. There was no prow
or spreading wake: he never sailed.
He seeks his ships in bottles now.

NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING

My favourite Italian city, Venice, is once again struggling to cope with yet another aqua alta, one of several in the last couple of months. 
If sea levels continue to rise it bodes ill for the future of La Serenissima.

THE DROWNED CITY

A tide is rising in the flooded streets:

while residents stare dully, others weep.

A chill sea-fog enfolds, like winding sheets,

the drowned canals whose banks lie fathoms deep.

Abandoned kiosks float like ghostly ships.

The sky scowls down apocalyptically          

as, steadily, the ancient city slips,

into an endlessly encroaching sea.     

Upon the moving water, like a shroud,

fog spreads across the great drowned city’s face. 

The stately palaces, serene and proud,

sink helplessly into the sea’s embrace.

Now all are dispossessed, both foe and friend,

that called this city home, that sipped its wine 

and swore their tenancy would never end.

Those glasses, raised, now bear the taint of brine.

The sea, demanding, cannot be defied.

Departing birds rise over the lagoon.

Below extends the ever-marching tide.

The world expected this but not so soon.

TALKING TURKEY

This is a bad time of the year to be a turkey, although it’s probably fair to say that being a turkey at any other time is not particularly pleasing either.

Of all the birds one might choose to be, the turkey is probably pretty far down the list. 

Turkeys don’t sing, they don’t soar and, additionally, they’re really rather ugly. 

Jane and I will not be adding to the massive slaughter of these unfortunate creatures this year. 
We have alternative culinary plans.

SONG OF THE CHRISTMAS TURKEY

We have grown fat, my friends and I,

and although some birdbrains say
these gifts of food Men bring us

must be treated with suspicion, 
this I doubt. 

I feed on corn aplenty and rejoice,

grow plumply satisfied and portly stout.
My fellows fast become inflated too:

such fine birds with no work at all to do.   


I call the doubters paranoid and mock

their pessimistic attitudes and gloom.

Another feast arrives, I gulp it down

then gobble thankful sounds 
and strut about.

We grow each day more pillowy and sleek.

Our future is assured, our species blessed.

This is the life, I think, no need to fear:

December is the season of Good Cheer.

LIFE CYCLE

While living in Italy some years ago, I watched a young man cycling in our village with a child strapped into a seat behind him. It brought to mind excursions with my daughter when I was young and we lived just outside Edinburgh. Constantly impoverished, I travelled about on an old junk-shop bicycle with my tiny daughter perched precariously behind me in a rickety seat that wobbled alarmingly when we went over bumps. Ah, the recklessness of youth!

 























 
CYCLE

The living world sails by, complete:
strange images engulf her; sounds
pour into her; she is caressed
by air, safe in the old bike seat
behind her father, the firm mounds
of his buttocks against her chest.

A young child, perched like a nestling,
in the metal-framed basket-seat:
his firstborn.  A small miracle,
the proud father thinks his offspring,
and to him, in the noisy street,
she clings, tight as a barnacle.

He pedals hard, pursued by time:
like roulette wheels, the bike-wheels whirl.
A breeze, around her soft hair, sings
with lyrical, unreasoned rhyme.
Euphoria engulfs the girl:
her arms reach out like stubby wings.

KNOCKIN' ON HEAVEN'S DOOR

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy, in other countries, asylum from persecution. 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 14.

We, in modern Britain, are fortunate to benefit from a standard of living vastly beyond the expectations or imagination of our grandparents, and to enjoy a degree of security not shared by those who dwell in countries blighted by famine, war or the constant threat of war.
Our political leaders struggle to find a balance between securing our borders and extending the hand of compassion to the rising tide of refugees who stand at our door and knock. 
In the words of Dr Savitri Taylor: We must choose carefully how we treat the stranger among us, because our choice has serious implications for the stranger, but also for ourselves.

 







HEAVEN'S DOOR

The immigration queue winds on
and slowly on, then out of sight.
We clutch our vouchers, move along:
in twos, with eyes downcast, polite;
a flock, a never-ending throng,
bent-shouldered, stricken, sick and drawn.
All, but our clothes and one small bag,
is lost: abandoned any how.
The future is relinquished too:
we live in the rude present now
and leave behind all that we knew:
possessions, symbols, honour, flag.
Officials, at the narrow gate,
are brusque beneath the moving lens
of cameras that seem alive.
We enter, gather in our pens,
like bees within a buzzing hive,
to wait, survive and procreate.

CRY WOLF

Some people eulogise dolphins but, for me, a wolf pack’s surely one of Nature’s proudest sights.
Sadly, wolves have suffered centuries of bad press and, in many parts of the world, have been hunted almost to extinction.
It’s heartening to learn that much has changed in recent years and Man’s perception of this beautiful creature has become much more positive.
Although I wrote this poem some time ago, I intend to include it in a new collection which I hope to have published in 2020.
Perhaps it's worth reflecting how much the fate of wolves mirrors that of feared or hated groups within the human species.

WOLF

Out of a world corrupted 

and made vile, 

beyond the stricken tree, 

the murdered mile,

past poisoned streams and over tainted snows, 

copper-eyed, the wolf goes: 

beyond recall, 

beyond arresting cry, 

into an exile’s land where shadows lie.

His paw marks, 

his very scent, 

create his fleeting monument.