HEADING HOME

For over a year I've been posting a poem each day on my Facebook page and rarely do I share any of them on Bard at Bay because the Facebook posts tend to be absurdist verse, quickly read and easily disposed of. Now and again, however, one of those daily rhymes finds its way here and this one's an example of what you can find if you visit my public Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/

LAND OF YOUTH

Rex was a jaded retiree

whose joie de vivre was history.

A faded fellow, seen by some

as dull and permanently glum.

He saw a ladder on a wall

that wasn’t really there at all.

The wall itself was real enough,

full twelve feet tall, its finish rough;

the ladder, Rex could clearly see,

was unreal, purely fantasy,

and yet he scaled it, rung by rung,

with zest he had not felt since young.

Up, up he climbed, small, bony-kneed,

and felt his adulthood recede

with every step. A child again,

he climbed out of the world of men

into a realm where pains and aches

gave way to comic-books and cakes,

to conkers, roller-skates, balloons,

his old banjo, its tuneless tunes.

Rex, to his joy, saw Spike, his cat,

dead fifty years, grown sleek and fat,

and Jack, his terrier, alive,

who had been dead for fifty-five.

Around him, like chess-pieces, ranged

his childhood friends, each hardly changed,

his mother, young and free from care,

his father with a head of hair,

a cricket bat, a brand new ball,

those battered stumps, Rex could recall

from countless summers long ago

with Father shouting, bowl don’t throw.

Rex slowly realised the truth:

this was, of course, the Land of Youth,

the Tír na hÓige , he’d learned about.

Again, he heard his father shout,

who wants to climb this apple tree?

Rejuvenated, Rex cried, me!

SLEEPING IT OFF

Having experienced extremely hot temperatures in Europe recently and discovered that an escape to the coolness of the bedroom is the perfect antidote, I'm now a devotee of the siesta. After all, if cats do it, it must be a great idea.

MEDITERRANEANS

In noon-day sun no creature moves
and even lizards, acid-green,
designed for heat beyond belief,
remain within their creviced walls.
Dogs hide away, cats sleep in shade
if anywhere shade can be found
and noon to four the natives sleep
or skulk like fugitives indoors, 
the black-clad women making lace,
the men at dominoes or cards.
They have adapted to their world
far better than we have to ours:
at ninety-three they’re still alive
while we burn out at fifty-five.

NIGHT INTRUDER

In the spring 2014 Jane and I spent three months living in a small rented house in Italy. 

Situated in an unprepossessing village that had somehow managed to escape the notice of the multitudes of tourists that annually flock to Tuscany, the house was basic, clean and comfortable.

The long lazy days provided us with an opportunity to immerse ourselves in a way of life which was totally different from that of Guernsey.     

We were the only English-speakers in the area but were made to feel welcome and soon slipped into the languid rhythm of life in a hot southern climate.

At night the garden was lit by fireflies and an open door would attract moths. One such moth is the subject of this poem.

 

LA FALENA

A moth came in at the screen door

attracted by light as moths are.

It flickered like a small dark fan,

here and there: I could not ignore

its plight and trapped it in a jar,

released it outside. Foolish man:

moths will return, against the odds,

seeking out light as we do gods.

 

ALL CHANGE

The complacent progress of one's life can so easily be jolted out of kilter by a disturbing medical diagnosis, the sudden loss of a loved one or, sometimes, nothing more seemingly innocuous than an unexpected letter.

THE LETTER

The day seemed unremarkable:

another day like every day.

I fed the birds. 

The postman came.

I set aside the envelope,

a plain white thing, perhaps a bill,

no matter, it could surely wait.

The boy who brings the newspaper

delivered it as usual.

I read it carelessly. The news

is never worth more than a glance:

an earthquake there, somewhere a war,

more knife-crime in the capital.

I stroked the cat, drank one last cup

and then I picked the letter up. 

Some words can overturn one’s world,

destroy what plans one might have made.

The message read, I let it fall

then rose, stepped out 

into the rain.

The beech trees stood, 

immovable,

their branches, formerly so bare,

unfurling leaves of gentle green

like tiny sail-boats casting off

to voyage from the shores of spring

and all around me, restlessly,

the flowers were reawakening.         

Rain-drenched and cold, I stood and wept,

regretting promises not kept.   

EASTER

Do we ever lose the terrors of childhood? The older I become, the more I doubt it.

This short poem was written during a heatwave in France in the late summer of 2019 following a visit to a village church to escape the oppressive heat.

 

NO SANCTUARY

Avoiding forty-two degrees,

I slip inside and feel the chill

and smell the old familiar reek

of cassocks and of deep unease.

I sit, almost against my will.

Is this the sanctuary I seek,

here where my childhood fears reside:

eternal punishment for sin,

and fire far greater than the sun?

I rise and hurry back outside,

feel noonday sun scorch my pale skin,

then stride away, tempted to run.

Behind me, from a Cross, inside,

His face stares down, the thrice-denied.

A DODGY LODGER

This poem, a vignette of sorts, is loosely based on the latter years of exiled local writer, Gerald Edwards, the creator of that archetypal Guernsey character, Ebenezer, whose journal is the basis for the fictional Book of Ebenezer Le Page, one of the most highly acclaimed novels of the Twentieth Century.    

THE LODGER   

He could be short-tempered and cold.

He’d say, Too dear at seven quid,

and other times she would be told,

I’m leaving. But he never did.

At times he seemed to rule the house.

Lodger from Hell, she’d tell her spouse.

An old man, elderly, she’d say

a writer, something of that sort, 

Is it a novel or a play?

My bloody masterpiece! He’d snort.

The manuscript on ruled foolscap,

some days he’d call a load of crap.

He was an inconsistent man:

one moment charmer, next a boor:

companionless, without a clan,

with old-school manners, but piss-poor.

He’d leave his light on half the night,

brew pots of tea and write and write.

He looked the educated type, 

authoritarian and stern, 

tweed jacket and a filthy pipe 

he’d empty in the potted fern. 

Perhaps he’d been a teacher once 

and saw her as the classroom dunce.

But all of that was years ago.

He’s dead and scattered with his debts.

His book is in the shops, although

it doesn’t sell well, she regrets.

A book’s no substitute for life.

He’d have been better with a wife. 

WAR CRY

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

... Ernest Hemingway, 1946

“Two armies that fight each other is like one large army that commits suicide.”

... Henri Barbusse, 1916

YOUNG NICOLAI

Young Nicolai was made to fight.

He didn’t think that it was right

but sometimes men just have to do

what men are told and march on cue.

The Leader said, now, here’s a sword,

chop someone up if you get bored

but make sure it’s the enemy.

You’re going on a jolly spree

and there’s a shield to keep at bay

those you may meet with on the way:

unpleasant types that might resist

your presence, but you must insist

their land is yours, you have the right

to seize it. Should they dare to fight,

just do some chopping, kill a few

and lots of medals will accrue.

Young Nicolai was very scared

and as a soldier, unprepared,

to go off with a sword and shield

to battle in a neighbour’s field.

To his surprise, when he got there

it didn’t really seem quite fair:

the enemy had such small knives

and some of them were daughters, wives,

in fact, not quite the monsters he

was told the enemy would be:

they had no swords or shields at all.

A stout babushka in a shawl

waved her old fist and cried, go back

(a strange way to repel attack). 

The worst of it was that they seemed

so much like him. He never dreamed

that enemies, the sort we cuss,

are pretty much the same as us.

Brave Nicolai fought a good fight:

he chopped to left, he lopped to right,

but, by the time that he had stopped,

so many still remained un-chopped.

It seemed that they would not submit.

He tried to make some sense of it.

but, though he pondered, long and hard,

amidst the rubble, black and charred,

no answer came. That’s hardly strange,

for war is war. Things never change.