Little Miss "Not Right"

Grave Ellie in her clever way
Is watching, through the length of day,
Her Mummy's each and every move
To see just where she must improve,
So when she spots a blatant error -
Why, then, our little toddling terror
Announces in her sternest voice
Rejection of an ill-made choice.

The fun of this begins to pall
For Mummy, who's on constant call
And turns to tell her daughter dear
That she no longer wants to hear -
As she has heard for far too long -
How everything she does is wrong.

Then comes at once the answer bright:
"But, MummyDearest, you're not right!"

No higher duty

Of all the stars, there is but one, the Sun,
Where life is known to flourish and survive.
Of all the species present on the Earth,
Mankind alone is held to be aware,
Though other mammals, too, may in their way
Have consciousness that centres in themselves.

What seems to be unique to man consists
In being free to to think beyond himself,
But how can he responsibly control
The knowledge that, one day, may spell his end?
And would he leave the world a better place
Without such self-destruction on its face?

Marlow spring

Now Marlow wakes to springtime's swelling sound,
The town adopts a spirit suited more
To birdsong and to blossoms that abound
As people gently stroll by Thames's shore,
In hues adapted to the weather's change,
At last released from winter's numbing gloom,
And in their hearts despondency exchange
For cheerfulness that floods through nature's room.

The hill

There is a slope whereon each is the ibex in its prime,
Alert in resolution and the the master of the climb,
Or like the bounding hare that twists and fleetly turns away,
At home among the tufts and clumps, survivor of the day.

Though culminating high above, resplendent of its kind,
It cannot be the slope is always upwardly inclined,
Its bulk has lasted aeons on an ageless fundament
And those who reach its summit will come down from where they went.

A hill will stand while generations replicate and grow,
And witness from its vantage how the people come and go.

Leveson revised

They called an enquiry and promised to do
Whatever was sanctioned - and speedily, too!
But, now the proposals are there to be seen,
They're changing their tune and involving the queen.

It seems a Royal Charter's the answer they seek
To pander to power and abandon the weak.
How strange  to find latterly that they can be
At home in the house of that pink BBC.

Fantasy of a dream

Once upon a lullaby
I fell asleep - so tired was I! -
And, dreaming, floated in the air,
Commanding vistas everywhere.

Such fun , to view what others do
When you see them, not so they you!
So rare and excellent a way
To spend a  happy holiday
Must surely have been given birth
By someone with a sense of mirth.

I felt my new ability
Would last for all eternity,
That I would meet the lark in flight
Close by the Sun,in regions bright.
But in a while I lost the guile
Of how to fly aloft in style,
So, with a final glance around,
I came to ground without a sound.
  

Together

Those days of youth unbound when life was sweet,
Those nights of dancing to the urgent beat,
Those years of travel to exotic lands
Beneath the burning Sun above the sands,
While off the the beach the ocean's mighty swell
Divulged a violence more than words could tell,
Those hours of splendour spent below the waves
In weightless wonder, deep in coral caves,
And afterwards the journeys under sail
In gentle zephyr or in raging gale,
And then the lengthy rambles over hills
Where cloud the slope envelops as it chills -
Such are the memories we jointly share
That chart the progress of a happy pair.

The last dance

Movement in harmony, soul of the dance,
Fashioned to favour  and further romance.
Take to the  floor in a flurry of haste,
Lest the last dying strains pass into waste.
Cherish the moment that ever will be.
Lodged in the core of our joint memory.

Spring

How happily the days are lengthening,
As spring pries open winter's  balefull grip.
What has been dark of night now is bright morn,
And birds that sang concealed flute full in light.

Shy buds assume a confidence they lacked
And paint the trees and shrubs in artful hues,
While lovers learn from nature's urgent way
To reawake what has been plunged in sleep.

Green Flash

"Green Flash of sailor's lore,
What motivates your flame?
Why is it once you came,
And now return no more?"

Thus the legend. What the facts?
Could there be a force which acts?

With sea becalmed beneath a cloudless sky,
A rarity is seen, though none knows why.
To mariners it is the strangest thing
The vaulted dome before their eyes may bring.

Amongst the windblown salts with years afloat
The topic merits comment hour on hour.
So fleetingly evinced when it occurs,
It draws upon itself the deepest doubts.
Is it a phantom, conjured by a mind
Confused and tired as Sun and water meet,
Which, with the sinking of the the solar limb,
Calls forth an intense burst of short-lived green
That seems to hang an instant where the straight
Horizon severs sky from placid sea?

As someone with  a weather watcher's eye,
I have the habit to observe the sky -
So let me briefly say what I have seen
Concerning water jugs and flashes green.

Upon the Cuban shore at close of day
I saw the Sun blink verdantly to sleep
Beneath the resting waters calmly deep
From where I sat in hope to be amazed.
It was a moment so unique in kind
As never can be banished from my mind.
And so it seemed a truth had been confirmed
That could no longer see itself impugned.
And yet, on coming home I met with doubt
When, as I watched my water jug boil up
Where it was standing in a darkenend space,
To my distress I saw that Cuban gleam
Which I had thought a rare exotic gem.
Yet gem it may well be, for all of this,
Since not all jugs produce the same effect.

So keep your eyes alert, should such seem just,
And you may see the Green Flash too, I trust.
 

Image and story

Thank you for the pictures from afar,
Showing how you prosper where you are.
How well you dally there, with Sol supreme
Bringing bounty with his burnished beam!

Handsome hull upon a silken sea,
Moored at leasure where you choose to be,
Till fancy spies an isle of green and white,
And prompts the latent wanderlust to bite.

So, as you sail from  port to port at will,
We share with you the pleasure and the thrill -
Happy faces sunning on the beach,
From where vistas vanish out of reach.
Stately vessels, skimming yachts abound,
Verdant backdrops feature in the round,
And all these gems show how you follow
A path renewed with each new morrow
In which the mariner may choose to stay,
Or else weigh anchor and be underway.

Thus let there always be such splendid days
To pass, when tender  eyes with lovelight gaze.

There must be change

A small town reels in disbelief and pain,
A nation wrestles with an aim that's plain:
To stop more innocents from being slain.

After this portent of a future bleak
In which a violent strength destroys the weak
And helpless, who now crave the cure all seek,

Something must be done, action must ensue,
Or many will be added to the few
In leaving life as none should have to do.

So it is done

I wrote a story that I did not know,
I had no choice, I simply let it flow.
It was a story of a quest for love,
A true companion im my every hour.

It is the story that we all must write,
Though  we may lack the words to tell it whole.
There are so many loves a soul must meet
Before they are conflated at the end.

Fish and bird

Sleek minnow on the river bed,
You do not know how chicks are fed.
Kingfisher parents both must strive
To keep their common brood alive,

So through the day each one will fly
To perch upon a branch and spy
Where you are hanging in the flow,
Then plummet down to strike their blow.

The ever-present past

A moth once setttled, plump and brown, upon my coat
As drizzle in a garden fell so many years ago.
And when, as boy, I chanced to glance and saw her on my chest
Her silent presence brought strange fright that had not touched me as
Her dampened wings were folded when she fluttered down to rest.

Too hastily I brushed her off and saw, as she took flight,
What beauty I had banished by an unconsidered act.
Too soon she vanished midst the ranks of raspberry bushes thick.
Too late and vainly did I seek to catch a moment gone.
How silent was the air around while weightless droplets fell
Upon the dripping leaves through which the ripening berries peeped.

Why does this timeless memory stay with me to this day?
Why will it without doubt retain its  charm and potency? 

What goes around...

The subtle play of light upon a fading garden wall,
The smell of fallen apples lying damp among the grass:
All this has been, is now, and will recur for evermore -
The new perfoms its role as repetition of the old.

The apple and the tree are one as evolution rolls,
No tree without the apple, and no apple without tree:
Stability of change allows succession in its turn,
While novel patterns flicker fleet across a garden wall.

The sea, the boat, adventure call

A far marina sparkles in the Sun,
An absent skipper hastens there to sail,
"Wereda's" patience soon will reap reward
And Trinidad rejoice to see once more
Her stately presence on the Carib Main.

Long months of separation near their end,
The sailor's soul now harkens to the sea,
Whose Siren call as ever draws him off,
Away from happy home, to joy on board.

So does the bond that cannot be undone
Require to be renewed, its strength made good,
Until it can allow love's haven leave
To host the next reunion of true hearts.

Sail away

I

A talented sailor from Houston
Attempted to sail with his boots on.
They filled up with sea
As far as his knee
And sank that poor sailor from Houston.

II

A talented sailor from Houston
Declined to set sail with his boots on.
He found his approach
No storm could encroach,
Which won him renown throughout Houston.

Hogmanay 2012

Again we have surmounted one more year
Of outcomes waning fast or gaining slow
And brought ourselves to where we are more clear
Of which directions point the way to go
To reach a target long of deep desire
Despite obstruction's will to block our path -
For hope will triumph though the fates conspire,
And find recourse to stop misfortune's sway.
When times are dark our fortitude must serve
To take us forward to our longed-for goal.
So count the Old Year's passing and observe
The first day of the New Year start to roll.

Rhyme to order

Now let me write you something just for fun,
So I'll enjoy the doing, you - what's done.
It must be furnished with rich rhyme for you,
For, to your thinking, rhyme's what poets do.
Recalling larks aloft which, as they fly,
Pour melody to Earth from summer sky,
Your poets scribble on the page and bring
To voice a consonance through which words sing
When ordered where they match to make them zing
And utter truth or merely "ting-a-ling".
So here it is, then, fully fledged and done -
Has it attained its aim of giving fun?