Status

Tags

choka, promotion, status, way of the world

Fathers grow pleased when

sons beat the competition

and ascend the ranks.

When one has waited a long

time for promotion

and it comes at last, one can’t

help reflecting that

it would have been nice sooner.

When a woman is honoured,

dignity is hers,

but, if her age is advanced,

she’ll have lost her looks;

may have less of an impact.

It’s sad, but it’s the world’s way.

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Purple Paulownia

Tags

gunpowder, Paulownia, phoenix, Regeneration, zither

(Photo by Meneerke Bloem. Wikipedia, 2008)

 

Its leaves don’t move me,

but when I think the phoenix

chose to dwell in it,

fore-telling the Emperor’s

advent, then I bow

before its magnificence.

Many a zither

gains fine resonance from it;

it makes good boxes

and produces gunpowder,

its bark a fast dye.

Regeneration from its roots

links it to the bird legend.

 

 

Rude Awakening

Tags

edible dormouse, empty nest syndrome, estivate, glilaria, glis glis, kickboards, Mad Hatter, Protected Species, Romans, Rothschild, Siebenschlafer, Tring, Wachet auf!

(Photo: Edible Dormouse: Michael Hanselmann;

Wikipedia)

 

Have just won 3rd Prize with this at The Buxton International

Festival and Book Weekend, Nov 24th, 2017…..

 

 

We’re Die Siebenschlafer – The Seven Sleepers;

the fat, Continental cousins let loose

on Tring, from a Rothschild menagerie.

(Yes, we broke out of his glilaria

and formed menages ad infinity.)

A Mad Hatter invited us to come,

but we were the wrong sort, right from the start.

 

Delicacies, we are quite edible,

not like those pink, or white sugar rodents,

but are establishing our own Empire,

while the Romans, who ate us, are long gone.

Those deep-fried insults are deep-dyed in us:

an elephant never forgets.  It’s said

that we mice are its closest relative.

 

 

We estivate and hibernate: that’s true.

And we sleep (dormir) hidden from your view –

remove your kitchen kickboards and you’ll see!

We appropriate the nests of others,

or a box some tit has tied to a tree.

We power nap under duvets till Spring.

Fermented fruit gives us a boozy snooze.

At three weeks, our offspring will see daylight.

We chuck them out before they’re a month old

and we don’t suffer empty nest syndrome.

 

If The Border Police catch us by the tails,

we slough them off and go back underground.

We furry refugees from Hungary

are hungry and upwardly mobile too,

aspiring to lifestyles arboreal.

 

We have no respect for native culture

and will gnaw away at your church candles.

This is immigration on a grand scale.

We can’t be stopped, as a Protected Species.

Invasion is just a fact of Nature.

The world will have a rude awakening.

Wachet auf!  Don’t drowse to your extinction,

for the meek/mouse may inherit the Earth.

 

 

 

Agnosticism by John Tatum

Tags

Agnosticism, blackbird song, cathedral towns, Philip Larkin, rectories

My third posting of poetry I like by other people.

Maybe a nod to Philip Larkin in this one?

 

It doesn’t come easy.

 

In spite of it all,

I can’t help pushing open

the doors of country churches;

shoving a coin or two

in the box on the wall,

paying twice over

for the leaflet I take.

 

It doesn’t come easy.

 

Wandering among gravestones

is irresistible;

departure is almost

impossible.    I delay

it over and over

to hear once more the song of the blackbird.

 

It doesn’t come easy.

 

As I race back

into the modern

rationalistic world,

I think of cathedral towns

and country rectories

and gentle rectors’ wives

arranging the flowers.

 

 

After Injury

Tags

compassion, healing, injury, labyrinth, miracles, Relationships, St Paul

Another poem that I liked- by Winifred Young. One of two I am

posting today (see previous post)

 

AFTER INJURY

 

Some miracles are slow:

white lilac each returning Spring

(whiter than all detergent claims);

healing of tissue- failing that,

the spirit’s adaptation, achievement of serenity;

faith’s slow gestation- many months or years,

a lifetime even;

(and who can know how long a labyrinth of thought

the Spirit threaded

that St Paul should see a sudden light?)

awareness of Your presence

– though always there.

 

How many miracles in soul or body

go without recognition?

the nerve that grows, the strengthened will,

better relationships,

developing compassion.

 

Some miracles don’t happen, but

miraculously,

there are alternatives.

Disclosure

Tags

encouragement, expectancy, kingfisher, prayer

today I am sharing a poem which I found on a postcard

at an Anglican Retreat Centre.  I have never forgotten its

sensitivity- and I have never yet seen the kingfisher, nor

the answer to some of my prayers.  Yet, I still hope.

 

DISCLOSURE by Ann Lewin

 

Prayer is like waiting for the

Kingfisher.  All you can do is

Be where he is likely to appear, and

Wait.

Often, nothing much happens;

There is space, silence and

Expectancy.

No visible sign, only the

Knowledge that he’s been there

And may come again

Seeing or not seeing cease to matter,

You have been prepared

But when you’ve almost stopped

Expecting it, a flash of brightness

Gives encouragement.

 

An Adventure in Support Hosiery

Tags

adultery, support hosiery

… an advertising endorsement on a cardboard tag attached to

a pair of new socks which someone I knew found in a desk drawer

in their new office (or should I have called it ‘brown study’)!

 

The next incumbent found them at the back

of a desk drawer: unopened; kept in case.

The trite endorsement on the cardboard pack

guaranteed every woman would chase

the sporter of these elasticated

brown socks.  So, why had they never been worn?

Maybe his blonde secretary hated

being recumbent if he kept them on;

maybe his wife bought him deodorised

versions; perhaps he required more support,

especially if said spouse had surmised

why he was late every night; caught short.

He had had to vacate his office and

forgot these. Brown was the colour of it,

she’d thought. We always try to understand

and bless their cotton socks that never fit.

And their over-stretched imagination

envisages that we’ll believe all lies.

 

Now The New Boss, with anticipation,

severs the link and finds they are One-Size.

 

Car Park Chaos

Tags

choka, flip the bird, Pillow Book

…based on the decription of a log jam of carriages in 10th

century Japan, in The Pillow Book!

After an event,

everyone wants to escape.

Some drivers push in;

some people give way, politely;

but others are rude

and drive right up your exhaust

when you leave the grounds

and exit onto the road.

Someone always overtakes

and may flip the bird

from the safety of their car.

They wouldn’t do this

in normal circumstances,

but are brave behind the wheel!

 

Too Darn Hot!

Tags

chaleur, choka, froideur, Iyo blind, Peeping Tom, Pillow, Seventh Month

In The Seventh Month,

it is stifling overnight.

Open lattices

alleviate the chaleur.

Any Peeping Tom

can lift up the Iyo blind.

An intuition

alerts me to a voyeur.

He attempts light flirtation;

is riled by froideur.

His ‘relationships’ short-lived,

make him think all girls

are relative push-overs.

I’m not, so I draw the blind.

Pearl Divers (Ama)

Tags

Ama, choka, decompression, oysters, pearl divers, redemption, umbilical cord

(Wikimedia Commons; Fg2 Ama Pearl Diver, 2005)

 

Women of the sea,

you took the world’s breath away!

You plumbed the sea floor,

in order to harvest pearls.

Your slim waist shackle

was an umbilical cord.

You wouldn’t reflect

on the endgame should it break.

You signalled by one small tug

decompression’s squeeze.

One find could buy redemption.

All this for beads to

wreath throats of those who believed

this planet was their oyster.