Let there be

Let there be clouds

Let there be rain

Let there be sunshine

Let there be hail

Let there be wind

In your sails

Let there be smiles

Let there be jokes

Let there be laughter

Let there be song

All day long

Most of all

Let there be us.

On twelfth night

Shrouded in tissue paper

Buried in the box

The fairy had been unable

To cast her spell

This time

Her dress was off white

Her shoes were still

Tied tight

Her wand was warped

By Christmas, or sun, light

So she is reinterred

For yet another year

Along with the baubles

Stars and reindeer.

Tanka#1

Now that you have gone

The ground no longer shows my

Imprint underfoot

Too much for the earth to bear

 It lies frozen forever

AFirst day back at school

It was Harry’s  first day back

At his new school

How did it go?

I asked

“Fine”

 came the reply

A boredsigh accompanying this  demanding  task

He said fine in the insouciant,

 disinterested manner

Of a Foreign Secretary

 Being given  an Afghanistan security briefing.

And for once, I experienced an emotion I rarely feel

Jealousy.

I want a  stiff shirt that will soften with dozens of washes

I want to believe that nothing matters because today is just another day

I want a new locker, new loos, new smells

I don’t want to know where everything is

I want to have to look for it.

I want  squeaky new shoes, and bright white  new trainers

I want to throw out the old, the worn out,scuffed and scruffy, into a charity bag

( for someone else to take to the shop)

I want a new haircut that doesn’t reveal more grey

I want a new desk with a different view

I want new friends

With my enemies moved out somewhere else

I don’t want my next new friends to be in a care home

Or whist drive

Or poetry club, or pub

I want a new pencil case that I can stick stickers on

 I want a new sports bag with equipment for

Sports I haven’t even tried yet

I want new people to tell about my summer holidays

Not post about it on facebook to people who don’t care how I fare,

I want to put behind me all the stupid things I did and said before

I want to be better, and different

And I want that chance every year

I want to learn new subjects

Russian,compter programming and economics

Well maybe not economics, anyone can make a mess of that

And I want fresh new, unused exercise books, and a new pen

And a pack of coloured pencils

And a new Coat peg that I can write my name on

Not, Gary, I’m bored with that, Sparky perhaps, maybe it will catch on?

I want butterflies in my tummy

And less tummy

It simply isn’t fair that when you are young you get a fresh start every year

Then when you are in your twenties you get stuck with the same timetable

I want a new timetable, while I am still able

But without the homework

“Sur le volcan ne pousse pas l’herbe” (Grass does not grow on a volcano).

Holiday Bound

Lovingly held in a chrome cradle

Of stainless steel

Suitcases strapped and snapped shut

Windbreak poles nestle in empty spaces

 Stowaways lying side by side

Padded by buckets, towels  and spades

A stepladder provides the vantage point

For heavy polythene wrap

And elastic webbing pulled taut

Wrapped like a parcel

Tucked in like an envelope

To avoid flapping wrapping

And an emergency stop

Its angular profile bludgeoning the air stream

Buffeting a  familiar regular rhythm

Flap slap, flap slap, flap slap

Only Dad was up to this task

And mum  does not dare tell him what she

Had forgotten to pack

Fully laden now

A lumbering pack mule

Challenged by the most modest of hills

Each one of which

we approached in silent prayer

Sliding from side to side

on the plastic back seat

Are we there yet?

The matryoshka doll

It was tight to twist

 vaguely fragile

Perhaps her name was Svetlana

Wearing the dust as an extra layer

Each sharp turn revealing a hidden frame.

Evacuation

They landed and left like  butterflies with tired feet

The singer

She sang in f minor

G sharp

And b flat

Still the door would not open

It was the wrong key

The Keys

It is all in the alignment of the teeth

Jagged, perfectly shaped

Angular, irregular

But each step 

In place, in space, in face.

When recess and teeth meet

It swivels, neat

What you see

Is perfect symmetry

open or shut,

 no ifs or buts

Moorlands Cinquaines

Werrington

Sans sails

Home to Home  Guard

Windmill without an H

Once to be found in Wherrington

No more

Corn mill

 Four pairs of  stones

A  century alone

Then grinding out coal briquettes

Jet black

Millstone

Marks dead man’s grave

Scene of murder most foul

On draw well lane, four foot nine tall

Unsolved.

Wetley

Moor glowers down

Purple heather gathers

Around the sandstone blasted  bluffs

Dank peat

 

Fresh spring

Washerwall lane

Carts came from miles around

 Ha’penny a bucket

fair price

Butterton

good grass

Sulphurous spring

Silent scourge of scurvy

Inland waterway broached by ford

Hoo brook

Perched high

Ecton hillside

Gleaming copper topped roof

Parliamentarian seat, the

Hillocks

Longnor

Burned for

Poaching Kings deer

Twixt manifold and Dove

Blakemere pond straddling above

Beyond

Tean

Heath House

Gothic splendour

Joining the east to west

Upper and lower together

As one

Tape mill

thin strips tight binds

Finishing and fixing

Local hands, worldwide reach, powered

By steam

Marks dead man’s grave

Scene of murder most foul

On draw well lane, four foot nine tall

Unsolved.

Wetley

Moor glowers down

Purple heather gathers

Around the sandstone blasted  bluffs

Dank peat

Fresh spring

 Washerwall lane

Carts came from miles around

 Ha’penny a bucket

fair price

Butterton

Good grass

Sulphurous spring

Silent scourge of scurvy

Inland waterway broached by ford

Hoo brook

Perched high

Ecton hillside

Gleaming copper topped roof

Parliamentarian seat, the

Hillocks

Longnor

Burned for

Poaching King’s deer

Twixt manifold and Dove

Blakemere pond straddling above

Beyond

Tean

Heath House

Gothic splendour

Joining the east to west

Upper and lower together

As one

Tape mill

Thin strips tight binds

Finishing and fixing

Local hands worldwide reach, powered

By steam

Caverswall

Sprung up

The square’s stocks wait

Leafy imprisonment

its castle is still embraced by

The moat

Werrington

Sans sails

Home to Home  Guard

Windmill without an H

Once to be found in Wherrington

No more

Froghall

Rolled  out

Copper connects

Across watery oceans

With spitfire  skies along the Old

Coal Road.

Biddulph

Pit side

Once Bradley Green

Between Mow Cop and Moor

Railways and canal shook hands at

Small Dock

Stockton brook

 Daveys

Bore pumping load

Stockton brook for Brown edge

Caldon canal’s summit level

Head down

b

Tean 2

Tape mill

Thin strips tight binds

Finishing and fixing

Local hands worldwide reach, powered

By steam

Longnor

Burned for

Poaching King’s deer

Twixt manifold and Dove

Blakemere pond straddling above

Beyond

Leek

Queen

Of the moorlands

Our skill assisting us,

Means we have no cause for despair.

Silk Rd.

Butterton1

Good grass

Sulphurous spring

Silent scourge of scurvy

Inland waterway broached by ford

Hoo brook

Butterton 2

Perched high

Ecton hillside

Gleaming copper topped roof

Parliamentarian seat, the

Hillocks

Butterton 3[

Aloft

Doubly thankful

Brushed by the hand of God

Yet spared by world wars ravages

Untouched

L’horloge Parlante va disparaitre  le 1er Julliet 2022

France is not a place to feel rushed

There is always time

For a glass of fine wine.

For a baguette

For moules mariniere

A fine sancerre

A place where time runs amock

No need for a hovering speaking clock

But no more that mechanical spoken chant

C’est l’heure de la fin pour l’horloge parlante

The autumnal leaf

It is time to let go

I have been clinging on

For too long

The desperation of holding on

Is released, gone

Only gravity

Controls my destiny

I release my grip

Pseudoscientific hieroglyphics

They enquired in wonder

At the ancient Tome

A 21^st century Rosetta Stone

Strange animals

Strange figures

Strange Artefaccts

Modern ephemera , modern knick knacks

Not long lost hieroglyphics

Instead pseudoscientifics

Cartoons

They are us

Magnified and amplified

Faster, stronger, quicker, wiser

A supersizer

Of life

Our limitations fewer

In glorious sketched out caricature

Comic strip

Pow

Kapow

Wow

Biff

Baff

Boff

Howl

Yowl

Growl

Crash

Smash

 Bash

Bam

Bang

Clang

Smack

Zap

Crack

Not made by us, made by them

The sound of  crazy comic book mayhem