Revelation

Humans gaze upon the sky
expecting rescue from on high;
rather look within and find
our secret strength is humankind.

 

 

image: Twitter

inspiration: Hero from
https://randomwordgenerator.com

make it new

My latest visit to https://randomwordgenerator.com/ threw up the word correspondence …

coming thick and fast
our troubles
rising tides
reducing hopes
experts giving ground to prophets
sifting sand like tin-pot
popes
only one idea can save us
never tried though often thought
ditch the itch of acquisition
each true value can't be bought
novelty resides in nuance
cheap as chips and free to all 
every priceless insight yours to call
 

once upon a time

Here’s another little poem, courtesy of https://randomwordgenerator.com/ – the word I got was restless …

round the world in
eighty hours
speed the essence
time the prize
left behind our
easy livings
slow progressions
simple skies

frothy friday

a surf-riding blogger called dave
wrote a post on the crest of a wave
he was cool he was hip
but his mood took a dip
when he found he’d forgotten to save

 image: surfer.com

Storm in a Teacup

'The time has come,' the Blogger said,
      'To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
      Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
      And whether pigs have wings.'

'But wait a bit,' the Reader cried,
      'Before you start your post,
Consider customer fatigue
      Where some give up the ghost
Whenever folk go rambling on
       With length their only boast.'

'Let's talk instead,' the Blogger said,
      'Of what you really need:
The benefit of minds like mine
      Is very fine indeed —
Now if you're ready, Reader dear,
      You can begin to feed.'

'But not on you!' the Reader cried,
      Turning a little blue.
'To wade through half-baked tripe would be
      A dismal thing to do!'
'It's tit for tat,' the Blogger said,
      'If I unfollow you!'

'Please yourself,' the Reader shrugged,
       'It's all the same to me.'
But deep inside, well, something cried:
       A blogger's heart, you see,
While over in the Blogger dwelt
       A reader's sympathy.

'It seems a shame,' the Blogger said,
      'To play this spiteful game,
When mutual support so far
       Has been our climbing frame.'
The Reader, oh, said nothing but
       Was thinking just the same!                       
  
  
                  with apologies to Lewis Carroll

Image: en.wikipedia.org

Tree Story

After an enjoyable school-reunion lunch the other day, I was making my way back to the mainline station on a London Underground train. It suddenly struck me there was plenty of time before the mainline train was due to depart and, on a whim, I got off the tube-train near a large park where I used to play as a young child.

I hadn’t been back in 60 years and the wild, overgrown place I remembered was no more. Streams we used to dam were culverted or piped underground, rough meadows had become manicured sports pitches, sheep or cattle paths turned into tarmacked walkways and the wonderful trees we loved to climb – yes, you guessed it – all long gone!

Back home and continuing my rummage through old papers, I unearthed a draft poem that seems to fit my faint feeling of hollow disappointment. I present it here unedited. The form involves repeating end-of-line words in every verse and adding an envoi – perhaps someone reading will know if this has a name.

 

Last Refuge

When you were younger every tree
Was yours to climb right to the top
Where all alone you’d view the world
As if she was a brand-new place –
Her secrets open to your sight
With nothing there for you to fear

But as you climbed so grew your fear
That you began to hate the tree
You really couldn’t bear the sight
That lay below so watched the top
As if there was no other place
You’d rather be in all the world

You told yourself the whole wide world
Was greater far than any fear
For up above there was a place
A gift to all who climbed the tree
And dared to reach the very top
Which opened up its secret sight

It made you gasp that sudden sight
So deep and far into the world
A bird’s-eye vision from the top
For now you’d flown beyond your fear
As if you had become the tree
And found you somehow owned the place

You never since have left that place
Nor lost one detail of the sight
If foresters have felled the tree
It still lives on within your world
And death for you is not a fear
While you are still there at the top

So still – still at the very top –
That time runs backwards to the place
Where there was not a gust of fear
So far and wide and deep your sight
For you had there become the world
And all because you climbed a tree

Envoi

Your new world more than just a place
Where each new sight gives rise to fear
When down you came from the tall tree top

 

Dave Kingsbury (2013)

 

 

Image: The Crichton Street Gallery

Unfinished Business

Another find from my folders, this sonnet – thanks to young people around the world – isn’t yet history!

Once upon a time we wandered wild
And free to choose from nature’s mighty store –
But all too soon, alas, we were beguiled
By dreams of staying put and having more.
As seedbanks swelled, our heads began to fill
With visions of a life spent free of toil –
The clink of gold and silver in the till,
The clash of bronze and iron, the glug of oil.
We built ourselves a glass and concrete prison
And spread consumer culture round the world –
With economic growth our only mission,
The planet warmed and giant oceans boiled.
Our story ends where history began –
A choice to make, if make it still we can.

October 2012

 

 

Image: Financial Times