Biography

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I love reading others work too, and the work of the three Roberts, Burns, Frost and Service have been a major influence on me, as have the Irish writers Yeats, Colum and Moore.

I like to write old fashioned poetry... you know... the boring kind that rhymes!!! I write on all topics, from the current train of thought. Though not a great runner to church faith occurs as a subject a lot in what I write.

Championing the underdog is another strong theme of by poetry, from the Red Indian to the Roma, to the Scots and ourselves.

Samples

Burns loved the lasses, out with many he walked
How the parsons grumbled: how the people talked!
Condemned he was by parson and people, in pulpit and letter!
Shame on the ladies who walked out with a man like he!

The lad that loved the lasses scorned them all
Who he and his ladys as sinners they did call
And chided them for having nothing to do better!
Than annoy two of God creatures who in Love be!

Sinners at a Séance

They sat together round a table
As decent folk lay in bed
So that they might be able
To converse with the dead.
Spirits came, they told, when called
To cross the great divide
And others sat enthralled
As some spoke to loved ones who died.

Such by all faiths is forbidden
Called by all a sin
For Evil in the dark arts is hidden
But is found deep within
And the séance is a Trojan horse, a gift
And the should when in peace
Like a flea on a dog, ir lives a lift
And so to Evil gives release.

Thus inspired by spirits found
At such séances at night
Yeats, with pen and paper found
New inspiration for imaginations flight.
Why did not he do so as I
And other normal men
Take time out to see the sky
Or turn to church again?

The Holy Ghost is a spirit to seek
Its message is pure and true
The Word of God is what it does speak
Of its word you can be sure
Though not often, and in church twice as rare
My thoughts t such turn for a while
I find peace and inspiration in prayer
And start to write with a smile…

The Great Mc Gonagle!

Of awful verse he was the master,
Writing of the Tay Bridge disaster,
Stating Shakespeare the best wordsmith be,
In Britain to date, and second he,
No disrespect to Burns the Bard
No desire for a great name to be tarred,
He was second best Scottish son,
For north of the border, Mc Gonagle was number one!

On receiving inspiration divine
Pen he seized to write a line
Continued to write, such verse he penned:
Was to cause mirth until his end!
His first verse was to the Reverend Gilfillan, an address
Which was judged by same to be a poetic mess
Wryly the poets efforts the minister did dismiss
Stating "Shakespeare wrote nothing like this!"

His verse on theatre and street he read,
With laughter and derision he was met instead,
Of the respect he expected, while reading pompous
Clad in Kilt he caused quite a rumpus!
He tried once to America to go
But on its shores no-one did know
Found himself cut loose, culturally cast away
His homeward fare a kind stranger did pay

Once fifty miles or more he walked
To read verse to the queen: but when he talked
To the guardsmen at the gate
He was turned away in indignant state
To be poet laureate he said he wished to seek,
To be told that to try he had a cheek,
And he’d better move while still was free,
To go as he pleased all the way home to Dundee.

And them his finest hour came,
Or maybe his greatest composition of shame!
When the Tay Bridge collapsed in a gale
While upon it crossed a train by rail...
And to write upon it he was possessed
To read his words few were impressed
And his ode to the tragedy of the bridge of the Tay
Causes smiles to all to this very day.

Was he a fool... or just a bad poet
If he was a fool he seemed not to know it
Some say he was clever acted if on a stage,
As he commanded his audience as he read from his page.
Though they laughed and at him things threw,
That he brightened their day that much he knew
And how many writers who so serious could be
Will be long forgotten when remembered is he?

How many poets refuse to use rhyme
Mc Gonagle insisted to use it all the time
Unfortunately the pattern often fell out of place,
In the age of the Romantics that cast him from grace,
He was but a common man, at least he did try,
To be like him, none want to be including I,
But still to convention he was never a slave,
And to his emotions was never the knave

As I this verse write in his appalling style
I admire his bravery, smiling all the while,
Though great are his foes and his friends they are few,
To his art in his heart he tried to be true,
And those who read his words may mock and may grin
But to be a weaver and a poets no sin
And as I sit here more poetry to write,
May I be pure as heart as he as I scribble tonight!

First Ode to Wordsworth

Verses of Golden daffodils I’ve read
That waved in the varying wind around
That showed the beauty of the world
That in the sight he found.
Such verses of serenity,
Of ambience and of peace,
That he desired for the world,
And of global freedom were to cease...

And the champion of the underdog
The republican, and of those not free
Was to change in the blink of an eye,
To champion the system, empire and monarchy.

And bonny Wordsworth who with pen
Signed his works with name as "Will"
Changed to the more formal "William"
And wrote his name as such his death until...

What caused this change I do not know,
To find out is an impossible task,
But if to where he is on death I go,
The question to him I’ll surely ask!

*/ Early writings of Wordsworth were libertarian and reactionary in nature, full of the joys of life, to which he signed his name "Will Wordsworth".

However, a change in the tone and subject matter arrived in the second period of his life, and on these more socially standard works he wrote his name in the more formal "William Wordsworth", by which we know him today.

This poem is inspired by a "Readers Digest" article from 1970 that explores his work and asks why as to the change in the name and tone of works from Wordsworth.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.