To a Mother, from her Son.
So, here we are again,
In fevered, restless dreams,
Burying my mother, again.
How many times must I lie,
Laying the poor old girl to rest.
Anyway, it was all for the best.
And she was ninety-five, you know.
She didn’t have long, or far, to go.
So, here we are again,
In the cemetery of dreams,
Laying my poor old mum to rest.
************
And we...
Tuesday 13th August 2024 11:00 am
On This Day
I celebrate this day alone; no one knows.
Quiet moments of solemn reflection,
A candle or two, some genuflection.
No one else knows that I revere this day.
In anonymous, silent celebration.
This day, the fifteenth of May.
Twenty years ago, at a place in the past,
We shared a meal, well away from the crowd.
“It may be therapeutic!” ...
Sunday 14th January 2024 7:45 pm
Viva La Vida
Greetings from Menton!
A town emerges, gently, house by house,
Out of my misty morning memory.
Terracotta rooftops naively painted,
Against the feeling of a bright blue sky,
Where outbound and incoming tourists fly.
Menton, where pale consumptives came to die,
Entombed in the hill-top cemetery,
Where, out of breath, I decided to sit,
By William Webb Ellis who, ...
Wednesday 27th September 2023 12:23 pm
Broken Biscuit Company
My five-year-old grandson, William,
Has a fine way with words, it seems.
He knows how to create a sensation,
He knows how to go to extremes.
Today, he put his ‘grandad biscuit’,
Into the pocket of his jeans.
‘,
Later, the crumbs were all over the car!
I was driving a mobile crumb machine!
“My biscuit literally exploded, grandad,
Like nothing you have ever seen!
The...
Saturday 16th September 2023 12:58 pm
Lambs to the Slaughter
Thank you for the birthday golf balls, Adam and Scarlett.
Sorry they are all lost!
Ripped away from their cardboard womb,
Shimmering, naked, on the kitchen table,
Pristine, proud, and blindingly new,
They shake off their naïve foetal slumber,
Rolling off their shiny wooden green,
Onto the rough of the kitchen floor.
Like soldiers from the First World War,
Quick...
Friday 1st September 2023 10:50 am
From a glint in your eye
It began as a sparkle, a mere glint of the eye,
Rolling down your cheek, with a hint of emotion,
A misty water vapour, from cloud in your sky,
Filling broad streams in those mountains up high.
On a fast, rolling river, surging deep and wide,
I cascade, uncontrolled, on a white-water ride,
At the mercy of rocks on the Severn Bore tide,
I hurtle past speedboats on this rive...
Monday 28th August 2023 10:20 am
The Calder Valley
I search across this ancient valley,
Through the mists of time to a distant shore,
Counting the scars of industrial toil,
Of abandoned mills not needed anymore.
This land was carved out in the Ice Age,
With huge rocky boulders at its core.
So, what we often call our heritage,
Was erected by insects, just like me,
And lasted just a mere pinprick of time;
An acne grow...
Sunday 13th August 2023 10:25 pm
This Train...
This train bisects the landscape,
Between the ebbing land and the flowing sea.
This train is belching gouts of steam,
Hurtling onwards to the edge of my dreams.
This train is flying through the dark night,
Leaving oblivion in search of the light.
This train is chugging through tall forest pines,
The sunshine is dappled and the air smells fine.
This train has closed car...
Tuesday 1st August 2023 11:50 am
Away with Words
Hi Everyone,
I have produced my third collection of poetry, 'Away with Words,' I can't seem to stop!
It's available on Amazon for £7.99 paperback, £2 on Kindle.
As with the first two, all proceeds go to the Teenage Cancer Trust.
If you buy it, I hope you enjoy it. It is my masterpiece!
The picture captures the River Derwent in Malton, just next to the bus station.
With love to...
Monday 31st July 2023 9:34 am
Juju
Nine months old, sat safely on the floor,
She doesn’t need holding anymore.
We have video called to see how Juju’s grown.
Juliet sits blinking into daddy’s phone.
You can see her thinking, ‘Who are these two then?’
They seem to like it when I clap my hands.
I will treat them to it once again.
I will gurgle cutely and then say, ‘Wow!’
I have e...
Friday 28th July 2023 9:51 am
Burley Road
As a student I sought accommodation,
To fight Yorkshire winters on my own,
A vital part of my education,
Apt preparation for what life has shown:
A two up, two down on Burley Road.
Back-to-backs in tight formation,
In narrow streets deprived of light,
Where desperate families in a constant fight,
Showed cobble-stoned determination,
Selling their souls just to make e...
Saturday 22nd July 2023 6:24 am
The Diving Tree
Uprooted by a passing storm,
Like a diving swimmer his limbs stretch out,
Capturing the very moment, in perpetuity,
When he perfected his final plop.
He part-straddles now the Rochdale Canal, in limbo,
As his arms are pinioned by slime and mud.
There was nowhere else for the tree to go,
An original oak escaping the wood,
And someone has lopped his head right off!
This tr...
Saturday 15th July 2023 9:06 pm
July
July entered with hurricane ferocity,
Blowing our front door right in,
Smashing open the letterbox,
With ricocheting echoes
Throughout the house.
Like a truculent teenager,
July slammed the bedroom door,
And broke a flower vase,
With her clumsy paws,
Before hurling the garden chairs
Hither and thither, everywhere,
Whilst sighing heavy raindrops
Upon our soggy l...
Thursday 6th July 2023 8:40 am
My Mother Said
Mother told me never to snore,
And not to raid the biscuit jar.
Yet more advice which didn’t get far.
She said, “I can’t raise you anymore.
Take problems to your girlfriend’s door!”
“A tuppenny pie,” my mother said,
“Always costs fourpence once you’re wed!”
She said, “When the bills come in,
Just stay in your bed!
And if bailiffs arrive, say ‘Do your worst!’
Mak...
Monday 3rd July 2023 11:49 am
Ashes to ashes
The baggy green caps
Have now changed their feet around,
So we have no chance!
Saturday 1st July 2023 9:15 am
A Bed of Roses
After Vernon Scannell
Learning to walk, begets learning to ride.
It was high time five-year-old William tried
to test out his bike on our back lawn,
Where the grass is soft, the terrain is flat.
What can go wrong in a garden like that?
Steady at first, William lost control,
Careering wildly to the flower bed,
Towards the blossoming scarlet roses
Where chi...
Tuesday 27th June 2023 7:45 pm
The Man I Am
After Vernon Scannell
Every day demands a new persona.
A different man is putting on my clothes.
Mister Grumpy in his grey pullover,
Who’s determined to tell you what he loathes.
A gentle carer awakes next morning,
Swiftly attending his relatives’ needs,
Helpfully heeding anxious warnings,
Nurturing all of his precious fresh seeds.
The libertine waste...
Sunday 25th June 2023 6:52 pm
A Pocket Full of Rhyme
We like to revisit nursery rhymes,
The rise and fall of a steady beat,
Redolent of much simpler times,
And the pitter patter of tiny feet.
When dad sang those rhymes to me
As I was perched upon his knee,
My induction into life’s poetry,
I imbibed their rhythms and cadence.
‘Oh, the grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.’
“I’m making pee-pee, Grandad!”
...Friday 23rd June 2023 12:05 pm
The March
They trained us all in tinpot barracks,
In due preparation for the fight,
The Protestants stationed on the left,
Catholics stuck out on the right.
On all our lives they would legislate,
Who to love and who to hate,
What to say and when to pray,
When to answer in the affirmative
And, definitely, when to say nay!
They marched us off to the battle of life,
Sha...
Tuesday 20th June 2023 11:59 am
The Last Dance
The sun shone bright, the air was still,
The day was ours; the wine was chilled.
So, we took a walk to enjoy our life.
“It’s great to have feelings for a woman,”
I observed,
“And to know that woman is your wife.”
Strangely, living brought thoughts of dying,
As we sat on Ting Taylor’s rickety bench,
Where we shared a salty tear or two,
And expressed our love for each...
Sunday 18th June 2023 10:57 am
The Fake Moustache
My grandson, William, had a huge surprise,
When he heard a knock and answered the door,
To Luigi from the Mario Brothers
William couldn’t quite believe his eyes,
Until his grandad’s moustache fell off,
Ruining Luigi’s shallow disguise.
His face had frozen; time had stood still.
Fantasy had fused with reality, momentarily.
“This is grandad’s outfit, Will,
Ready for y...
Thursday 15th June 2023 11:26 am
Hacienda Time
You slip old worries in your pocket,
as you take that road, sublime,
dodging crowds inside the Market Place,
because you want to take your time.
There’s a sunset over Charleston,
and the air is mighty fine.
There is nothing to get back for,
so, you stop by for some wine!
This is happiness on a hillside,
breathing in geraniums,
combined with columbine.
It’s a s...
Tuesday 13th June 2023 10:21 am
The Reluctant Reader Returns
This time it’s personal.
Books are a beautiful adornment,
To brighten any living room,
Hinting at breeding, adding some charm,
By showing off one’s Austens in full bloom.
Books do make ideal coasters,
On which to rest one’s mugs of tea,
Gifts for birthdays, and for Christmas,
But please don’t give one to me!
I am The Reluctant Reader,
A retired English teac...
Wednesday 7th June 2023 6:26 am
Reluctant Reader
My attic, garage, and rooms housing beds,
Are stuffed to the rafters with colourful books:
Impressive and ancient, hard-backed, sublime,
In pristine condition but mostly unread.
I sneak past them all, with furtive looks,
Avoiding their bitter, silent resentment.
Tonight, I will go straight to sleep, instead.
These Classic works of English fiction,
These Masterpieces of...
Monday 5th June 2023 12:45 pm
Pop Gun
He stands stock still and holds the barrel straight.
“Say, don’t shoot!” he orders, looking at me,
Locating his target, unblinkingly.
He allows for distance, speed, trajectory.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” I cry.
“I’m grandad, I don’t want to die!”
He laughs and fires straight at me.
“You little rotter, you have hit my head,”
William laughed, yet again,
And turn...
Friday 2nd June 2023 11:19 am
The Escape Committee
At the inaugural meeting
Of my mother’s Care Home
One-Day Escape Committee,
Just two stragglers gathered,
At a sun-drenched table
Outside the Old Lodge,
With a coffee and a chocolate cake,
Pure brown nectar and some sugary stodge!
We’d escaped the Community Lounge malaise!
Item One: Inordinate praise.
“Mum, you’re amazing! I’m so proud of you!”
This wasn’t e...
Tuesday 30th May 2023 12:15 pm
Healing
A butterfly, pinioned to a wheel,
Helplessly hankers for the sky up above.
We, too, are governed by the pain we feel,
When banished from the world of love.
Unhappy bodies don’t heal.
Dark minds conceive of plots all around,
Conspiracies lie thick on the ground,
We’re tormented by all the secrets concealed.
Ulcers fester when blood won’t congeal.
Unhappy bodies don’t...
Sunday 28th May 2023 8:18 am
Sky
Where, oh, where does the sky begin?
It is as hard to define as ‘success,’ or ‘sin!’
These abstract nouns do my head right in!
Maybe the sky starts next to the ground,
Maybe I’ve been wandering around,
For so very many years
With my head in the clouds…
Where, oh, where does love begin?
And when, or where, does it end?
Is it a word to apply when I need a friend?
L...
Thursday 25th May 2023 2:35 pm
The Bottom Line
Euro bosses and the Premier League
Have prostituted the game we love
To watch on the BBC and Sky TV,
Collapsed on the sofa with footie fatigue.
As our goalie dons his sponsored gloves,
They switch us to adverts from Bet 365,
“What are the odds, now, that Leeds will survive?”
What price will be paid for Leeds going down,
In gate receipts and player recruitment?
...
Wednesday 24th May 2023 8:06 am
First Love
Let me take you back to ’74,
Showaddywaddy, Mud, and ‘Tiger Feet,’
When love came knocking on my door,
From the kindest girl one could ever meet.
We walked to the bus stop, hand in hand,
And I kissed her, sweetly, as we said goodnight!
I felt completeness, ‘Under the Moon of Love,’
And all my world felt good and right.
Responsibility overwhelmed my nascent soul!
...Monday 22nd May 2023 6:19 pm
The Garden
Every garden needs a journey,
I have heard it said.
So, I lugged my paving slabs,
Zigzagging them, crazily, across the lawn,
Placing them carefully so as to coincide
With where the grass was unevenly worn.
I’m not Alan Titchmarsh,
But I could always pretend,
As I lay those flagstones, step by step,
Towards the rockery at journey’s end.
Every life should have a ...
Saturday 20th May 2023 7:40 pm
Consumer Rights
We plunder the earth,
For all it is worth
For our twenty seventh new
Pair of shoes, to sit unused,
Upon the rack.
They don’t really fit,
But we can’t take them back.
Put it on the plastic, dear.
Never fear. We can afford to pay,
Starvation wages
To foreign workers we will never see,
Who put guinea pigs in cages,
Before they eat them for their tea.
I...
Thursday 18th May 2023 6:50 am
Hickleton Main
I stand upon this tree-lined hilltop,
The view is fine, it’s picturesque.
The air is clear, if rather cold,
I think of myself as Newtonesque,
Standing, not on the shoulders of giants,
But on a century of a miner’s spoils,
Overlaid with some garden soil.
This was a coal mine, a generation ago,
Covered up, like a battered wife’s bruise,
And handed back to Nature’s charms,
...Monday 15th May 2023 10:58 am
Mr Plague
Mr Plague began his European Tour,
With intriguing new places to explore,
Reaching the town of Stratford
In the Summer of 1564.
Three hundred were killed, in no time at all.
The town was laid low, in dire dejection.
No one knew where his axe might fall.
Doctors were helpless. They couldn’t do more,
So fearful were they of this dread infection!
Should we castiga...
Friday 12th May 2023 7:27 pm
The Dance of Life
I have always known that May Poles existed.
Obviously, I knew that they were a ‘thing,’
that hippies happily danced around them,
whilst twirling bits of coloured string,
but I never understood a May Pole’s majesty,
until the coronation of the king.
At first, the lines were jumbled about,
Criss-crossing, into a hopeless mess,
Until a signal came to ‘work it out,’
Th...
Monday 8th May 2023 8:38 pm
Early Morning Quietude
In the early morning quietude,
When the light bleeds into the dark,
Cogs whirr and rusty batteries spark,
As I strike a poetic attitude!
Ah, the gentle hum of central heating!
The warmth of neurones connecting,
Sending the blood back to my brain,
Ideas splutter, retreat, reformulate,
Released, again, into my mind.
Words, fermenting for a lifetime,
Which bottle wi...
Friday 5th May 2023 8:22 am
A Chance Meeting
I went to The Wentworth with my dear, old mum,
a treat for surviving the lockdown in her flat.
We sat in the corner, well away from the draft.
A man at the bar was staring at me.
He was stocky, not tall, but his look was hard,
And his attitude was surly, which put me on guard!
Was this a throwback to my reckless youth?
Was I about to face the moment of truth?
My nervou...
Tuesday 2nd May 2023 8:47 am
Into the woods
Taking a path, I'd seldom trod,
stumbling over rocks and logs,
a clumsy sod.
Wandering lonely, no way through,
exits barred by swollen streams,
and fallen yews.
Plagued by frustration and by doubt,
seeking solutions in a pathless wood,
with no way out.
I looked to the sky to see what to do,
Beseeching heaven, as the woods closed in,
and I didn't have...
Monday 24th April 2023 2:50 pm
Diminishing Scales
Two figures are cresting the distant hill,
Edging, ant-like, to the top of the pike,
Leading a long line of intrepid ants,
On a futile climb to a pointless summit!
Yearning, striving, that’s what ants are like!
Without doubt they will glance down to the right,
Viewing my own house with a wan, wry smile.
Such small, ant-people seem to live down there,
Tiny, tedio...
Saturday 22nd April 2023 6:51 pm
Rites of Passage
At weddings and funerals, a whole raft
of feelings are borrowed or assumed,
to conform with the prevailing winds.
Joy and sadness require different kinds,
of studied poses and adopted attitudes,
before the alcohol can be consumed.
My emotions are prudently overlaid,
corresponding to the needs of the time.
I search inside for the right response,
adopting the style to...
Wednesday 19th April 2023 5:11 pm
The Dare Devil Poet
My grandson, who is four, called me “bold” today,
I was honoured and flattered, I have to say.
I thought of myself as a hero, up for the fight,
Noble and fearless, defending all that is right.
Courageously confronting trouble and strife!
And William knows me well enough,
He’s known me all his life!
“I said bald, grandad, I didn’t mean ‘bold!
It is what happens to men w...
Monday 17th April 2023 11:34 am
Passing Thoughts
I approached a cortege on the churchyard road,
a sombre-eyed crew in navy and black.
I hesitated. What was the form here?
Did I have to turn back?
I pressed on, regardless. I had pressing jobs to do.
So, I overtook the hard-faced retinue,
who had firmly fastened their iron masks,
maintaining the appropriate demeanour,
learned from the mountains of books and art.
Eve...
Thursday 13th April 2023 10:22 am
Wild Strawberries
In the unexpected, blessed sunshine of Spring,
I found myself, unexpectedly, weeding,
at the top of our grimly Wintered Garden.
Was I dreaming? I opened, wide, my eyes.
The garden, too, seemed to share my surprise.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
"You didn’t bother last year, dear,
or much, indeed, the year before!”
I blanked the garden as I thought her rude!
I don...
Monday 10th April 2023 9:40 am
At Water's Edge
I sat down beside my sunlit grandson,
gazing down into the sparkling lake,
whilst he randomly added twigs and leaves,
to the debris wrought by Winter’s floods.
One crinkled old leaf, a veiny old chap,
took my eye beneath the gloom,
buried, as he was, in a watery tomb.
How had he arrived at this soggy end?
Which currents or breezes had brought him here?
What fate ha...
Wednesday 5th April 2023 12:57 pm
The Flat
These rooms are cleaner, tidier now,
Shorn of their clutter, anyhow.
Mum’s flat echoes, to my heavy tread,
as I pace to the beat of an empty drum,
gathering mem’ries of my dear old mum.
I lean across her dining table,
To eat some food, where she last fed.
Her chair is empty, but still bears the scars,
The detritus of her toast and jam.
faint vestiges of mum’s cu...
Tuesday 7th March 2023 9:47 am
The A64 Blues
I got the driving back to Malton,
On the endless A64 blues!
I can’t listen to the radio,
I don’t want to hear the news!
All the dire warnings
And all the tedious queues!
I got the driving back to Malton,
On the endless A64 blues!
Stuck behind some tractors,
And a mobile port-a-loo,
I’ve missed yet another meeting,
This is a right fine how-do-do!
I got the ...
Thursday 23rd February 2023 10:03 am
All Roads Lead to Malton
Ohnoitshimagain!
Hi All
I have produced a second collection of poetry. This time it's my life story in poetry, 'All Roads lead to Malton:
Poetry, to remember.' (it's better than it sounds!)
It's available on Amazon:
All proceeds go to the Teenage Cancer Trust and it's only £6.99.
Thanks go to everyone who bought 'Released on Licence.'
...Sunday 5th February 2023 5:23 pm
Capital Punishment
A bus conductor, based in Texas,
Was sentenced to the electric chair,
For throwing old ladies off the bus.
His aim was notoriety.
His infamy was established, thus.
Now, not all states still have the Chair,
But Texas keeps that 'facility' there,
So, Harry was considered unlucky.
But, then again, not nearly as unlucky,
As the poor old ladies, he threw off the bus!
...
Thursday 19th January 2023 11:40 am
Winter, 1963
It was the dawning of an Ice Age,
The Winter of 1963,
An eerie silence, an uneasy calm,
We were all cut adrift on Malton Road,
No cars were moving in, or out.
We clapped our hands to keep them warm
And wore our coats inside the house.
I fashioned a path through the frozen snow,
A fearless youngster, with nerves of steel,
Digging on, with snow above my head,
...
Monday 16th January 2023 1:41 pm
Comfort me with Green
I need my father and my brother back,
Their sins and crimes I will overlook!
I just need my family nearer to me,
To provide more material for another book.
Let’s drink, once more from the loving cup!
Let’s toast “The Family!” with dry champagne!
(I just hope Wills doesn’t beat me up,
Or throw me out when he starts to reign!)
I do have a beautiful actor-wife,
An...
Sunday 15th January 2023 2:00 pm
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