Poetry Blog by M.C. Newberry

That day you said you couldn't stay

You told me love would make me pay

Now I remember every day

With love slip-slidin' away

I did my best - the best I could

Without much rest - you knew I would

But nothing worked - nothing came good

And love went slip-slidin' away

Together I thought we had it made

But day turns to night and all things fade

Just like the sun ...

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Poor old London...sad old place

Condemned to suffer a soiled face

From environmental egos come to visit,

Hardly a cause for welcome, is  it?

Like infants squealing for attention,

Desperate for a media mention,

Never mind if it's hardly unknown news...

Any excuse to virtuously abuse

The hopes of those in dire need

Of getting to hospital to be freed

Of pain an...

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If you must call yourself a poet

Then hadn't you better show it

By avoiding the trap of pretentious pap -

Or get "sussed" before you know it!.

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I remember Blighty before the EU;

Whatever the hardships we always pulled through.

Now I have this question (long overdue!)...

What happened to the country that those like me knew?

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 An engineer named John Logie Baird

Had a vision and was duly prepared

Among Sassenachs and Jocks

To put pictures in a box,

And in time the whole world sat and stared.

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 Strewth, they've chosen "Truth" as the subject for a poem

A challenge then, forsooth, and the chance to gaily show 'em.

But truth itself is malleable...a frequent victim of attrition

And if you don't believe me - just look up "politician".

One person's fact is another's fiction, so frequently the case,

And so many people practise both - and manage a straight face.

Perhaps when t...

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I'm writing this on a cold dark day,

With the sound of thunder out to play,

Reverberating around the nearby roofs

Like the stampede of ten thousand hoofs;

While its weeping relative - the rain...

Streams across the window pane

Washing away the city grime

Cleansing in its own good time

But this much I feel inclined to say:

I wouldn't have it any other way.

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In years to come they'll probably talk about when

Some MPs got together, led by someone called Benn,

To put into play a wheeze they had planned,

Designed to make the government go cap in hand =

To plead for more time from the supranational EU

So the latter could keep telling us what to do!  

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Thanks, Julia, for the vocal

IT'S A HEARTACHE THING (C)M.C. Newberry 2018/2019.

I thought that you'd come back to me when I saw you at the door

I thought that life was looking to be kind

But you told me you'd returned to take what I flung on the floor

You smiled your smile and hoped I didn't mind

It's a heartache thing to understand that you have gone for good

To realise ...

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Those who sought election into that famous place

Failed and still fail to see the positions that they embrace

In the rich repository of a nation's right and clear intent

To rule itself and not be deceived by what was never meant.

Temporary custodians of  Parliament - nothing more or less,

They take their power from the people, but you'd never guess

From the way they presume ...

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Have you ever seen an advert to bring you up short:

An invitation in plain English: " Old poets sought"?

If you have, I'll say bravo (and not be satirical)

To salute what is surely a literary miracle.

For no matter where you might be found

Scribbling at sea or with feet on the ground

Whether you be close by or maybe far-flung,

Poetry offers preference to those who are young.

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The occupants of Parliament now think it's a place they own,

Not understanding they're temporary custodians of what has slowly grown

Into the rich repository of a trusting nation's history,

That governs in the people's name (that's never been a mystery!).

Instead, without a mandate (that's  permission!) from the nation,

They signed away what wasn't theirs to foreign domination,

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Witnessing "we know best" in action

Brings the whiff of putrefaction,

Rotting in the rank rejection

Of the offer of a clean election;

With humble begging bowl in hand -

("We know best", you understand).

All of which (for me) enables

The need to cleanse those Augean stables.

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Jeepers Creepers - bless my peepers!

We're now a land of wimpy weepers...

Full of me-me and self-pity,

Everywhere you hear their ditty.

On song but often out of tune

It's painful when you hear them croon

Full of worry and concern:

Life's not fair, what about my turn?

I'm worth as much as anyone

So why do others have more fun

And cash to buy stuff I've not got...

Wh...

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Artistry and craft can take many forms,

But I can readily understand

The sheer skill and expertise required

To re-attach a man's severed hand.

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Is it really just chance that the description "needy"

Happens to chime with that other word "greedy"?

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If, armed with our forebears' fortitude, we steer

Our watchful way past Project Fear

Towards the light beyond the exit

Of the delayed departure point called Brexit,

With them in spirit, once more we'll fly

Across the welcoming world-wrapped sky.

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Come all you groaners - get in line...

To take your turn at the Shrine of Whine.

And take comfort that you're not alone

In your urgent need to have a moan.

Never before in the human story

(now a sort of Jackanory!)

Have people known the opportunity

To whinge and cuss with such impunity,

With the righteous feeling of self-pity

That assumes this life is sad and shitty,

...

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Is it really such a mysterious and incomprehensible credo

That we gravitate to those who look and think the same as we do?

And is it beyond rational thinking to pause and wonder whether

There's a reason for the old adage: birds of a feather flock together? 

Maybe it's steeped in history when the appearances of strangers

Could herald a threat that saw the onset of devastating dangers...

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Did you see that recent report from NASA?

My golly-gosh, it's certainly a gasser!

Plasma eruptions the size of Texas

Seem like a blow to the Earth's solar plexus!

Mind you, there are those who ignore the sun

And its massive effects on what's seen and done

On this planet of ours that relies on its presence,

Not least for its warmth and illuminescence.

For aeons it's existed ...

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There's one thing about poetry that's for sure,

Whatever the theme, it's been done before;

Except for stuff about modern inventions

(I''ll allow that these provide new mentions),

The stuff of love, hate and the rest

That poets like to get off their chest,

Have featured in poems of the past

Some of which will always last,

Because they skilfully touch the heart

In timeless...

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Be wary of the global media

It's run by power-seeking men

Who see themselves as king-makers

With a reach far beyond a mere pen.

The home of hysteria and hyperbole,

Banging drums of alarm and despair -

The source of maintaining confusion

In search of the very latest scare.

There''s a love of being game-changers...

Of keeping us all on our toes,

With alerts an...

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In my seventy sixth year I've seen a lot

And I've endured a lot for what I've got.

So did my parent's generation before,

And they taught me to grin when life was raw.

Loss and less were facts of life

For those who survived grievous strife;

But always hardy...always humble...

Captured in words like "musn't grumble".

No social security in existence...

They got by with graf...

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No place for any directive...

All poetry is subjective;

From varied sorts of pen and brain,

It changes form again and again,

And allows us to be selective.

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Personally, I find there's something strange

About the proponents of climate change -

Their outlook seems far from sunny;

Among their meteorological cares and scares

No 'hots' for sun spots or solar flares

And i think that's odd - stroke - funny!

In the winter of 1661, Samuel Pepys of diary fame

Wrote about weather conditions that came -

"Never was there such weather a...

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Civil servants exist in obscurity

Politicians are keen on security

And when embarrassment attends

To strain relations with friends

It tends to reveal immaturity!

(and for some an uncertain futurity!)

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Is it me just being perverse

But when I see or hear the word diverse

It brings on feelings of ennui

Where and when I happen to be

And the suspicion things'll get worse.

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An essay of the imagination.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdsom addresses the nation.

Good evening,

It is my decision, supported by my ministers and those of a similar mind within Parliament notwithstanding 

our oaths of allegiance to The Queen, her heirs and successors, to subordinate Her Majesty's role of Head of

State, together with Parliament itself to the unfluence and c...

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Farewell John McCririck - known to one and all as Big Mac,

A staple of TV's horse-racing until the moderns gave you the sack.

Your larger than life persona...the clown you pretended to be

Weren't thought to be what people wanted in this 21st PC century.

But your act gave racing a profile that it hadn't established before

And you were the punter's champion...giving  the bookies what-...

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Pausing high above the beach,

I watch the children out of reach,

Racing down the golden sand,

Leaping...laughing...hand in hand.

Children dancing in the sea

Remind me how I used to be,

Free from care and full of fun,

A happy boy beneath the sun.

Time goes by, yet time stands still,

And moment follows moment till

What is now once went before

And what is pa...

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Moving through life one thing features,

Simply that we're complex creatures.

What we are can be confusing

And subject to continual musing.

You'll hear it said again and again

That we are all things to all men.

Our lives are assorted books on their shelves..

If not true to each other, let's be true to ourselves.

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A refugee is a migrant

But a migrant is not necessarily a refugee;

Vigilance seems relevant

And correct use of words important to see.

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Is it goodbye to the Conservative Party?

Could it be that its day is done?

What used to be hale and hearty....

Going down like the late setting sun.

For too long it lost its direction

And lost trust it couldn't afford,

With no mandate and much genuflexion

It sent Parliament's power abroad.

Ever since it has paid for that action

And the trust is not yet regained...

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Life is a gratuity

An annual annuity

Not designed for perpetuity;

There's no incongruity

So avoid any vacuity...

Employ some acuity

And relish its fortuity! 

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Just read an online report of a teen sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for participating in street protests 

when he was a pre-teen.  Apparently Islamic Sharia Law allows that sort of thing there.  What price 

progress in the sandpits of the world?! 

If you want to get ahead

Don't go to to Saudi;

You'd probably lose it

If you were seen as rowdy

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When I read of all this travel

My patience soon starts to unravel;

People going here and there

(How do they come up with the fare?)

Taking with them their personal woe

That accompanies them wherever they go.

What is the cause of this endless procession

Of people transported by some obsession

To head to somewhere else beyond

The place they know and have a bond

Of famil...

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Seventy five years ago today, the Free World held its breath

While the forces of liberation headed into the jaws of death.

Many lost their lives that day, friends and strangers alike,

But what they achieved saw the fall of the "thousand year" Reich;

And written into history, what was done will always be told,

Never to fade in memory and never to grow old.

(6th June 2019)

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Phobia is just a fancy word for an often well-founded fear.

Arachnophobia comes to mind - self-protection very clear

But when phobia's applied to religion let's refer to its defenders

Mindful that it can be used to deflect from some agendas.

The latest demands we proscribe behaviour that questions a belief

That resents and resists in combative style and offers no relief

To the co...

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With another Day in mind

Those remaining said a tearful farewell to Doris;

And moving on along life's highway,

Remainers would bid a cheerful 'go to hell' to Boris!

(But Donald Trump has had his say

And would welcome BJ to the US of A)

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I blinked at the sight of her goodbye tears

As she turned her back on the watching eyes

And I readily recalled the dismissive sneers

Employed for another audience during her rise;

A great public service that questioned austerity

Fearful of the cost to what had to be done

Disdainfully dismissed with arrogant asperity;

No tears then...when she thought she had won;

But kept in...

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So - at last we've reached the day

When we know May is on her way;

She might complain of a poisoned chalice

But what chance of sympathy at the Palace -

Playing politics with the public fate

Of a much respected Head of State?

Repeatedly trotting to and fro

Doing her best to make a show

Of getting the EU to agree

To what they'd never intend to be...

The loss of UK membe...

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(Noting missing comments from blogs)

Well now, what is there to say

About observations that have gone away?

Comments on a blog to add to the content

Disappear from sight - whatever that act meant!

As if a magic wand has waved in rejection

Of what is remarked via some censored selection.

Abracadabra - vanished from view,

It wasn't by me...

So - was it by you?

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Lordy - how I resent religionists -

Brainwashed to believe

From kiddies with no understanding

To adults practising to deceive.;

They even murder for myth and stories!

From centuries past to present day,

With made-up stuff and imagined glories.

Their Once Upon A Time holds sway -

And religionists still kill - and pray!

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Hour by hour my eyes become blearier

At all the hyperbole and hysteria;

Frantic forecasts of harm

Arousing endless alarm

Sees me wishing to kick some posterior!

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So now we all know the royal baby's name,

But looking ahead I can anticipate blame

From the recipient of the moniker that's been selected

When he's that bit older and cruelly affected

By inheriting the hair loss of his uncle and dad

And jibes from his chums (and enemies) make him mad.

What hapless young man would relish being called

What seems very likely:  Archie the Bald!

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Day by day I grow wearier

Of hyperbole and hysteria,

Promoted in a media

That seems needier and greedier.

Every aggravation and alarm

That promises us harm

Is promoted with force

For our conviction of course.

Tell something often enough

And it becomes very tough

To know what is fact

Upon which we can act.

Real or rumour?

Each requires humour

To avoid going...

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I grew as a boy in an England still in sight

Of days when it could readily boast of its might,

But brought low in a desperate fight to be free

Bankrupt and in debt to our friends across the sea.

Nonetheless, the baby-boomers, as they became known

Took up the gauntlet that post-war world had thrown,

Rationing and the rest were accepted and endured

And slowly the disease of...

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We live with sickness despite moving on

Beyond the ignorance our ancestors looked upon

And accepted as being a part of the life

They lived - praying that they might evade the knife.

But even today with human knowledge increasing

By the hour...by the day - via research unceasing,

It makes me wonder if illness is like a sin

Caused by our folly - from without and within.

...

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How I loathe the fake familiarity

That infests the modern media,

The habit of using diminutives....

Appalling applications of acedia.

Next time a senior police officer is seen

Being interviewed about whatever,.....

Check his first name on the TV screen

It's a fair bet that it's never

The name that he was given at birth

But a baby name excursion -

As if they ...

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I am today's protester

Complying with the latest plan;

I use a spray to make my day

Spreading graffiti with aerosol can

And when I can't do it in their halls

I console myself with stuff on walls.

I block the free passage of the road

So workers can't get by

And push the police to "overload"

So that they barely try

To enforce the laws that have been made

To keep...

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