Lent Challenge Week one

Wednesday Feb 18^th

St Albans

The market buzzes

Haggling and deals vie where once

Swords clashed in battle.

Thursday Feb 19th

Shrug, turn away, leave;

Is saying thank you so hard?

Frost instead of warmth.

Friday Feb 20th

Old routes, known buildings

Nostalgia has a hard edge

Struggle balances joy.

Sat Feb 21st

"Your phone's ringing"

Everything stops

Conversation,

Awareness, all,

It's demand must be met,

Sharing dissolves.

The ball and chain of today

Are phones not books.

Sun Feb 22nd

Snowdrop heads laid low

Flattened by ice particles,

They too await sun.

Monday Feb 23rd

Tourist or pilgrim?

Walk, trek, seek adventure and

Find soul peace perhaps.

Tuesday Feb 24^th

On Looking at a  British Library Treasure

The curls and slopes of handwriting

Are a fading, near lost, art form,

We write if necessary,

Type for preference. Letters are rare.

Jane Eyre, the original

In Charlotte’s neat hand is a wonder,

Words flowed and odd amendments

Were elegantly bracketed

Neatness counted in the only copy.

The creator and the created fuse

As we ponder the truth behind the hand,

A crossing out, a clue to when

Words did not capture intention.

Stained glass removal

Between

England lies as a smudged line

Squashed between sea and sky,

A thin graphite divide, parting

The mirroring grey of water and cloud.

Heritage, pomposity, human angst

Are temporarily erased,

Its 'might' reduced to being

a mean filling in a chunky sandwich.

Trees stud the hills opposite,

The Isle of Wight is defined,

Significant by its proximity

To our bobbing, windless, craft.

The tide drives us forward,

Decisions are held in balance,

Waiting and time suspended,

For the act of commitment,

A Clipper's wing - detail

Splash

Oct 1st 2014 Baghdad

The killers are close,

Circling and threatening

Beleaguered Baghdad.

Inside the city

The shadows are defied:

Beside the Tigris

Eager crowds gather

For a dog show,

Simple, everyday, normal.

Convolvulus

Tony

The phone is silent now

Untroubled by your needs;

Its serenity mocks us

As your number will not show again.

The turbulent torments of your soul

Have been laid down,

Gathered, we trust,

under God's steel protection.

You'd be astonished Tony,

At the hole you leave;

But discuss carpentry

With God,  don't phone!

            (Tony died on  August 18th 2014)

Views of the Orwell

July 3rd 2014

                               July 3rd 2014                              

The country road unwinds

Along known contours,

Tree shadows stripe the way

While Bragg interviews academics,

Their learned radio voices discuss

‘Mrs Dalloway’, her party, her flowers.

The safety of the book’s past

Moulds a bubble of pastoral peace.

A fox with its kill in its jaws

Breaks from the undergrowth

Streaking in front of the car’s wheels,

A determined killing machine, seeking cover.

The tit for tat Middle Eastern murders

Haunting the morning news, returns,

Escape is not an option,

His nature, our nature, destroys.

The fox kills to survive,

Woolf’s party pooper commits suicide

Unable to live with WW1 memories,

But revenge is a poor motive,

Breathing hatred and self justification;

One murder is never enough,

Violence escalates, negotiation possibilities shrink

       Impotence and death are the only winners.