PUDDLE

Stomping in the puddle
With my shiny boots on,
Plop and patter, squelchy splatter,

Oh…

Puddle’s nearly gone.

WITHERY WOOD

In Withery Wood the branches dipped low,
The ivy sprang high under foot;
Slithery, slithery, mind how you go,
It was easy to trip on a root.

The wood had its legends, some evil and gory:
The latest involved a beast cat.
Dithery, dithery, merely a story,
Or just a large fox, come to that?

Some swore, in the village, their sheep had been got –
The boys thought they’d set out to see.
Higgeldy piggeldy, ready or not,
They jostled along after tea.

Brave as young lions they strode in the sun,
They lept the gate to the wood,
Thrillingly, thrillingly, the tracking was fun
And the feeling it gave them was good.

But the clouds were soon foaming and dark as the trees,
The sun was fast falling to ground,
Whispery, whispery, leaves purred with breeze
While the darkness came prowling around.

Five – there were five – with the shadows they slipped,
With the ivy they crossed the copse floor;
Dizzily, dizzily, one of them tripped,
And suddenly five boys were four.

He was lagging behind when he fell on his head,
Whilst the others went rummaging on;
Trickley, trickely, the slowest boy bled.
When the others looked back he was gone.

It was only a rustle they heard in their fear,
A rush and a slither behind.
Quivery, quivery they scurried like deer,
Stumbling, for the dark turned them blind.

Out from the woodland in panic they tore,
Half bursting their lungs to get help.
Distantly, distantly, there perhaps was a roar –
A roar, or a snarl, or a yelp.

They raised an alarm and the searchers were sent,
Through the bracken and branches and night;
Ploddingly, ploddingly, with purpose they went.
A boy was discovered by torchlight.

The fifth boy was tended, was taken, was treated,
And was asked what he knew of his fall,
But flickery, flickery, his mind was defeated
And he couldn’t remember atall.

They patched up his head and in time he was fine.
His friends’ nervous tales were ignored,
But shivery, shivery, found near his spine
Were some scratches that could have been clawed.

In Withery Wood the tree bark is blistery,
The vines ripple down like a curtain;
Slithery, slithery, there’s always a mystery,
For no one can ever be certain.

MORNING RUSH HOUR RAIN

Smudged graphite grey
And glittering beaded curtains of celestial water
Saturate all
In unwanted baptism,
Until a torrent swells,
Slicing down in silver arrows.
Discs of white light,
Material and reflected,
Make columns and serpents of glowing snowballs,
Twisting and darting along the rivery roads.

Somehow the serious and solemn cyclists are avoided,
As they swish along in slippery flourescence,
Dodging monstrous engines
That growl like beasts.
Thousands of windscreen wipers
Beat out their rhythms,
Or squeal and screech as the deluge subsides.

The dreariness washes joy down the drains.
Yet here and there
A glowing window,
Yellow as buttered toast
Is someone taking their time
Over breakfast.

WINDY

Whooshy, whirly, windy day,
Swishy, swirly, leaves at play,
See the trees which bend and sway,
Whooshy, whirly, windy day.

Creaky fence lets out a cry,
Buffeted birds trawl through the sky,
Smoky clouds stream past up high,
Pavement litter tumbles by.

Whooshy, whirly windy day,
Swishy, swirly, leaves at play,
See the trees which bend and sway,
Whooshy, whirly, windy day.

SUN

Burn, like magma, Setting Sun,
And char the clouds that round you wind;
Sizzle, like you’ve just begun,
Igniting darkness that you find.

JUNGLE GARDEN

Could there even be a tiger in the garden’s wildest places,
Where it waits in statue stillness for the timid prey it traces?
In the bony grass that rattles in the slightest breath of breeze
Is a jungle full of creatures that the lounger never sees.

In the creeping in of evening and the lightlessness of night
Live a myriad of monsters that you’d never know by sight;
In the dumpings and the cuttings where the gardener rarely treads
Wake the hunters and the hunted as we doze within our beds.

THUNDER

Before the storm came blanket skies
That seemed to lay across the trees
And smother every breath of breeze;
The air pressed in, like life restrained,
With all its energy contained:
It pulsed, it throbbed in palms and eyes,
Until, expected, something snapped.
A vast celestial whip was cracked,
A non-existent foe attacked.
And rain released its gasps and sighs.

THE JOUST

(It was difficult to know which section to put this one in. If I had a history section it would go in there, but as I don’t, it goes here because jousts do happen outdoors…usually…I think.)

Thundering, thundering,
Drumming of horses’ hooves,
Clinking of trappings and armour.
Wondering, wondering,
Who’ll win, and who’ll lose,
Who shall be king of this drama?

The slap of the flags,
And the flashes of vibrancy,
Sighs and the shouts of the crowd.
A tent circle sags
As some rain hits the company,
With both riders still sitting proud.

The Lady aloft
Feels the rain kiss her wimple,
But she flutters her favour with grace;
The field is soft
And the hard task is simple.
They charge steel to steel, face to face.

Thundering, thundering,
Drumming of horses’ hooves,
Clinking of trappings and armour.
Wondering, wondering,
Who’ll win, and who’ll lose,
Who shall be king of this drama?

Return of sharp light
Sets the steel igniting,
The horses’ caparisons sway.
Each silver-wrapped knight
Will not give up fighting
For the strike or the clash of the day.

The rush from the charge
Ruffles judge and spectator,
One lance cracks and snaps. Splinters fly.
With the strength of a barge,
With the speed of a raptor,
Another pass comes in reply.

Thundering, thundering,
Drumming of horses’ hooves,
Clinking of trappings and armour.
Wondering, wondering,
Who’ll win, and who’ll lose,
Who shall be king of this drama?

The end of the day
Shows the sun guild the meadows;
The Lady the victor receives.
Like the plot of a play,
There’s a contour to follow,
As they know from the Lords to the reeves.

A knight to his mount
Gives a soft parting whisper;
The Lady, a glance to the knight.
How victories count
In this rarefied vista,
How glory is crowned by this sight!

LINESMAN

Dad runs the line on Saturdays,
He gets quite out of puff,
But he loves to wave his flag
Whilst looking serious and tough.

Dad runs the line on Saturdays,
In jogging pants and coat;
He sometimes wears this scarf
That’s like a tree trunk round his throat.

Dad runs the line on Saturdays,
In sun and wind and rain;
He lopes towards the goal
Then he comes loping back again.

Dad runs the line on Saturdays,
For fouls he’s eagle-eyed,
He points and wags his finger,
And he understands off-side.

Dad runs the line on Saturdays
And tries hard not to shriek,
But he got a bit excited
When I scored a goal last week.

Dad runs the line on Saturdays;
He runs and trots and dances and occasionally trips,
And dashes until it ends:
It sometimes looks as if
He’s playing tag with made-up friends.

EVERLASTING MOON

Listen to this

Though we are many miles apart
That moon up there is at our heart;
That moon up there, that luminescence
Reminds me of your absent presence.
When I look up, its light to see,
I’ll think of you; you’ll think of me.
The patient moon peers down forever
To see us looking up, together.

SCHOOL CRICKET

Beyond the undulating grass,
Beyond the whispering of the trees,
Below the birds that idly pass,
White trousers ripple in the breeze.

A run, a hurl, a ball on wood,
A shout or two, a sudden scurry,
A scrabbled chase might just come good,
But no one seems in vital hurry.

A fielder tugs a falling sock;
The batsman gives it all, and more,
Fumbling fingers fail to block
And the ball trundles on to gain the four.

Sheep-fleece clouds sit in the blue;
The umpire semaphores with with style.
Despite the speed the balls shoot through,
Time seems slower for a while.

The scoreboard shows a close-run match;
The batsman barely makes a tap,
But that’s an unexpected catch!
The sparse spectators calmly clap.

Some tell the young nostalgic tales
Of bowling tennis balls, and less,
Of shattering stick-made stumps and bails
On scrubby scraps of course-mown grass.

But here’s a field of velvet green,
Two full elevens, huge trees in sight;
Like art, an almost faultless scene,
Though some have part outgrown their whites.

Heroic dives, embarrassed wides,
Cow corner* deep in private leisure,
Dejected pro-pavilion strides
Across this swathe of emerald pleasure.

These hours are hours that memories make,
This game so forged of hit and miss
And tea, of course, with scones and cake.
Is anything
More English summertime than this?

*For those less knowledgeable about the peculiar language of cricket (like me!) I am informed by my son that “cow corner” is the position where the Captain might station his least skillful fielder, far away from the action.

THE SHED

Wall to wall webs,
Wobbly workbench with a hinge unmended;
A conglomeration of plastic crates
Inundated with grimy toys.
A rust-spotted toaster
Shares a frayed cardboard box
With the remains of a silenced amplifier,
And crusty cylinders of memory-coloured paint
Perch
Upon a splintery shelf.

Shears
Sit precariously on a bleached, cracked chair –
Post-war relic
That never made the accolade of Vintage.

The shed is guarded
By a coiled snake of discoloured hosepipe.
At night the shed
Is a shade darker
Than anywhere else,
And once as I passed it,
When the moon was full ripe,
I thought I heard it breathe.

He keeps his tools
In the shed,
And spends a long time
Finding the right one.

Funny kind of haven,
This cluttered, tumbling, slatted hutch
With its dusky grey blankets of spider lairs
Draped like slack sails.
Its chaos must be liberating,
Free as it is
From the normal rules of cleanliness and order,
Or any need to make space for anyone.

THE COUNTRY LANE

It winds and it wiggles, the old country road,
It rises and falls as it carries its load,
And its load is not now what it bore in the past
When its load was of horses, of wagons, of carts,
When its surface was rutted and puddled and stony,
And pounded by livestock, by foot and by pony.

The country road dives into dips lined with leaves
Where the trees arch their branches like shaggy green sleeves,
Where shadows are clingy, where breezes are damp
And rustles and ripples enliven the bank,
Where the bushes and bracken might almost have eyes,
Regarding time pass as we pass in our lives.
The poor without shoes have stepped sorely this way,
And the rich in plush carriages rumbled by day,
Whilst by night, have true sweethearts skipped blithe through the shimmer,
And by dawn birds have greeted the sun’s reborn glimmer.

Then the country road rises as notes in a scale,
Pausing proud on a hill, catching breeze like a sail,
With the view of a castle, the strength of a rock,
Ever watching the pheasants, the crops and the flock;
But it’s bitter up here when the North gusts are shrill,
Folks are glad of more shelter by the stream down the hill.

While the world has leapt forward the road has remained,
Sitting still in the landscape as it’s snowed and it’s rained,
Through the dust and the drizzle, through the heat and the cold
This route has seen many grow up and grow old,
And itself become wounded, seen itself all but gone,
But is always reborn like the trees in spring sun;
So it winds and it wiggles, remaining but going,
Immortal, essential, unnoticed and knowing.

TONIGHT’S MOON

Tonight is a milky moon, and pale,
As if it is
A little under the weather;
As if its giant eye were cataracted.

WET WEATHER

Summer rain is trickling down,
Tickly down
My ankle slide.
My head is catching drips and drops,
Plips and plops:
Where can I hide?

Summer rain is slopping down,
Dropping down
My arm and thigh;
My face is wet as in the bath,
Bent to the path
Where puddles lie.

Summer rain is head to toe,
We’re quick and slow,
And shall not pause;
Nor will the rain that floods our feet,
That shines the street
And glitters grass.

Summer rain is pounding down,
Sounding down
To fill my ears.
But I am safe inside our door,
The rain can roar
But I’ve no fears.

 

Listen to this

LAZY CAMPING

Not so far to reach the camping site
Where young explorers seek a natural night,
A night below the streetlight and the stars,
By lullabies of foxes, birds and cars,
Enclosed by every rustle, breath and call:
Just in the garden, not so far at all.
But still exciting.

Musty tent breath spills across the lawn
As 3-D shelter struggles to be born;
An embryo of fabric, tubes and metal,
Tugged, inflated, left a while to settle,
Strained to taughtness, yet in places dipping,
Guide rope spider legs just made for tripping,
And yet inviting.

A rippling, breathing bulk upon the grass,
A spoiler of the view, and hard to pass,
Unnatural, yet a foot into the wild,
In which soft human comforts may be piled,
And little faces, gleeful as they hide,
Absorb a greenish glow when they’re inside
On the slippery floor.

As dusk seeps in the youngsters may be sleeping,
The tent enfolds the secrets it is keeping,
And half-heard whispers wing into the night;
A surge of mirth, a pulse of riskless fright,
Whilst in the garden, occupants and raiders
Carry on regardless of invaders,
Outside the zip door.

Through snores and snuffles hunters ambush prey,
Until dawn’s embers stir the blaze of day,
But oh how hard to sleep amongst the throng,
As every bird alive wakes with a song;
A tented dawn is time for languid listening,
Whilst air is grey and dew-drop grass is glistening
And time is held.

They’ll scramble out, at last, into the sun,
With tousled hair and impetus to run,
Emerging, scrumpled eyes will peer about,
They’ll call for toast and stretch their stiffness out.
The garden’s small and daylight seems too real;
There’s less to see, to smell, to hear, to feel.
And the tent will be felled.