Poems, Polemicks and Licks

Mortals Inc./Immortals Inc.

Here’s a go at Ronovan’s Decima Challenge #52, with Noise being the prompt word on the B rhyme line. I’ve done a couple….

Mortals Inc.

I wake. Somewhere there is a whine
not so unlike those clockwork toys
that children wind up for the noise;
but could, perhaps, be endocrine
secretion from those glands of mine
in need of oiling or repair,
some maintenance, mechanic care.
Bodily organs, failing fast,
(although they are not built to last)
infrequently come with a spare.....


Immortals Inc.

Jim said, You know the haunted pub,
the one out there in Theydon Bois?
The landlord swore he heard a noise,
a voice spoke of Beelzebub!

They filled their knapsacks with some grub
and travelled on the Central Line,
arriving there at closing time.
The darkness came, they waited, mute,
both fearful and irresolute.
Next morning, they were Scene of Crime.....

The Cause

A contribution to Ronovan’s Decima Challenge #51 with CAUSE being the prompt word on the A rhyme line.

The Cause

I've long been faithful to the cause,
the striving for a kinder world,
a pregnant blossoming unfurled,
capitalism's menopause.

Arms dealers, with their rabid wars,
consigned to tilling common land;
beachcombers on the long sea-strand
picking over long lost treasure,
that pure, ancient, human pleasure
of reaching out a helping hand.

Let’s Dance

Here’s a contribution to Ronovan’s Decima Challenge #50 with Dance as the prompt word on the D rhyme line.

Let's Dance

The Tango from the Argentine,
the Salsa with it's Cuban thrall,
the Cha Cha, Rumba, Samba all
pervaded with their Latin shine
as minds and bodies intertwine.
The Waltz, the Quickstep, Foxtrot too,
are more sedate, yet couples glue
their lower trunks intact, perchance
to move as one throughout the dance.
Enrapturement! Love's rendezvous!

Machineries of Hope

Machineries of Hope

We've marched so many times against it's excesses;
for miners, their futures' black as coal dust;
for printers removed from their pungent presses;
for the pickers of fruit, the decaying must
of strawberries, sweet as nostalgia.
We broke our innocence on picket lines,
those working class machineries of hope,
and played the game of seeing better times.

But in the bramble patch of Capital,
it's anarchistic growth a tangled path
of easily commissioned cruelties,
we foundered. Yet still we feel, like Chartists
and the Communards, we fought for love.
Listen, over the horizon, hear our songs.

Rononvan Haiku Challenge

With Chirp and Twilight as the prompt words.

Astronomical
dusk full of final chirrups
our night birds settling

Each New Day

Each New Day

What do I bring to each new day?
A trail of notes and books 
I keep for comfort;
a rarely played guitar
filled with unsung songs;
an angry sadness
at each cruelty
so easily committed
and dismissed;

but, most of all,
the love I have for you,
your bright laughter
filling each day with light.

Diaspora

For St. Patrick's Day and my ancestors who made the long trip from Ireland to New Zealand in the 19th century.


Diaspora

However tall your ships were, how long
they took to reach your chosen shores,
could they contain intact your beating hearts,
swollen with leaving, aching with imminent 
arrival; the slow salt haul on following seas?

Were prayers said daily, attempting to appease
those catholic saints, their shapes reminiscent
of wet lands you left in colder parts
particularising rain? Did you pack your laws,
clutch them closely, like an Irish song?

How do we feel the sorrow leaving brings
but by a return in our imaginings.

St. Patrick’s Day 1850

A St. Patrick’s Day contribution to Ronovan’s decima challenge No.49 with Shock as the prompt word on the C rhyme line.

St. Patrick's Day 1850

Eight hundred years and Irish folk
will still endure the iron fist,
will still find courage to resist
violation by England's yoke.

With savagery it's tried to choke
the lifeblood from the Irish flock;
in famine days arranged to block
the shipment of much needed wheat;
ensured the genocide complete,
St. Patrick weeping, feigning shock.

Two Haiku

Where has winter gone?
Of which winter do you speak?
All the winters gone.....


One tree blossoming
petals pink as perfection
promise promises

The Fortune Teller

A contribution to Ronovan's Decima Challenge #48 with Fortune being the prompt word on the B rhyme line.

The Fortune Teller

A brisk wind rifled through the tent,
chilling the teller of fortunes.
She was rummaging through the runes,
deciphering if what they meant
would pay her heating bill and rent.
Business was slow, a winter's day
unlikely to produce the pay
she needed to survive the storm
of lockdown's irritating norm.
What she foresaw, she would not say.

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