ann-williams-ms
Graduate of Birkbeck College (London), BA History (Hons) 1960; PhD 1964. Lecturer and Senior lecturer in Medieval History, Polytechnic of North London (now part of London Metropolitan University), 1965-88, retired 1988. Now independent scholar, researching and publishing (specialist field, late Anglo-Saxon England). Active member of local Green Party. campaigner on ecological issues, also member of Transition Leytonstone' eco-poetry performance group, E11Eco. Poetry something of a hobby (not published, nor likely to be). But I still write occasional pieces.
He’s got a bagel on his head,
Not a Cornish Pastie, nor a slice of bread;
Not a Singin’ Hinny, nor a Bacon Roll,
Not Bedfordshire Clanger nor Toad-in-the-Hole;
Black Buns from Scotland pass him by,
No Jammy Rascals, nor Stargazy Pie;
No Bakewell Tarts, and no Teisen Lap,
No Apple Dumplings adorn his cap;
No scones from Devon spread with cream and jam;
Just a crispy bagel full of cheese and ham.
Bagels are the coolest, bagels are the best:
Up with the bagels and down with the rest.
Onwards and upwards, long may it be said:
He’s got a bagel on his head.
Apr 12, 2017
Apr 12, 2017 at 9:49 AM UTC
He’s got a bagel on his head (February 28 2017).
He’s got a bagel on his head,
Not a Cornish Pastie, nor a slice of bread;
Not a Singin’ Hinny, nor a Bacon Roll,
Not Bedfordshire Clanger nor Toad-in-the-Hole;
Black Buns from Scotland pass him by,
No Jammy Rascals, nor Stargazy Pie;
No Bakewell Tarts, and no Teisen Lap,
No Apple Dumplings adorn his cap;
No scones from Devon spread with cream and jam;
Just a crispy bagel full of cheese and ham.
Bagels are the coolest, bagels are the best:
Up with the bagels and down with the rest.
Onwards and upwards, long may it be said:
He’s got a bagel on his head.
Apr 12, 2017
Apr 12, 2017 at 9:49 AM UTC
He’s got a bagel on his head (February 28 2017).
He’s got a bagel on his head,
Not a Cornish Pastie, nor a slice of bread;
Not a Singin’ Hinny, nor a Bacon Roll,
Not Bedfordshire Clanger nor Toad-in-the-Hole;
Black Buns from Scotland pass him by,
No Jammy Rascals, nor Stargazy Pie;
No Bakewell Tarts, and no Teisen Lap,
No Apple Dumplings adorn his cap;
No scones from Devon spread with cream and jam;
Just a crispy bagel full of cheese and ham.
Bagels are the coolest, bagels are the best:
Up with the bagels and down with the rest.
Onwards and upwards, long may it be said:
He’s got a bagel on his head.
Apr 12, 2017
Apr 12, 2017 at 9:49 AM UTC
Terror steed.
He drinks from the well
where Mimir’s head
hoards the runes.
His avatars stand in forgotten corners.
I found one in a fragment of green
saved from the sprawl of the Great Wen;
his grey trunk was lightning-scarred,
yet bravely he held up his broken arms,
and under his root, bees were nesting.
Beset by serpents, nibbled by stags,
still he bears up the weight of the world.
Without his breath, the air we breathe
would choke, not nourish. Our lives hang
on his outspread arms, athirst for the sweet
inspiring ale which Bragi brews.
Wisdom’s words
lie in the well;
you must ride the terror-steed to read them,
but the price is high, and few will pay it,
though one eye sees more clearly than two
how when the ash shakes the earth trembles,
and terror-steed bears off the quick and the dead.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 7:08 PM UTC
Snow on the far heights spills over
their shoulders, drops down to feed
deep streams crossing wide moorland,
where wind-blown trees whisper, overtopping
tangles of grass, and outcrops of stone
break through bramble and barren thorn.
Easily over the pathless land
she comes, on a waning moon, clasping
a grey cloak at her white throat.
Raven sits on a branch above
shapeless stone, stropping his beak;
he and she are akin, a merry meeting.
‘Well-met, brother – whence are you come
with your beak all ****** from breaking your fast?
What word do you bring from the world of men?’
He turns his bright eye towards her:
‘Battle is joined in the world below,
from all peoples men are mustered,
enough for us all, even the eagles,
nor need we vie with the grey wolf;
the feast is spread to feed us all.
Blow up your fire, sister, boil your cauldron;
a heavy harvest will fill your hall.’
She smiles, and makes for the autumn woods
where, below the moor, the turning trees
dwindle in dusk as their bright burden
burns away.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 7:05 PM UTC
I love to see the springtime
The wheat green in the blade,
And all the sweetly singing birds
in every blossoming glade;
and the pretty red blood on the fresh grass
where the dead men are laid.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 6:55 PM UTC
Cats upon a summer’s day
lying indolently down,
black and white, and silver-grey,
tabby, golden, ginger, brown,
on the catmint sprawled at ease,
breathing its sublime aroma,
shape their visions as they please
in a slumbrous catmint-coma.
Lands with rivers full of cream
stuffed with every kind of fish,
trout and salmon, plaice and bream,
fresh-cooked on a silver dish;
Cushion-trees with leaves of silk,
if a cat should seek repose,
overhang the Lake of Milk
where Roast-Chicken Forest grows.
Lean and hungry mogs and toms
grow to an enormous fatness
where nor dog nor human comes
to disturb their perfect Catness.
Dreaming in the afternoon
with closed eyes and folded paws,
cats regain their wits, and soon
they unsheathe their polished claws.
When the sun between the trees
stripes the lawn with blacks and golds,
tiger-cats, with guileful ease
prowl among the marigolds.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 6:53 PM UTC
Striding over the high hills,
She wraps herself in the north wind,
A scarf of snow hugging her neck.
Is it the cold makes her face blue,
Or does her face chill the land?
When she rinses out her old plaid
Whirlpools whip up the foaming sea.
Trees crack in her icy breath,
And birds fall frozen from the branch.
Dark Lady of the dark days;
Who would believe her womb carries
The solstice light of the deep year?
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 6:44 PM UTC
This is for all those sweet, those silly girls
Who painted up their eyes and lips and cheeks,
And sallied forth into the sparkling night
(Short skirts, crop tops, spike heels, dishevelled hair)
Intent on mischief, laughter, dancing, fun.
There was a time when I was one of them;
But luckier than them, I came back home,
A bit the worse for wear, a little drunk,
A little sick, sometimes a little bruised;
But nothing that a good sleep couldn’t cure.
These girls came home (if they came home at all
And weren’t found stark and cold in the waste grounds
And alleys) changed beyond recall;
Never again to know that careless joy,
That freedom to be silly, to be young.
I may not curse him, by the threefold law;
But ask you, Mother, in your winter guise,
The hooded crone, the washer at the ford,
The blue-faced strider of the barren hills,
Exultant glutter of the raven’s maw,
Girdled with dead men’s entrails, hung with skulls,
To wreak your vengeance on that greedy wretch
Who took these innocent sweethearts for his prey;
Transform his blood to venom in his veins;
Make each breath choke his lungs with acrid smoke;
Turn his limbs leaden and his shrivelled heart
(So hard already) into molten iron.
Comfort the victims and avenge the dead;
And pour his poison over his own head.
Feb 9, 2017
Feb 9, 2017 at 12:07 PM UTC
Another place (Jan 9 2013)
Half-remembered, half-imagined,
the mind’s eye glimpses but can’t grasp
another place, another time.
now here;
here, now;
nowhere.
Feb 3, 2017
Feb 3, 2017 at 4:29 AM UTC