In Gledholt wood the chirping song
of birdlife gives me space to hear
the quiet chant of nature’s plainsong–
Kyrie eleison.
This world of fake news, false but strong,
needs truthful places through the year
where seasons ring with nature’s plainsong–
Christe eleison.
This forest nave is built of long
and gothic branches that appear
to make a kirk for nature’s plainsong–
Kyrie eleison.
Dec 28, 2025
Dec 28, 2025 at 12:27 PM UTC
I was sat at the front of the cast iron horse
and with Tom and his sister and Nicky behind
we had rocked till the plaything went hight as we could
when it smacked on my jaw with its hard metal head.
An incisors had cut through my lip, and so blood
freely flowed from my mouth to my chin, where it paused,
and then dropped on the crown of the dangerous nag,
dripping sticky and red on the skull of our steed.
Soon my daddy had lifted me up from that mount
and we drove to the doctor’s to suture my lip
where a needle was painfully pulled through my skin
and it felt as though cables were stitching my gob.
–––
Did our play in my youth, though unsafe, have more thrill
than does zipping on wires over bark covered ground
or the climbing of ropes that are hung from a pole
and of swaying with swings that don’t go all around?
Every age has its dangers, unique to itself,
and so children will always find dangerous fun,
though as parents we worry as much as ours did,
now the playgrounds are safer whatever we fear.
Sep 28, 2025
Sep 28, 2025 at 12:32 PM UTC
Lurking
in the corner of
Greenhead park’s playground
balancing on a fifteen-foot pole – the precarious witch’s hat.
Tom
and I
grab the iron bars
that descend from
the wicked cap’s conical apex,
run round fast as we can and jump
onto the centrifugal circular oak brim of the whirling witch’s hat.
Tom,
two years braver
than me, climbs up the
Satanic bonnet’s metal ribs.
He stands akimbo with his feet
on the crossbar and arms grasping
the spinning steel triangle at the top of the bucking witch’s hat.
A
couple of
seasons less assured,
I see danger in the motion
of this malevolent millinery, and cautiously cling
to the ferrous frame and solid wooden base of the gyrating witch’s hat.
Rapidly
revolving,
seesawing and spinning,
the heinous headpiece tries
to crush our legs against the pole
or fling us up into the air to fall onto
a black, hard and sharp cinder surface; victim of the venomous witch’s hat.
We
spring off the slowing
death cap, safe and exhilarated
by the swirling danger of Greenhead park’s wild witch’s hat.
Sep 20, 2025
Sep 20, 2025 at 1:28 PM UTC
When my dad came home from driving ambulances, we always had dinner, but when we visited auntie Beaty, it was tea. I think Beaty was my dad’s aunt though the title is often honorific so I'm not sure how they were really related. Conversation over tea was on many topics; one sticks in my mind.
"My cousin Albert’s teacher asked the class to write an essay for homework. Albert came home with pencil and paper ready to do his assignment. He positioned himself by the back window, and whenever anyone went down the garden path, he moved so he could get a better view. After a pause he would scribble a few words on his notepad. A couple of hours later, Albert’s parents became intrigued and asked Albert what his homework was. He replied he was writing "a nessy”. In his Yorkshire dialect, a nessy was the name for the outdoor privy. Albert had been watching people go down the garden path to the outdoor toilet and writing." My Auntie Beaty ended her story, “Heaven alone knows what he wrote”.
word path
to the cold outhouse–
nessy
Sep 20, 2025
Sep 20, 2025 at 1:22 PM UTC
#10
golden sunrise
after the morning mist
a gilded path
reverse
a gilded path
after the morning mist
golden sunrise
#11
a squirrel’s hope
on a warm winter day
the hazelnut store
reverse
the hazelnut store
on a warm winter day
a squirrel’s hope
Aug 30, 2025
Aug 30, 2025 at 12:28 PM UTC
crisp brown leaves
on white ground–
pristine
cinnamon fox
chasing red squirrels–
hazel bolthole
holy icons
on my study wall–
prayers at work
patient crow
watching intently–
sharp eyes
[The original of haiku 4 was:
patient crow
watching intensely–
sharp eyes
thanks to JimH for the suggested change]
Aug 10, 2025
Aug 10, 2025 at 12:48 PM UTC
Dredging the detritus of my life, I
Organise 60 years of artefacts and
Whittle away my possessions, while holding
Nostalgia at bay and
Skipping what won’t fit
In our next house, I
Zealously
Ignore the emptying rooms and try
Not to mind, but concentrate on
Going forward.
Jun 18, 2025
Jun 18, 2025 at 2:40 PM UTC
The bin-men and bin-women
of Birmingham
are on strike.
Black bin bags barricade the streets,
decaying vegetables
rotting meat
and putrid fish
perfume the pavements:
an odour brewed
in the vat
of spending cuts.
In the park
families picnic
between discarded
takeaway boxes:
their children chase
windblown paper towels
round an assault course
of half-empty cola bottles.
Rats big as cats
prowl the roads
like tigers
and eat car wires
bringing the city to
a stinking, gridlocked stop.
Jun 5, 2025
Jun 5, 2025 at 12:53 PM UTC