A fresh start,
close of old business.
Father Time
reborn as a babe.
Promise made
and rarely kept.
Dreams are ground
to fine white powder
beneath the stone
of new beginnings.
Boy becomes madman,
father becomes ghost.
The haunting begins.

Just a note
to say, thanks
for the many years
of enjoyment

when I first met you
I will admit I found
you a dry and boring
old stick

It took a while to get the knack,
to be enamoured with your style

but once converted, I was, a fan
and read you by midsummers night
in and out love, through tempests
and battlefields, with friends, foes
and witches,
on balconies, in shoreditches.
upon islands where all seemed familar
but in such a confusing way.

Through battles and histories
fact and fanciful.
I walked withyou and  
your word play
at my heels like a dog...

sometimes with clarity
and sometimes befogged.

Your words dear friend
have so often been apt...

Tho I sometimes wonder
if you knew the effect
your scrawl would have
as you sat and wrote
making it up as you went along,
I wonder if you thought your
words  were whisperings in a wind
there....and then gone.

And now you are famous,
world reknowned.
A bard no less
with the Globe at your feet

Yet to me you are a friend,
your words comfort, and inspiration
in a world unstable...

So again I say,
Thanks for the plays
the sonnets and things

it made a difference
more than you know

but just to let you know...
I still haven't got the knack
of writing in iambic flow....

An affinity for
tight spaces;
bears like cubbyholes.

it's all I have,
not much, to you, but all
and with my heart torn asunder
I watch my life, my labour,
resting here, for you to plunder...

ravage the fields,
torch the meadows
**** the bees
and watch the clover
wither...

count not the cost
of your rapacious greed,
see only your hearts selfish need
to be the sum the total, the all.

not knowing, in your victory
you become...the pall,
that settles in the room
and stops the conversation,
like smog and a locust infestation.

this is my life, my family
and we do, what we do
to remain free of heartache
and negativity.

we need not your benediction,
or blessing of our grace.
so...you look to yours and
shut your face....


**********
napowrimo2015
promp­t : write a parody or satirical
poem...utalizing a famous poem you know


"It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell"
**Emily Dickenson.

i open the door to the
crisp autumn air
the smell of eucalypt
and salt...

first frost has fallen,
a light fairy dusting
of sparkling crystals
shimmer beguilingly
on the green lawn.

dissected by trail of cat prints
leading to a mess
of blue and black feathers.
this was one early bird,
who should have stayed in bed?

and on the rocks,
near the koi pond,
framed by the early sun.
the black and white cat
from down the road,
washes it's face....
with long clawed paws.

inside the house,
my less ferocious two
settle for chicken biscuits
and the warmth
of recently vacated beds.

I sigh and mourn the loss
of yet another wren....
before cleaning the evidence away.

the black and white cat watches,
with golden, gleaming and wholly unrepent eyes.
before slinking off, behind the lilacs.

so now, peace is restored....
and the water burbles gently across the rocks.
while the frost melts away
and the sun gains strength
to face another...
glorious autumnal day.

life is not forced...
.. .a distillation of sorrow
and yet
.....life was the greatest joy
it's own realm ...encased
but not breached....
the joy ...had it's own integrity
not touched by tragedy.

that joy, the measure
and source...spring.
....I remember sitting in rain
and blustering wind...
abiding.... and yoked... to life
this comic tradegy...within.

I was known for an
operatic clear of throat;
a Flemish tenor.