Pauses

He sat on the kerb, his feet in the road -
not someone I wanted to talk to -
but through his tiredness, sadness showed
so I paused to ask if he was alright.

He lifted his head but glancing at me
served only to act as reminder
mine wasn't the face he wanted to see
and I couldn't help, whatever his plight.

He got to his feet and looked all around.
I asked where he wanted to walk to.
He paused. Then he spoke. It seemed that the sound
echoed deep from the darkness of night.

"My wife has just died. I don't know where she is.
So now I'm just trying to find her."
I paused. Was he mad? Or was some insight his?
He turned. "Well, good luck." His wave seared my sight.

Sissinghurst

The failing summer evening sunshine
struggled across the hazel hedges
which walled the grassy alcove where
a straggled arc of listeners
focused a poet there.

The man stood to recite his verses
(published in his latest volume)
and used the cliché 'poetry sings'.
But while he sang of humankind
a thrush sang thrushy things.

Soon it was joined by blackbirds, robins
shouting their manhood to the heavens.
Sound without sense to human ears
but clear and fresh and ringing true
as daylight disappears.

Boldly the thrush confronts the audience
flaunting rhetorical repetition.
Although it can't make its poetry scan,
unfazed by the human competition
the bird outsings the man.

But as the stain of night's black pigment
spreads through the sky, the thrush must finish.
Without humanity's spoken word
it cannot think beyond its kind.
The man outlasts the bird.

'A place for everything and everything in its place'

At least that way you minimise mistakes

like trying to eat with the daisy grubber

and cleaning the toilet with the bath back scrubber.

It happens yearly;
the seeds sprout.
Too many clearly
but plant them out
for friends and family -
hence the shout
"Courgette anyone?"
(Well, marrow really !)

She looks stunning in the evening with her make-up;

what does she look like in the morning when she wakes up?

Fun is a taste that fades so fast,

a brief exhilaration

that sometimes can leave us aghast

at later realisation.

Enjoyment's usually less intense

and also less dramatic,

governed more by common sense,

and not so problematic.

Joy, if it happens, can outlast

the moment, getting stronger

as after-taste of happenings past

lodging in memory longer.

Pleasure has a subtler flavour,

languidly suggesting

its need for leisure time to savour,

mentally digesting.

Delight is a snack with delicate scent

inhaled without intention,

a fragrance all too quickly spent,

impossible of retention.

Jubilation is the topping

sportsmen sometimes make

when their triumph involves stopping

sharing out the cake.

Ecstasy is supernatural,

religious manna for a prophet

but fantasy for us as mortal

with little chance to quaff it.

Satisfaction is the base

of every wholesome meal

where sound decisions make the case

how good achievements feel.

Happiness is the bread of life

infused with family -

parents, children, husband, wife -

the oldest recipe.

Poorly said

Born in poverty, poorly bred,
poorly raised and poorly fed,
poorly praised or educated,
with poor prospects poorly wed;

poorly paid and poorly led,
social benefits poorly spread,
in poor health (what hope ahead?)
poorly doctored, surely dead.