Birdsong

I like to hear the cheep of a sparrow,

the cheerful trill of a robin.

I enjoy the warble of a blackbird,

the echo of a songthrush.

I now miss the twitter of a skylark

and I've never heard a nightingale.

But it's all just pleasant British birdsong,

less than human musical feats,

and exaggeration is surely wrong

as done by Shelley and Keats.

A different sort of war

This is not Ukraine, the Yemen, World War Three

but nonetheless millions fighting for their lives.

Not really some conventional struggle to be free

but a war of attrition fought by husbands and wives.

No advances, just rearguard action to retain territory

with forces continually degraded by the enemy.

Eventual defeat is certain; useless to rage.

This is the war that no-one wins - old age.

Hung higher than any other works of art

and on display in daylight every day

they calmly soothe and lift the troubled heart

but often are ignored by busy crowds -

the amazing everchanging artwork of the clouds.

 Some papers try to get our attention

with headlines addressing our worries

about our ageing health that mention

all kinds of scary medical flurries

of news about the latest findings

that play upon our fears for the future:

arthritis, heart attacks, dementia

and the dreaded Big C - cancer.

So pity the harrassed poor sub-editor

who has to come up with something catchy

to grab the interest of the reader

and please a boss who's probably tetchy.

One day the headline to cap them all

I'm sure will happen by and by

in letters several inches tall -

'EVERYONE'S  GOING  TO  DIE'

Heaven was a very tempting idea

to raise the dead in some sort of form.

Hell was invented to instill fear

and make the living conform.

Un-Donne

If ever any beauty I did see

which I desired but didn't get, it's usually

because she's quite a few decades too young for me.

The times thay aren't a-changing

"bread and cicuses" used to please the population

so human nature hasn't changed except in expectation

of over-priced takeaway pizza in place of bread

and 24/7 TV for the almost brain dead.