Please scroll down this page to view a selection of poems by Cannon Poets Helena Hemstead, Doreen Gray, Peter Freeman, Rod Dungate, John Alcock, Don Barnard, Martin Underwood and Christine Coleman.

Last updated: 10th October 2005

Poems by Helena Hemstead

"HIGH TIDE”

They said the tide
Had not been
So high
In years;
It washed everything up -
On the pavements, the beach;
Shells and seaweed,
Secrets, lies.

People finally sought
The Truth,
The nakedness;
The pure;
The footprints on
Eternal sand,
Breaking-up
Lifelong patterns
In the mystic dance.

And -                                                                                                   No-one laughed;
No-one sighed,
But then,
No-one cried -
Any more.
Their faces now real,
Unlike before,
Their past lives,
Washed up
On the shore;
And the tide had not
Been so high
In years.

"THE NEWS" 

Lately, there's been a pain
In the region of my heart,
I try to deny it,
I try to ignore it,
I take the pills
My doctor prescribed...

Why am I ill?
I know ….
From too much sorrow.
                                                                                                            I see it all around me
Even if the sadness
Is not my own;
I meet it daily,
Wherever I go,
Bouquets of flowers
On the bridge
Where somebody got killed;
The hurt, elderly man
On the pavement
Surrounded by a crowd;
He'd slipped and fallen –
Hard…..so hard.

And the stories of people dying,
Particularly the young,
While the hovering
Vultures
Of cliff-edge madness,
Sharpen their razors and claws;
People destroying
Themselves…each other;
The criminal bloodbath
Of needless wars,
Despair and degradation,
Terminal illness, starvation....

I've had enough.

Gentle Journey

So faintly, he said
"I'm so tired;
But too frightened
To go to sleep,
Too frightened of
Disturbing dreams."

So she told him to close his eyes;
"Imagine" she said
"That the pillow
Is the embrace
Of pure, white, angel wings."

She gently stroked his forehead;
"Imagine" she said
"The pastel colours
Of a beautiful bay
Of creamy sand
And sapphire and turquoise jewels
Where the land
Meets the sea of fragrant water
Scented with tingling mint.

"Imagine us both
Swimming in the water,
Free and reborn,
Soothingly warm,
All the past pain
Now totally gone;
Then, imagine
Running,
On the beach to dry,
As sunset turns the sand
Iridescent gold,
And the skies are a joyful saffron-yellow.

"Imagine meadows in your mind;
Of primrose, pink, and soothing bluebell flowers
To ease your weariness,
Let the verdant fields
Refresh your body,
Lift your tired soul.

"Always remember,
I will comfort you through
Sleep as deep as a cloud of white feathers,
Hear my thoughts of you,
Like the sea in a shell,
Hear me call you
Safely to shore."

In the cold, Winter morning,
His eyes seemed full of light,
He brushed the tousled hair from his forehead,
"I'd like to sit by the window" he said
"And look out at the garden."
There, the grass was a rich, rainfall-green,
And birds and squirrels fed
From the woven basket
On the apple tree.

The Essence of Apple

Aroma...
Of sweetness, crispness
Perfect globes
Of carnelian
And peridot
Fall at my feet;
At the foot of my
Family Tree,
Eden is here,
Each tree bearing
A different fruit :
Matte; gleaming;
Olive; russet;
All tasting of the
Autumn sun;
Or deep red -
As the sweetest jam,
With the royal title of
" Crimson Queening";
The gardeners have
Arranged their branches
Horizontally,
Along the guardian fence,
In leafy, 'Art Deco' patterns,
Of geometric lines
And edible, ornamental spheres,
Through which
The far dimensions
Of heavenly orchards
Are sometimes glimpsed
And Paradise found again,
As the Autumn sunset glows :
Spectacular in amber, scarlet,
Cider-golds.

Mandala

I saw a mandala
Made up of silver-grey thread,
In the darkness of the brambles,
Glowing ghostly
At the end
Of the ancient garden.

Raindrops had fallen
Adding crystals to its pattern :
A monochrome kaleidoscope.

So -

I stopped
And reflected
On the many paths
Of Life.

Patterns

Wind whips her hair:
Feels like
Stinging, bristle brushes
On her face,
Defining her in invisible paint.
Coffee long gone cold,
She thinks...
Of the angles of the treads
By the 'Costa Coffee' structure;
The way the water appears
As green as the rarest olive oil...
Bitterly cold;
She watches the brilliance
Cascade in electric currents
Down the gleaming stone steps,
One end - a tangled mass of white light;
The other - a perfect mirror.
The arches of Brindleyplace buildings
New grey-and-terracotta bricks in
The style of the old -
(Of the originals, however -
Not a trace remains.)
She leaves half of her icy coffee;
To be splattered by the wind
In caramel-beige;
Lugging her heavy kit
To "The Water's Edge'...
Where she
Is intrigued
By interplay
Of dark-green rails and columns
She reflects
On how patterns of holes
Like mint 'Aero' chocolate-filling
On dark-green canopies
Exactly match

The theme on the bases;
The subtle patterns on the pavements
In pale madder and warm grey...
And how the 'Hyatt'
Could be a mirage
Or a hologram -
In Ink-grey and pale silver,
Defined in rectangles and squares...
At the end of the day
She has made
A few sketches like dreams
That will later resonate -
With carefully-selected paint.
She becomes aware
She is frozen through;
And packs away her materials;
Slowly walking alongside
The shining, olive-green canal,
On her cold and heavy artist's way.

Derelict

On passing by the gallery
In a run-down, industrial area
He decided to visit
A small exhibition

Featuring a collection
Of new painters-
What intrigued him was the work
Of a local artist...
The model in her every painting -
Was the same man;
His short, blond hair
Depicted in daubs
The colour of straw;
And yet -
His face; his skin
Held an unearthly radiance
As if he were an Angel
Rendered
In the subtlest tints of pure light;
A beautiful soul
Made visible
To more materialistic, ‘City’ types
At which he gazed out
From the dividing frame
Separating
The real from the unreal.
(The visitor reflecting
On which - was which.)
The explanatory
Artist's Notes read :
" always use my husband
As my model
A life without him -
I cannot conceive;
He is my guiding light

In the fear and darkness
Of our times."
Slowly, sadly
The visitor moved away,
Thinking  if only-
Any one of the women
At all, in his life
Had ever loved him
In that way,
Then he, too, might -
Have been
Filled with radiant love and light
And not -
The toxic bitterness
That flowed
Through his veins,
In the sharpest,
Coldest cyan-blue,
As he walked past abandoned factories
Derelict as his heart.

The Second Dream [from the 'Dreams' series]

They met - as agreed, in another dream,
It was her turn to travel to the past;
They lunched in a cafe - in a subway now buried -
She asked "How long were these buildings here?”
He replied "A long, long time, before I was born - I believe"
Together, they walked to the old Bull Ring,
He said "I never want to leave",
Among the pigeons circling round them
Was one, heaven-white dove;
A reminder of peace, or the eternal soul;
"So" he asked her "Where shall we go?”
"I've something to show you" she said;
The scene dissolved before their eyes,
And now, there stood a building made up of silver discs
Reflecting pure, white light from shining, city skies;
He was surprised "I've never seen this place before"
She gave a sad smile "You wouldn't have,
For this is now - and that -was then;
Still, I'm glad we can be together",
And the Birmingham sunset began to fall
In neon-violet and electric rose;
The two spirits stood, watched over by
The old church of St Martin's,
"I'd better go" he said "My energy seems low,
And we are held by a silver cord
To our distant, sleeping selves";
They promised to meet, for one, entire week:
"Tomorrow, I'll take you to St. Ives"
"On Sunday, we'll go to Sutton Park"
"On Monday, we'll go to Paris, or Venice"
They laughed....and laughed, and laughed
Till their laughter turned into the pigeons
Circling around the church in a flurry of ghostly wings,
Then darkness fell,
The birds separated into night-black flecks;
As if they had never been.

At six in the morning, she awoke,
All the clocks had stopped.

 

Doreen Gray

August Gardens

There is change around
this time of year, a shift
from lilac, pink and blue
to hot and heady reds.
If colour was sound
this would be Cuban trumpets
striding brass into heavy air.

Spring was all lemons and limes
'The Pastoral' or 'L'appres midi d'une faune'.
Autumn's chemistry lies poised
purple, bronze and gold;
soundtrack of opulence
'Die Meistersingers', Orff's discordant tones.
It is Winter's bleached presence I dread,
the 'Skater's Waltz', the 'Sugar Plum'
Carols with traders' tills.

NIGHT DUTY (VERSION 3)

She needed to talk,
So I let her,
But here, in the quiet,
As I lay her man out,
His corpse can't just stay
As white male,
Forty-nine,
Cause of death Ca.Bronchus.
Now
He lives in my mind
As a man who was loved,
Who'll be missed by his friends,
Who I think I'd have liked
If I'd known him.

Check This Out

Big Tina runs a check-out till
She runs it her own way
No taunt or insult ruffles her
Inside she’s Doris Day

Deaf Aid

Now should I write about my Dad
The troubles that he had
The squeaks and squeals
The sighs, the groans
The puzzled looks from all around
The puzzled looks from Him?
For Dad was deaf, profoundly so,
He heard through a machine
And all was fine and all was clear
When that machine was clean.
But sometimes it was dusty
At other times quite damp
And much the hardest time was when
The batteries went low amp.

Falling on Deaf Ears

I speak words
Mouth them at your green eyes
Then search for
Signs of comprehension.
All is blankness
A struggle to understand.

I cross the space between us
Slide my voice inside
The warmth of your ear
Push consonants and vowels
Down tubes and canals
To the inmost coils of the cochlea.

My voice sounds loud
Or just a whisper
But your voice,
That comes out as a shout,
Is it quiet inside you?

Doreen Gray is a latecomer to most things literary and living proof that being made redundant can be turned into an opportunity for trying new and challenging things. Since leaving paid work she has dabbled in Am. Dram, helped to run a small theatre group and gained an honours degree in English from Birmingham University. This really kick-started a passion for ‘Creative Writing’ and she is still trying to write scripts for radio and stage as well as poetry and short stories. There have been a few modest successes but rejection of scripts or failure to win prizes in poetry competitions doesn’t dampen her enthusiasm for writing. That’s when she’s not indulging in her life long passion for gardening. And then there’s the little matter of five grandchildren- a continual source of inspiration and a possible future readership for the many travel journals she has now produced.

Boreas

Waves break, ropes snap
wood pigeons abandon ship
the ground opens, heaving bluebells
to a precipice.
Frayed ends drip
enough bilge water to drown
the thought a seaworthy beech
should hold good.
As it is, a bellwether with a take-a-way pizza
makes a bee-line for a dry place to sit.
Three mates, half way up
the toppled mast, lick their fingers
and swing their legs.
Bosun starts the singing:I feel good da de da, da de da.
No besom can sweep away
a brassard of companionship.
May they always carry it
and may this dying tree unfurl
its promises and these hands
blunge the clay squeezed from roots
despite the discovery that nothing
separates bel canto from belch
in the Longman English Dictionary.

Prayer of the Tower Crane

Now that I’m here, dig deep
anchor me in concrete in a hole
of your choosing, help me fill
the gaps between my slew and top mast
make me grow in triangle lattice
tighten me with the strength to remain
upright; keep my lines taut, my drum turning
my trolley rolling to its furthest point;
sail me in the tension of weight and
counterweight; use the swing on my load
to navigate; be my banksman and say
what you must say to help me work blind,
a hundred feet high and with your hand,
work my gears, my jib, my steel necklace
for the wheel to turn, for the chute to pour
the footings of what is to come; make me
gentle for rods and girders, floors and walls
and when the last lid is on the last room
in the sky, tap my shoulder, give me
a moment to survey this detail then
bring me back to myself,unhook my chains
from the heaviness of things,let my lines
come apart in the black canal.

On opening the post in your back garden

It’s twelve months since your last eye check;
Your TV license is up; there are two
Hospital appointments; a bank statement,
A Pet plan update; a book club reminder
‘you must meet your agreement’
and a letter you might have sent,
‘I’ve moved!’ marked on the envelope;
there’s a thank you for choosing Stay Warm;
a water bill and a cheque from Halifax
[instant credit], a West Wales brochure
and a Saga magazine; Shirley Bassey,
on the cover; ’50 years at full throttle’;
the YMCA invite you to become
a room sponsor; there’s a bin bag
and a bag for your clothes,
a packet of sunflower seeds
and a field of wheat around your bird table.

One to One Consultation

Thank you for dropping the leaflet through our door.
Yes, I do have a problem, a lot more than one
according to your tick box questionnaire:
phobias, anxieties, every form of aggression;
I steal what I can, I indulge in coprophagia
I spend afternoons biting shadows out of the lawn
I have a fetish, but not for a teddy bear
I hide behind trees, I don’t run a straight line
I have an aversion to paths; I prefer
to make my own. And I’m partial to ferns
I have arthritic hips and I’m only four
I shouldn’t really be out on my own
but I need to arrange a one to one consultation
no, not for me; it’s about my owner, I’ve come.

What the tower crane has to say 

Because I’m here, dig deep
anchor me in concrete, in a hole
of your choosing; help me fill the gaps
between my slew and top mast
make me grow in triangle lattice
tighten me with the strength to remain
upright with my lines taut, my drum turning
my trolley rolling to its furthest point;
sail me in the tension of weight and
counterweight using the swing on my load
to navigate; be my banksman and say
what you have to say to help me
work blind, a hundred feet high
and with your hand, work my gears,
my jib, my steel necklace for the wheel
to turn, the chute to pour the footings
of what will come; make me gentle
for rods and girders, and when
the last lid is on the last room
tap my shoulder, give me a moment 
then bring me back to myself
unhook my chains from the heaviness of things
let my lines come apart in the black canal.

Rod Dungate

Anderton Lift
Trent and Mersey Canal & Weaver Navigation

Lifts make me nervous at the best of times, so when
I peer from my twice suspended vantage point
to the Weaver navigation far below

I'm buoyed by anxiety potently mixed with the thrill
of fulfilling a long-held ambition - to experience
one of the seven wonders of the waterways.

Thief-like I'd stolen into the massive shade-murked
cave of iron girders, rams, greased cogs
and clanging guillotine gates aboard Centurion

with my crew.  We rest, tethered, in our floating tank -
it's counterbalanced by another, a return
to the system a Victorian engineer designed

except computers monitor every move
and shift, hydraulic rams now fill with oil
and steam is long forgotten.  Our gentle fall's

too short, just time to note the lift's vaulted
spans built in search of that earlier age's
grail.  Refloated, we inch our way to the river;

it lazily re-forms itself as it idles by
groups of sightseers cheerfully mooching
round purpose built and neatly tended verges.

A friend sends a multi-media message
to my phone - it's our descent, he took the pic
off the lift's own website and it arrives

as we leave behind this fabulous engine's maw
cruising, quite dwarfed, beside soda works
to the rural, sun-lifted, long-suffering Weaver beyond.

 

The Speaker

Standing where I am, on a low brick wall,
I've a coveted vantage point - though it's a tricky one
since I can't let go of the rust-flecked railings behind.
I can see him over the crowd; it swells
minute on minute. The picnickers
who've made a day of it, have packed up
their bits and pieces, are sauntering over,
bags in one hand, a child hoisted up by the other -
only to be set down again to wait.
Everyone's in good humour, content to be hemmed in,
happy to share the comradeship it brings.

I look over thousands of heads to watch him.
He sits on a plain wooden chair on an old lorry,
its tail gate and sides hanging down. Though
they swept it, I see grit still, even at this distance.
Beside him stand my brother and my sister,
I see their heads bent for they talk together,
they concentrate on that, only they, not on him.
He seems so slight as he sits there, incongruous
in his grey suit in this heat, I wonder if it's really him.
He's totally still; relaxed but sitting upright,
his hands on his knees. He smiles and looks straight out.
Every now and again he takes a small pile of cards
from his inside pocket; he flicks through them,
stops and reads. He takes a pen from the same pocket,
and writes. This isn't a nervous gesture,
you can see he's noting down a newly minted phrase
or fresh insight. Once done he replaces pen and cards.

My brother moves forward . . . so he's to do the introduction.
Thanks for coming. Great to see so many.
What can I say to introduce a man
who truly needs no introduction? There's nothing
to say, so that's what I'll say. Nothing. Just

'Welcome. And thank you for being here.'

Now he rises and steps towards us. We all erupt
with one great whoop. Children are thrust aloft again.
He smiles and nods while the applause continues,
and I see he shares a few words with someone at the front.
He draws himself up, taller than before.
There's silence; total silence, except for a plane
that passes high overhead. Is gone. A beat.
Now he speaks.


 ears and dreams of silence

close your eyes like me this is the only way to go
unless you put out your eyes completely
it's a possible way to break through
the silence that grips me in my dreams
not the silence of the flesh
not that silence the silence I can hang comfortably
on hooks in the evenings while darkness creeps
up stairs and grasps the house
the time when the front door closes
goodnight take care goodnight now

no, I speak of the silence that hovers
waiting till my back's turned
till I drop my guard my eyes fixed
on a job-in-hand or a task to be begun
it hovers in corners and it haunts my dreams
it's this that sits astride me at night
heavy on my chest and stops me breathing
it's the silence of the seat in sunny garden
of the moment's respite on the windy hill
where racing cloud shadows still excite
the silence of paralysed action

it creeps along gutters down drain-pipes
hangs in urine pools in alleyways
sleeps in doorways of day-bright shops
it waits for grey-fleshed homeless youth
addict face locked to keep out the world
for gang member with the gun he will kill
for child who steals the car for pleasure
for migrant who scratches the living through the night

haute cuisine silence this is organic silence
bred in our bowels pestle-and-mortared into fragrant sauces
with foreign sounding names

hush hush I'm silent myself now I grope with blind fingers
to open a gate into the poisoned cottage garden
here the creatures that crawl through my private darkness creep
in the quiet I hear them scuttle under leaf and stone

raise your voice I need you now speak to me lift it
to sing however cracked be it ever so rasping
or laugh it doesn't matter as long as it hides
the scraping of a thousand dry feet over damp ground

and when you've hidden this sound for me
and with you I need no longer fear
I'll use my nails to prise open my eyes
they may be fused I'll tear my face if I have to
I can wear a bloody scar like this arrogantly
saying this is my trophy this the trophy
I won at so and so or such and such
if I don't succeed in dragging open my eyes
they'll turn to stones and stones are always blind

eyes must see I must have eyes to see
I see this now I see I've lost my way
this is my strength let this be your strength too
we'll find our way together you and I
ask me a question and I'll answer
trying not to lie it's the best I can do
so don't ask more of me this is a promise I'll keep
you ask I'll answer and when it works no more
I'll ask and you reply

I sense this is the way now you and I
question and answer answer and question
we talk and talk and our words are flashes of lightning
striking rain-drenched city plaza or silhouetting tree
against a heaving sky or if we run out of words
we could try a faltering tune that would do
don't give up on me now don't leave me
let me scratch your name onto desk or table
or mar a tree I'm willing to do that for you
once this great storm passes
I can climb a hill clamber across screed landscape
ramble along a pathway lined with whispering trees
I can cross a field stand against the wind on cliff-tops
navigate my way through urban night-time streets
I'll blindly grope my way on fingertips
following your voice following the way
you light fleetingly a team then you and I

hush hush I'm silent again myself
where's your question? where's your reply?
hush hush be silent again myself
yes these are footsteps I hear beneath the sound I make
choking for breath footsteps on the stair
footsteps at the door goodnight then
goodnight now then the corner of my room lit up
as it were by a faulty neon sign
in a film noir hotel pinning my shadow to the wall
but before it merges into darkness
I needs must close my eyes against my private silence


Ghosthouse

The rest is silence – the ghosthouse now, at last
abandoned: no more extras left to dance
attendance on my narrative line, no chance
for words to push at doors – each die is cast.

Behind the flickering beauty lies a past
in passion – this the tragedy I lance,
my songs of joy: support my stand-up stance
(I think, I am) my colours hoist on mast.

I breathe on glass:
to cut a human soul, to stare within,
to find that blood-red fount, at last anoint
myself. Once more. Yes, search once more as farce.
This is the point, ephemeral and in-
exact, painful and true. This is the point.


Snowy Owl
[Birmingham Nature Centre]

In glowering light, under sullen stillness,
entering the familiar lacklustre tunnel of evening,
hidden among the hush of the leaf and the branch,
I didn't see her. Not till I turned away
to leave, folding my easy disappointment.
My glance alighted on her, low down, mottled
grey and white, almost wrapped in shadow.
In that dark breath-held second I understood Athene.

Not old, not wise, nor will she toll a bell.
It was her cool serenity that held me,
her inquisitive stance that held me back:
still the air stood still, I wouldn't move
as we locked eye to eye. I held her
in awed respect. But her for me?

Frozen moments, then she gracefully turned away,
straightway to turn again to me: heavy eyelids
gently blinkered her, then opened her up
once more. Once more she held my gaze,
permitted me to find much called for quiet
in her steadfast, golden-amber, almond eyes, disinterestedly.

Rod Dungate moved to Birmingham in 1984 to work in politics but eventually found his path back to the real world of drama and poetry.  Poems have been published in a range of magazines and when he gets a chance he performs his own work with relish.  Plays have been performed in regional theatres, in the US and broadcast on Radio 4.  When he can he works with verse forms in his plays.  Further examples of Rod's work can be seen on www.RodDungate.com.  Rod won the Mentorn Best New Play award for Playing By the Rules and was Writer in Residence for the JK Jerome museum 2004 - 05.

John Alcock

Arizona Updraught

 
I caught sight of you today
as I was driving past
spinning away in dust of a field-gate
at the side of the road
summer chick of a whirlwind
fledgling whose tossing feathers
won’t survive long in the gathering wind

But you took me back
to stronger brutish brethren
gyring alone and absorbed
in the desert that day we headed
for Kingman and the Canyon

My kids said to stop the car
while our spiral crossed the highway
like some displaced cactus flailing
out of control and take photos
which I did – keen to amuse –
by stepping so lightly and easily
into this slender column of dancing sand

If only

The core and bole of its base
was alive with the malice of rocks
thorns and flakes of scorpion shell
that bullied and bruised my shins
and taught me the abrupt truth
that Dust Devil is well-called
and it pays to take note of a name

Market House

Saturday morning selling killims
and dried pears under the stilted hall
in Ledbury poetry town

Window displays of poets
pulling faces at their own poems
framing their reflections

Backdrop of Malvern Hills
ever rising out of Severn plain
always a surprise to look up
 
as when I glimpsed on a tedious road
through flat pine forests in Michigan
the rearing banks of Sleeping Bear Dune

Hot already from pacing the high street
I look for water or cold beer among
overheated racks of Mirrors and OKs

while the hills prepare for another day
like the time I walked with my son in the week
before he found his unexpected peace

recalling how they gave me back
his gloves and wearing them home
because they still needed hands to fill

Memories Ledbury perhaps
with all the authority of its verse
has given me leave to trade

add to my stall those many colours
of recollection vibrant among
the artichokes and glass

ÉDITIONS DU DÉSASTRE

I have this premonition
driving towards the hills
this dew-damp morning

The white mist curls
round ghosts of sheep
pale in the fleecy dawn

On the passenger seat
the postcard you sent
as a joke from Paris

Your face flirts high
among the girders of the Tour Eiffel
where you know I can never reach you

We are playing for time
we both know that -
me in my damp world

bounded by the streaming Malverns
you with your dancing shoes
your high kicks

and the rules Miss Bluebell
taught you to observe
or not to observe too closely
 
Do you remember the conversation
we tried to shout above the rotor’s roar
in the helicopter between Monaco and Nice

what you promised what I said
before you found it so convenient
to put back your ear-plugs

Now I have crossed the divide
into Herefordshire
Wyvern chattering on the radio

I have you before me
dancing above the Seine
limbs flaring towards space

But you look down
your eyes are downcast
your balance a little unsteady

On my hilltop I have this premonition
that my horizon it still
only your arm’s length away

NEGATIVE RESPONSE

‘Why don’t you just get
another set of prints?’ –
difficult to respond to the logic
of my questioner when Fotomart
could put the matter right in 20 minutes

How to explain then
why I want/prefer to keep
these images in negative –
squint through their window
held up to my window

That is how I see them best
those memories shifting in composition
picking and mixing
their inside-turned-to-out images
picturing the real and the imagined
in simultaneous transmission

Perceive the ghost of a façade
(that could be Ragley Hall)
on a day I so clearly remember
returning from America to
re-set foot on ancient fertility
of an English stately home   

Look through and beyond
the laughing minds of my children (next frame)
cavorting in the adventure park –
fusion of then and next-to-be
while I strive to reload my camera
click on a future transparency 

  
 

Don Barnard

It’s not just a book

Take a look.
It’s not just a book.
 
It’s an open door
to a word store.
It’s an eye score
you’ll go for
more and more.
Not an e-zine,
not a magazine
for the teen-scene,
not a post-atomic
kiddy comic.
It’s massive, big !
It’s a wordygig
you’ve heard about
so check it out,
it’s genuine.
It’s a win-win
situation
for the imagination
generation.

It’s a clean, green
time machine
to everywhen,
to what’s ever been,
know what I mean.
It’s a thoroughfare
to just anywhere,
to what’s out there.
It sets you free
and lets you be
Harry Potter
or Flashman (the rotter)

or Tarka the Otter
or a Gunpowder Plotter
or a who-knows-whatter.
cos it’s the best.

It’s a treasure chest,
your leisure Fest.
It’s a guaranteed
wicked read.
So take a look.
It’s not just a book. 

 

A Clean Poem

A beauty from Batley called Kath
Who kept three octopi in her bath
Said “they feel like old rope
And they steal all the soap
But they make getting out quite a laugh”

Elegy for Harry

There was much of the Henry in Harry,
that cold, flat, Tudor stare,
the waistline, the weight he carried,
the stance and the ginger hair,

the dancer’s way of stretching a leg,
the trencherman’s way with a meal,
the tone that would say ‘I demand, not beg’,
the glance that commanded, ‘Kneel !’

the condescending games he played
and his glowering sulk when he lost,
the regal glare that almost flayed -
Oh, you knew when Harry was crossed !

Yes, you knew full well, though he never called
‘To the Tower with her !’ on a whim,
although that cat never wenched at all,
there was much of the Henry in him.

Poetry breakfast

I had breakfast with the Laureate, dear,
there were lots of them about,
a meal I might be sorry at, dear,
when my innards work things out.

I was hoping for sestinas, dear,
a kirielle, a lai,
at least some terza rima, dear,
or a rondeau redoublé

but what we got was ballad, dear,
not even villanelle
but a Byron/Coleridge salad, dear,
by McGonagall out of Shelley,

And he calls himself a poet, dear !
Well, methinks he takes the piss
and he’ll really have to go it, dear,
to write poems as good as this.

 

Top Frog

Jumping Jack Flash
is making a splash.
See him go ! Life’s full of highs
when Flash Jack hops
‘cos he’s got strapping, stap-me thighs
and size eighteen flip-flops.

                              

This small chore for you

I’m up early this morning,
ironing tucks
into your night-dress,
the steam’s soft huffing
like your breathing
from the pillow next to mine.

As the creases disappear beneath
my smoothing hand, no less
would I soothe all the rucks
and ruffles from your life,
were there mornings enough.

Haiku

This unending war
wind and the bamboo wage,
torn banners waving

 

Fran’s Salad

It’s not ‘Only a
salad’. It’s a salad
and a half, half-salad,
half-Amazonia,
a fatted calf of a salad,
fit for a feast,
bits of fish, fowl and beast
and umpteen kinds of vegetation,
a small agricultural nation
on a plate.

You circumnavigate.
It’s three meals high
and four meals wide.
Do you hack in from the side,
or mine it layer by layer,
or just dig down till you reach china ?
Whichever, you haven’t a prayer
but as failures go, there’s none finer.
Forget falling off Everest,
not finding the source of the Nile,
Evans going outside for a while -
they’re all second best.

You know you’ll never make it through,
that this thing is bigger than you.
You don’t eat because you need the food
nor because it looks so good.
Like great challenges everywhere,
you eat because it’s there.

 

Dawning

Being there as the world wakes,
watching the garden flood with sun and birds,
seeing faces fill with the new day,
finding the words.

 

Quinta de Horta

Is this how it was, before,
that first morning
in Eden, space
in the silence for voices,
the quick accents of birds
and the clicking of frogs in the ponds ?
Is this how it was ?

Is this how it was, then,
all the possibilities of green
springing and arching,
swooping and reaching,
trees
holding their breath for a breeze ?
Is this how it was ?

Is this how it was in the Garden, naked
at breakfast
with quiet Moldovans
weeding in Marigold gloves ?

Deuce

                                ebb tide
                                                flood tide
                                the sea’s
                                                wild-haired
                                wide-eyed
                                                to’ing and fro’ing
                                chasing down
                                                moon after moon
                                lob after lob
                                                arcing the sky
                                and there’s no
                                                tie-break
                                Umpire
                                                needed

Munro

Past the wee crouchy houses,
the slag heaps where the neds
roar up and down on stolen bikes,
past the sudden Pentlands,
under the airport’s busy to-and-fro
and into the slow Trossachs.

Taking our haste with us,
clogging it up to Crianlarich
for a full day on the hill.
Time slowing as we boot up
and find the triple pace
of lung and leg and heart.

Heading up, ticks
on Cruach Ardrain’s
shaggy flank, we tap in
to the mountain’s roots,
get earthed and let
all the hurry

drain out.

Last Call

This is your epitaph. It’s premature, but why
wait till you’re dead to learn what’s said of you, say I:

Here lieth Mobile Man, who night and day
would boldly go where golden silence lay
and take that call, to all the world’s dismay.
Now take this as a hint, you noisy shite, and die.

Non Ophelia sed Brenda

You were thigh-deep, you said, and pissed,
and the cold river flooding,
thigh-deep, a red sun in the mist
and a bad marriage ending.

Two lads, you said, and you couldn’t die
with someone there watching.
Angels, you said. Anglers, may be,
but your faith in them, catching.

Nice to have you (a round)

I’m glad I chose a rowing boat
with room for two,
(me pulling, you

my jolly tiller girl) and not
my own canoe.
I’m glad I chose a rowing boat

with room for two, for as we float
down life, I do
so like the view.
I’m glad I chose a rowing boat !

Windfalls

Under the trees, the dead lie cider-sweet,
each mottling apple there a baby’s head
with wasps like shrapnel burning in the eyes.
Be careful how you tread. Was that the sudden
skid and stench of rot beneath your feet ?

Here between the rivers, Yorkist axe
and partisan pruned Lancaster’s rose,
the petals spread on Bloody Meadow, red
on red the heads and spilling pettitoes.
Could it be Tewkesbury’s pot pourri that reeks ?

That or that, or our cold blood, declaring
war elsewhere, picking the battlefield
so babies that we blind and kill aren’t ours,
our fight (eye-ball to eye-ball, child by child)
abroad, between those foreign rivers, there.

Warwick’s Rule

Now and then,
when he talks to God and thinks God answers
or lends his ear to charlatans and chancers,
when he’s sent braver men to die
for the wrong cause with a base lie,
when he has tongued a great fool’s hole because he’s strong
and buried little men in dung,
or limed the perch with promises and lies
then, when he’s caught his bird,
thought overmuch of plucking and of pies,
too little of his word,
when honesty’s his tool of last resort,
in short,
when he’s a far too petty king
and you grow weary of his shit-eating grin,
you have to start again.

 

Whose round ?

Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston,
Haunted Hillborough, Hungry Grafton,
Dodging Exhall, Papist Wixford,
Beggarly Broom and Drunken Bidford.
(trad., attributed to Shakespeare)

Piping voices, runny noses:
“Cowardy Custard !”  “Ring-a roses !”
Eeny-meeny-miny-mowing,
you-are-IT-and-out-you-going.

Growing up to find you’re ‘IT’ now,
out of luck and in the shit now,
underpaid and over-draft’ed,
married, mortgaged, mortal, shafted,

sure folk get away with murder
further down the pecking order -
“Fucking gyppos, fucking blackies,
fucking Muslims, fucking Pakis !

Give me half the chances they’ve got
I’d be up and off today, not
down the boozer mild-and-bittered,
fucking stuck in fucking Bidford !”

Rugby

Rules ?  It all began
by breaking rules, so they’re few
and heeded little,

like Tartar polo
fought on foot with a dead pig,
less sport than battle.

On a muddy field
sown with lions’ teeth, watered
with blood and spittle

large, ungentle hands
carry our breath away in
a leather bottle.

Don Barnard, Birmingham’s 9th Poet Laureate 2004/05

Don Barnard began life as a linguist, then spent 35 years as a computer expert and finally became a poet.  So, if your PC ever starts spouting bad verse in Arabic at you, Don’s your man to fix it.

His poetry activities began with stand-up performance verse, a style that took him around the country and finally to the Edinburgh Fringe, where he and Chris Coleman  with two friends had a sell-out show a couple of years ago.  He then moved on to taking an MA in an attempt to improve his writing and this helped him land the job he has been doing since last October.

Don is coming to the end of his year in office as Birmingham’s ninth Poet Laureate.  He will not be idle, though.  He is pursuing another poet-in-residence opportunity and has two ten-week course to teach on Warwick University’s Lifelong Learning programme.  He has a collection that he is ‘starting to tout around the publishers’ and is working on several projects, including writing linking verse for five plays being written by Birmingham children and preparing a programme with Hazell Hills and John Alcock, for a progress around Compton Verney in October.

Creative Writing
 
Said the tutor to his student
“Can you write a little verse,
There’s a deadline coming shortly
I need money in my purse.
How eagerly all your colleagues are finishing their consignments
Hang tutorials, hang the feedback, hang any such refinements.”
 
“I find it very difficult,”
His acolyte replied,
“To write even a quatrain
That’s got anything inside.
You may be pushed to produce for them / something down on paper,
But isn’t this academic stuff a rather empty caper?”
 
“For heaven’s sake stop chattering
Just scribble, scribble, scribble,
I promise not to read it
So I’ll never know it’s drivel.
The aim of our activity / is to produce something that’s measurable,
You must be joking if you thought that learning would be pleasurable.”
 
“…And further more,” the tutor said,
“I don’t expect much thought.
Get through that module double quick
The way that you’ve been taught.
Keep at it, and on no account / must you pause to think at all -
In this kind of education there’s no time to be original.
 
“A little bit of this and that
Is all you can expect.
There’s no time to study here -
Download it from the internet!
All you need is IT skills, an awareness of the cut-off date.
You won’t remember anything , but you’ll get a good Certificate.”

Orchard Melody
 
Once I listened to a cello played
at night in a quiet orchard
and from the silence a nightingale replied.
Then, disturbing this calm scene, I heard -
approaching far and high – a squadron of bombers,
an increasing concerted throbbing
which almost overwhelmed the music,
but did not interrupt the cello nor the bird.
 
After the bombers and the rearguard fighters
had passed over and faded into silence
the cello continued its étude
and the nightingale its song.
 
That was long ago.
Yet still a needle can track the circling grooves
again, again, again, - any time for me,
recreating that first living sound -
though cellist,  bird,  pilots, navigators
and their crews are long since dead
and that war history. 

 

Occupation

Times were dangerous then,
1.  one could be taken away
for painting V on a wall;
for a ball bouncing unpredictably
and in the wrong direction;
for tripping a soldier in the street
accidentally;
for arthritis, mistaken as insubordination;
a misinterpreted smile;
resembling a Jew.

 
Yes, things were different then.
Listening, for example, to the radio -
One could die for less -
2.   a capital offence, listening

3.   to the voice of Freedom,

4.   the BBC, coming to us through thin air

5.   from very far away.

So we were furtive then,
turned it low, crouched over it
like cavemen at a fire,
one ear straining for the news,
and one for a boot on the cobbles

Mute

A prayer mislaid somewhere
between the words
is still a prayer.

Pointing at the moon
with your baby finger :
Unknowing distances
reach into your mind-
and then you see the stars
fossilised light;
A journey begun before
earth broke its silence
touches your eye –
Was this its predestination?

You smile your brilliant smile,
though you have no comprehension,
- much less the words.

Because I was silent
They thought I had nothing to say.

Forget-me-not

In the Western Desert there is a grave.
It must still be there.
[Things desiccate - not rot - in desert air.]
The wooden cross we made
may be wind-blasted, or buried deep -
but dry as any pharaoh underneath
still lies my enemy.
 
As a mosquito moves towards her shadow
he moved towards his end in my focused eye.
Since then I’ve lived in time I took from him.
The choice was not my own -
but that’s history.
 
Somewhere we buried him as best we could, -
commended his soul to God, in English,
burnt one word of his own into the wood,
(chosen by Captain Benedict.)
It’s meaning I’ve forgotten now:
Vergissmeinicht.

...I move towards my end
as a mosquito moves towards her shadow…
- undated fragment by Keith Douglas [1944?]

 

Veteran

‘Why speak not they of comrades that went under?’ – Wilfred Owen

He never said much about the war
after he came back. We thought then
there wasn’t much to tell.
But when, in later life, I read the histories
- and then became involved and went in deeper -
his regiment kept popping up.
He must have been there, and there and there
- Dunkirk, Sicily, Cassino, Arromanches.
He wasn’t invalided out, or wounded.

Then I began wondering why
he said there wasn’t much to tell.
I thought at first it was just modesty
(we Brits always underplay it, stiff upper lip etc.)
Why did he not count himself a hero?
What horrors had he seen? Or done?
And did he know too much of lives laid down
not for freedom, King and Country, but for him…
Who of his friends and neighbours didn’t come back?
Did he not want me, a child, to know
Life’s realities? Was his deepest wish for me
the innocence of his hard-won peace?

And for his family, no taint of conflict
which only he had been through,
which largely passed us by.
(My mother worrying, of course, but not letting on,)
while I, playing in the garden
with Bob, whose father never came home,
watched the planes go over. We knew them all.

So I traced Dad’s regiment’s history,
focusing on his Company, his Platoon,
but the personal details are missing….

I ask him again, “Dad, what did you do in the war?”
He glances at me from under those grey eyebrows,
Makes a wry face, amused, sad, quizzical,
“Oh, nothing much,” he says,
And looks through the window far away
protecting me still.

Shady Nook [Latest Version]

It ‘s no quiet spot
now to dream in,
though once it was -
a small and golden hillock.
There was the sospiration of leaves
the birds among them singing.
From here the view widened
across the small and silent heath
crackling in the sun
to spires far away
whose bells could be heard
on a clear day –
(the wind in the right direction.)

Then the railway thrust through
hard by, straight as a gun barrel,
engines thunder to and fro

north, south, east, west
to the exponential cities
insidiously polluting silence:
Edinburgh, Rugby, Leicester, London.

An island of quiet?
The call of a different faith
is drowned with the bells,
by counterstreams of traffic
flowing past, around:
to the airport where planes
for  Europe, America, Asia
shuttle commerce, leisure
round this disc of green.
 
Who named this green centre,
bound by tar Macadam,
of an industrial whirlpool -
the incessant movement 

of machines approaching, slowing,
accelerating off the curve
each in their chosen direction:
north, south, east, west……

How can I possibly
sit here now
to think, to dream
to contemplate the view
on the leaded grass
my back to the last stand
of impotent spiked and huddled bushes?
What tranquillity is there
now - to write
at Poet’s Corner?

50p

Nickel, seven-sided, rimmed,
not worn or old
but too light and thin.
On the obverse the Queen
crowned. Idealised (too young –
Age shall not wither her &c.).
the reverse presents Britannia
old as Rome.
 
“Whose inscription is this?”
And they said, “Caesar’s”…..

Still his language surrounds her
imparting authority
(Although her father lost Ind Imp):
D. G. Reg. F. D. –Deo Gratia Regina. Fide Defensor
 
Now, as then, the answer stands:
“Render to Caesar the global market…
 
And unto God?

 

Martin Underwood was born in Guildford (Surrey) although in some ways thinks back to the Sussex downs as being ‘home’. He has lived in Birmingham since 1972 but was in London in the 1960’s a decade he remembers little about – but perhaps this is because he was a librarian . He has been writing since his teens and finds strength in contact with other poets. He is particularly aware of the invisible influence of past lives and past events on the movement of the present and in the many parallels which exist. (One example: the first thing Saddam Hussain did when recently brought to court in Baghdad for the first time was to question its validity and authority – What was the first question King Charles 1st put to Cromwell’s judges at his trial in 1649? Guess!)

Christine Coleman