Bard's life

Recently returned from sunny Italy, I find the island weather chilly and that, during my three week's absence, autumn has begun to give way to gloomy winter.  What better time, then, to publish a few warmly humorous poems and challenge the falling temperatures with a smile. Today's is about that most supercilious beast, the llama. LLAMAS The haughty Llamas of Bolivia, are quite uninterested in trivia. They are, undoubtedly, a class above the buffalo or ass. They’re into art, admire fine prose, and have amazing cloven toes. A beast, in short, we should admire: a fellow of an order, higher. Sadly, they have one major flaw: they are decidedly bourgeois and see it as their bounden duty to sneer at others and be snooty. They always manage to deplore those creatures they consider lower who should kow-tow and know their place, and that includes the human race.

This month's Open Mic Night for poetry will take place at La Villette Hotel on Monday, 2 0 th Nove mber at 8pm. As always, all are welcome. Come along to read, c hat or simply listen. The optional theme for the evening is " Remembrance " .  THE HIDDEN TRAVELLER I remember the over-furnished room, cold as a cave, where they had laid him between the aspidistra and a spotted mirror; the sunbeams, slanting by the window, shoaled with dust; the silent street beyond, devoid of passers-by. Immaculate in laundered shirt and suit so rarely worn in life; in death he looked more like a character from a story than himself. I remember myself dressed in a suit that day; the parlour’s silence broken only by the ticking of a clock; the sense of unreality, of ritual without feeling; an odour of chrysanthemums. I remember him alive and huge and I so small, watching geese fly high over wetlands blurred with morning mist, our upturned faces wet with perfect joy; the swing he built me ...

There is immense appeal in wild, remote places and the almost-silence to be found there. For a fugitive from the frenzied jabber of modern life there is no bett er sanctuary.  MOOR PONIES The path, that winds its way as though by chance, leads to a blue-green, sweeping, verdant plain, coarse heather and an unexpected lough where swans, like hawthorn blossoms, dreaming, drift.  Here, rock and weathered boulders form a realm where nothing dwells that has not earned its place where day and night, like lovers, intertwine and season into season gently slips.  Bold standing stones, with ancient runes inscribed, face four wild winds to boldly outwit time while stunted trees, distorted into shapes, unnatural, cling to the earth and scream  like wailing ghosts in blackened widows’ lace for all the speechless sadness of the world. Moor ponies watch, with grey, impassive eyes, the hawk that circles slowly like a god high in his realm of silence, stark, sublime, untouchable, im...

With another birthday looming, it's difficult to summon up hopefulness in a world seemingly bent on self-destruction. The post-war era of the 1940s, when I was a child, was a time of serious deprivation, with UK cities still bearing the scars of conflict. The Luftwaffe bombs had stopped but shortages and rationing continued well into the 1950s.  There was, however, during that grim and grimy period, an air of optimism which seems sadly absent now. Perhaps we need to pay heed to these words of advice from the late D r Martin Luther King: Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can.  BIRTHDAY POEM 2017   A bad-news day, so typical of what we, daily, learn to call normality. Another war, a bomb outrage, an earthquake, a hurricane, a virus rampant, uncontrolled, another routine genocide, the usual starving dispossessed with hands outstretched in supplication. Another day. So swiftly now discarded hours, like autumn leaves...

With Hallowe'en 2107 behind us, let's spare a thought for a much-maligned section of the population, Zombies. Often discriminated against, Zombies are surprisingly friendly and long for cultural recognition and acceptance. They believe th at, whilst many regard them as evil and repugnant , neverthel ess , in the modern spirit of diversity, th ey should be made welcome in all social situations. ZOMBIEPHOBIA        Others, they call us The Undead and everywhere we go, they flee; if trapped, they shoot us in the head; they simply cannot let us be. For we can’t help the way we are: with rotting skin and clothes not fresh. It’s hardly our fault if we all enjoy the taste of human flesh and clump around on shaky legs or claw at people that we meet, so you should not discriminate and keep your distance in the street. We tore the postman limb from limb? Hands up, we did that: a mistake. But these things happen, life’s not fair. We only kill when we’re awake. ...