Bard's life

My recent visit to Cornwall provided me with an opportunity to visit the graves of two significant and much loved Twentieth Century poets, Charles Causley and Sir John Betjeman.  ST ENODOC’S CHURCHYARD                           A rhymer at a poet’s grave, I wonder what unwritten words lie buried with the great man’s bones. Would those fine verses we admire be overshadowed were his voice to reawaken and declaim some better poem than his best? Sir John, beneath this ornate stone in his beloved Cornish ground, knew life is far from infinite, that poems and passion, too, must die. The great man, dear man, gentle man, who said his piece and rests in peace, now lends his pen to other men while I stand here, amid the dunes that guard his grave, my coat a shield against the wind, and hear the sea declaiming words that end in waves.

Here's a little poem for those of you who hope to receive a gadget from Santa this year. SATNAV - TIVITY Once, Three Wise Men went on a quest to seek and find the Christ-Child, blessed, they took with them the new “must have”, a camel-friendly, cool Sat.Nav. A Guiding Star said travel East and, as its radiance increased, they harkened to this Bright Informer and muttered, “Guys, we’re getting warmer!” But hark! The Sat.Nav disagreed: due North was what it guaranteed. So off they trekked on camel-back. (Alas, they were on the wrong track.) They’d brought, as gifts, diamonds and fur (sadly, no Frankincense and Myrrh) and fancy jewellery, gold-plated, to clothe the Christ-Child when located. Instead of East, they galloped North and that is why these three, henceforth, th ose Sat.Nav-trusting Un- W ise Men, were simply never seen again.

My travels in England earlier this year brought me to numerous places of interest: fine old pubs, rustic churches and tiny, peaceful hamlet s far removed from the angst and clamour of urban life in the UK nowadays.   One of the most tranquil and visually pleasing villages I visited was Grantchester , of which the poet Rupert Brooke wrote:               Stands the Church clock at ten to three?            And is there honey still for tea?  ... the famous, closing lines of his poem The Old Vicarage, Grantchester .   Jane and I arrived in Grantchester on a particularly rainy day and took refuge in The Green Man pub where I jotted down the opening lines of my own “Grantchester” poem. GRANTCHESTER Like waking in a former time from dreams of future-shock and fear, I stare at streets devoid of grime, expecting spray-paint to appear on gable-ends pristinely white, with n...

Paris has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. It looks as though les gilets jaunes have begun a modern - day French Revolution. Here's a short piece of fiction about a drunken incident set in Paris in happier times . R OLL OVER BEE THOVEN The Parish Church is full to bursting. Light pours through the ancient stained-glass windows. The glorious notes of a Beethoven Sonata fill the air. I glance down at Chuck Berry’s shoes as the Minister’s voice intones those familiar words: Who gives this woman? I answer firmly: I do.  It was Nineteen-eighty-something. I was a young man, free as air, making my way around Europe in what I suppose you’d now call a ‘gap year’. I’d arrived in Paris and, after a month of tatty, one-star hotels, decided to splash out and stay for one barely-affordable night at the Hotel d’Aubusson on Rue Dauphine. I spotted him when I was checking in: Chuck Berry, the Poet Laureate of Rock ‘n Roll, making his way to the elevator. He was dressed in a w...

Youth and age briefly glimpsed each other one April Sunday when I was walking in the lanes around Bordeaux.  I wrote this poem when I arrived home. MY LIKENESS-CHILD A child stands by a windowpane, looks down through Sunday rain, as I trudge slowly down a rural lane, head bowed, beneath a leaden sky like a too-laden hammock slung. Though April, spring seems yet unsprung. I glimpse a movement to the right, glance up and see him standing there. He waves, perhaps to be polite, and I wave back, return his stare. I think how much he looks like me when I was his age, guileless, free. I trudge along against grey rain that threatens to engulf the day, then hesitate, look back again: my likeness-child has slipped away back to his games, his screen, his book. I’m hardly worth a second look.

Here on the island, winters tend to be mild. In Northern Ireland, where I grew up, they can be harsh and unforgiving.  From December till February in that grey n orthern province , frost, snow and ice may be expected and I recall, as a child, the thrill of venturing out to slip and slide on frozen lakes. In older age, of course, it's different. We feel the cold more acutely and are aware of the danger. Nevertheless, there's something magical about the transformation that winter brings to the landscape. WILD GEESE When we awoke the lake had turned to glass. We ventured out into the crystal glare, in rubber boots, through luminescent snow, and were amazed, for nothing could surpass the magic stillness of December air. On glinting ice, young lovers skated slow, their eyes, beneath their tousled hair, aglow. Our exhaled breaths were visible; we laughed to see those skaters gliding on the lake as in warm summer evenings wild geese do,  austere, white-breasted, splendid sailing craf...

As poetry collections go, my book Stone Witness has sold well and continues to do so.  Who knows, some discerning friend may buy it for you at Christmas, if you don't already have a well-thumbed copy on your bookshelf.  I'm currently working towards my next collection. Its working title is The Granite Ship and central to it will be the poem featured below. THE GRANITE SHIP Waves crash around the granite ship, unceasingly, unceasingly, and though the sturdy structure holds the vessel is increasingly at peril from the hungry whip of breakers while the ocean scolds as we, poor mariners, steadfast, stand resolute beneath the mast. Our shipmates, hardy island men,         crew of the granite ship, respect the awesome hunger of the sea, its rage, were it to go unchecked, might rise and inundate again the living land, our sanctuary. Our ship sails on, we pray that day may never come, wish it away. One day, not in our lifetime, no, ...