POEMS - With Tongue In Cheek

[keithgood838]

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
(1647-1680) wasn't enamoured of
a certain Stuart king, when he wrote:

KING CHARLES II

Here lies our mutton-eating King
Whose word no one relies on,
Who never said a foolish thing
Nor ever did a wise one.

I don't think he deserved that degree
of disapprobation, although he did have
15 mistresses. Historian Brenda Ralph Lewis
wrote: 'A pretty face and a comely figure
were enough for her to be taken on strength.'
Ms Ralph Lewis goes on, without a hint of irony,
'And he was particularly prone to actresses.'

Keith

PS Marian, although I confess to having a bit
of the devil in me today, I had to find some way
of warding off old Lucifer's worst excesses.

[keithgood838]

IRONY

The Home Secretary is the protector and promoter
of the high standards of behaviour, and integrity,
to which our decent citizenry honourably aspire.

A special adviser, or spin doctor, exists to protect and promote
the image of the government and steer the prime minister
clear of the political mire.

Our gormless governing classes seem
hell-bent on presenting themselves as sitting ducks
for the brickbats of political satire.

Thus the precious tapestry of democracy
continues to be tar-brushed by a pointless need
ruthlessly to conspire.

Keith

[keithgood838]

A Mental Health Foundation study shows that the British
have become unhappy, anxious and depressed. Personally,
I find pure escapism in Matt's music; however I have another
antidote in the following de-stress poem created as a bulwark
against 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'. Perhaps
I should explain that 'sandy Pylos' was Telemachus's enjoyable
first port of call in his quest to find his wandering father,
Odysseus, the central character in Homer's epic poem.


MEDITATION


I shelter from life's sudden storms of tension,
in the haven of my imagination:

I'm lazing languid-limbed on down-soft sands,
here on the Pylos of this odyssey,
the grains feel desert-dry beneath my hands,
I think: 'This is how Paradise will be.'

The shimmering sea's a stage for dancing rays
glittering on a back-drop of blue skies,
a lonely breeze intrudes upon the haze
inducing sleepy leaden-lidded eyes.

Freed from care's fetters my thoughts soar away
on wings of poetry by Thomas Gray:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight
And drowsy tinklings lull the distane folds.

As dawn will banish creatures of the night,
imagination puts all fears to flight:

I step into a canvas country scene
Madame Nature's wonders to behold,
when her spring-collection show of green
is transformed to haute couture in gold.

Dawdling through this Indian summer day
in warm company with the sun at noon,
all clouds of doubt long melted away,
we find ourselves in meadowland and soon ...

Reclining there near a slow-moving stream,
I resume my 'sandy Pylos' dream ...


Keith Good

[keithgood838]

Now that Britain is basking in a bit of balmy weather
(okay, I'm an alliteration addict), maybe it's time to
look forward to holidays or reflect on former idyllic
experiences. I posted a draft version of the following
lines from the Algarve in 1988:

POSTCARD from VILAMOURA

Enjoying woken-by-sun-days
hinting that we join him to laze ...
Stretching before us when we rise,
blue-sparkling seas abut blue skies.
Waiting, the ever-present pool,
ensures our landward brows keep cool.
Seeing homes appear to undulate,
a Moorich atmosphere to re-create:
low-built white walls, light-brown roof tiles -
a landscape littered with big smiles!
Taking, in golfers' paradise,
more at the waterhole than should suffice.
I am glad we chased, and caught, the sun
and doubly content now this verse is done.

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

In keeping with the current fine spell, I continue
the holiday theme with a reflection on a fairly recent
visit I made to a childhood West Cork idyll,
with rather discouraging consequences.

SEA CHANGE

After our long years of separation,
Coolmaine came as a shock;
the bathing beauty-spot I knew
seemed marred by craggy rock.
The silk-smooth beach and caster-sugar sands
were stone-disfigured grey;
unlovely she looked, and friendless,
on the cloudy, summer day ...

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

Years after I had written the foregoing Sea Change
and on leaving (with a group of friends) a gourmet
eating-house, the Pink Elephant, in the same locality,
I was approached by an elderly lady who enquired of me sweetly:
'Do you remember me?'
I racked my scrambled memory processes in vain
and was compelled to reply weakly;
'Forgive me, but you will have to tell me who you are.'
She turned out to be an acquaintance from my late teenage
years, and piling agony upon agony she continued,
'I recognised you the minute you walked into this restaurant.'
As I dashed to rejoin my departing friends I consoled myself
with the thought that I may not have changed very much
in the intervening half-century.
The following paean to the scene of my 'crime' is also substantively
unconnected to my bitter-sweet encounter:

REVERIE

You dream a pretty seaside place,
let's call it Harbour View.
You see the hand of failte
smilingly proferred to you.
And as your eager taste-buds thrill
to West Cork's fine cuisine,
you take soul-sustenance
from the sun-silvered seascape scene.
This glorious glimpse of paradise,
of the king heaven-sent,
by God, is real, is here, is now,
is no pink elephant.

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

The following is my account of an early working encounter,
circa 1984 ominously, with the computer. It certainly wasn't
a meeting of minds, still less love at first sight:


THE COMPUTER


SYSTEM SHUTTING DOWN!!! FINAL WARNING!!! BYE!!!

The stark message stole across the v.d.u. ...
And I couldn't help feeling like a hapless victim
of miscarried justice.

Consider: I had welcomed the advent
of this electronic hired help,
and regretted the rather restrained introductions.
Admittedly, it didn't seem to take to me
in the way it warmed to younger colleagues
for whom it was soon emitting
bleeps of apparent delight
while dutifully displaying desired data.
I confess to trying its patience
while trying to log on (I consoled myself with the thought
that logging off was dead easy),
and I plead guilty
to provoking the exasperated response:
!!! NO EMPLOYEES IN RANGE !!!
when keying in an incompatible account number.

But surely such innocent infringements
were never sufficient justification
for this neoteric Nemesis
to impose the maximum penalty
in the middle of a busy afternoon?


Keith Good

[keithgood838]

So now it's official: the Met Office long range forecast
heralds a barbecue summer in Britain. Forum friend,
you read it on this website first, on Monday 29 December
to be precise, on Site News under the title MMIX,
the Happy New Year thread. Who says poetry is irrelevant?
In all modesty.
Keith

[mariana44]

Well done Keith--as well as being our resident poet, you are now, also our long term weather forecaster

[keithgood838]

Thanks, Marian(a)
I don't know all that much about poetry, seriously;
and nothing at all about meteorology. I thought I should
acquaint the forum with some extracts (lest we infringe
any copyright) of Carol Ann Duffy's work:

LEDA

Obsessed by faithfulness,
I went to the river
where swans swam in their pairs and saw how a heart
formed in the air as they touched, partnered forever.
Under the weeping trees a lone swan swam apart ...

Note. In Greek mythology, Zeus, in the form of a swan,
seduced already married Leda, who gave birth to Helen
and Polydeuces.
(The memorable heart-shaped swan imagery
lingers in the mind like a Matt Monro musical phrase.)


The following lines hark back to the days of 'waiting ladies'.


WARMING HER PEARLS


Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm them, until evening
when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her ...

I dust her shoulders with a rabbit's foot,
watch the soft blush seep through her skin
like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
my red lips part as though I want to speak ...

Keith

[ROBERT M.]

Somehow the weather forecasters always predict great summers, but the last two have been howlers so why do they bother to try and predict the summers..................just let the summer unfold by itself, we will then find out that way

[Lena & Harry Smith]

Well yes, I agree Robert. It's not like being given a choice is it. but then I get so fascinated by the actions of some of these weather forecasters

[keithgood838]

Hi L & H and Robert.

I'll let you into a secret: my 'forecast'
was created from a newspaper article
that seemed like a shaft of sunlight
piercing the economic gloom.

Incidentally, posts on this thread
should rhyme,
so please, comments
in verse next time.

Keith

[Marian]

I can't recall who wrote this but it's in rhyme and about the weather!

Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot
We'll whether the weather
Whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not

[Lena & Harry Smith]

Ok, Keith i've got it...

"A WINTER'S... TAIL."..

The snow it was a falling
The pavements were like glass.
I thought I'd tripped on a banana skin
But i'd slipped on my bus pass.

Patience Strong.