POEMS - With Tongue In Cheek

[keithgood838]

BETRAYAL

2015, we welcomed you as a harbinger
of better times
with fireworks, Auld Lang Syne
and Big Ben chimes;
just one week old you've crushed
our early optimism
with horrendously extreme literary criticism.
How could you?

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

TAKING LIBERTIES

Journalists paid the ultimate price
in defence of free expression,
so our knee-jerk response is
further freedom erosion;
give the security services
resources needed to operate,
but do not hand the jihadis
victory on a plate.

[keithgood838]

TRICKSTER TIME

Combating the duvet-heavy, draughts-excluding,
heating-turned-up shiveryness of each Jack Frost
directed twenty-fifteen midwinter day,
makes the sultry, clothing casting, Byron's She
summer of twenty-fourteen seem a millennium away,
while simultaneously making her presence seem
to have been revelled in only yesterday.

Keith Good

[Eman]

Awesome Keith!!!

[keithgood838]

Thanks Eman. The concept of cloudless climes and starry skies
is what attracted me to Byron's exquisite lines. The beauty he
captured was on seeing his cousin, Lady Wilmot Horton, at a party
in 1814. Byron was a womaniser; he had an eye for the ladies in
more ways than one. I have decided to post the entire poem in
tribute to all the lovely ladies who adorn our world:

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

George Gordon, Lord Byron
(1788-1824)

[keithgood838]

Happy Burns Night to our Scottish forum members.
Let the great bard provide the antidote to our cold
January by taking us forward to early summer:

O MAY, THY MORN

O May, thy morn was ne'er sae sweet,
As the mirk night o' December:
For sparkling was the rosy wine,
And private was the chamber;
And dear was she I dare na name,
But I will aye remember.

And here's to them, that, like oursel,
Can push about the jorum!
And here's to them that wish us weel,
May a' that's guid watch o'er them!
And here's to them we dare na tell,
The dearest o' the quorum!

Robert Burns

[Eman]

Nice Robert Burn's poem Keith

[keithgood838]

We are looking forward to spring and summer here, Eman:

FEBRUARY'S FAREWELL

Crocuses poke their heads above the ground
and splash colours on the uniform lawn;
soon daffodils in dance mood will abound
while welcoming every rose-hued dawn
heralding heavy-clothes-divesting times
that typify sun-smiled-on summer's climes.

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

We are blessed with a glorious spring day here today
in the south-east of England; it puts me in mind of a
classic poem on the rejuvenating subject:

SPRING

Nothing is so beautiful as spring -
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. - Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
(1844-1889)

[keithgood838]

Here's a self-deprecating verse about my golfing fraternity:

THE EIGS
(Eltham-Irish Golf Society)

Unlike our singular Hebridean namesake
we are about two-and-a-half dozen plural,
suburban but within striking distance
of the landscape-coiffeured rural.
No need for a little-lion-stamped shell;
old even-handed arbiter Stableford
marks those of us who excel.
It cannot be said that we are hard-boiled;
our default mode is sunny side up,
and we relish every pleasing liaison
with the capricious green-decorated cup.

Keith Good

Easter 2015

[keithgood838]

TODAY

Young Jordan Speith holds golfing sway
with a masterly wire-to-wire display.

A SWING & A PRAYER

Just two body turns and a swish
make the pros propel the ball a mile;
in extremis only a fulfilled wish
makes me flash a heartfelt smile.

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

SUBSIDY INCONGRUITY

Now under right to buy
there's a six-figure subsidy
to help you own your rented home,
but you kiss goodbye
to your tenure of security
if you can't afford your spare bedroom.

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

RESOLUTION ROAD

While others stall and the Scot Nats roar ahead
in the race to win the voters' approbation,
maybe their meaningfully accelerated
Westminster legislative participation,
and the liberating loss of their tail-ender status,
will wean them off their separatist predilection
and point these islands in a new self-governing,
unifying, federalist direction.

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

The following verses arose from my life-enriching association
(as proof-reader) with the definitive exposition of the WW1
Lusitania tragedy, written by my good friend Paddy O'Sullivan.
'On a sun-bright, carefree afternoon of 7 May 1915 passengers
on the deck of the Lusitania enjoyed a light breeze as they viewed
the emerald shores of Ireland ... Like a stealthy assassin Walter Schweiger
had stalked the great ship and struck without warning. His death-dealing
torpedo brought woe and desolation to passengers and crew who numbered
almost 2000.'

WINTER-WARMER

On cold-snap days awaiting
their chance to chill the bones,
it will be lenitive to look
back and bask in the glow
of crew membership on the fascinating
voyage of Paddy O'Sullivan's
enlightening Lusitania book
all those years ago ...

AUTHOR-SHIP

From the stricture the Muse imposes
on most of us,
she made Patrick O'Sullivan exempt;
he wrote his Lusitania magnum opus
at his first publishing attempt.
The sapid, soul-searing chapter
he titled, The Town of the Dead,
stands as the pinnacle
of poignant literature
one feels privileged to have read.

LUSITANIA TAILPIECE

Nature is cruel but understood
in starving beast or storm-roused sea;
but how can man, in ice-cold blood,
much more malevolent be?

Keith Good

[Eman]

Love your original pieces Keith.