POEMS - With Tongue In Cheek

[mariana44]

Good to see you back Keith---we've all been disconnected one way or another over the last week or so. so you were lucky to find us here just now.

[ROBERT M.]

Welcome back Keith I hope you didn't have to dig yourself out of sand too often

[keithgood838]

Thanks for your welcomes back, Marian(a) and Robert.
Robert, your apposite bunker comment reminded me
of a birthday card I received from my wife depicting
a golfer sending up showers of sand from a deep bunker
as his good lady approached wearing a big smile and bearing
a plateful of salad sandwich; the caption read:
'I asked for a sand wedge!' Punning poetry!

[Gray]

[keithgood838]

CONQUERING HEROES

Good to see Leeds United on song
and climbing their way
back to where they belong,
at the premiership pinnacle, Gray.



TARDIGRADE

This forum had become less agile
lately I see,
like me round the table tennis table:
less fleet-of-foot than I used to be.

[Gray]

Hi Keith

Thanks for your kind message re Leeds.
Yes, the season has been very encouraging so far, I was very worried before the campaign started but we are doing much better than I expected.

Form, however, can soon take a turn for the worse (just ask Mr Rooney) so I will just hope we can keep it going!

[ROBERT M.]

Nice to hear from you Gray .................but what happened tonight ............Leeds 4-1 up but they lost 4-6 in the end

[Gray]

I am soooooooooooooooooo embarrassed.
And depressed.

[ROBERT M.]

A bit like me Gray, City lost 4-0

[Gray]

...and another defeat for Leeds today...

[keithgood838]

I could scarcely let National Poetry Day pass without attempting
to mark the occasion. Bandon Opinion began life in the Seventies
as a modest A5, black and white publication whose readership
was initially confined to my home town and district plus its overseas
diaspora. It is now an A4 full-colour glossy renamed The Opinion
whose reach spans the entire West Cork region. I stopped counting
many years ago after the magazine had included over fifty of my verses.
The following paean to the publication was carried in the February 1994 edition:

BANDON OPINION

Maybe mine is a minor role
In the pageant of publications,
But I play the part for all it is worth
And the lines I deliver ring round the Earth,
And touch the hearts of nations.

Maybe I am a minuscule star
In the publishing firmament,
Yet my brilliance reaches near and far
And brings to Bandonians, wherever they are,
Joy and enlightenment.

Maybe I'm a mirror and what you see
In each page ... the face of a town
That wears a smile, seldom a frown,
Images frozen or written down,
All reflected in me.

Maybe I am like Mercury
And the message that I bring
Is of Christian voices in harmony,
That uplifting sense of community
Of which my pages sing!

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

HEAVEN v HADES
(television news, 13 October 2010)

Images of relieved Chilean faces
outpouring undiluted joy
evoked by humanitarian life-saving ingenuity,
followed by grotesques of chilling countenances
bent on a daytrip to destroy,
provoked by fanatical life-taking cruelty.

The contrast that each report
so graphically expounds;
the coincidence of the age-old conflict
being enacted on separate subterranean battlegrounds.

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

I think a highlight of the Friday Night is Music Night tribute
was Matt Junior's assertion that he was most proud of his dad
because of his imperviousness to the conceits of fame; he remained
a down-to-earth, utterly lovable bloke. That kind of wholehearted,
indomitable spirit never dies; moreover, it shines a revealing light
on the sullen bleakness on offer from the Richard Dawkinses of
this 'only' world. 'The blue sky [of belief] drives the dark clouds
[of doubt] far away.' Here is my latest message to Matt:

MORE
(adapted from the song by Riz Ortolani,
Norman Newell, Louis Oliviera and
Marcello Ciorciolini)

More than the music legacy you left,
bequests to ensure we are not bereft;
more than the nights of triumph we can play,
though spin-free days don't keep the blues at bay.
More than you'll ever know
our love continues to grow
in the loam of our keeping,
waking, sleeping, buoyed not weeping.

With your cadenced words 'till the end of time'
our sentiments harmoniously chime;
though Clotho let us down before,
of yourself, Matt, we are sure
no one would have given more.

Keith Good

[Lena & Harry Smith]

That's very nice Keith and echoed by all us Monro maniacs, that's for sure.

[keithgood838]

Yes Lena & Harry, immense likeability allied
to exquisite talent blessed us with marvellous Matt.
And now from the sublime to the ridiculous:

THE CSR

Is it a noble, above-the-fray patriotic exercise
prosecuted with scarcely concealed pride?

Or is it 'a callous attack on vulnerable citizens'
as strident Left-wingers have censoriously cried?

And are the Lib Dems' coat-tails cover behind which
little-Englander Tories can conveniently hide?

When the fog of battle eventually clears it will be left
to the ballot box arbiter ultimately to decide ...