Long Distance

Tags

distance, growth, love, Poem, Poetry, relationships, time, youth

Trains and buses nowhere went;
the youths’ affections down lost roads.
Planes then flew by love’s ascent
with music words through life’s forbodes.

Month in mountain’s valley high
with winter’s dew, sagacious flares.
Some quickened loves were meant to die,
end quote : “When man aspires, he errs.”

Time has skewered Fate’s dark veil;
two different people, they’ve become.
Flowing sands now weave that spell
to better words – a friend’s welcome.

[Ageing Schoolmaster]

Tags

ageing, Ageing Schoolmaster, children, death, life, poetry reading, school, spokenverse, vernon scannell, youth

by Vernon Scannell
And now another autumn morning finds me With chalk dust on my sleeve and in my breath, Preoccupied with vague, habitual speculation On the huge inevitability of death. Not wholly wretched, yet knowing absolutely That I shall never reacquaint myself with joy, I sniff the smell of ink and chalk and my mortality And think of when I rolled, a gormless boy, And rollicked round the playground of my hours, And wonder when precisely tolled the bell Which summoned me from summer liberties And brought me to this chill autumnal cell From which I gaze upon the april faces That gleam before me, like apples ranged on shelves, And yet I feel no pinch or prick of envy Nor would I have them know their sentenced selves. With careful effort I can separate the faces, The dull, the clever, the various shapes and sizes, But in the autumn shades I find I only Brood upon death, who carries off all the prizes.

[When I was Young and Ignorant]

Tags

carnival, circus, ignorance, love, Patrick Barrington, Poem, poetry reading, youth

When I was Young and Ignorant
by Patrick Barrington

When I was young and ignorant I loved a Miss McDougall,
Our days were spent in happiness, although our means were frugal;
We did not sigh for worldly wealth, for vain and tawdry treasures,
We were a simple country pair with simple country pleasures.
Beneath the village chestnut-tree it was our joy to meet once;
We used to tread the dewy fields with wonder-waking feet once;
We wandered once in leafy lanes and walked in Woodlands shady;
But now she’s gone to Birmingham to be a Bearded Lady.

I loved her as I loved my life when I was young and tender,
And happily our time was spent although our means were slender.
We used to pass the golden days in countrified pursuits once;
We walked through simple country bogs in simple country boots once.
High hopes of happiness I had, but now my hopes are zero,
Alas! My love has left me now to carve her own career O;
Now all the hopes I had of her are worth a maravedi;
My love has gone to Birmingham to be a Bearded Lady.

My love now dwells in circus halls with clowns and tight-rope dancers,
Where dromedaries play bassoons and sea-lions do the lancers;
She moves amongst trick-bicyclists, buffoons and comic waiters,
With elephants and acrobats and prestidigitators.
No longer daily by my side she wanders through the hay now,
The glamour of the public eye has lured are far away now.
Remorseless Fates, my tender hopes how cruelly betrayed ye!
My love has gone to Birmingham to be a Bearded Lady.

When I was young and ignorant I loved a Miss McDougall;
But that was e’er she heard the call of Fame’s imperious bugle.
I thought her kind as she was fair, but I was green and calfish;
My love, though brighter than a star, was colder than a starfish.
High hopes of happiness I had when I was young and tender;
But time and tide have falsified my juvenile agenda.
Farewell, my castle is in the air! Phantasmal mansions, fade ye!
My love has gone to Birmingham to be a Bearded Lady.