Needless Tautology

Have you ever reversed your car backwards?

Given gifts to a couple of twins?

Seen something that's very unique?

If you have, tautology wins.

Have you ever unloosened your laces?

Seen a most puzzling mystery?

Risen - six am in the morning?

Then you're guilty of prolixity.

Have you been persecuted unjustly?

Seen three triplets in a pram?

Crawled very slowly up a hill?

Well, you're in a bit of a jam.

Was that show worthwhile attending?

Has your pension plan been sorted out?

Did you take a vacation holiday?

Then redundant words are about.

Have you seldom ever been late?

Or retorted a riposte?

Produced a facsimile copy?

If you have, I'm afraid you're lost.

Don't reiterate repetition

Or remorsefully regret,

Or repudiate a rebuttal.

If you don't there's hope for you yet.

You'll be virtually, practically cured.

Still, you may not give a hoot.

You may like new innovations.

That's one more pleonasm to boot!

So future prospects, actual facts

And relics of the past,

Small details and usual habits,

In your language, will probably last.

Violent explosions and audible sounds

In close proximity,

Interspersed among your writing

Won't bother you, just me.

So the consensus of opinion

At this very moment in time,

I give you advance warning,

At least helps my poem to rhyme.

David Jasper, Sedgefield.

The Cricket Game

Life is like a game of cricket -

Every year's another wicket

And hopefully from small beginnings

You will have a lengthy "innings".

Holding head with sportsman's pride,

Taking all within your stride,

Surveying well the opposition -

High scoring on your earthly mission.

Till you hear the umpire shout

One day that you are finally "out".

But before then it may be

You'll reach a well-earned century.

Then at last with bat and ball

You'll face the final curtain call.

And to that Lords in the sky

You'll kiss this life a sweet goodbye.

As you have reached your final wicket

No more to play life's game of cricket.

Linda French, Hartlepool.

Miss March

The hurdy gurdy March wind purses her lips

And blows at April's showers.

Trying to stay the onslaught of the days.

Capped daffodils peep through their sheaths,

To test if winter's gone, birds begin a-wooing.

The verdant pasture breathes

But Miss March will not relent.

She calls for her frosty sister

To remind romantic swains to take their time.

Freezes the falling rain to a flurried whirl of snow

Covering the smooth green lawn with rime.

But, it is just no good pretending

When it is time for you to go.

Lift up your skirts and get you on your way.

Your yearly month of waywardness has run its final course.

'Tis spring whose feet will dance, 'tis April's day.

Fran Vincent, Skeeby, Richmond.

Peace in Prayer

In the warming sun she sits

Staring over fields at the distant hills.

Grey haired, many wrinkles.

Her clear blue eyes see but do not record.

Closed is the mind to the scene that

Her eyes look upon.

Beauty of nature no more awes the still figure.

Her mind is blind to all in the present.

She sees some of the past.

Senility has come to the silent seated form.

The physical body can still move with vigour.

Unguarded by her own mind she needs instructions,

Sit, stand, go to bed!

Her voice is heard for brief moments

As past conversations reform in her mind

Sometimes she sings.

Long dead relations and friends in her wandering

Mind are brought back to life.

At night before being put to bed,

She kneels and prays aloud

As she did when a young child.

More than 70 years ago

The prayers give her comfort.

She sleeps peacefully each night.

TM Keegan, Ripon.

Scene of Scenes

"Isn't there a difference in your smile?"

She asked.

And, staring for a while

She moved on,

Past the empty-hearted lovers

In their naked carrier bags.

Through the streets of gutter tears,

Wild, the wounded, wheezing hags.

I watched her till the clocked turned old,

Then heaving,

Pushed my trolley up the gold-paved road,

Past slipping, sliding managers,

Up to the neck in waste of years gone by

And the years of waste to come,

Though we attempt to cast ours out in youth,

It was decided while you sucked your thumb.

And, scene of scenes, my face turned green,

For envy's sake?

Then, as I passed a young child mother,

Dropped a penny in.

My useless charity, my cold, vain hand.

She thanked me with her pin-hole eyes.

Lifting her head to catch the day's tired sun,

Yanked down by the one, upon her thighs.

Ryan Grey, Middleton-in-Teesdale.

Ghosts

As the winds of despair

Sweep this green land so fair

And the ghosts of our nation awake

Will our memories fade?

For the ghosts that were laid

Will sad ghosts of old leaders forsake?

Through the cold mists of time

We have lingered sublime

While our fate has been long signed away,

By grim merchants of stealth

Slowly gaining more wealth

As this ghostly land loses its sway.

We have idled too long

Been complacent among

People who would make hist'ry a blur.

Is the dream they perceive

We, their rule to receive?

Still the ghosts of their leaders stir.

Soon our councils will grieve

As our diplomats leave

Only prefects to rule everywhere.

Now the good times have been

Gone our freedom to dream

But will ghosts of tomorrow care?

A Curle, Ferryhill.

Lest We Forget

Sometimes when the bands are playing

And the uniform march by,

You will find a seaman watching

With a wistful looking eye.

And you know just what he is thinking

As he hears the cheering crowd,

As the soldiers and sailors

Swing along, erect and proud.

He is thinking that his country

Saves its honours once again

For the uniform, forgetting

All the seas' Forgotten Men.

He is thinking of the armies

And the food and fighting tanks

That for ever safe arrival

To the seamen owe their thanks.

He is thinking of those buddies

Who have paid the final score,

Not in khaki or in navy

But the working cloth they wore.

And we'd like to tell him something

That we think he may not know

A reminder he can stow away

Wherever he may go.

All your countrymen are proud of you

And though there's no brass band,

Not a bugle or a banner

When the merchant seamen land.

We know just the job you are doing

In your worn-out working clothes.

On the seas where death is lurking

And a fellow's courage shows.

So be sure to keep your chin up

When the uniforms parade.

What a man wears doesn't matter

It's the stuff of which he's made.

Wm Doyle, Hartlepool.