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.
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