Your poems

Know that change will overtake

Each cusp and grasp it helps create,

Constant challenges lie ahead,

Loophole of irony await.

As quickness rings decreasing days,

Each year's vast providence allows

Fledgling youth to scale bold heights

And wax their helter-skeltered brows.

Concurrent through the crux of it,

Senescence, creeping up so slow,

Palpably shows we're much the same,

Engendered from an embryo.

Part of some gradual design,

Each generation makes its mark,

Then lets the finite future go,

Sending the next replenished spark.

David Coates, Shildon.

Home Town

Don't know the place I live in any more

Or names of my neighbours who live just next door.

A disturbing problem I've not met before

And what can you say to strangers you meet on the street?

What was a village now stands as a town,

No work for so many, their gaze looking down.

Response to community spirit's a frown

Now life is a bore while time hurries by, wonder why.

Today pairs fast food with extra strong drink

Who cares 'bout tomorrow, who would dare to think?

A lifestyle that leads us to nought but the brink

And who wants to chance with strangers you meet on the street?

Albert Curle, Ferryhill.

The Wishing Well

I don't believe in fairy tales

A bit far fetched I find

But something happened just last week

That made me change my mind.

My wife, her mother and myself

Were walking in the park

I said: "I think we should go home

Before it gets too dark."

My mother-in-law said: "Rubbish, Bill,

"There's plenty more to see

"What's that thing over there beneath

"That lovely old oak tree?"

She dragged us over for a look

It was a wishing well

She stood on t'wall. I made a wish -

And in the old girl fell.

Bill Cooksey, Newton Aycliffe.

A Summer Poem

Hear the cries of seagulls

Walk on the beach

Swim in the sparkling sea

Feel the soft sand

See the pretty shells

See the blue sky and feel the warm sun

Make a sandcastle.

Butterflies flying around

Different colours, blue and pink

Wings fluttering

Different shapes on the ground

Shadows in the air

Watch the sun go down

See the colours in the sky.

Hannah Dawson (aged 7), York.

Seaside Memories

In those dim and far off days

When depression filled our world

We could only dream of the seaside

As the summer days unfurled.

So with eager anticipation

We looked forward with great glee

To our annual choir outing

A day out by the sea.

Our excitement knew no bounds

As at last the great day dawned

Marshalled into orderly lines

Best behaviour! We were warned.

Standing on the platform

Waiting for the steaming train

There's a blast from its whistle

We will soon be off again.

Arriving at Sunderland station

The sea was within easy reach

Dashing to board the clattering trams

Destination, Roker Beach.

Our excitement was intense

To catch a glimpse of the sea

Look! There's Roker Lighthouse

Our hearts were light and free.

How I recall those happy days

Playing along the shore

Paddling in the rocky pools

Gathering sea shells by the score.

Sunlight dancing across the sea

Waves breaking on the shore

Racing over the golden sands

Our sandcastles were no more.

Today the world is our seaside

We are a well travelled race

To Spain, Italy or Greece

Or some other exotic place.

But I remember my childhood days

And all those happy scenes

When a day trip to the seaside

Was for many, only in their dreams.

G Skaife, Saltburn.

On Fleeting Wing

If only we could turn back the clock

and fill all those hours that ran amok.

As one grows older, it was told to me,

the days aren't as long as they used to be.

This is a fact everyone should know,

The days grow shorter as the older we grow.

For then the days are shorter still

and strangely enough take less time to fill.

For the days of youth flee on speeding wing

And melt like the snow that falls in early spring.

So treat each day as though it were your last,

For before you know it,

It has been and gone and passed.

Mary Wright, Shildon.

Dog Gone It

After midnight,

and that elusive

magic energiser,

sleep, avoids me.

I watch,

through undrawn curtains,

the silvery moonlight.

Fresh air is precious

on this sultry

summer night.

The radio plays softly,

offering companionship.

The snoring dog only

emphasises my sleepless state.

Why cannot I find

repose contentedly,

like her, girding her loins

for the coming day?

I press buttons

to readjust my bed,

tightly close eyelids,

yet all in vain.

The snoring ceases,

I worry -

she has a heart problem.

Is the old girl all right?

By the light of the moon,

I quietly rise,

to be greeted

by a wagging tail.

Betty Robertson, Hipswell, Catterick Garrison.

A Soldier's Dream of Richmond

An old grey castle,

A silver stream.

Merely a homesick soldier's dream

Of a beautiful girl

In Richmond Square

Of wonderful moments at Whitsuntide fair.

Wonderful moments round Easby Lane,

Down through the woods

And round again.

Up on the moors, a summer breeze

Murmurs softly though the trees.

Down in the valley

The old Paper Mill

Where the river is wide and almost still,

Where we've played and we've swum,

And enjoyed ourselves thoroughly

By the Old Mill dam.

But Richmond is a place of delight,

Of glories untold it seems to me,

An earthly heaven, too contrite

For a homesick soldier across the sea.

But when the weary years are o'er

And I've set sail

For England's shore,

A broken promise I mean to retain,

Forever in Richmond to remain.

Gnr Wilcox, Malta, 1934, submitted by his sister, Olive Fryer, of Richmond.