Cyclamens
In the Summer’s heat I bought ’em,
And they barely raised a leaf –
But here in the depths of Autumn
As the roses come to grief,
And while the first of frost is looming,
With the pumpkins come and gone,
So now the cyclamens are blooming
Just as though the sun still shone.
Red Like the Poppies
In 1911, in Britain, the dockers walked out –
And sailors and railwaymen too, across the nation.
Union membership soared, and so did the shout
For something more than this endless pent-up frustration.
A growing awareness had bloomed in the men –
They were no pack-mules who just bleat and cower.
These literate workers had realised then
That labouring hands now held all the power.
The following year, the miners struck –
A million men refused to duck
When facing-down bosses for pride in the pocket –
They wanted a minimum wage – and they got it !
What did they care of the Kaiser ? Why did they go ?
Ev’ry November, I wonder. I think I might know –
In 1914, in Britain, the soldiers marched out.
Many were raw volunteers – no draft had been called.
Some were patriotic’ly spurred, I’ve no doubt,
But shoring the empire must have left others appalled.
Yet the labourer’s life, while improving, was hard –
The same old drudging as yesterday.
Who wouldn’t swap for some public regard
In a smart uniform, with travel and regular pay ?
They trusted their orders and killed as commanded,
So can I be angry, if I must be candid ?
I don’t know. It was lots of things bound-up together –
So either I wear the poppy, or the white feather,
And honour those scabs who refused to be naive or quailed.
Perhaps. But why hadn’t they joined-up, those Glorious Jailed ?
’Tain’t the Season
November, November, you come in with a bang –
Enough to shake the leaves down from the trees.
The effigies are burnt, although by rights they ought to hang,
But then drawing strews their stuffing to the breeze.
Remember, November, the trenches and the mud,
And the generation buried underneath –
Then wince at all the pageantry, the polished clasp and stud,
And just pray they lay down more than just the wreath.
Now is not the time for carols,
Robin cards or gay apparel.
Don’t start rolling out the barrel –
Ah, sweet November !
November, November, the Leonids are streaming,
And also comes the frosty Hunter’s Moon.
Aurora too, if lucky. Old Orion’s up there dreaming,
And Sirius is seen late-afternoon.
An ember, November, of Autumn’s final rays –
The sun can still remove a coat or two.
Across the pond, they’re Giving-Thanks, so let us give our praise
To the month we shouldn’t rush to hurry through.
Now is not the time for holly,
Mistletoe or red-fat-jolly.
Let’s enjoy without such folly –
Ah, sweet November !
Day of the Dead
Nowhere in the Northern world
Could let the dead roam in the Spring,
When new life bursts and blooms unfurl,
And nights are shortening.
No, the Fall’s where they belong,
In piles of leaves and frosty air,
With creeping dark and waning song,
And the world in need of a scare.
No Month for an Atheist
October is the month when all the dead
Are brought to life again –
In our imaginations spectres tread,
And sceptics howl in vain.
So why must we be common-sensers,
Jaded cynics, sober sisters ?,
When the world wants will-suspensors,
Playful panics, logic-twisters.
What the Hell ! And if it’s Hell you want,
Then take it – take it all !
Mine’s a holy water from the font
With a twist of lime, served tall.
At least it’s safe, when Satan is
A dentist wearing plastic horns.
It’s ketchup blood and dry-ice fizz,
And no-one’s killing newly-borns.
October is the month when all the dead
Are brought to life again –
In our imaginations, streets run red
With ev’ry guilty stain.
We’ve all got demons locked within –
Let’s keep them in until they’re slayed.
For that is worth believing in –
The luxury to be afraid.
What the Hell ! Take all the Hell you need –
I mean, at least it’s warm.
Mine’s a chilly wisdom, I concede,
In the face of an eerie storm.
So have the month, enjoy your frights,
And call me killjoy all you like,
It’s fine – we’ll all sleep sound at night,
As once again the dead don’t strike.
The Sisters McBloom
The first to blossom was Daisy,
Yet still a rather homely lass –
Though pretty in a common way,
She spent all year within the grass
The next to blossom was Iris,
Bursting out in the warming Spring –
Showy, delicate, desirous,
Over quickly – just a fling.
The next to blossom was Poppy,
A gothic girl in crimson red –
A heady mix of sharp and soppy,
Fascinated by the dead.
The next to blossom was Rosie,
A redhead maid with cheeks of pink –
Nothing about her was boring or prosy,
And lasting longer than you’d think.
The next to blossom was Heather,
Just as the leaves were starting to turn –
Sturdy and tough, whatever the weather,
And hiding a heart just waiting to burn.
The last to blossom was Ivy,
Much maligned, but on the climb –
Her bauble buds were small though lively,
Coming of age at Christmastime.
Autumn Layers
How far into the Autumn dare we edge
Without a proper coat ?
Using jackets and jumpers as a bridge
To keep our hopes afloat –
Pretending the Summer is lurking still
Whenever the morning’s bright,
But getting caught by an unexpected chill
That serves us right.
And yet, if we just keep moving about
On the sunny side of the street,
It’s almost warm enough for going out
In the dying heat.
So please, just one more week before we don
Our bulky Winter coats,
When the pre-frost tingle says that the Summer’s gone,
And the tardy North Wind gloats.
The First Day of Autumn
The third week of September –
Is it really Summer still ?
Does the heat of late July
Belong beside the early chill ?
Can we yet regard it Summer
When the leaves are on the turn ?
When the holidays are over,
When the sun has lost its burn ?
Let’s not cling to Summer
But embrace the golden time of year !
Why wait until the Equinox
When Autumn is already here ?
Revolution of the Seasons
May Day – the start of the long, late Spring,
When early promise at last bears shoots,
And the frigid world of the Winter King
Is losing, day-by-day, its sting,
As underground, our creeping roots
Are undermining everything.
The dawns are dawning early,
And the dark is in retreat –
A wind of change is blowing,
And to some it’s blowing sweet.
The world is waking, waking,
To the march of springing feet.
Labor Day, when the Summer turns cold,
And all that promise, though showy, is fruitless –
Or just as our efforts are harvesting gold,
So they all dry up and lose their hold –
As footings, once secure, prove rootless,
Infiltrated by bugs and mould.
The dusk is gaining daily,
And the storms are in the skies,
While the chill is on the breeze
And the breeze is on the rise,
And the world is sleeping, sleeping,
As the hoar-frosts crystallise.
Pollarding
Last Autumn, all your leaves came down –
Just like they must each year.
But seeing them when dead and brown,
And unlike all the rest in town,
Is just too late, I fear.
I should have seen them all when green !
But now I wondered – what tree had we here ?
Big, they were, the largest, broadest leaves
In all this urban wood
And finger-lobed, for holding-up the eaves,
And poking now from gutter-sleeves
About the neighbourhood.
My thought was fig, with leaves that big,
Yet far too gropey to do Eve much good.
But I, alas, might never even know,
For once your leaves were shed –
The shears came out and brought you low,
As all your branches had to go
And left your trunk for dead.
No tree could sleep with cuts so deep –
You surely won’t be rising out of bed…
April was well underway before
Your twigs began to sprout.
And then, such tiny hands they bore,
As ev’ry day a couple more
To prove you yet were stout.
At this rate Fall would claim them all
Ere half the sun-grab hands were even out !
But then I looked a little lower,
Where some suckers crowd the roots –
While your wounds may heal the slower,
Round your foot you’re still a grower
Shooting out a dozen shoots.
Succour feeders, weed succeeders,
Sucking sunshine into fruits.
May saw plenty spindly upper twigs –
A hedgehog on each bough,
To carry leaves, so close, so big,
As if they’d snap right off the rig,
But seemed to cling on anyhow.
As June grew late, they put on weight
As fleshy forearms now.
By summer, something stirred in me,
A memory about the bumps
That swell no larger than a pea –
They’re really next’s year’s fruits-to-be.
But here, of course, there were no lumps –
For what life stirred was secateured
Down to your barest stumps.
So will I have to wait another year
To see your fruits in Fall ?
I wonder if I’ll still be here…
You will, of course, that much is clear –
You’re bursting branches big and small.
Unless your twigs are lacking figs
Because you never were a fig at all…
Rhyming Couplets 