Cherry-Picking
Some of them are white, of course,
Though all are pink round here.
They’re not the most impressive trees
Till all the blooms appear.
They blow their show in April,
All before their leaves take root –
Yet all of this confetti
Makes such neat and waxy fruit.
Epiphany in the Rain
This cannot drown me, nor chill me, nor dampen my mien:
For I have seen something like nothing of all things I’ve seen.
Not from a far world, nor next world, nor somewhere between –
It came from within me, from ev’ry damn neuron and gene.
Gillingas
“First recorded as such c.698. Origin: (settlement of) Gilla’s people, from Old English -ingas ˋpeople of’.”
Eight miles west of Charing Cross
And just to south of Hanger Hill,
Lived farming folk whose Saxon Boss
Is with us yet, through his old ville –
Now while our names are doomed for loss,
Gilla’s people linger still.
Convergent Resonance
Tumbling lines, one from another,
Falling in behind the last;
Each one linking with his brother,
Lacing up and holding fast –
So ev’ry time a rhyme should sound,
Then, potently, a rhyme shall kick,
Until the final line is found
To shut the box with sweetest click.
Linguistic Schtick
Synonyms, ah synonyms ! The poet’s greatest jewel:
Facilitating, all-enabling, multiplicating tool.
Synonyms, repeating things, they let us say once more
The same old curds in diff’rent words: a dozen ways to score.
In Mind
Ask him a question, he answers precise and pristine:
The greatest and smallest, and ev’rything shaded between.
Ask him a question, the height and the year and the queen;
He knows all the answers, but hasn’t a clue what they mean.
First Eight Lines of a Sonnet
I sometimes feel like life is just preamble,
All As and Bs and As and Bs forever –
There’s building-up of tension for the scramble,
But no antithesis can slip the tether.
Won’t someone blow the whistle on this shamble,
And get me underway in my endeavour ?
I long to find a volta, take a gamble,
But always must await a break in weather…
