Summer

Summer

The season of day long smiles.

Vibrant vines, pouring hues.

The burgeoning fare, resplendent

With the scent of stone ground bread.

And waltzing, the wheat massed fields.

Tempo lyrical, the symmetry,

Of wind and pleasure, dancing

To the songs of returning wings.

Footsteps, light with abandon,

Fleet with bloom and sun-bright mirth.

Towns and cities, heaving and rapt.

Swelled with the throng of untutored youth.

Evenings, serene and sated evenings.

Testaments to ripened hours,

Of days immersed in confidence

That tomorrow’s verse will rhyme ecstatic.

Spring

Spring

Inhaled the conversion,

From starry night

To dreamy dawn.

The mist leaden breath,

Saturated fragrance,

Exhaled in the lulling light.

Spring, expectation.

The awakening trumpet.

A herald of life renewable.

The faint echo planted,

In furrows ploughed to ripen,

The voices of the bountiful.

And to walk, to live,

Amidst the leaf swept ways,

The higher sun,

In the heavens and the heart.

Illuminating confidence

In the pastoral season.

The Philosopher

The Philosopher

He claimed wisdom

 He used words of lonesome length

 He wasn't Aristotle though

 He was a delicious eccentric

 And we loved him for that

Winter's Window

Winter’s Window

Grey, grey sullen day

Fireless, dreamless, endless spray

Etched upon the lonely pane

The slanting script of scratching rain

Cold, harsh tuneless air

Leafless trees dancing bare

Set against a cheerless sky

Sunless long and lonely sigh

Hurried forms, aimless ways

Bended brows, hooded gaze

Winter’s window, hue bereft

A forgetful day, to rue........ and yet.

Finale

Finale

The rostrum tapped, anticipation.

An overwhelming intake of breath.

From all the repertoire composed and not.

None can do justice to thee.

Tragic the silence, mute but creative.

A journey never begun.

Of all the paths taken and not.

None will ever be with thee

Francis Ledwidge

Francis Ledwidge

 

 

To walk amidst the evening chill

Ledwidge on my mind

Writing verse between the shells

Battle lines opined

The poison haze blights the dawn

Voices trenched and cowering

Far removed from  the weaving Boyne

And youthful passions flowering

Thoughts of home and grassy lanes

Delights the pen to write

The horrors of the wailing guns

Confirms the deathly rite

Of noble youth, the richest soil

To nurture old men’s wisdom

The harvest of the slaughter fields

The Judas kiss upon them

McDonagh bled, your friend in verse

But rhymes of different hue

Cleared the fog of braided men

And made you dream anew

Until at Ypres, the ending hour

All blackbirds ceased to sing

Your name across the barren meadows

Your soul upon the wing

No summer mirth upon the plain

Nor seasoned fare to cheer

The banquet in its winter gloom

But your wine bereft of fear

The Eternal Conversation

The Eternal Conversation

I spoke to the wall, the echo retorted

In choral unison loudly

The madness of the discourse found

The audition, worn, distorted

What verse or rhyme can bring her near

When each word casts as exile

More nameless than the unseen stars

More distant than the deafened ear

The wall rejoined, grey and callous

Hardened to my plight

The Gods are want to plague the bards

With atheistic malice

There are two worlds, the stage and mind

The contributing verse

Is dead to one, obscure the other

And never the two aligned