Stop the world I want to get off

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Stop the world I want to get off

 

Stop the world I want to get off;
Incarceration does not suit me;
My home a prison;
My life is given.
Inertia rules, no remedy.

Four walls do now a prison make
And cabin fever is setting in.
On my study walls
Depression falls
Since holding you became a sin.

It has to be this isolation.
How can I live missing so much?
So please I ask
God speed this task,
I’ll give forever for just a touch.

 

Fever Pitch

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I was at fever pitch with fervour
Full of fire, desire and lust,
Expectant, hopeful and excited,
Self-contained, but only just.

Summer came, I was excited,
An end to rain and wind and snow;
Warmer weather does delight me,
I’m a sun-child, that I know.

But now the summer has arrived
I’m pleading that it will not last.
I’ve had enough of sweaty T-shirts,
Hoping it will soon have passed.

Hot and bothered by the weather,
Aching for a cooling breeze.
Can’t bear this heatwave any longer,
Send me wind and rain now please.

 

 

 

 

Sea Fever – by John Masefield

(No.56 of my favourite short poems)

‘Sea Fever’ . . . WHB: Pen & Wash – Sep., 2017

Sea Fever

 

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

 

By John Masefield

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‘Sea Fever’ is perhaps the best known of all the poetic works of John Masefield.  Born in Herefordshire, England, in 1878, he was the British poet laureate for 37 years in the middle of the 20th Century until his death in 1967.   As a young man he trained as a merchant seaman, but, in 1895, he deserted his ship when in New York City.  There he worked in a carpet factory before returning to London to write poems, in many of which he wrote about his experiences at sea.