CHOICES

I wrote these rather pompous verses when I thought I was old;
Old enough to give advice to those younger than me.
I am now twice as old as when I first wrote this;
I am neither wiser nor more capable of giving advice now than I was then;
Believe me or not – it’s YOUR CHOICE!

Pen & Wash … WHB – 2017

CHOICES, or ‘Advice To The Young’

Every second in a life can be a turning point;
Chosen or unconscious it is there,
Make a choice – it’s up to you,
 Why not try out something new?
But never ever say that you don’t care.

You cannot stop your life from moving forward;
Time rolls on despite your efforts to stand still.
You can’t take a backward view,
Nor can you jump the queue.
You have to stay in line and climb life’s hill.

But life’s direction you can set about to change;
Tweek it here, a twist just there, you can try out.
The choice that you then make,
With a little give and take,
May well be something you can’t do without.

For when all is said and done, young man, you’re learning
To find a path in life that holds for you.
Just hold to your endeavour,
Never ever say “for ever”,
And keep your choices open to what’s new.

Thoughts on a Dead Leaf

It fell
Green life
Extinguished
Time passed
Slowly
It diminished
To its scaffolding
Intact beauty still
New life
Surviving
In the skeleton
Beneath the skin
Revealing the grace
Which had upheld
Its existence
Its structure
Naked now
Spine-bold
Ram-rod straight
Not dead now
Nor even dying
Instead
Skin shed
A statement
Of creation’s power
Holding its tendrils
Steady
In firm formation
Awaiting its
Next chapter

Not yet shredded
Not yet dust
This tomography
Call it a CAT scan
Delving into
Nature’s
secret world
Revealing
The truth
Of whence
Its green strength
Derived

Thus
As our own surface
Erodes
Do we achieve
The same beauty?
Do we secrete
Analogous
New life
Beneath the old?
We leaves
Fallen from life’s tree
Shrivelled
Our essence revealed
In our skeletal remains
Proud-structured
Until
The next stage
And eventual
Severance
From what we have been
Transmogrified
To further service
In replenishing
New life forms
Our fruition in
The new spring’s bloom
Blossom and leaves

There has to be beauty
In death
As in life
Decay
Does not doom us to death
Rather
There is a beauty in death
The leaf ceased to be
A leaf
But became
Something else
And its beauty remained
It merely
Continued
Into a transmuted life
Its fate
As our own
To be
Continued existence

For death is but a metaphor
For new life

All photographs . . .  by WHB – 2016

Telling FIBS

Search for ‘Pine Cones & the Fibonacciri Sequence’

TELLING  FIBS

This
Life
Is short
Remember
Honest and modest
You’re not in a beauty contest.

So
When
I’m gone
Do not pray
For my godliness
Just remember my gentleness.

If
I
Survive
To be old
One hundred and five
I hope it’s worth being alive.

But
It
Only
Merits it
If you are still there
To continue our love affair.

I am grateful to M.Zane McClellan who in his January 2016 poem  ‘Repeating Pattern’  on The Poetry Channel, introduced me to The format of the Fibonacci Poem. He also gave in his blog the reference to the article on the ‘Poetry Foundation’ website, which gives the history of this fascinating verse format:  What’s a Fib? Math plus poetry.

Essentially the ‘Fib’, as it’s creator, Gregory K. Pincus, calls it, will have 20 syllables in total, with the syllables in each of the 6 lines increasing in the Fibonacci sequence familiar in Mathematics and in Nature, that is: 1,1,2,3,5,8…  ,

In my first attempt at this format, I have attempted to write a poem of 4 connected verses, with the added feature of making the last two lines in each verse rhyme.

Stanley Spencer – A Happy Resurrection

Photograph of Spencer at work in Cookham Village … by WHB . . . 1957

Stanley Spencer, CBE RA (1891 – 1959)was an English painter. Shortly after leaving the Slade School of Art, Spencer became well known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if in Cookham, the small village beside the River Thames where he was born and spent much of his life. Wikipedia

The sleepers awake
from an imagined death
A teasing adventure in insubstantial earth

Pram pusher extraordinaire
in the Village that lit up his life
inspired his vision
Trundled easel hearse
put to work in progress
To see, to feel, to breathe
destiny on the village green
The past become the present
resurrected in tranquillity
Life-lite under the churchyard yew
this moulded flesh – full featured
bringing joy from the stern grave
Life’s resurrection imagined
in hope and the churchyard
in his eyes and his pigment
Drawn and deified
Death and Resurrection as Spring
As buttercups in the greenest of fields.

The sleepers awake
from an imagined death
A pleasing adventure in insubstantial earth

Stanley Spencer: ‘The Resurrection, Cobham … 1924-27. Tate Gallery

A Spring Haiku

WHB: Pen & Ink – 1981

Joy it is to hear

The sound of birds in springtime:

Life is in their song

Released Into Life

Life lacks lustre
And my world is grey;
As it re-awakes,
Is it here to stay?

I’ve slumbered long
In my cocoon,
Sheltered and shielded
‘Neath a midday moon.

Spring with its joy
Struggles to bring
Its warmth and colour,
Its song to sing.

But after the storm
The clouds disperse;
I await with hope
To end my verse.

Message to our Maker

Photo by Alexandr Podvalny on Pexels.com

We are alive
We like this life
Don’t want to change
We want no strife

We do our best
We try to please
Don’t make us change
Life is no breeze

We look to you
For your support
We know you’re good
You’re such a sport

You’ve taken care
Of us and ours
We’re still your friend
Show us your powers

And please I beg
Unlock these chains
So we can enjoy
What life remains

Some Times

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Some times it snows
Swirling in white
Drifts in the night
Pearls of soft light

Some days it rains.
Wetness unceasing
Clouds are releasing
The heavens above

And some times the wind
Moans through the trees
Only heaven sees
How life will react

For life will go on
Regardless of me
Not till I cease to be
Will the world be set free

But always it shows
How godliness grows
And nobody knows
How all life will end

Cycle of Life and Death

I came across its shrunken frame,
lashed to a random rail.
The secluded death, diminished frame,
told a sorry tale.

How once, a joy, a treasured pride,
it bore a life that mattered;
How love once dignified its role,
that now was broke and battered.

Where love had once upon a time
a vibrant life endorsed.
What pride and joy and patience once
was lavished on this corpse.

What story lay behind the scene,
what trauma caused this end?
How it had come to this sad state
I could not comprehend.

The violence of traumatic death,
the twisted sculpture left,
tells such a haunted tortured tale,
leaving a soul bereft.

Pandemic

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

On This Covid Pandemic

The Chinese had a phrase for it –
‘May you live in interesting times.’
Double- edged, somewhat inscrutable,
As I read between its lines.

Intended as a curse it is said;
Perhaps we’re paying for our crimes?
As we live this life not led before –
Perdition’s paradigm.