My Cold-hearted Lover

My cold-hearted lover has gone
She left me this wreath in the snow.
She said if I changed,
My life re-arranged,
It might be worth letting her know.

Those years we have lingered together;
Those times I have thought we were one;
But now it would seem
That was merely a dream,
A mirage now dwindled and gone.

For when the snow melts in the sun
No longer will our love exist.
Just a moment of fun,
A brief glimpse of the sun,
Just a chapter of love in the mist.

So a new life awaits me I’m hoping,
One without ties or distraction.
What I’m looking for,
What I’d love and adore,
Is an ending with deep satisfaction.

CHAPTER  II

 You remember those verses I wrote
Just a couple of moments ago?
Well I’ve got a confession,
It’s taught me a lesson,
I do jump to conclusions I know.

In fact I had got it all wrong;
She’d never intended to go.
She said when she went
She never had meant
To cause me a great deal of woe.

So what can a bloke like me do?
And can I pretend it’s not so?
Can I be uncouth,
And tell her the truth,
And say that I really must go?

For I didn’t take too long to find
Someone else to be with for ever.
Who never says no,
And who strokes my ego,
A much less intolerant lover.

So it’s no good her saying she’s sorry
Soon after she threw me right out.
She knows I’m respectful,
In no way neglectful,
It’s not as though I’m a big lout.

So I consider now that’s it’s over
I didn’t do bad from the deal.
I get a new dolly,
While she keeps the holly,
I tell myself that’s just ideal.

Before The Sun Sets

Pen & Wash Sketch – based on ‘Ancient Trees’ – to mark National Trust Week 1999 . . .  WHB

The crisp crunch of my footsteps as I crossed that frosty field
Confirmed to me the joy that winter brings;
The frail but wondrous sunlight burning through the morning mist
Affirmed a world of wonder in all things.

It brought to me a memory of those long days of my youth,
When all was young and all life was tomorrow,
When time and love and right and wrong were not things I considered,
Just the lasting joy which Nature can bestow.

Tomorrow was a world away from the life that I live now;
No anguish that my world might cease to be
Before I’d felt and savoured all that life can have to offer,
Before the sun sets on that ancient tree.

Despite my knowledge of the pain that’s in the world around me,
Bleak Nature seeks to calm its shifting shadows,
The seasons, sun, the starlight, still remain to bring us hope,
That vital spark from which renewed life flows.

Coffin of Iron

Photo:  WHB – Somerset, 2019   ©

He had died of his wrinkles
Liver spots and age lines
Gnarled and creviced skin
Dusted and singed
By his Lifetime’s fevered furnace
His lungs smoke-charred
Legacy of a thousand undoused fires

As old as the hills he trod
As the bubbling beck he bled
I see six stalwart pall bearers
Hard as ancient twisted nails
Arise from their bed of iron
Raise the dead-weight anvil
His final ferrous coffin
To shoulder height
Begin a steady passage
Through the leaden winter streets
Beneath those snow-clad Northern Hills
Their shrouded clouded sky
Seemingly forever draped
Atop the silent iron tomb

Carried through the dark gate
To its final resting place
Fitting memorial to a smith’s life
Gifted again to the ironstone earth

In memoriam: Harold Booth, Yorkshire blacksmith & farrier; 1909 – 1987

From a son to his father