Lustic Limerick #6

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I give you…

A Limerick on this very day
To keep my Covid Blues away …

A sweet lassie from far Tallahassee,
Whose demeanour was certainly classy;
When she walked up the aisle
Folks said with a smile,
“I do love that beautiful chassis.”

Two Word Tales: #2

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Two words

‘I Do’

Brought love

To me

 

My ‘Two Word’ Verses

Throughout this week, I shall publish each day one of a series of short verses which, together, by the end of the week, will have told a story. 

 

A Critical Dither

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A Critical Dither

 

Here am I standing
Awaiting a YES
Are you still not sure?
I can’t bear the stress.

Love me or leave me
Make up your mind
My heart it is racing
It’s knotting my mind

This hoping and waiting
Is making me ill
You leave me here chewing
On life’s bitter pill

The tension is high
I’m poised for that word
Don’t keep me waiting
Please don’t be absurd

You should know by now
What the answer’s to be
When I first popped the question
You said you’d agree

It’ll just take a moment
A snippet of time
To join us together
In a union sublime

Please make up your mind
Or forever they’ll say
He was left at the altar
On his wedding day.

A.E. Housman – ‘Bredon Hill’

[  No.69 of my favourite short poems  ]

‘On Bredon Hill’ . . .  Sketch – WHB: 1991

Bredon Hill is in Worcestershire, England, in the Vale of Evesham.  This poem of A.E. Housman’s, which he called ‘Bredon Hill’, is taken from his collection of poems, ‘A Shropshire Lad’ published in 1896.

Housman (1859-1936) was an English poet and scholar, whose verse exerted a strong influence on later poets.  The tone of this particular poem shows a preoccupation with loss and, as such, mirrors the tone of many of his poems.   It tells of lost love, contrasting powerfully the ‘happy noise’ of the church bells which brought joy and happy memories of youthful exuberence at the start of the poem, with the single tone of the funeral bell with which the poem ends.

Bredon Hill    (From “A Shropshire Lad”)

by A.E. Housman

In summertime on Bredon 
The bells they sound so clear; 
Round both the shires they ring them 
In steeples far and near, 
A happy noise to hear. 

Here of a Sunday morning 
My love and I would lie, 
And see the coloured counties, 
And hear the larks so high 
About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her 
In valleys miles away; 
“Come all to church, good people; 
Good people come and pray.” 
But here my love would stay. 

And I would turn and answer 
Among the springing thyme, 
“Oh, peal upon our wedding, 
And we will hear the chime, 
And come to church in time.”

But when the snows at Christmas 
On Bredon top were strown, 
My love rose up so early 
And stole out unbeknown 
And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only, 
Groom there was none to see, 
The mourners followed after, 
And so to church went she, 
And would not wait for me. 

The bells they sound on Bredon, 
And still the steeples hum, 
“Come all to church, good people,” 
Oh, noisy bells, be dumb; 
I hear you, I will come.

 

Look At Him

The Blush … WHB – 2000 (With acknowledgement to Mervyn Peake’s ‘Titus’ Alone’) 

Look at him
He’s blushing
My mother said
To those starchy
Grown up guests
All seated
At the formal
Wedding breakfast table

Perhaps
Mistakenly Imagining
The unwanted attention
Would be cure
For my burgeoning habit

While I
So far unnoticed
Curled up
Claiming invisibility
Reddened even more
Shrank into my chair
Felt the burning heat of my face
Burn down through me
To a deep hole
In the ground beneath

Thus are our
Futures set on course
Another denigration
To be overcome
Another mental scar
To afflict my dreams
Another blandishment
foregone
Another battle to
Accompany me into manhood

Quote … e.e.cummings