-->Harvest time was a golden time in my memory, hayfields and harvest – look at the English countryside and it is littered with the harvest home, bales and stacks. Unfortunately, as I was an asthmatic child, I was unable to assist much with the cutting and stacking of the hay , prior to the arrival of the baler. However , I came to assist with the tea and billy-can and the ubiqitious ‘soda farls’ to feed the workers (my two Uncles, brothers and sister). I came to assist with the packing and stacking of the bales into the barn.

And We Were Kings

We laid our back against the stack

And wiped the sweat and hayseeds from our brow

Caps cocked to shield the sun

thirst slain in the billy-can

We squinted at swallows in their drunken dives

With no rhyme nor reason nor route to roost

Our limbs tired and toiled those fields

till sunset, where stacks , some small

gave birth to bigger ones

The day the baler came with reverence we accepted

Its offspring into our blistered hands

And nursed that harvest home

With many a shout ‘Watch out’

as one bale tumbled from the trailer

into the pressure cooker barn

And we built castles that Summer eve'

Tight to the tin-high heaven roof

Castles for cattle whose winter weary days

Were bunged up in dunged-up, silent byres

And they would chew the cud

And chew the cud and sip the Summer dew

when Winter froze the ground

and we were boys in the Spring of our lives

Feedback

Thank you Patricia for your feedback

" interesting poems. I cannot get away with any certainty from rhyme schemes partricularly the terza rima. Your poetry has the same immediacy as impressionist painting and reminds me of my childhood on a farm in Essex"

When you are old

William Butler Yeats - I read my father "Lake Isle of Innisfree " just before he died. At the Flackwell Heath Writing Club, this week, I was asked to read this.


When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Wembley Stadium

Saturday's gig at EDEN shopping centre
prompted one of the audience to tell me

" Mervyn you make us feel very humble.
You could make Wembley stadium humble "

Hey what a compliment - maybe that's my next venue

The Byre at Milking Time

Here's one I ve tried to get down ...

Summer Winter Autumn Spring
We'd bring that train of cows in
Tails a-swishing cuds a-chewing
The slap and plop of cow dung murdered the yard
The chorus of chains, shaken heads bowed in prayer
Munching yesterday's summer grain

The nimble flick twixt head and tail kept flies afar
The suck and pump of the stainless steel sump
Stole white gold from bloated sacs

Uncle stood stooped, one hand on haunch
We stood back one step safe from fear
Uncle Joe, cap cocked and crushed
by fifty graying summer suns

and we drank of wit and wisdom
40 sheep went through the gap
That’s the rhyme I call to mind

40 sheep went through the gap
40 followed after 6,7, 10,11
Two and three how many’s that?
Two and three how many’s that?

The pump sucked no more
The slither of chains fell to the floor
The back byre door scudded open
Crippled by layers of caked cowdung ,
Creaking, the fading summer sun

The swishing train headed out
The dart and dip of the sudden swift
Rising in, rafter high , arrowing out
To a brighter winter sky

Poetry Cafe

We did the Poetry Cafe gig on a damp July Saturday in Covent Garden.

I came on as the third performer.

I did six pieces , two of Seamus Heaney's opening with 'Clearances 3' and finishing with 'Death of a Naturalist'- my four pieces 'Butler's Bridge' ' And I Awake' , 'And we were Kings' & 'And we were Boys' , slotted in smoothly , with a brief introdcution to each.

A bit nervous at the start, I slowed the tempo and pace down so people could savour each word, each phrase, each picture.

You could have peeled the atmosphere off at the end it was 'thick and heavy headed'

I was humbled by people's comments -thank you.