Twas the Month Before Christmas
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T’was The Month Before Christmas
2
Category Archives: Poems
Fifty Shades of Grey
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I Have A Little SatNav
I have a little Satnav
It sits there in my car
A Satnav is a driver’s friend
It tells you where you are.
I have a little Satnav
I’ve had it all my life
It’s better than the normal ones
My Satnav is my wife.
It gives me full instructions
Especially how to drive
“It’s thirty miles an hour”, it says,
“You’re doing thirty five”.
It tells me when to stop and start
And when to use the brake
And tells me that it’s never ever
Safe to overtake.
It tells me when a light is red
And when it goes to green
It seems to know instinctively
Just when to intervene.
It lists the vehicles just in front
And all those to the rear
And taking this into account
It specifies my gear.
I’m sure no other driver
Has so helpful a device
For when we leave and lock the car
It still gives its advice.
It fills me up with counselling
Each journey’s pretty fraught
So why don’t I exchange it
And get a quieter sort?
Ah well, you see, it cleans the house,
Makes sure I’m properly fed,
It washes all my shirts and things
And – keeps me warm in bed!
Despite all these advantages
And my tendency to scoff,
I do wish that once in a while
I could turn the damned thing off!
Shadow Poetry
A brief ode to email
Oh, my email, woe is me
I wake up, the number says 23
23? Since half past twelve?
Working hard, those overnight elves!
Out for a run, back in the door
The number has jumped to 54
Delete 6 or 7, then take a shower
Praying to a higher power
Or perhaps a super hero
To bring me down to inbox zero.
Dried and dressed, all clean
I sit back down at the screen,
What I find, to my horror
Is the number 64
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
And death shall have no dominion. Dead mean naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot; Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion. Under the windings of the sea They lying long shall not die windily; Twisting on racks when sinews give way, Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break; Faith in their hands shall snap in two, And the unicorn evils run them through; Split all ends up they shan’t crack; And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion. No more may gulls cry at their ears Or waves break loud on the seashores; Where blew a flower may a flower no more Lift its head to the blows of the rain; Though they be mad and dead as nails, Heads of the characters hammer through daisies; Break in the sun till the sun breaks down, And death shall have no dominion.
Dylan Thomas (1914 – 1953)
Golf Poem
To Give And Not To Count The Cost
THE PRAYER, TO GIVE AND NOT TO COUNT THE COST (By Saint Ignatius of Loyola)
Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labour and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do your will. Amen.
1 Corinthians 13:1. The Most Wonderful Prose
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not Love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not Love, it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long, and is kind;
Love envieth not;
Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly,
Seeketh not her own,
Is not easily provoked,
Thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, Love, these three; but the greatest of these is Love.
In Loving Memory
Below is a small tribute to my dearest friend: K (1939 to 2008), in loving memory of so many wonderful and invigorating moments we spent together over 57 years.
That you are no longer about is beyond my comprehension. If we’d only had some warning, laddie – there was so very much more to say; so much more hysterical laughter!
Where ever you are now please save me a seat on your right hand side, by the bar – you know what to order when you see me standing at the door.
