PAST

Past
Haunts me more
Than it ever did before
For it has a longer history to pour

Haunted
I stick to myself
Holding tight I wonder
More about the consequences
That could have been well mended

A Living Fossil

You are the visceral imprint,

The perennial impression,

Something deep inside of me,

A poignant and recurring melody.

A song I’ve always known,

The centerpiece, the cornerstone,

Argyll Street

Central station, Argyll Street
running through the city
towers in its grandeur still
above the street and pretty

Once proudly known at Westergait
and over two miles long
Four hundred years of history
adds to Glasgow’s song

Memory Brushes Past

Memory’s delicate tendrils

reach out

brush the nape

of my neck

cause an electric shiver

that courses

down my spine

Day Four (Rodmell to Alfriston)

Arriving here at Alfriston
we found the Smugglers Inne
A sixteenth century ale house
for the sale of beer and gin
And although it’s not imposing
many secrets here it hides
for behind its small exterior
more than twenty rooms inside

Oval

The amazing oval ceiling
of the Corn Exchange in Leeds
Once famed for giving merchants
a place to barter seeds

Hamlet’s Words

Hamlet called them words
in his feigned madness.
To him they were words – mere words,
but to me they might mean so much more.

Love’s Labors Lost (revisited)

she had moved many times in her life

not unexpectedly

some belongings became lost

were left behind

inadvertantly

or on purpose

when they caused her pain

The Nottingham & Beeston

In Nottingham the waters
of the canal are quite tranquil
with new building now reflected
in the waters quiet and still
Iron rings along the towpath
remain in situ there
Yet no more to fasten barges
with slow horses unaware

Ye Olde trip to Jerusalem

Underneath the castle walls
in the bright sunshine
Eight hundred years and some have passed
of serving ale and wine

History lost to time

Walked down the mile of Bute Street
to the pier head in the bay
Trod where the Glamorganshire canal
supplied the port back in the day

Progress

In Cardiff the old Custom House
has seen better days
as it and progress have at
some point parted in their ways

Coming Home

From waterfalls to stepping stones, meandering
across history’s bones, I am halted by a sound,
the sound of mandolins.

Rummaging

Something that I love to do
whenever I get the chance
is go rummaging in a charity shop
by design or happenstance
Some days I’ll just have a browse
as it’s a good way to unwind
but most times I’ll make a purchase
when a treasure I will find

i-360

I walked this way so many times
the route I made my own
Knew everything about it
from where I worked to home
Yet, walking there this morning
there’ve been changes over time
Not least of which the view I see
on the Brighton city line

Balcombe Viaduct II

Passing over Balcombe Viaduct
with winter fields down there
The memory of a leafy green
is distant now the trees are bare
Skeletal they stand forlorn
Winter has them in its grip
And it will still be quite a while
‘Til from that vice we’ll see a slip

With eyes to see

Every so often
now and then
I’ll take a walk
with book and pen
and use my eyes
to look around
when walking in
and round this town

Decades

Born in the fifties, baby boom years
A child of the sixties, scuffed knees and tears

A teen in the seventies, met Sal, fell in love
and at the end of the decade, wed the above

Secret Places

It’s hidden by the railway line
unkempt for many years
and if the Signalman could see it now
he’s be reduced to tears
Once known as Railway Gardens
when the signal box was there
Nestled just behind the sign
that warned us “Trains – beware”

Histories’ Fortitude

Deny me not this fleeting moment, forged form pain in workday spent!
Deny me not the chance to grasp this truth in passing as it’s rent from in the flagging husks of time where captured souls of labour fall.
Embrace my soul in words unspoken that from their pallid ashes call the clarity of a hopeful love,
the danger in the risen beam,
the tensiled courage plans to build a nation’s growing dream.

A fall from grace III

I found it on the high tide line
after a night of fire
the grand old lady of the sea
destroyed by spite and ire
Never proved but always known
her final hours presumed
the work of arsonists with flame
the pier now lost, consumed

Whispers

These whispers follow me wherever I go

Whispers, as haunting as the winds that blow

I can hear them while on my early run

Whispering away into the morning sun

A fall from grace II

Sadly now the Bridgewater Canal
a shadow of its glory days
is almost forgotten and hidden from view
in Manchester’s streets and broadways
Now twenty-first century pubs and bars
vie for trade where once it was steel
Nightlife and partying along its towpath
hide a wound that time cannot heal

Lisbon 36

It was thirty six in Lisbon
when we climbed up to St Jorge
An eleventh century castle
built by Moors above the gorge

But it was cool beneath the olive trees
inside the castle walls
taking pictures of the things we saw
and marvelling at it all

Beware The Ides Of March

He was warned

But he did not take heed

The soothsayer had whispered

“Beware the ides of March”

A to Z Challenge – The Letter F – April 7, 2016

PHOTO: REUTERS

Fending freely
In fields and forests
Foraging for food
From trees and vines:

A whistle, a puff of steam and a smile

Sitting in the sunshine
with a welcome cup of tea
I heard a far off whistle
echoing ‘cross the green valley
And there, across the fields
with a puff of whitened steam
a train left Bodiam station
trundling through the Sussex green

A picture of England

Bodiam beckoned
as the sunshine was sent
and I took in the view
from the high battlement