A babe awakes grows strong learns from all it sees and hears And as it grows and adds the years Sadly, like crumbling plaster innocence trickles out the once bright mind Held tight to love and laughter Perhaps the joys of son and daughter, Loosens its hold and Sadly, like crumbling plaster The memories trickle…
Category: Uncategorized
Armistice, by Mike McBride
I’m the proud heart wheeled out at remembrance. The old campaigner who knows life is tough. Until his spent lungs whisper, “Enough!” And he hears the last charge of the ambulance. I’m a boy killed when a building collapsed, Held by his mother: wracked with despair, Crouched in the gutter, stroking his hair; Beside a…
The Grandure that was Rome, by Mike McBride
THE GRANDURE THAT WAS ROME 338 BCE Lucius Timidus Pusillanimous First plebeian Censor of Rome To Brutus Menace Publius Second Temporary (Acting) Deputy Magistrate Don’t blame me for Rome’s defeat By the puny Latin League. The roads have given me sore feet And wobbly chariot fatigue. And I thoroughly object To the published inference That…
Hang on to Christmas, by Mike McBride
The jobsworths on the Council Are at their tricks again. By solving one small problem They’ve created nine or ten. They were angry at the number Of children missing school To holiday in term time At some foreign swimming pool. The summer dates are all the same And so the prices double. Plus parents say…
Quarterly Newsletter December 2018
Welcome to Seahaven Poets Newsletter for December 2018! We wish all our readers and fellow poets a Merry Christmas Season and a Happy and Fruitful New Year. 2019 will begin for us with LitFest19 in mid-February. Once more we have a wonderful line-up of authors, poets, and musicians to transport us to special places far…
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska by Paul Rafferty
Religious fervour The Madonna and his faith Sealed his final fate Mother no saviour Unintended sacrifice Lead to his falling The carved rifle butt Extinguished the wildest eye Of the great Vortex
WW1 Hai Kus by Paul Rafferty
The rise of women The worshiping of machines The falling of men Glory of duty Acts of conscientiousness Fought with white feathers Dodging the bullets Draughting the propaganda Burning the letters The war to end all Jump stars business acumen Spurring newer trends Peace keeping, Conflict Insurgencies, Police action Insurrection
Armistice Day 11.11.1992 by Roger Read
The telephone rings and I answer. Impending sense of tension, nervousness and saddness all day. Waiting for the whistle. Premonition comes true. There, that voice out of the blue ! Accusing voice. Dereliction of duty. The first barrage of shots are fired. Your guts churn. God I’m tired ! Just lay me down to die….
Child Within by Roger Read
Forgive and live with the child in you. Be gentle to that child. Understand its pain. It’s rejection, abandonment and shame. You are not to blame. Know it comes from a different time and place. Put it in a box, marked ‘the past’. It wasn’t given a loving face. Nor growth and space. Love the…
100 Years of Peace? by Roger Read
In Church Street outside the Crypt door, There’s a bench dedicated to Vinney. Only 28, lost his life in the Iraq war, Nothing it seems, has changed since Vimy. From 100 years ago the Great War sought peace, Yet 100 and more wars since, have persisted. Still lions led by donkeys, braying towards national grief,…
Never Again? by Roger Read
War is a Bore ! War is a Chore ! War is Gore ! War has gone on Before ! War leads Nowhere ! War is Unfair ! War has no Flair ! War is Despair ! War is not Decorative ! War is not Productive ! War is Destructive ! War is not Reproductive…
Is That a Knock I Hear? by Honour Stedman
Policeman at the door backfire from a motorbike next door’s penchant for hammering – never heard of screws silently turning nuclear submarine lurking in the gloom propellers torquing slowly. Baseball bat to head cricket bat to ball crack of a pistol shot criminal gang’s revenge or start of a race hundred metre sprint all that…
I Wish I Was A Poet, by Michael McBride
I wish I was a famous poet. I’m jealous of their knowledge and skill. I’d call to A.E. Housman. “Your team is ploughing still!” I’d pen an ode to Wordsworth From a daffodil. My study is an Eliot wasteland Of crumpled paper and sighs of despair. Why can’t I write like Shakespeare? In tragic monologues…
Stiperstones, by Michael McBride
Lost in the south Shropshire hills, A sleepy, quiet land of farms and tea rooms, No longer the violent borderlands, Uneasy, restlessly awaiting The imminent arrival of Welsh raiders. A land made incongruous by its contrasts: Undulating fields, green pasture, streams and forest Torn apart by steep-sided, forbidding highland escarpments. One minute: a sunny picnic,…
Bicycle, by Jayne Marshall
One needs to be quite lexical To rhyme a word with bicycle A two wheeled one saddled vehicle Not to be confused with aerricle A device once thought as mythical. With some parts quite mechanical To repair is not too technical Racers can be fanatical Excuse this rhyme rhetorical All about the bicycle. Jayne Marshall…
