Meditation on Stonehenge

Return in your mind to an earlier age
When solar alignments were clear,
Try to imagine the very first sage
Who looked at the open plain here.

Building the ultimate ring to transfix,
Every available rank
Digging a circle with deer antler picks,
Forming a ditch and a bank.

Set in a landscape ancestral and true,
This was the temple to slave on,
Processions demanded an avenue too,
All the way down to the Avon.

Far off in Wales lay a magical haul,
With tons of bluestones they strained,
Dragging them back on a hazardous trawl
Hundreds of workers maintained.

If any faltered or patience grew thin,
Faith made the weary teams rally,
Something was needed to fence the ring in;
Megaliths left in a valley.

Avebury's splendour included the vast
Slabs to be tethered and rolled,
Moulded by time as the centuries passed,
Seventy million years old.

Shaped into uprights and skilfully wrought,
Nobody ever can tell
How they were lifted or how they were brought,
Crowned with grey lintels as well.

Five giant trilithons finally stood
Guarding the mystical centre,
Looming like Albion sentinels should,
Waiting for pilgrims to enter.

Here on the longest day we feel as one
Watching the golden dawn shine,
Place of the spirits who walk with the sun:
Stonehenge, enigma divine.


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Thanks Wizzy Although the poem is a comment on the dulling effect of technology, I approached it by listing some of the great figments of literary imagination. There are so many I had to leave out! I must read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe again soon

Yeah, and the colours on show in autumn are fabulous Sandy

Some rustling leaves are rusty while some are still evergreen through the autumn.

Yep - think I'll go for a drive in the country this week

Musty, is that an excuse to visit a nice country pub?

Thanks. There are some lovely poems on here - I must read more of them

Joseph Merrick, the 'Elephant Man'

Joseph Merrick was so ugly
From people he couldn't hide,
They paid for a glimpse of a monster that limps,
Not the delicate soul inside.

The curtain went up, revealing
An awful twisted shape,
A Victorian slave whose deformity gave
The Elephant Man his name.

Wherever he starred in the line-up
Attendances would swell,
In horror they'd gape at his hideous shape
And a few of them screamed as well.

But when Frederick Treves the doctor
Saw Joseph it left him aghast,
So he thought up a plan for the Elephant Man
That let him escape the past.

A hospital room was given
To a tenant quite unique,
Away from the stares at the travelling fairs
And the life of a circus freak.

The great and good came to visit,
Instead of being exiled
He felt like a gent and the company meant
A lot to one reviled.

His spent his last hours contented,
Alone in the usual way,
In the dim lamplight of an East End night
The burden fell softly away.


©

You know me so well Sandy


You're always welcome Droogie

CLOWN IN A PIN STRIPED SUIT


A solemn smile on an empty face
The painted performer doesn't envy this place
As he listens to the crowd as they vibrantly cheer,
His heart and soul is preparing to jeer
The audience that embraces his act.
He doesn't want them to and that's a fact!
The crowd are his irritants, the curse on his back,
He sees happy faces as a curtain of black
That has been drawn to cast sunlight away
So the painted performer can pretend to 'play.'

His smile is red, broad and fake
How much more can this entertainer take?
The cheers from the crowd are paining his ears
As he concludes his monotonous act of years.
Large silly shoes and a big shiny red nose,
Bushy red hair and on his coat is a rose.
His heart doesn't want to be here anymore
His mind is wondering what all this is for
This is torture, acting a fool every night
Each time his mirror reveals a pitiful sight.

For he must leave the office, the daily routine
His eyes are tired, his face is green.
So he takes off his pin stripes and throws them away
He won't return to the office after today.
He's not a clown but is demanded to please
His arrogant bosses as they belittle and tease.
Each day he performs the same jokes, the same tricks
To give to his bosses their superior fix.

It's like a circus where he has to perform
Never breaking away from the norm.
His clients, the audience who expect and insist
That the pin striped clowns' act should always persist.
But he's had enough, he's not taking anymore
His work days are over, they're left on the floor.

THIS POEM IS DEDICATED TO ALL THE ABUSED WORKERS IN THE WORLD.

Also country air is better for you than city air, the city air ain't that great today.

Dreary

This groggy air isn't fair
makes people wander
and question where
a blue sky can be
just covered over with dreary
listen blue sky you need
to be up and about
so get moving and sort
those old cobwebs out.

Great poem Musty
Titles for people can be so important for some, whether it be Mr, Mrs, Miss, Lady or Lord, he had a name, he wasn't it or something else, he was a person that had feelings just like anyone else but so good to know that some realised and treated him fairly as he should have been.

Great poem Musty. It really makes you appreciate that, even though we're not perfect today, we have come a long long way since Victorian times. I have been looking at a lot of Victorian values and I feel so glad that I didn't live in that era. I actually believe I may have been in the workhouse.

A little something for Hallowe'en:

PUMPKINS AND TINSEL

No sooner is it Hallowe'en
Than all through the shops is seen
Mince Pies and tinsel on every shelf,
A mish-mash image of ghoul and elf!

It is pitiful how we've progressed.
We always think we know the best.
As the summer ends and autumn starts,
It gets all muddled in our hearts.

We have Easter Eggs at Christmas,
Back to School in June.
Christmas ads on telly
When there's a giant harvest moon!

When Autumn air gets colder
And witches start their show,
All across the strastophere
Are images of snow!

Children singing carols
On October thirty first,
Whilst dressing up in spooky gear
To see which one is worst!

Creme eggs being given
As a trick or treat surprise,
Everything is muddled
To confuse our ageing eyes!

Pumpkins and tinsel in October,
Christmas cards in May!
Last years are going cheap
Way before Father's Day!

Once Easter is over,
The year is on its way out!
Christmas and Hallowe'en together
Is what this world's about!

Confusion on childrens' faces
They think Santa is nearly here!
How on earth do we tell them
That it's the middle of the year?

(c) 2014.

Love the title of your poem, wizzywick, Pumpkins and Tinsel

All Times of Year

There are all times of year
that bring such good cheer

There are all times of year
that brew some good beer

There are all times of year
that brings loved ones near

An excellent and relevant poem Wizzy I loved the shift from clown to office worker in the third verse - you had me fooled there I'm sure a lot of readers will associate with this!

I usually churn out a horror poem for Halloween. I didn't this year, so I'm glad you marked the festival with this Wizzy You make a valid point, the shops start filling up with Xmas goodies in October now

Nice one Sandy - shades of Mr Blue Sky by ELO

I'll drink to that Sandy

The Mystery of the Cottingley Fairies

Young Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths
Whose ages were ten and sixteen,
Brought Cottingley fame by playing a game
Way back in nineteen-seventeen.

The girls drew small pictures of fairies,
It's after a mischievous trek
That the story begins when they propped them with pins
And photographed each at the Beck.

The lens captured innocent sketches
But for living sprites they could pass;
A real fairy bower and tall as a flower
A gnome pranced around on the grass.

To Cottingley specialists travelled,
Ghost-hunters who probed mystery,
As word of mouth spread speculation was fed,
Some even saw lights in a tree.

Then Sherlock Holmes' eminent author
Turned up, claiming 'This is the proof!',
Because Conan Doyle had the air of a royal
The girls dare not utter the truth.

For sixty odd years the world wondered
Till Elsie and Frances confessed;
Relieved to confide how the camera had lied,
Confirming what cynics had guessed.

But here is the twist in the story -
They maintained one fairy was real
And whenever I look at the last snap they took
It gives me the eeriest feel.


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Thanks Wizzy Like you, I'm interested in Victorian values. i recently finished reading Oliver Twist. It's a great insight into the era, including the horrors of the workhouse.

Coincidentally I too have just finished reading Oliver Twist. What I found surprising is how totally different it is to screen adaptations. The whole segment where he lives with Rose and Miss Maylie is charming, a welcome respite from gloom and trauma, yet this is never realised at all when you watch any TV or movie adaptation. I also never realised how anti-semitic Dickens was. He did show however exactly how self obsessed the Victorians could be and their lack of charity when it comes to those worse off than them.

Thanks for your kind comments about my poems. I'm pleased you enjoyed the twist in Clown in a Pin Striped Suit.

Wow! Just wow. That last verse (quoted above) is superb! Thanks musty. Yet another enjoyable read.