A Poem for Thursday....

I was asked by @neviepiecakes aka Natasha Collins...lovely daughter..if I would post some pics for seven days from the different series that I've taken on camera. Thankyou Natasha.
This photo is one of three from a travel series. It now belongs to a great friend. I'm sure that there are references in this pic from wonderful international photographers...and so I give them thanks for their blogs and hope that I may have learnt from them and their skills.

I often think poetry when I take pics...and this little poem is very apt for the feelings often there when on a long journey...and you are really nowhere!

To Travel

To travel is to be nowhere.

You’re not here

And you’re not there.

So,

If you get the wrong train to somewhere,

Or you get off at

The wrong station for somewhere,

Does that mean

That you have completely disappeared?

And when the train gets to somewhere

Will they find that you are nowhere.

And how will you get back from there?

I'll post the other two in the series for you. 

 The start of the journey

All change at Euston

A Poem for Thursday...prompted by #DeVerse today.

When I was just five years of age my mother walked with me to the bus stop and we boarded the bus down the Ormeau Road.
We got off the bus halfway down the road and walked  to a little terrace house in a street just off the main thoroughfare.
She knocked on the door which opened straight on to the pavement...and we were ushered in to a little room with other children in it and a man...I was to call .."Mr. Graeme Roberts"..Why the prefix was always there I'm not sure ...but it seemed appropriate!
So I was introduced to R.L.Stevenson...A.A. Milne ...Rose Fyleman and many, many others.
This poem is of my memories and the lifelong love that he instilled in me for the rhythm and the rhyme of life.

A Poem for Thursday....Beyond Silence (with many thanks to S. Heaney)

Is it the rhythm of the wheels on the motorway surface or the rapidly changing landscape that stimulates my mind so much when we take long road trips. The radio is on...sharply relaxed in the seat by the potter...watching out for fools on the road. They love roads do fools...learnt that by my father's side as he taught me to drive in my teenage years.

Beyond Silence
Something beautiful happened
On our way down the M6
England's main blood line.
A great flock of starlings
and a murmuration! While
Snow spat down on us and 
The wind struck hard as iron.
Leaving us with only
A holy heavy silence.

A Poem for Thursday..... cinquains...or not!

 Tony Maude is heading up Meeting The Bar...The Cinquain ...explained for DeVerse today.

Thankyou Tony...I'm fairly well rubbish at these ...and I know the second verse isn't quite right...but here goes!!

Travelling Home

A chevron

 of geese flies 

over the roadway

As we drive close

 by Cambridge.

The moon 

rises…blue

edged on the right side

…Large-eyed and nodding to the left.

The  Brothers still moan their eternal prayer…

”Let it be me”…

So I suppose there is an extra line in there!! Look forward to reading the poems today.

A Poem for Thursday....."Antibiotics"

My mother lived alone after dad died even though she was the one who had been ill.
Looking back to when I was still living in the family home in Belfast and rebelling if not outwardly ...definitely inside...I'm thankful for this woman who was a rock formed in the fire of extremely difficult circumstances.


                  Antibiotics

She never cried, she was as solid as a rock
Except on the days she remembered her sister
And the fun they had shared in the big house.
But apart from that she was a stoic and
I knew that the winds of life would not bend her.
Except on the days we made the beds together
And she sighed as quiet tears wet her marshmallow cheeks.
A memory of her mother tucking white crisp hospital corners
Around striped ticking mattresses.
But that was all there was to it then.
I could never hope to come up to that steely reserve
And be the unmoved.
Though there were occasions when the armchair in the corner
By the fireplace seemed too big for her.
Too big, and she filled  the edges of the cushions
With lace edged hankies damp and tucked away and hidden.
Then her brother's name was whispered quietly
As if such a thing could never have happened.
Though it did, for those were the days before the miracles.
We call them antibiotics and warn our families against taking them.

A Poem for Thursday

The prompt we were given at The Writer's Workshop on Thursday morning in The Gateway Warrington was a card. Mine had a pic of a baby polar bear and inside the word ...Christmas!!
So in a couple of hours I came up with this offering!

Baby Polar Bear

"Christmas comes but once a year
And when it comes it brings good cheer."
But if you're stuck upon a floe
And there is nowhere else to go
It's hard to keep a cheerful face
Accept what's happened with good grace.
I didn't mean to push my brother
He landed one way or another
Inside our mother's fishing hole.
He didn't like the freezing cold.
He screamed and called me such rude names
And mother said I was to blame
For all the things that made her mad
Broke her heart and left her sad.
I thought that rotten fishy heads
I left beside her on the bed
Would pacify and calm her down.
Would make her smile, but when she found
Them sticking to her tummy fur
That ..was the very end for her.
I sit upon this icy floe
And wonder which way it will go.
If north, I'm sure to find my way
If south to melt? well who can say....
If Christmas on some warmer shore
Will find me laid out on the floor.
A present for some mother's child
My eyes still sad ..my whiskers wired.
I'm going to promise to be good
To be the joy I know I could
If only to be sure that they
Are MY presents on Christmas day!

I'm linking this one into DeVerse...Poetics....hope it finds some laughter!!!