Archive for the ‘poetry’ Category

Two old men sat at a table

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

The two old men were sat at a table outside a pub. It was a freezing cold January morning. Not a day to sit around chewing the cud and watching the world go by. This was theatreland and wherever you looked there were billboards advertising shows.

What were they doing there? Had they just come off a night shift at a theatre? It seemed unlikely. It was around 9.30am. Were they on their way to work? What’s the story?

Everyone else scurried by, heads down obscured by scarves, hands shoved well and truly in pockets.

When I am older and time is no longer on my side will I sit quietly waiting?
The story of a life, recounted, a nodding audience, dwindling.
My simple needs, a cup, a taste, the finest in a lifelong gathering
Collections of the day, the careless mind retreating.

The gentle snow

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

The gentle snow fell,
brushing my cheeks
laid bare, the light caress
of a cold lover. Emotionless.

Miniature flakes
filled the sky,
icy promise.

The jug of milk

Sunday, January 6th, 2013

I sat having breakfast, Weetabix with a banana and grapes, and stared at the milk jug. It’s a four pinter. Not as big as a six pinter but it still holds a goodly amount of milk. Whatever is in my bowl the milk is a constant. It’s been there as long as civilisation and before. It is easy to let the mind drift off to days in the past where the milk has been there with other people sat around the table, or around the fire.

The delivery mechanism has changed over the years from jugs to bottles to cartons and plastic bottles but the basic content inside is the same. We get trendy modern variations such as semi-skimmed and skimmed milk (yuk) but the white stuff is fundamentally unchanged.

There is something comforting about the timelessness of the jug of milk. Having it on the table means all is well, nothing has changed.

It sits there, unpeturbed

The milk in its white glazed jug

With pictures of cows on the front

At your service.

 

Pick up and pour.

 

When I was at university I would have three pints of milk a day – breakfast, lunch and dinner. It ranks as one of my all-time favourite drinks together with water, a good cup of tea and a pint of Timothy Taylors Landlord bitter. Years ago it used to be Marston’s Pedigree but Landlord has overtaken it. The milk does have to be cold though.

These days three out of four kids have the taste. When everyone is at home we go through five or six pints a day. Anne has to supplement the delivery from the dairy with purchases from Tesco.

Drinka pinta milka day.

It’s disappeared off the table in front of me now, the jug of milk. Put away in the refrigerator by an efficient soul. Breakfast is over though the cereals need putting away. I’ll do that once I’ve finished my second cup of tea and dropped Joe and his trumpet off at choich.

The dishwasher gurgles.

unmade bed

Monday, August 6th, 2012

unmade bed

aspirations

Monday, August 6th, 2012

Pile of red bricks

Bespectacled rhinoceri and other lyrical waxings

Friday, June 29th, 2012

lyrical waxing
trumpet case
eveready battery
double bass
mantelpiece maniac
what’s the score
watercolour margin
piano more
bespectacled rhinoceri
saxophone
light emitting diode
treble tone
golden photo shoot
alpine horn
coils of curly cable
bagpipes born
baskerville old face
signature tune
bedtime story
drum down dune

the rare summer

Monday, June 18th, 2012

I came up from my own world
for the rare summer,
pleasant scented breeze
made evening perfect,
lifted my clear head and strolled
until I met nobody,
close to the longest day.

Bred for beauty

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

The flowers were tied to the railing. There were several bunches but they were all fading now. Someone didn’t make it. It made me pause where once a pause could have meant life.

The flowers disguised numbness and despair. Picked for innocence. Bred for beauty, delicate radiance.

I walked on. I played no part in this.

The break in the trees

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

There is a road – it can’t be seen from where I’m sat but I know it is there.

I can see the break in the trees.

If I work hard I can picture two millennia of travellers making their way along the path

Through the break in the trees.

In other circumstances it might have been a river but it is not, although there is a lake

Surrounded by trees.

The countryside is green now – it is the middle of June and it has been a particularly wet spring.

The trees too are green,

Enjoying their short burst of growth before the colours change and fade

And the trees grow stoic.

But for now they are in full leaf and the cars race by on their way somewhere else and oblivious to the fact

That the trees are there, always.

They line the horizon, wet, wind-brushed and painted and make me pause and think because of

The break in the trees.

The manflu epidemic

Saturday, May 12th, 2012

They fell where they sat
settee, armchair or bed
the sickness took them
aspirin soon exhausted
bottles of Lucozade
scattered empty and liberally
on the floor around them
face cloth doused in water
but long run dry
falls off the forehead
and is not replaced
the victims fall in
and out of sleep
left alone for long
periods of up to
fifteen minutes
whilst their partners
selfishly get on
with the housework

The cafe at Infosec2012, Earls Court, Tuesday 24th April

Sunday, April 29th, 2012

Two young salesmen smart in shiny suits
Take a short break, expense account cafe,
Corporate linguists, expert jargonistas
Sit now in silence, pondering their day.

a concise history of trefor davies in twenty thousand tweets (of one hundred and forty characters or less)

Sunday, April 22nd, 2012

Crossed, a random line in the twitter sand,
twenty thousand statements lost in a flow,
downstream the cybersea, stormiest of places,
tossed, examined, ignored, replied or retweeted,
unseen by most and mostly rubbish
peppered with an occasional gem, perhaps
a reflection of life and personality
insignificant, except to myself.

The modern day Eleanor Rigby

Sunday, April 22nd, 2012

Wild ambition-fuelled follows,
follow back at your peril,
modern day Eleanor Rigby
waits for something to happen,
a craving in space and time
where are all the people?
do they have other lives?
did I miss something?
twitter is forever.

The leaves are back

Saturday, April 21st, 2012

The leaves are back, it’s been a while,
tender green delicates
emerge blinking in the newly sprung sun.

The rain keeps them fresh, droplets roll,
soak the bedraggled soul
finding shelter under the canopy.

Drink deep, smell that forgotten smell,
wet neck warm face smiling
in harmony with a birdborn chorale.

The early morning run

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

The bleary eyed stagger
Fumble for the light
Kettle on autopilot
Oh no – out of tea bags
Scramble around in corner cupboard
Ahah – find new pack
Pour milk into large plastic measuring jug – only one available
Two mugs – my favourite and hers
Rinse out teapot
3 bags
Click whoosh
Tea cosy on and tray upstairs
Back to bed.
The early morning run to the kitchen