Our own laureate, Paul Holland pens poems for GFB and here they are in slightly higgledy piggledy fashion for us all to admire. I’m a little bit jealous.
We hope you enjoy them.
Mum’s Garden Full Of Birdsong
There’s a tall tree in mum’s garden
That needs chopping
A Blackthorn
It and the Holly beside it
Spreading up up way beyond their bound
Blocking the light from the neighbours
Worrying my mum that someone may complain
Curly and I could not reach over far enough
That time we cut the hedge
But there’s a Blackbird that sings from that tree
He’s singing now
A Mistle Thrush, countless Tits
And the Blackbird and his mate
All in there
The Blackbird is singing
‘Yeooww woo
But isn’t it grand’
It is too
From The Prisons Of Our Own Minds
It is the sea that makes us realise
That we are indeed small
From the blade of grass
That we are indeed big
And for me
The memory of
The whitest light from the smile once
From of the face of my girl
She waiting at the top of my Street
To then Go work her Saturday job in the hairdressers
And me mine in the garage
That makes me know that I have indeed lived
My Laboured Breaths
The heavy set thump of white tailed deer
As they charge away across the streams wet clay
They caught in its tight slippy narrow confines
Their panic palpable
But short lived
As easy their powerful strides carry them up and away from me and the dogs’ agog
Dun red and the orange of this years bracken Oak leaves under foot
Their crinkle patterns as we slog by this glorious winter’s day
Promised for snow
Now sleety biting rain
Breathe you fool
Another day is the day for sorrows
Not today
My laboured breaths as I push uphill
Fish and Chickens
I like the folderol of blue embroidery
On the white tablecloth’s cool brilliance
Today’s breakfast coffee spills join
Yesterday’s
Drips and crumbs of our meals together
Are lifted and shook out
Before the cloth is put away on it’s shelf
Ready to be smoothed out table set
For our next meal together
Or we’ll maybe wash it
And use the one with the fish and the chickens
They instead marking out
The songs of our days.
The Pass
Neutron Star
With greenest of bright openings
Four cardinal points of fern
Push out beside the rill
From the Winter’s
Last clinging beech leaves
Drops fall
Into sharply cut waters
The Brute
Can it be true
Is this what a man is
What is a man
What is it to be a man?
Belly forward,
Smart jacket,
Out the scowling door.
Son scuttling behind.
Son young enough still,
Young enough to briefly pause.
Time enough
At least,
To help his mother on with her cardigan.
This moment of weakness
My hope for his future
Strength.
He followed his dad.
She swallowing her Grinding pain.
She wincing,
She taking it
Bearing it.
Sucking it up
Grimace after Grimace.
With small shuffling
Agonizing steps
Followed out.
Out the A&E door
Off into the night.
Would it be too much to expect more kindness?
A surfeit of kindness.
God but for a bit of kindness.
Thoughts of Wampum
I met the man who drank the farm.
He again slapping his heavy hands together,
Talking at the bar’s sweet spot.
He was
Well…busy busy.
Slapped his heavy hands together,
Rocked on his heels,
Stepped back
Stepped forward,
Looked smiling around the bar.
No one paid him much mind.
Maybe some if they could be bothered looked away.
Who wants to catch his eye.
Sucked down his rum and coke.
Made great play of just enough ice in the glass.
Slapped his callused hands together as he wilted.
Standing at the bar
Past travels done,
Worked over.
Conversation empty
Best slap the hands together.
Rock in and out of the Bar’s sweet spot.
Hard earned
Single handed applause from all.
Tyrella Beach by Moonlight
I can see all The Shore as my dogs bound away in grateful release.
By a dune’s stump
It blasted away by a storm of eight years ago
I sit and stare south in winter’s moonlight.
I know this beach.
St John’s Point and its lighthouse,
The Cow and the Calf.
There away, another spot blinks
Cast out from the Isle of Man,
Towards Newcastle’s yellow lit streets and shore.
Tips of the Mourne Mountains capped with low cloud.
Sweetmoon
A silver beam
Carried the shore’s length
Glittering upon each wave.
There above, a brightly lit planet
Shows through the gathering clouds.
You are south and tho’ this beach looks south
It’s winds now but safe gusts for summer kite surfers.
You are far,
Far south.
I have your light and look for it
But although see planets
Rocks at sea
Lighthouses
I am still here shorebound.
For something as simple as you and I
Tonight I cannot see you
Bog Road
When you go to the bottom of the well
In sadness scrabbling the deep ooze and mud
Scrambling around below.
The talk then is of the climb back up but
There are sometimes valuable things down there.
Peopled from times past
Reasons to go down
The echo of words spoken of those who went before.
Their history hopes and dreams now spent for themselves
But cast there not to be weighed down and hold fast the present
But given for us to find
A safe ballast
With twisted golden torc through free
To other lands.
Our future theirs
Their dreaming hands wrought twists
Living longer than flesh.
Dreaming remains
Golden summer or winter night
Livings loud delight.
A Belfast View and Ill Children
Leaving the Adolescent mental health unit
Looking clear across the City to Napoleon’s nose
This is a country were we don’t make men anymore
Those yellow cranes are all but for show.
Crazy kids made crazy by their lack of a wire to follow
The vine choosing to hug the ground to
Grow in the dark places
Not having light to forge them.
What dark forces these children find to forge them.
What currents pass for air and light.
The darkness eats and they are consumed in its petrified dish.
No rare penicillin here no liberating thrum.
The manic joy of youngsters music and laughter dulled
Tracked looped flattened in a base bass beat
Squashed with nauseous smurfs.
Scared and scarred, dulled and witness to
More blast and sulphurous rush than any
Red rivet from the yard below.
You Told Me
My errant love,
Gone to the bushes
To the village of the west.
It’d be there
That they have you now to their dry breast
It’s their arms that have you in time.
All broken with seething hatred
In the yard 7 long years ago
A cacophony voices in your words.
All the determination I loved you for
I watched as you gouged
Your sanity with vile purpose.
Wild eyed unfocused
Lighthouse spin skewed off its gymble.
The deep grinding of stones
Letting their sooth mortar into rough
Sand and eyes fears of lime.
Drug settled weary
Your light burns
It lights other sights now unseen.
Riding the Madrid Metro
1.
I didn’t see the band get on.
The mum and dad
Both wearing Disney shirts and their kids tied to games machines,
The old woman I stood for, after trying to read the metro poetry,
Yes; I saw them.
But I didn’t see the band get on
I heard and stood across from the giggling girls talking in Portugese
I saw them..
But then the band put to play.
2.
The band of Indians
Peruvian?-They’d skipped the ponchos…
I hadn’t been prepared for the band getting on.
Hadn’t seen them put to play.
I had been thinking of you of course
Of our newly found love.
Of how to change this
Make that work what I should do
The details and such.
They put to sing in that dark hole of the heights.
3.
And the band got on and I knew of the depths
That she and I had fallen
Of the coffin nails driven deep into what was a marriage
Of my broken nails in my attempts to free us both.
Of her despair.
And they sang in that hole of the heights
Of joy and hardship
They knew of the yearning of the exiled
Of the long distance of a view.
4.
And I thought of you my new love.
And I remembered
That the winds will blow
And thought I don’t mind
For it is of you, not the details or such, that they sang.
As now I’ll be ready for the winds to rage
And for the screaming distance of a view.
I saw that the Portugese girls were laughing.
As before me they’d noticed I’d put to cry
Sweet salt water tears.
I could no longer hide when the band got on.
Hermaphrodite Hoodie
Should I push or pull
When the weary raincoat of cloudy night has opened before Dawn’s door
There you’ll find hermaphrodite hoodie stirring in the nether region
Dawn turns only to say
“Stop muckin’ about”
“Aah”
Sighs hermaphrodite hoodie
“What I’d give for any port in a storm
Yes brandy and a little drop of port”
“Garr……” slurps Dawn (pint of heavy in hand)
“But your eyes are a sore sight
Stay awhile ye twisted stranger, try an rearrange, yer a bit of a dog in a mang…er”
“Mark me well Dawn! today I’ll play wit’ me ditties an’ yer man there dreams only of havin’ titties
I Cannot Wear Turn-ups
I cannot wear turn-ups.Not because
I Ginger,
Johnny come (beardy) lately,
Don’t have the Legs
Not because like a hat that’s
‘…not a hat ’till its tilted’
I feel my trouser is not complete without it’s turn-up.
Tho’ I think that’s true.Mabey because I no longer need the Handmedowns.
But still cock’o’ the walk
I saunter by in Oxfam’s finest.
A Bodem jacket
Trousers too?
Why sure; that’d be the boy to beat the band. No
The reason I cannot wear turn-ups
Is
I can’t bear the carnage. It is rather the Sandfleas.
Hosts of little springers
Spring as
I on the beach saunter by.
Finding them lost then on the kitchen floor.
No more, no more lost hitchers please no more.
Too far a leap
Too too sad
That such a programmed leap
Of faith or fear
Of nature’s push
Carapaced Jumpanoughts
Lost then
Adrift
Too far to turn for home.
Ginger Rimmed
The Sea’s waves
Fat
Heavy with the Moon’s oily light
Moon glow seaside Bundoran
Ginger rimmed
Caked in winter’s corona of cloudy night
The town glows too
From above seen
The waves take on the pores
Of skin swept sea
All held firm this
Extra
Given
Night
Untitled
The ginger wigs are a right laugh
The ginger quips right daft
Scurf and scurvy out there
Lorries smoking and tractors squirting slurry
Globally warming world in a hurry
Ask yourself sweet ginger boy
Are we apt to worry
My arse
I only shifts after a curry
Other Stuff – Below are a selection of poems submitted by readers – we are happy to receive anything from anyone so feel free to submit something! Sad, happy, funny or just plain stupid we are keen to hear from you.
Ode To Gingers (Non Ginger Wannabe)
Sweet Ginger Dreams (ginger Missus)
I dreamt I was a red head,
While asleep in my bed last night
A flame head temptress, a ginger “Roxanne”
A girl to put on that red light
Women would give looks of envy
Men gave looks of desire
Wherever I went, the same effect
One glimpse could light anyone’s fire
Sweet Ginger Dreams
Descend upon my sleep
Blissful hours of slumber and peace
A fantasy I wish I could keep
For now when I look in the mirror
The truth in the cold light of day
No red flowing locks reflect back at me
But instead my hair is all grey
Socks
When I first bought me socks they were quite fantastic
Cotton rich beauties with the bold snap of elastic
A joy to put on and cover me skin
Long ones naturally, right up the shin
But today I looked out upon the washing line
And noticed with sadness their recent decline
Pegged garments edging away from them keen not to be seen
Pants, shirts, bras, towels, even me new black jeans
For safely I can say without fear or compunction
A definite case of hosiery erectile dysfunction
As they dangled in the still air, limp, shapeless and forlorn
A hole in the toe and heels ripped and torn
Yet I loved me socks in a manly kind of way
They were with me for many a day
In good times and bad, happy and drunken
Talked to them once on a slow drive to London
The pretty girl laughed, the sock a puppet snake hissed
“Your beautiful” he said, she gave me a kiss
Less impressed she was when I asked of me darling
There was a hole in the heel, how good was she at darning?
I look upon the clothes line with a sad eyed stare
And determine that they are beyond repair
But remember you I shall for your support, warmth and valour
You deserve a place in knitwear Valhalla
Just like The Vikings starring Kirk Douglas and his dimple
Sadly without that budget my plan will have to be simple
No floating longboat chased by flaming arrows
But bury them tonight in a neighbour’s ornamental wheel barrows
Dear Mr Gingerbread Man (alias Jim Sullivan)
Thought provoking poem about riding the Madrid Metro.
To a lesser extent, we have all felt similar thoughts of lonelinesss and despair but the power of the human mind to overcome such levels of loss is heartening…..and the band played on!
Inspiring words that captures modern day life.
Kind regards
Robert
Thanks for directing us to this.
I have enjoyed reading your writes (~_~) bows humble
Thanks very much – plenty more nonsense in the pipeline…..
Amazing poetry it touches the soul, heart and mind so i say thank you.
Thanks for the lovely comments much appreciated!
Great poems!!!
Many Thanks
Most welcome!
Nice….
Very soulful.
I too have lived life as a “ginger” and my eldest daughter as well!
Thank you for visiting my blog…I was happy to find yours.
Jess
Thanks very much – being ginger is a state of mind as well as a tint……
Ahh- could only read the first few poems, but will return. You have a gift , thanks for sharing it!
Sincerely,
Kstormy
Thanks Very Much – look forward to further visits.
You should check out poet Richard Tyrone Jones, brilliantly funny anarchic ginger poet.
Thanks I will. Best wishes
Gingerfightback, Some of these are really funny and delightful. I wish you’d break them into individual posts, though, so we could comment on them. There is some really good work in here. I read them all.
Thanks Thomas – have started to do so.
There really isn’t enough poetry to socks in the world.
Good point well made.
I didn’t know you wrote poetry and you seem to be from Northern Ireland like me.
I’m not Harry! But the fella who writes them is from Belfast.
That’s where i’m from as well, i thought they were yours, i was going to ask you to join ” poets corner ” my new site.
http://poetscornerblog.wordpress.com/
So much to ponder, parse, laugh at, love, and otherwise enjoy here. A great set of inspirations!
Thanks Kathryn they are mostly written by a friend who is a tad intermittent with them but they are usually well worth the wait.
There was a young lady from Bude.
Who boarded a bus in the nude.
A man at the front……and then at this point I completely ran out of ideas and inspiration.
Smut or poetry? Discuss.
I don’t know much about poetry but I like a nice ride on a bus.
It’s all in the mind
Said the man behind,
There’s really no need to fuss.
Tickets please!
Can we smoke on this bus?
Got any snout?
Yates out!
Yates Out!
Paul Holland’s poems are amazing, so very good i am in awe and inspired and well, a little jealous too. 😊 i couldn’t stop reading — emotional, beautiful, funny, gentle words. thanks very much for sharing them.
Cheers – yes they are – thanks for the follow – look forward to staying in touch
Wow! Wow! Wow! Bravo, Mr. Holland and Bravo! Jim for hosting him. I need to take some time with these.
On the run ..
Love “The Pass” most especially.
Later …
Most kind Jamie – Paul has a great way with words!