He drew in some air
Lifted the horn to his lips
The music played out
Like an innocent soul
Playing against the night sky.
Notes drifting on the breeze
Over rooftops and into open windows
Accompanying young lovers, and
Soothing the restless minds,
Of those lacking in sleep
A tear to the eye of some,
As the music sparks a memory
Bringing comfort to the lonely.
Stood in the corner gathering dust
Steel strings
Pitted with rust
Loose and untuned
Waiting to be held
Arms wrapped around
Waiting for the caress of fingers
For passion to make it dance again
To feel fingers press and glide
To make this old instrument young again.
A love song to play
The player to sway
A lover long lost
Never forgotten
To bring to life
A song once sung
Robert Green
We are immortals until we die
When our final breath leaves with a sigh.
Our last cuss, sworn
No more we see the dawn
Our bodies abandoned just lie
Soul set free to fly.
Like a bird, take flight
Into darkness or into light?
A Balloon’s Life II
Wooden soldiers
Tall and strong
Guarding woodlands
In rows so long.
Hard and fast
Taller than grass
Grown to last
of old, cut as a mast.
Reaching skyward
Surveying all around
Casting long shadows westward
Towering flora that abound.
New saplings now old
One story they have told
Deep roots make them bold
As branches unfold
Some older than man
Cast deep in the ground
Hid the old clan
Felt the wet nose of a hound.
Lovers lay beneath it’s branches
basking in the sun
Exhausted from their horizontal fun
Beads of sweat, down their bodies run.
Words of love trip off their tongue.
Tall and mighty
Bark textured rough
Their leaves small and flighty
Young children’s shoes did scuff
Catching their dreams
As they climb so high
Of rescuing maidens
From pirates near by.
With bows and not so straight arrows
They grin and they smile
As they aim at a sparrow
and miss by a mile.
From it’s branches they do swing
Hanging by a limb
Lot of noise, not muffled din.
Hot summer, time to swim.
Wooden soldiers
Tall and strong
Guarding woodlands
In rows so long.
Hard and fast
Taller than grass
Grown to last
of old, cut as a mast.
Reaching skyward
Surveying all around
Casting long shadows westward
Towering flora that abound.
New saplings now old
One story they have told
Deep roots make them bold
As branches unfold
Some older than man
Cast deep in the ground
Hid the old clan
Felt the wet nose of a hound.
Lovers lay beneath it’s branches
basking in the sun
Exhausted from their horizontal fun
Beads of sweat, down their bodies run.
Words of love trip off their tongue.
Tall and mighty
Bark textured rough
Their leaves small and flighty
Young children’s shoes did scuff
Catching their dreams
As they climb so high
Of rescuing maidens
From pirates near by.
With bows and not so straight arrows
They grin and they smile
As they aim at a sparrow
and miss by a mile.
From it’s branches they do swing
Hanging by a limb
Lot of noise, not muffled din.
Hot summer, time to swim.
Single leaf
floated in the wind
gently landed
like a bird on the wing.
Autumn colours
vivid and bright
lit up
in the evenings light.
Moon over Exmoor
Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
And at the windows seen again.
Until at last, serene and proud
In all the splendor of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud,
Supreme as Empress of the Night.
I look, but recognize no more
Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
Is an enchanted avenue.
All things are changed. One mass of shade,
The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
I walk as in a foreign town.
The very ground beneath my feet
Is clothed with a diviner air;
While marble paves the silent street
And glimmers in the empty square.
Illusion! Underneath there lies
The common life of every day;
Only the spirit glorifies
With its own tints the sober gray.
In vain we look, in vain uplift
Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind;
We see but what we have the gift
Of seeing; what we bring we find.
Through the intricacies of life
Is woven some strife
Unlike the fallen
Whom came as they deemed their calling
To fight a war to end all wars
Remembrance of the dead
100 years since their bodies were shred
A lesson have we learnt?
Never! Still we send soldiers to be burnt.
In a war to end all wars.
Poets spoke, of horrors seen
Of dead eyes that no longer gleam.
Through mud and dirt that boil
Soldiers of boys toil.
We send to a war to end all wars.
Politicians only smile
As broken bodies trudge another mile
Open shell hole graves
Shell shocked minds, vent words through mouths that rave,
about a war to end all wars.
Tolkien, Jones, Sassoon and Graves
Scribe moments of death, men in graves
Save a few that return
Write but we do not learn
And engage in a war to end all wars.
He took his camera to war
To record what he saw
Not what war was about
But what war is.
In secret he took a snap shot
Of comrades dead, a lot.
It’s not what war is about
But what war is.
Bluebells remind me of Spring more than any other flower!
The Bluebell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air:
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit’s care.
Emily Bronte
paintedwords 