Cover-drive (yeah – a cricket poem!)

 

JW Jones thunders at me
nostrils flaring, shirt flapping, eyes piercing
in a belligerent onslaught.

JW Jones leaps at me
crashing through the crease with
flailing arms, flying sweat, exploding breath;
finishing empty, bent double –
a redundant musket,
its solitary shot sent into battle.

The red leather fired with venom,
three pounds of wood primed,
two-thirds of a second to react,
one option presents;
the boundary beckons.

The willow arcs through its parabola
assaulting the leather with a deep, rich gunshot;
blade numbed by the hit-and-run impact.

Time stops.

No sound,
no feeling,
no movement,

except the ball screaming fenceward,
its cherry-red epitaph smeared on the bat;
statues in the outfield watch on.

Toni Childs – When all is said and done (live)

This is spine-tinglingly good – gave me goosebumps – full credit to Rockwiz getting her on…have a listen. I don’t know what else to say other than this has to be one of my favourite performances.

 

 

Fjords

I’d like to go and visit Norway;
they have fjords,
mountains soaring from deep water,
capped with snow, carved through
with glaciated valleys,
cosy towns within their shadows
under swirling Northern Lights
on long winter evenings,
ephemeral Spring nights.
Yes, I’d like to visit Norway –
some day;
they have fjords,
the Northern Lights, Nordic ski-ing,
Stress-less chairs,
but mainly for the fjords.

The One Percent

There’s a vacuum being created

sucking in our souls,

a space where we suffocate,

where all hope evaporates

at the whim of the one percent

 

who live up in the clouds, dedicated

to digging us deep dark holes

where we toil for scraps, us poor ingrates,

watch as our future desiccates

for the good of the one percent.

 

One day they’ll be nothing left,

no-one to hear as the bell tolls

just the stench of slavery, of hate,

of a burning rage at a negligent State;

the tools of the one percent.

 

 

This was stimulated by Jaqcues Peretti’s documentary – The Super-rich and Us.

 

Monuments

a repost, but I still like it…and it’s been some years

 

Monuments retreat under Time’s harsh gaze,

Fighting the futile fight, but fighting all the same,

As the stone crumbles, grain, by grain, by grain.

 

They stood strong and solid – behold triumph,

The ones who’d never break, who’d eternally reign,

Staring down with disdain, disdain, disdain.

 

Once mighty voices stolen by the wind,

now just fragmented echoes, a vanishing stain.

Please don’t forget my name, my name, my name.

 

Aging Haiku

45 years old
some say I’m past it
but dreams overpower age