my sunday poem … # 18

my sunday poem … # 18

spells & shells

Here is a silly wee verse I wrote way back in the summer of 1969 when I was all of 17. Me and my best pal Charlie Parker spent a couple of weeks down in Devon and Cornwall. We tried our hand at surfing off Minehead beach and chatting up girls. We were rubbish at both.

 

my sunday poem … # 10

my sunday poem … # 10

Today’s poem is called The Waiting-Bell. I wrote it during a period when I was quite heavily into the work of poets such as John Donne and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I so admired their use of  imagery.

The waiting-bell

 in the garden at dawn
tremoring trance-like forms
lie hidden in the early mist
cold-cast in a wintery spell
silence hangs heavy as a waiting-bell

one
piercing shaft of light
and life begins again
like a shattering glass

spider’s web quivering
the birds’ glad song
and beat of wings

and when I think of you
where the pain of loss first fell
my heart hangs heavy as a waiting-bell