Poems
Some poems by members of Wey Poets:
Stolen Day
She was too spiritual for the office
She didn't clock in
She stole away
stole the day
and walked with the stolen sun
along the stolen street
among the stolen cars
unconfined
breathing unmeasured breaths
in untimed time
by Frances Jessup
Chopin’s Mazurka No. 13
That was hard travelling,
cold, wet, windy, my bones ache.
Now my great coat steams dry
and I’m deep in my cups.
She married a doctor.
They live in Kraków.
This stew tastes of nothing.
Bitter ale settles me in my corner.
Then I hear the rustle of crinoline.
The room spins a little, but she’s here
seeing more of me than I can see.
“Dunderhead!” she calls me,
her dunderhead. She startles me,
and dazzles me, how she
pirouettes on a five groz coin.
She keeps asking, wanting to know
“What are you feeling?” I can’t say. I don’t have the words.
“How do you love me?” How? I just don’t have the words.
“Why do you love me?” Too many reasons, but I don’t have the words.
I hear the brush of liquid silk,
the tap tap and squeak of dancing shoes on dark oak boards,
that mischievous laugh when she nips my earlobe,
loving her donkey. Did she take me with her?
I don’t have the words. I never have the words.
By John de Prey
Young Speak
It intrigues me no end
how young people speak.
How did the word 'like'
become so, like fashionable?
I hear it like often
when I'm like on the street
or like in a coffee bar.
Then there's 'basically,'
often like in close proximity
to 'literally,' peppering their conversation.
I like heard this guy,
like telling his friend
how he like basically
got caught in the rain
and was like literally soaked and basically like freezing.
And 'actually' appears to have like become
a basically virtuous word.
Whoever like literally attaches it
to the end of a statement
has like basically claimed
the moral high ground, actually!
They can like basically be certain
their point of view
has like literally won the day, basically.
'Oh my God' makes me smile,
often like said in a rush
to basically express surprise
as I like literally felt, actually,
when topping up my mobile.
The young woman like asked me,
“Do you basically like top-up each month?”
Like, why do you want to know? I literally thought
and was like, “No I don't.”
“That's not a problem,”she like basically announced,
then was like, “How often do you literally top-up?
I was like, “When it needs doing, actually.”
“That's not a problem,” she like said with a smile
as she literally swiped my card.
Later that day I was like basically at home
when the phone like literally rang.
I basically answered and was like, “Hello.”
A young man was like,“Am I talking to the high-roller?”
I was like, “Excuse me!”
He was like, “Am I like talking to the high-stakes man?”
I was like basically confused and told him so.
“That's not a problem,” he like replied
and literally asked me his question again.
I was like, “Can you tell me who you are?”
“That's not a problem,” he like said again
then was like,“Do you rent, or do you
like basically have a mortgage?”
Feeling a rush of middle-aged indignation
I was like,“This is none of your business, actually!”
“That's not a problem,” I like literally heard him say
as I basically put down the phone.
Oh my God!
Awesome!
Owen Osler
Intrusion - Ukraine March 2022
Shockingly
all those home-grown yesterdays
of simple blurred living
which wandered lingering
step by step
meal by meal
love by love – fuse
– are fused –
into one intense long Now
a single mouth clamped shut
against the fear
of one unending scream
signalling
a message to
those who come after
for come they must
to unfurl the sky
unbury the sun
from the unploughed fields
where the grain is missing.
By Belinda Singleton
The move to Orchard Way
Our new house was built on farmland.
A stream flowed between the garden,
fields and woodland beyond,
leaf-laden in Autumn, scampering
through the early rains of Winter,
then slowly past mud-ridged
verges crusted with ice.
In Summer our garden was a wilderness
of buttercups, bulrushes, tussocks of grass;
scents drifted through windows
sweetening the air. We gazed at
dappled images gifted by the sky,
swishing limbs in the cool water.
Olive-brown minnows flashed
through fingers. We netted caddis flies,
water pennies, and water boatmen,
rootled in crannies for grubs, frogs, bugs.
Life’s scars and disenchantments
melded into shadow.
We tried to suppress our anger towards those
who heaped debris in the stream
to lengthen their gardens,
so the brisk flow thinned to a dribble
and dried to a lifeless ditch
of rust-stained pebbles,
just as friendship between neighbours
soured, and part of our youth
seemed to have washed away.
By Val Tigwell
Churchyard Maintenance
Week by week, throughout the growing months,
and two by two, we mow the grass, and strim.
When sturdy trees have drooped their leaves
a volunteering army keeps it trim.
A kind of Winter Harvest then occurs.
Each one brings a plastic sheet and rake.
The leaf heap grows around the bonfire,
and soup arrives for all to take a break.
But across the panic-stricken world
the flames of funeral pyres consume the dead,
where Covid-19 spreads in leaps and bounds,
leaving a tide of mourning, and of dread.
By Tim Bayston
The Face
From the speckled photograph he turns.
Smiles.
Raises a thumb,
As he heads towards a landscape cup and saucered with craters,
Marching in bulbous boots along the dusty track,
Before it deepens into a viscous mud of death.
Later. Crammed in a trench.
He smiles.
Lifts a tin mug.
A home-rolled cigarette droops from moustachioed lips,
As he and his pals wait in earth-soiled uniforms,
Beneath a sky glazed with indifference.
From a photo singed and crumpled he turns,
Poised against a trench wall,
Bayoneted rifle signalling heavenwards.
No cigarette.
No smile.
Eyes dark beneath the shadow of his helmet.
A whistle blows.
A shell bursts overhead.
Showering him with poppies.
By Jane Baker
AS IT IS
When, ten years ago, the Emperor.
Truly god-like, assigned me here
To guard the Northern Frontier,
His voice echoed in the hall -
It still does in my brain.
Till recently I dreamed:
Of beautiful women walking
Among flowers in the garden.
Courtesans in costly silks
Inviting one to pleasure;
Of old friends sipping wine
In the gaily decorated pavilion;
Of Cheng, the closest, with whom
I would retire to a window,
Speak out my innermost thoughts,
Return, happily, to the carousel.
But now at last I understand:
If the impossible were granted,
I wouldn't be worthy, the man
Pacing here being but a husk.
As it is, no creature moves,
Even the grass is yellow,
Whilst the desert stretches far,
As far as the eye carries.
By Martin Jones
WARNING OF THE MONTH
Gull against storm cloud,
Flung sycamore seeds,
Collars fastened high,
Boost in umbrella sales.
But cheer up
It's May!
Or may not
As the case may be.
Remember who's in charge:
It is not you.
It never was -
But just in case
Your heart was thinking so,
May flicks some hailstones
In your eyes
Then smiles -
Oh, can she tantalise -
Knows how to swirl
Her blossoming skirts
And face-encapsulating tresses
As meretriciously as any troupe
Of temptresses
In body-hugging
Flamenco style dresses.
By Michael Tanner
LOVE IN ALL
Love created life and life holds Love
who never dies and lives in us.
Life goes on with us in Love
and all creation loving life.
Those who died in loving arms
bring Love into our hearts and minds
and dwell in us with Love who says:
“I am in you and you in Me.
I am here for eternity.
So follow Me and hold My hand”.
For those who have died are here for us
to guide our steps along the way
That brings us all as one today
bonded by Love and one for all.
By Simon Whalley
REFUGE
No peace for me is found
Inside this body of a youngster.
All sorts of passions, desperately,
Are pulling me apart. I plea
For refuge.
Where can I find a resting spot,
A peaceful garden of no worry?
Could elders tell me if it is found
In years of living, in years
Of their long-gone glory?
By Ravil Shaviyev
TREASURE
In a large damp field
digging deep,
eager people bend and sweep
with all their might
under the weight of earth
found on the site,
searching for bright
objects to catch the eye
and holding breath
when ‘treasure’ is unearthed,
with its history unfolding
piece by precious piece,
showing its birth
of antiquity, dated, worth
a wealth of gold.
Anyone for buried artefacts
I ask,
with breaking back.
For, believe me,
brushing away this sticky soil
is no easy task!
By Julie Buckingham
