Poems:
The Going Down
Early Morning
Matthew Green
Old Books upon my Bookshelf
Gullet's Quarry in a Rainstorm
POETRY
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The Going Down
And now the daisies say goodnight,
Fold up their arms, turn off the light,
Hide away heart, bow down their head
Turn in their leaves and go to bed.
Skywards the swooping swifts do beat
Their wings against the summer heat
And arc their way between the space
Of narrow walls bedewed with lace:
Gossamer of spider’s webs, forgotten thread
From which the erstwhile occupants have fled.
Mellow softness in the sun’s last gleam
Warms now still leaves about the stream
And streaming rays break up gold bars;
Anticipation of the coming stars
Making a dance of diamonds; speckled glow
That rosy-coloured gleams on the down flow
Of slithering, slow-moving fishes in the deep
While slowly, slowly Nature’s world Sinks fast asleep.
..............................................................
Early morning
It was in the early morning, blackbird song and
long wet grass, shuffling through making trails in dew
In the early mornings of my life.
Something of magic in the sun slanting
through wet dripping branches,
pearls of water drops in spidery webs enchaining
blade to blade in the long wet grass.
It was in the early morning rising from warm sheets
when hearing that cuckoo summons from
long distant woods, calling , welcoming me forth
into the dewy day, doors unbolted, stepping from within
dark walls, shadowed kitchens, cold and stony floor.
Stepping forth and catching at my heart.
They were.
Sun’s rays, dewy grass, pearls of water drops.
................................................
Matthew Green
It had been a tiring day that day. She sat down,
staring with eyes that gazed unseeingly
at people, vacant stares everywhere
from swaying people in long, stuffy
carriages, that rocked and shook around each corner,
snaking sinuously along the dark,
defenceless passages of Under London.
But then she noticed sitting opposite her
the tall man with the studious face,
the grey eyes thoughtful and a bearded chin;
the sort of face she liked to see.
He’d been where she had been, she saw the bag
in his hand with goodies from the British Library.
The books he’d bought.
He’d been where she had been.
‘Train is delayed’ announced the disembodied
voice from nowhere and their eyes met
in humorous exchange, defences slipping,
conventions for a moment put aside in
shared dismay.
Like old friends, they began to talk,
as if it had been yesterday they met
and many yesterdays before.
As if it had been yesterday that they had been together.
The train jolted to life and rumbled on
and still they talked of books, and libraries and reading,
research, writing, all the joys of life,
into the next station where startled, suddenly
aware, he rose and left the train.
‘My name is Matthew Green.’ he said just as he left.
She almost stretched her arms out after him.
Like Eurydice longing for her Orpheus she slipped
back into the underworld.
Just thus the stranger disappeared from her life
whose name was Matthew Green.
..................................
Old Books upon my bookshelf
Rubies and emeralds they are
Resting amongst the brown and upright leather pillars
Gold dusted by the sun.
Motes in the sunbeams playing, dancing
On dusty, gold-tooled leather spines amongst which gleam
Those of deep ruby, those of dark green like emeralds.
Well used and worn, now scarcely read these ancient tomes
Yet they’re old friends upon my shelf
I wouldn’t be without.
.....................................................
On Gullets Quarry in a Rainstorm.
High on the hills the clouds come storming
Darkened by raindrops falling thick as hail
Upon the flooding stones; rivulets
Like streams of life blood forming
The clear waters of the springs
Rushing their headlong way into the vale.
Here on these mystic hills the waters gush
Pure and immaculate, riding rock and stone,
Cascading downwards into deep dark gullies
To fill strange, silent pools where winds do hush
Amongst the blasted quarries left by men
And foolish bathers with their lives atone.
Those poor, dead souls, a sacrifice made to the gods
Of strange Insensibility. Then hills as soft and
Smoothly rounded as a woman’s breast were scarred
And gouged out by the work of men to lay the roads
Of endless human traffic through the land.
They now remain deep, icy pools of death.