When all the world was young

            Oh for the days of childhood, when the sun was always in the sky, ice-creams came in wafers, we skated on the pond all winter long, men whistled on the way to work, Christmases were  knee-deep in snow and the neighbours invited you in for orange squash and bikkies. Nightime was curl up cosy in front of the blazing turf fire. Oh dear, if only!               

 

 

 

                            Eleven

 

          I am eleven;

my eyes are overflowing with light

from the spangling stream,

ears brimming with its chattering

sprays and runs,

my back lush with the magnificence 

of  Summer sun. 

 

I am in a field of cowslips,

the colour butter ought to be;

in the distance a bell is chiming

but I have no duties.

I’m lying on my stomach on a wooden bridge,

my eyelids shut, my fingers fishing for splinters.

 

The Wind Claps The Slates.

 

 

The wind claps the slates;

all night they are hooves running berserk,

all night the wind is inciting them;

all night.

 

At twenty past two and twenty past three

and twenty past four I am looking at you;

how I would love to have hooves to come

crashing through your sleep, to burst into

your solitude.

 

And there I would, for better or worse,

demolish the muzzled years with as much

violence as reverberates beneath iron shoes,

as  causes such a frenzy in stone that slates

stampede.