Winter and Summer

A winter day

No burning log, sparking bright,

no mulled wine for the night.

Instead we have a satellite,

Showing pictures of others wealth,

all brimming with fake good health.

All round the world, seen by stealth?

This all false and insincere,

might as well be seated here.

Watching over winters mere

At least the cold and damp

are real, not acted camp.

So light the smoking lamp.

Let us live as real as can,

go without the spray on tan

and march about like a man.

The dogs come alive

At least they do thrive,

awaiting dusk to arrive.

Muzzles pointed at the bird

if we could gain but a third

we would eat more than curd.

The bread oven fires are low,

The water swirls with undertow

I wait to kill such a pretty foe.

One bird must die that we can eat,

The family needs, this my feat

Thin gruel does not starvation meet.

We who live out side the promised land,

we the followers of the band.

We who are thought of, as the sand.

So plentiful we do not stand.

Ignored by those who are so grand,

Yet who need us for their egos fanned.

They who falsify the soap show brand

and use an audience so canned,

They know how false the stuff they peddle

Yet the mass of which we are part, not meddle

We allow the mediocre

To rule our lives.

The winter of our discontent!

Bards brave words, of conflict meant

seem like manna from heaven sent.

We who starve of poets best

stay in winters coldest rest

While what we get, is such a test.

Good people in dis-pare

When leaders are so rare

And virtue is sold at fair

The sun makes no show.

Greyness flows over all,

damp and cold a bitter foe

this time when leaves do fall.

With warmth so short.

This is a season of mist

and mellow fruitfulness?

Now we need stout gloves on fist

May be in times long gone,

When pale sun still shone,

Now all is grey and bereft.

Summers shadow all that's left,

but shadows are cold and thin

waiting light to let life begin.

Seasons flow along with time

just as poet seeks a rhyme

some work and some do mime

Spring will follow winters dark

morning rise before dogs can bark

greet the returning lark

Harvest will again come round

with corn again to pound

And living will be sound.

In a Suffolk Garden

Now that summer brings long awaited holiday

We sit in Suffolk’s green and pleasant land,

Under cathedral sky and distant slopes

Birds and butterflies soak the sun’s warm ray.

Some make for the sea with miles of golden sand

While the wise just sit, sip wine and cope.

Times past when children controlled our day

It was necessity for peace, to find sunlit sand.

Now these same children hold the ropes

And its grandchildren that hold the sway

Some rest and ponder if to make a stand

While the wise just sit, sip wine and cope.

Suffolk’s gentle breeze cools fierce sun’s ray

Letting nature’s warmth be fanned.

On nature we have learned, rest all good hopes

Political promise does never stay.

All such falsehood should be banned

While the wise just sit, sip wine and cope.

It is gentle Suffolk that finds the truth to say,

Never heed laughter that is canned.

Treating life as the never ending soaps

We watch and chide not, though we may

So much we are fed is spun to bland

While the wise just sit, sip wine and cope

Summer heat and soil is dry as dust,

Light is bright and love springs in the chest.

We while away the time, in hope

That we still have life to live without rust.

We look back on sins remembered, pale at best

While the wise just sit, sip wine and cope.

The western edge takes the heat,

Sun lowers its rays to slope,

Dusk settles, so slowly over garden rope.

Black of night creeps as a childhood cheat.

Some move chairs the more to mope

While the wise just sit, sip wine and cope