Christmas Eve

Christmas in a Corner of England

Ave Maria! Ave Maria! maiden mild!

Listen to a maiden's prayer!

Thou canst hear though from the wild,

Thou canst save amid despair.

Safe may we sleep beneath thy care,

Though banish'd, outcast and reviled -

Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;

Mother, hear a suppliant child!

Ave Maria! 

Ave Maria! undefiled!

The flinty couch we now must share

Shall seem this down of eider piled,

If thy protection hover there.

The murky cavern's heavy air

Shall breathe of balm if thou hast smiled;

Then, Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;

Mother, list a suppliant child!

Ave Maria! 

Ave Maria! stainless styled!

Foul demons of the earth and air,

From this their wonted haunt exiled,

Shall flee before thy presence fair.

We bow us to our lot of care,

Beneath thy guidance reconciled;

Hear for a maid a maiden's prayer,

And for a father hear a child!

Ave Maria!

Winter Wonderland

When it snows

Ain't it thrilling,

Though your nose, is a chilling;

We'll frolic and play, the Eskimo way,

Walking in a winter wonderland.

Time Present and Time Past

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

(T S Eliot)

Opium Sea of the Dead

Opium Sea of the Dead

"Poppy, Sir?" he said.
I moved my head
From side to side.
"They're all dead,"

I said. "And why?
Why did they have to die?
Was it for you and I?
Or was it for a lie?" 

"All in a good cause, Sir," 

He added with a look 

I recognised from the blur

Of the dying dead in a book 

I'd read a long time ago.

"But," I asked, "Did they all 

Have to go

And fall?"

This land, I thought,

Has since been sold

And bought

For fool's gold 

To those they elected

The dead to protect

Us from 

On the Somme. 

They lied, of course.

It was to disarm

Us that force

And alarm 

Manifested

To test us

Again

And again and again and again ...

He saw the image of our Queen
And with tearful eye:
"I'd go again, Ma'am. I'm no has-been.
For you your Majesty I'd go and die!"

I looked at his decomposing face
And thought you do what you will,
But I have seen an island race
Become near-extinct for that thrill.

From the darkness we turn to the sun;
To search beyond endless blood red
Poppies in the opium sea of dead
Who are for ever gone, gone, gone ...

Kandinsky

I was first introduced to Kandinsky

By a blonde female artist in London

(Whose name now escapes me)

Whose own art I frowned upon.

I would have been five months old

When Kandinsky died of a stroke

(At Neuilly-sur-Seine, I'm told)

And that is when I imagine folk

Spoke of him being the bloke

To paint abstractly on canvas

With a different kind of stroke

To that any single one of us

Had hitherto seen before.

He was the first and some say best;

So when in July I received a card

Bearing a Kandinsky it was hard

Not to like it more than the rest.

When that sender of the card came to see

Me another time, and we had a bite to eat,

I thought I would offer him a real treat

By taking him up to see my Kandinsky.

And so I did.

And that is when he raised the lid

With a comment I had not forseen:

"I don't like Kandinsky," he said.

"Can I show you my magic lantern instead?" I intervened.

Though I recall a time not that long ago

When viewing one of my artistic endeavours

He remarked: "Kandinsky at his maddest!"

I was duly flattered, so told him

His was the nicest review there had been,

But now I had to go

And paint another for the world to view

Before it ceased to flow.