THE TEACHER

THE TEACHER (for Charles Causley)

Tweed-suited,
The teacher stood and waited.
Across the road
Behind curtains
Mother-drawn for privacy,
I would sneak-peek-
Then, seeing him
Would cross the road.
His gentle poet’s hand outstretched
Would guide me to the safer side.
Into a world of words
That coloured my life,
Infected my mind
And bled into a subconscious,
That would in turn,
bleed out
And form colours of their own
one day.
I was the clay, the empty canvas, the unwritten score.
He was the sculptor, the painter and composer.
He shaped my learning
For a future I could not for-see.
He was the teacher then,
As I am a teacher now.
He was the poet then,
As I am a poet now.
He was the tweed-suited teacher
Who stood and waited.

MY EMAIL DIDN'T GET THROUGH

My email didn't get  through

And I just don't know what to do

It keeps bouncing back

Like a pop-up attack

On google or bloody Yahoo!

FRIENDS

SOME PEOPLE HAVE FRIENDS-

OTHERS HAVE 

AN AUDIENCE!!

Jen chambers 19/11/09

NO HANDS ON THE CLOCK

There are no hands on this clock

yet still it ticks away at time - staccatic

like the heartbeat of the blind.

Beyond this room

the minutes come and go

clocks and watches are determined so.

Life in daily ebb and flow

flicks soundless moments over - one by one

while not too far away

a handless clocks  ticks on.

DOG 1

Perched sphinx-like on her plinth of plank-

Like some Egyptian Queen of rank-

Sits Mothball.

Her eye takes in her vast domain-

Then gently hands it back again-

Twelve summers past have been her reign-

This one will be her last.

Life-long she’s lived and well behaved-

And many owners she’s enslaved-

Has Mothball.

In lifetime she’s fulfilled her role

And never hurt a living soul

Always shared her drinking bowl

With all her canine subjects.

When finally she leaves her plank

There’ll be no pomp or circumstance

For Mothball.

Perched sphinx-like on her plinth of plank

Like some Egyptian Queen of rank

Sits Mothball.

A poem for someone who bought a copy of my poetry book in 2009

My pomes are writ

And these are it

Please enjoy your readin'

But if it's Donne

You're keen upon

This ain't the stuff you're needin'