First time for everything

I met a child in the bank yesterday and we had a little chat during which he told me that he was five and a quarter! Kids like to claim every moment of extra age they can don't they? Well at seventy five and two thirds and having started triathlon at fifty, I am once more putting myself up to do something I have never done before! Tomorrow evening, I am going to one of the Worthing's World of Words 'Write' evenings. That alone is not new, since I have been before but to listen and enjoy others reading and singing their work. With a little bit of pushing from my daughter and husband and indeed Melody Bridges who puts these evenings together, I have said that I WILL read a bit of my own poetry. For some reason or other I am very nervous about this. Why? You may well ask, because all my friends know that I normally have plenty to say for myself. However, when I am asked to read aloud I become a stuttering, stammering mess. Explain it I cannot. So. Wednesday evening it is then. 7.30pm in Frasers bar at the Connaught Theatre Worthing. I have been practicing on my husband and a couple of friends have had to suffer and so far, I have not read any of the selected possibilities faultlessly. So wish me luck with my new venture, or come along and throw things at me, that at least would relieve the tension. If anybody reads all of the following you can let me know which (if any) you like best.

All Hail the Stones 

All Hail the stones, that’s what I like to say

Whenever a journey takes me along that way

The Neolithic site has such magnetism

The difference in theories a mighty chasm

Standing there more than five thousand years

Each time I see them my eyes prick with tears

Where lies a more impressive prehistoric site

Who died in the building and what of their plight

Mystery shadows the move of the sarsen stones

Surely not for a graveyard to fill with bones

Architecture introducing tongue and groove

The mortise and tenon theory they also prove

Maybe brought there by barge facing rude waves 

That jaw dropping feat brought about using slaves

Rolled into place on stakes by a servile hoard

What methods to raise them then were explored

Ropes, A-frames, massive counter balance weight

Oh to have seen these giants hoiked up straight

Long ago lost in endless time the reason why for

No expert historian sounds entirely sure 

What was the idea or purpose or why on earth

Blood spilled in construction must have worth

As a coronation place for ancient tribal kings

To worship stars or primitive idols with wings

Now the most popular modern interpretation

Why the stones were brought to this destination

Most generally accepted as a place of worship

Thought up by an ancient entrepreneurship

Pre history astronomers with the solstice aligned

Stones mystically to capture each equinox designed 

Circle within circle around a central pagan altar

First computer worked out in a priest’s secret Psalter

Predicting eclipses or for magnetic healing

Strange affairs beneath a star studded ceiling

When the last lintel slotted in to its position

A sacrifice made of blood curdling precision

Did bare feet feel the tremor of an earthquake

A religious healer raises a cross or a snake

Like pushing a plug into electrical wall socket

A button pressed for firing an intergalactic rocket

I favour the romance and wide screen type drama

Stonehenge forever blessing England’s panorama

 

Children Wishing 

Five happy children looking skyward wishing

Each holds a big balloon on a length of string

Each bright balloon up in the air a-swishing 

Children born over time of my patient stitches

My choice their looks and what they bring

They represent ambition not a life of glitches 

Things don’t always happen as you dream

My universal group of kids play on a day in spring

No thought of the future or a later theme 

Hair in corn rows, pigtails or flaxen waves

Laughing, shouting, playing happily as they sing

None of them quarrel, nobody misbehaves 

One girl in a spotty dress with puffed sleeve

One wears a t-shirt and skirt as to youth they cling

A ginger haired boy in jeans doesn’t want to leave  

From my imagination stitch by stitch they grew

Life has pressures and danger to bring

Work and not hope gives success to the few

 

Leaving Home  

A strong willed child to say the least

And a little on the naughty side

Facing mother with her brow creased

My dad’s amusement he tries to hide. 

Sent to my room I protest still

“I’m going to leave this beastly home

You don’t love me, you never will”

I hold my dolly, her hair I comb. 

Dad say’s “Wait a minute duck”

Leave’s the room, pads up the stair

My case, my money box, he say’s “good luck”

Let us know when you get there.

 

When I Am Prime Minister 

The day when Prime Minister I become

Leadership fairer and much more sage

Will make new laws and change will come

For the young and those in older age. 

Plain bad manners and rude words

Will be absolutely and completely banned

Guilty ones sent out to live in wild herds

Guarded only by the Almighty’s hand. 

When much too much, are ones is earnings

Weekly charity work will be enforced

There will be monthly town centre burnings

Of rapists and paedophiles endorsed. 

For spending years in invalid caring

This investment will be compensated

Replaced will be the rags they’re wearing

Nurses, for just rewards rightly nominated. 

Lesser crimes still will not pass free

Pavement blocking shoppers admonished

They must endless footage of themselves see

Staring into space as if astonished. 

Cold caller menaces who a phone call place

The very plague of these modern days

Will be dispatched by rocket ship into space

Hurtling on into the suns burning rays. 

Vote for me should you like these words

Rather than a much more sinister minister

Laws as loud and clear as Beethoven’s chords

Oh yes we can, when I am Prime Minister.