Let that be quick, be merciful, unseen.
Listening.
“Is there anybody there?” cried the Private, standing guard in the moonlit night,
And the Corp’ral appeared at his shoulder, and chewed on a soggy Woodbine,
“Halt, who goes there?” growled the Sergeant, half asleep but prepared for a fight
And they all tried to see through the blackness, where the branches hung over the line.
But no one stirred in the forest, the noise that he thought he had heard
Had faded and died, and the silence - had returned like a sheet for the dead.
“There’s nothing there,” said the Corp’ral, “I expect t’were a bloody night bird.”
“I’ll go back to sleep,” growled the Sergeant, as he longed for a half-decent bed.
So the Private was left to his vigil, to his fears and a bladder o’erfilled,
While under the trees the shadows lay deep, too dark to let anyone see
But he knew in his bones and his bowels as well that the shade hid the men who had killed
A sentry who, just like himself one long night, could not tell a man from a tree.
And he cursed at the moon which lit him up bright but let midnight lurk under the trees
And shivered and peered as the sweat of his fright lay cold on his head and his chest
While he reckoned at least two more hours to the dawn, two more hours of the freezing night breeze
And he knew with deep dread that a long day ahead would give him no chance for a rest.
Thus his thoughts were engaged when the enemy struck, the attack coming in from the right
Where unseen they had crawled to the edge of the wall and torched all the tents on that side.
And the Sergeant had bawled when the fighting was done “You can turn in lads now for this night.
“They won’t try again for the dawn’s almost here. They’ll go back in the woods where they hide.”
And the sinister silence sneaked back over all while the Private crouched over his gun,
He thought of his home and his mother and sleep, and he prayed for the sight of the sun.
Sport – perhaps a substitute for strife
The Par Hole
I take the ball and place my tee,
Consult the card and say a prayer -
Select my driver number three
The tension makes my hair grow greyer.
The driver swings, the ball flies high,
I think that shot is pretty good -
I ought to have an easy lie
And hope to use a fairway wood.
Oh dear! The Fates are very mean
The ball lies badly, and I’m vexed -
To whack it out towards the green
I’ll have to take the 5 iron next.
I hit the iron shot, and hook -
Still, better than my usual shank
It bounces on towards the brook,
Stops just before the sloping bank.
The bunkers gape to right and left,
The green awaits a perfect pitch -
A number 9 if I am deft
Will clear the intervening ditch.
I’m on the green now - take my putter
Check for nap and speed and slope,
Feel my nerves go tight and flutter,
Tap the ball and watch with hope.
It rolls along the line I reckoned
But then it slows - alas - and stops
Beside the lip. An awful second
Trembles on - and in it plops!
Now that’s a 4 - this hole is hard
My normal scores are 6 to 8.
This time a par is on my card,
A great event to celebrate.
Set up the drinks - my cheerful habit
When I’ve done well! And in these moods
Although I’ll always be a rabbit,
I feel I’ve played like Tiger Woods.
In parts of the French Alps, those elderly enough only pay one euro each day for ski passes!
Snow.
Powder, powder, loose and weightless,
Duvet-deep for several feet,
Fall, and it is soft and tricky,
But skiing it’s a splendid treat.
Leaning forward schussing downhill
On the piste our skis will flow,
Tip-waves spray to port and starboard
Countless flecks of flying snow.
Skis begin to turn together,
Feet feel confident and light,
Speed is something we can handle,
Powder such a rare delight.
This is truly champagne skiing-
Quickly steer to take the lift.
Powder will not keep for laggards -
Days like this a precious gift.
Powder, powder, loose and weightless,
Add some sunshine. Then shake well!
Brilliant, exhilarating,
Powder snow has cast its spell!
Cars flying white flags - for a time I thought they were advertising the BNP.
World Cup Week.
There comes a time when chance with tide colludes
When Fortune smiles or turns her face away,
The wise man knows small changes on the day
Turn victory to loss, if Luck intrudes.
The sporting metaphor’s well understood –
Men substitute for life by watching play,
The flickering screen provides a passive way
To stir each couch potato’s flaccid mood.
These men sit down, imagine how they could
Control the ball and make the pass that may
Create the winning goal. Instead they just display –
Sad car-borne flags which yield no earthly good.
How can these fans, puffed up with English pride,
Imagine poor St. George assists their side?
A School Sport - The Non-Boxer’s View
A well-biffed nose dispenses gore,
A loosened tooth is bloody sore.
The victim falls upon the floor,
The victor hopes to dish out more.
The prudent loser stays well down
Despite his trainer’s shouts and frown,
He lets the ref. count up to ten
Before he lifts his head again.
I hate to win, I fear to lose -
A boxer’s life I’d never choose
To feel the blows, to smack the gob -
A most ungentlemanly job.
This noble “sport” is not for me,
I’ll try to keep my poor brain free
From punches thrown to knock me out,
Or close my eyes or squash my snout.
My children never shall be taught
To hit a chap and call it sport,
Not try to injure, bruise or maim
And then pretend it was a game.
I’d like to see the “sport” outlawed -
Producers, not the boxers, floored.
I’d save some youngsters hours of fear
And several brains and lives each year.
Feeling Iffy
If you can eat your lunch and smile when all around are losing theirs,
If you can stay on deck and steer when other hands are sick downstairs,
If you know when to take a reef as rasher helmsmen strain the sail,
Tie single-handed bowlines well, and know they’ll never slip or fail,
But, most of all -
If you can use the heads when all aboard are clinging on
And waiting for the port – My son,
You’ll have the makings of a sailor!
The Heads on a small Yacht
Don’t forget to close the seacocks, or the ocean will intrude -
If you use it in the harbour other sailors think you’re rude,
It’s designed to suit a dwarf, badly shrunk in shape and size!
Once inside this tiny cupboard, levers cold b
eside your thighs,
I defy a normal person with a standard sort of bot
To enjoy the smelly toilet in a chartered sailing yacht.
Home Port
See! Rocks, sandbanks, and by the point slight shelter from the gales,
Marker buoys to guard the shallows when the winter daylight fails.
And on this side those winding creeks with long-wrecked wooden keels,
And beyond them lies the vital turn the leading light reveals.
So when loom up familiar sights, the set of land, the shape of shore,
The first faint glimpse of flashing buoys, we know that storm and spume offshore
Will ease beyond that welcome point, be still within grey harbour walls.
They promise welcome calm again – secure from rocks and overfalls.
A small port, poor and cold perhaps, but special for this voyager,
With safety, fish and chips and beer, slow voices with a Devon burr.
A berth for ship, for crew, for self,
Now lies downwind - a western home.
While on Another Board – Strife Personified
Poor humble infantry, we march straight forward, unrenowned,
Always best in echelon, combining well to left and right.
We who reach the furthest rank are suddenly empowered and crowned,
Noble extra powers so gained may help to win our gallant fight –
Striving on this patterned site, coloured either black or white.
And a day to remember when we should have been more prudent.
Inland in a Norwegian Winter
Sparkling sun close by Geilo, marked cross-country ski tracks,
We climb upon the plateau, brisk breeze blowing on our backs,
Snow powder scuds and ripples like the finest driven sand,
A spectacular white carpet floating smoothly overland.
We ascend and follow ski-paths for some easy kilometres
To a refuge and a welcome with hot drinks and cosy heaters,
We give thanks and pay, then step outside returning down our trail
Now the wind is stiff against us – far less friendly – near a gale.
The tracks are lost, well hidden, and perforce we must assume
Just where the path is covered up beneath the dense white spume.
We breast the last low hillock – the ground starts to fall from here,
Yet the buffeting cold air still stirs chill flickerings of fear.
There are huts across this hillside, but they’re locked and dead and dark,
Summer houses - and in winter no-one lives inside this park,
So we slow to be more careful, lest a last mishap occurs
As the yellow lights of Geilo start to glimmer through the firs.
This ski-trip on the plateau in that bright and sparkling day
Taught us clearly of our folly in a cold, effective way.
We lacked compass, phone, spare clothing - in high mountains, though sublime,
Those who’re ill-prepared fall victims to the weather time on time.
Anyway, safely back in shelter on this occasion – Prost!
Life can be Very Hard
Mother and Son
Water is thinner and blood is thick -
They both poured out - now that labour’s come.
After pains and contractions and feeling sick,
A new life began for the virgin mum.
Was it Postman Pat or Milkman Dan,
Gossips enquire now the baby’s come,
Or Bill the hairy gardening man?
But the wise young woman is keeping mum.
She thought if a man kept a distance away
Then nothing could enter a maidenly tum,
But while they’d indulged in exploratory play
Some cross-channel spermatozoa had swum!
She looked at the object she held in her arm,
Two tiny hands and a squashed little head -
Compulsion welled up to protect it from harm
Though six months ago she had wanted it dead.
Then a fierce-faced midwife, fraught with frown
Said “Breast is best and the bottle’s bad.”
So the baby sucked and the milk came down.
‘Twas the strangest sensation she’d ever had.
When the terrible twos get into a state,
As the mothers at nursery school relate,
They refuse to eat or to dress or play -
But shout all the night and fight all day.
Still, now and again the moments come
When she knows the delights of a simple mum,
And two little arms creep round her neck,
Though her face is puffy, her hair a wreck.
The first big school is a change of life
And ushers in hard months of strife.
Some kids enjoy it, but many rebel -
When it’s time for school, they feel unwell.
But the child who refuses to learn a word
For whom doing homework is quite absurd,
Though he cannot spell and he’s black with ink
He will programme your DVD while you blink.
When he gets to the teens, he’s prone to wallow
Supine in his room in dreadful squalor,
With his non-stop music, this no-go lad
Is just like his mates – but he’s not too bad.
His mum finds out that the teenage years,
The wrongs of passage, the fags, the beers,
Will sometimes lead to a gleam of light
When he finds with surprise that his mother is right.
And bye and bye if she keeps her cool
He’ll be pleased to find out that she’s nobody’s fool.
As the years of his teenage hang-ups fade
They may become close in the next decade.
So a sensible mum plays a long waiting game,
(I’d advise other mums to consider the same)
From the terrible twos to the puberty blues
Through the sulks and the heartache, she never must lose
Her motherhood sense, and her humour as well,
For if those are gone, the alternative’s hell.
Now the brat’s grown up and the waiting game ends -
There’s quite a good chance that the two can be friends!
Recipe for a New Mother
She’ll need skill at time and motion,
Planning, counselling, first aid -
Staying power plus firm devotion,
Also be a cleaning maid.
Learn to cope with shattered sleeping,
Pushchair bought at Mothercare,
Snotty noses, nappy seeping,
Make a grumpy husband share.
Should the vest be wool or cotton -
Boil the clothes or only wash?
There’s a spot upon the bottom -
Meningitis? Nappy rash?
Fret about the bedroom heating,
Any blockage in the flue?
Is the baby overeating -
Too much roughage - too much poo?
Learn to change a nifty nappy,
Make a sodden infant dry.
If at night the babe’s unhappy
Pick it up or leave to cry?
Should the infant have injections?
Will they make it blue and black?
Are they proof against infections?
Should it sleep on face or back?
District Nurse, her clipboard clacking,
Comes to see with ready smile -
Then she frowns - there’s something lacking!
What’s a baby’s percentile?
Social workers fret and worry -
Lost percentile! - hasten round!
Blamed for sloth or blamed for hurry
Scapegoats when a problem’s found.
Granny knows the way to do it -
How to deal with every ill.
Rub the baby�
�s chest with suet -
Better far than Doctor’s pill.
Fortunately babes are tougher
Than their parents ever think.
Otherwise when life was rougher,
Man would long have been extinct.
Farewell of the Empress Penguin
My dear, I’m going to leave you here to incubate our egg,
Balanced upon your flippered feet below your fluffy leg.
While I hop off to sea again to feast on little fish,
You must stay here and keep it warm – my deepest earnest wish.
And in two months or so our chick will peck out through its shell
To have one meal from you, my dear, although you won’t be well,
When I will come across the ice, with fishy juice replete,
Enough to feed our little bird, protected on your feet.
Then you may slip away, my dear, near starved and very thin,
And make your weary seaward way, with other kith and kin,
To catch wild prey beneath the ice, beneath each floating floe,
‘Til you return, help raise our chick – watch it mature and grow.
I have to leave – my need is clear – for sprat, sardines, and cod
But I’ll return – fear not my dear – our parent penguins trod
These paths – my instincts confidently let me feel and know
What I must do, so wish me well, my time has come to go!
Culture and Science
A Lady in the Louvre. - Sfumato and the Mona Lisa
Leonardo, using pen and paint five hundred years ago,
Created a new softer style, we call it now Sfumato,
Which blurred the corners of her mouth, the corners of her eyes,
Those places which can show her pain, or anger or surprise.
Before then artists drew the face with sharpened lines, and sought
To freeze the mood or fix a thought – the fleeting moment caught.
But Leonardo’s smudging art permitted us to see
A different image, haunting beauty, personality.
Her little smile has followed every watcher round her shrine -
Barnabas Rhymes Page 4