Blog Archives

The Mulberry Tree Of Balliol College, by Guy Fletcher

29/8/2017

I have returned to Oxford after many years:
on Bulwarks Lane I incline my head
mimicking the bent top of the streetlamp
on the quaint cobbles and pass
ancient St. Mary the Virgin church,
Catte Street and Carfax Tower.
Back then I had a lover by my side
who haunted dreams until obsession died.

It is a sultry summer afternoon;
the horizon boasting mountain clouds
as I enter the arched door of Balliol,
sun caressing the historic grey stone walls.
I am alone now but once upon a time we came
to visit my brother when youthful dreams
were still alive in our hangover eyes
and a smile was not used as a disguise.

I remember drunken nights in the King's Arms
and vague ghosts of those I formerly knew.
By the chapel are plaques commemorating
the dead from this college in world wars
but it is the mulberry tree, 400 years old,
behind vibrant flowers fluttering in the breeze
that shows life is fleeting and time no friend,
even this tree...will crumble in the end.

Amongst The Ruins Of Torre Abbey, by Guy Fletcher

22/8/2017

The sea at Torre Abbey Sands is silvery and blue
as I stroll to alluring Torre Abbey
and pause by the Spanish Barn
which held hundreds of prisoners
from the ill-fated Spanish Armada.
This abbey allows spectacular views,
flowerbeds with a myriad of hues

and mulberry trees here before
the oldest person on earth was born,
a reminder of our fleeting existence.
I wander through the North Cloister,
a woman relaxes on a bench
alone with her thoughts on this summer day,
I feel tranquillity making my way

to the ruined limestone walls of the library
and the Chapter House where monks prayed
for their departed comrades.
I sense the Almighty as I touch the walls
of this ancient abbey built in 1196
as the sun burns away the summer clouds,
yes, I'm at peace...free from the seaside crowds.

Aftermath, by Jane Reid

18/8/2017

The walrus and the carpenter continued down the strand,

Burping gently as the oysters, which once had tasted grand,

Were having their revenge. “Matey,” said the carpenter,

“I think I need a hand for you’re at home in water. I don’t want to soil the sand. “

What do you want?” the walrus humphed. “I’ve quite enough to do

To ease myself, without nursemaiding you.“

Then four young oysters scuttled up, giggling through their shells

At Carp and Wally writhing in twin digestive hells.

“Let’s make a video.” oysters shouted. “Yes, let’s do.

“Posting it on YouTube will make a righteous view.”

The Women Who Weave Fairy Tales Into Their Dreams, by Guy Fletcher

14/8/2017

Along the calm waters of the Brahmaputra
under steamy tropical Indian skies
women by the mystical muddy banks
weave fairy tales into their dreams
as Gandhi so eloquently put it:
beautiful silk a pleasure to caress,
a bright light in this world full of darkness

and in old colonial Assam
tea was transported from Tezpur
to exotic places such as Leeds
for a hot drink on cold foggy days.
I picture steamboats from long ago,
just memories, nothing lasts forever
not even the Brahmaputra river.

Bingo Night, by Kathleen Trocmet

11/8/2017

ashtrays full
old women bent over
a table of cards --
bingo night

For You, by Sophie Fleetwood

10/8/2017

Paint me black,
Paint me blue,
I’d change for you.
Mascara my eyes,
I’d be your perfect visual lie.
I’d be perfect in your eyes.
Trough and Trough,
Black and Blue,
I’d change myself for you.
Carve my body,
You can discard what you hate
Put me on your arm and carve my fate.
As promised id change for you
Never did I expect to lose myself and be without you
I changed for you
Through and through,
I should not have changed for you.

Ghosts Of Storr Rock, by Guy Fletcher

8/8/2017

Strolling through the National Museum
I'm hypnotised by a painting
showing Storr Rock on Lady's Cove.
It is a jagged boulder mocking the sea
whose waves explode as impotently
as snowballs smashing against tanks.
A boy many years dead stares, yet the tide
rolls back and forth long after he has died.

I adore the hues of Sisley's work:
purple pebbles in the evening shade
and gold where the setting sun shines.
The water is turquoise and blue
and the sky wrinkled with white clouds,
boats a blur on the horizon.
Do Sisley and other ghosts haunt this place
or have their souls vanished without a trace?

Elegy For An Old Friend, by Ian Fletcher

6/8/2017

Of all that group of friends
from those long since passed
Bohemian days you were one
of the few, the very few,
I would have wanted
to have met up with again
to chat about old times
and assess life’s course
from late youth through
middle age to the onset
of these our golden years.
Yes, you were one of us,
not without your flaws,
being human after all
yet, some five years older
than me, you seemed wiser,
a mentor then, and a guide
in the turbulence of youth.
Ah, but now, now I have heard
that you have passed away
suddenly, dying unexpectedly
on a dreary Monday morning.
Thus my imagined reunion
will never occur on this earth
so perhaps those golden years
were our past not our future.
Yes, old friend, you were just
a man when all is said and done
but you shall be remembered
for you are part of what I am.

Circle Of Friends, by Jostein Wolff

3/8/2017

The circle of friends gets smaller with time.
Yet it’s more solid than ever.
I realized how lucky I was the moment I woke up from a deep, induced sleep, at the hospital bed.

There they stood.
My two favorite people.
I saw them beside me.
Holding my hand.
Their smile comforted me.
I was not alone in this.

People disappeared from my life.
People tend to do that.
In the end, you’re lucky to be near a person or two.
Who will hold your hand when you wake up.
With whom you are safe, even in the dream world.

The Last Post at the Menin Gate, by Guy Fletcher

1/8/2017

On the 100th anniversary of the battle of Passchendaele.

"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow."- Jon McCrae.

I came to Ypres a year ago
listening in tears to The Last Post
imagining young frightened men
marching through here back in 1917
on their way to the centre of hell.
And still today the soldiers' bones appear
from Passchendaele in that terrible year.

But I remember green fields and sunshine
far from the mud, blood, death of war:
a hundred day battle with half a million victims
just for an advance of five miles.
54,000 names are inscribed
on the walls of the poignant Menin Gate,
so many suffering an awful fate.

I pictured the fallen in no-man's land,
the lucky ones beyond screams.
Some of their homes were across the Channel
and yet a million miles away.
I visited the white graves of unknown soldiers
at Tyne Cot and on hearing The Last Post
I seemed to sense...many a soldier's ghost.

Poetry

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