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A Dream, by Gordon Lawrie

28/9/2017

Today is National Poetry Day. I don't pretend to be much of a poet but I felt it was my duty to make an attempt at least. As an experiment, I've included a recording of me reading it.

Last night I dreamed no bombs were falling from the sky
No siren sounds disturbed the city's gentle rest,
No rattling gun, no rumbling tanks, no battle cry
Punctured the darkness, leaving all around distressed.
I dreamed the morning light laid out a fresh spring day
Or summer's vivid flowers, or rich autumnal glow;
Cold winds would surely sweep the foulest air away
And leave the purest calming drifts of winter snow.
I dreamed that all the Earth was whole again once more
That all we passengers had settled up our dues
That want became plenty, that peace had replaced war
That a just and fair world would be the world we'd choose.
But I awoke, and it was just another dream, I knew;
Another day awaited me with so much more to do.

A Victorian Tragedy, by Guy Fletcher

25/9/2017

It was the maiden voyage of RMS Tayleur
with over 600 people imagining
the warm azure skies of Australia.
But on a winter's day in 1854
just 48 hours into the fateful trip
a mist descended and the cruel wind roared
terrifying young families aboard.

The once pristine ship smashed
against the indifferent rocks of Lambay Island
a short way from old Dublin town.
More than 300 died at that awful time,
not of natural causes in the Australian sun
as for many poor souls their destiny
was to drown in the freezing Irish Sea.

Only three women reached the sanctuary of the shore,
heavy garments dragging them down like stones.
I can't envisage their final moments
as Poseidon ended their hopes and dreams,
oh, how precious and brittle life is.
The skeleton of the ship lies below,
you can still hear screams...as the wild winds blow.

Midnight Ambulance, by Guy Fletcher

18/9/2017

I peer out of my window on a windswept night:
paramedics in green lead the ex-surgeon
back to the neon land of hospitals
perhaps where he imperiously strolled like a god
but he's transmuted into a frightened child
for this mind disease is terribly cruel,
incurable, a cancer of the soul
until the poor victim has no control.

We played chess but the rules now
would be unfathomable as an obscure tongue,
his check-mate days lost to the past
and the life-saving hands, once so steady,
shake like the leaves in the midnight air.
The engine is switched on, the ambulance rolls,
I retreat to my bed with sadness inside
for the elegant man I knew...has died.

In Memoriam Marc Bolan, by Ian Fletcher

16/9/2017

Was it forty years ago today
that Marc Bolan passed away?
Gentle superstar of the seventies
folk rocker then electric warrior
your poetic lyrics once fueled
a million teenage dreams!

A man now frozen in time
you died at just twenty-nine
a car crash ending your life
in the twinkling of an eye.

Oh, that you have become
the cosmic dancer of your song
though you will forever be
the twentieth century boy
of our memories.

Yet thus you transcend time
for your spirit and music
live on amongst us your fans
doomed to grow old and grey
who can only with the ancients
pray that whom the gods love
die young.

Midnight On Minehead Beach, by Guy Fletcher

11/9/2017

Midnight on Minehead beach
arm in arm with a woman:
ships that pass in the night.
She spills her glass of vodka and orange
cursing into the salty, sultry air
and swaying like a tulip in the wind
as I stroke her golden hair
and peer into intoxicated eyes,
a drunken romance doomed to fail
as transient as summer hail.

Midnight on Minehead beach
two lighthouses hypnotically flicker
brighter than any dead star,
the water's edge a smooth silver mirror
and the sea painted green and orange
from the lights of sedate Minehead.
I stare at distant illuminated shores
then peer into intoxicated eyes,
a drunken romance doomed to fail
as transient as summer hail.

Young Woman In The Sabatini Gardens, by Guy Fletcher

4/9/2017

Azure Mediterranean skies
in the Sabatini Gardens,
rustic leaves on silvery-grey trees
wave shyly in the velvet breeze
of a February Madrid afternoon.
There are miniature mazes,
statues standing as if ghosts
in the quiet Monday park as I
recover from the late bars
of the bustling Puerta del Sol.

A girl's oblivious of splendour here
sitting alone as a single tear

rolls down dark enticing eyes.
I stroll out of the park
past the immense majestic palace
perched nobly on this hill
where snow-clad sierras kiss the horizon.
I feel somewhat insignificant,
the sun hides behind one of the cathedral spires
adorning it with a celestial glow
then I return to the gardens,
the young woman has departed,

an arid leaf descends, I watch it land
disintegrating like dreams in my hand.