JG's Pages for Poets/Page No 37

Poem No 211

by Caroline Salthouse

On a Lonely Scottish Loch…

I wandered lonely as a cloud, crunching pebbles on the beach

But the hackles rose upon my neck as I heard an awful screech

Across the sleeping loch the mist rolled leaden on the breeze

And scraping sounds behind me made my blood begin to freeze

Could it be a Water Kelpie, monstrous beastie from the past?

But no, it was much worse than that when I dared to turn at last

For standing there upon the shore with eyes as brown as peat

An impish grin upon its face and mud upon its feet

Was a yard high being so haughty that her words I must obey

Especially when she starts to howl ‘Come over here and play!’

Poem No 212

A second poem from Caroline Salthouse

A poem as Wordsworth might write it in the 21st Century

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er mud and midge

When all at once I saw a crowd

A host of hikers on a ridge

Astride the rocks, beneath the peak

All far too out of breath to speak

Continuous as the cars that whine

And roar along the motorway

They stretch in an untidy line

Along the rocky crag so grey

Twenty saw I at a glance

Stumbling upwards in a trance

The sheep beside them baa'ed but they

Ignored those pesky lambs so wee

But Herdwick sheep are very grey

And often difficult to see

I watched and watched but couldn't tell

At first what made the hikers yell

And now, when on my couch I sit

And think back on my holiday

I laugh as I remember it

It seems as fresh as yesterday

Those hikers in a downhill race

With an angry Hardwick ram in chase

Poem No 213

from Roger Taber

BEAUTIFUL THING

Though a day be my last on God's good earth
and I regret many things I have done,
I'll bring hopes of a second chance, rebirth,
to whatever we like to call - 'heaven'

Though a breath be my last in Nature's arms
and the world's judgement upon me unkind,
I'll submit to her dear, evergreen charms,
trusting in Peace to be always at hand

Though these eyes look their last on a bird's wing
as it soars with grace and kisses the sky,
I'll clasp to my heart love's beautiful thing
that has blessed me and will not let us die

For knowing you, needing you, loving you…
falls a seed in the wind borne free and true

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004

Poem No 214

by Ron Oliver

THE ALPHABET OF YOUR BODY

I will be bilingual.

I will learn
the language of your life.

I will memorize
the alphabet of your body.

Letter by letter
you will be the only words
that I need to know.

I will master
your grammar, dialect, and slang -
all of your irregular verbs.

I will celebrate
every syllable of your erotic idiom
until
- phonetically freed -
I fall to my knees
speaking in tongues
predating speech.

Poem No 215

Here's another from Ron

INTERCONTINENTAL LOVE

When souls commune
mere continents

are dismissed by bliss -
distance rendered meaningless.

Hearts transmitting love
know nothing of finite speed -
laughing at lax beams of light,
mocking their velocity.

But bodies, to commune,
must abide by gravity
and mortal dependence

upon physical proximity -

to feel, to stroke, to hold, to hug,
to simply stand beside
- to confirm a truth as old as blood -
that togetherness fortifies.
_

So I bow before the law that allows
our souls to be linked
by less than a breath,

but my earth-bound body longs to be touched
by an ethereal love
it knows nothing of.

Ron has a website of his own full of his poems

Take a look by clicking here