A Man and his Cat

A Man and his Cat


I hold up his treat bag
He pats with his paw
He knows now it’s empty
He’s eaten them all

“There’s more in the kitchen
 No need to get sore,”
(He thinks he’s the King here)
I go and get more

Flanders Field Revisited

Flanders Field Revisited
   (on the Armistice Centenary, Nov 11 2018)

On Flanders field a poet saw 
  Crimson sunspots in his shell-shocked awe,
                  Poppies!
Rise above the shallow graves of no-man’s land,
  Flowers tilled by death’s own hands,
Planted and furrowed by the Kaiser’s Huns,
  Batteries of allied guns,
And up they rose from the charnel grounds,
  Thousands bloody red round bullet wounds

Before the advancing fronts of Spring,
  Above the fire steps they clung,
                  Poppies!
Outnumbering the dead who’s tally
  Too few big push Generals know,
That lost soldiers may find
  Peace to sleep,
Come poppies, lay torn lads
  To sleep

For all war weary, who abide,
  Love’s primeval garden has supplied
                  Poppies!
A blessed sparing balm from Gilead,
  All love’s respite for beloveds who grieve,
And for every war’s worn soldier,
  Caring the same,
We offer poppies
  In their name

Five Season Garden

Five Season Garden

Winter days of monochrome
  We keep shivering in our homes,
Dreaming of the spring garden
  We plan to plant when winter ends

Kneeling like a muddy drudge,
  Hoeing ripe manure sludge,
The vegetables and flowers I see
  Are still imaginary to me

Summer and while picking fruits,
  A carrot snaps off by the root,
I’d not imagined it like this,
  Washing tomatoes off bird shit

Dreaming of idyllic fields – we woolgather
  Bright great bountiful lives,
Discounting in the moment those vexing chores
  Needed to make lives we desire

Fall leaves, vine stems, old hard and brown,
  Time’s tillering plow will turn them down,
Then rake all up & till & hoe,
  A garden grave made smooth for snow