Remembrance

The Grand National

he rode onward
through the blood soaked mud
and demons’ screaming
of which even hell
would have no part,
and o’er new torn flesh
and splintered bone
his horse galloped
not in faithful servitude
to a master’s word
but as he himself observed
from nought but abject fear.

porfa’r cynddeiriog

Oh I yen for the mad fields
those pastures then aflame
that to my youthful ardour yielded
when it seemed untameable,
within its grasses did I wander
and golden were the waves
unrestrained they pulled me under
my soul, had I these moments saved
but here these fields sit long in fallow
sanity’s cold ashes blend
with age’s reason…so I must follow
now until the seasons end.

Eleventh

I dare not sing
my songs today
or write of platitudes
so often said,
for one like me
to engage poetry
does nought but a disservice
to the dead.

Johnny was a poet (again)

Johnny was a poet
but was he any good?
he wrote of budgies big and fat
and anything he could
it didn’t matter if it rhymed
or made sense in or out
but Johnny was a poet
of that there is no doubt

Johnny was a poet
who’d sometimes play the fool
I heard him on the radio
back in Liddypool
where he was born and so was I
a thousand years ago
Johnny was a poet
as he would tell you so

Johnny was a poet
he sang some little songs
about love and loss and war and peace
and how this world was wrong
every little now and then
by design or happenstance
he’d make you think and sing along
and join him in the dance

Johnny was a poet
I can say it, yeah yeah yeah
he might be gone beyond the stars
but his words are always there
Johnny was a poet
but was he? you may cry
at heart we are all poets
it’s easy if you try.