It Just Took Once - Tony Gardner

We met at a party, we laughed at the same things
We drank the same drinks and we got on just fine

I'd just lost an old love, she'd just done the same thing
We felt good together and stayed close 'til the light

Of a big, new, old morning awakened our tired eyes
Yawning, embarrassed, sober we realised

There is nothing to build on from a tipsy one-nighter
The best thing we could do was just to move on

But something kept niggling, I called up the number
She had written in case there'd been words left unsaid

Some magic was drawing us closely together
Some higher power far wiser than we

Where we are heading for no one can tell us
We're happy to follow where ever we're led

We both are grown up and no longer childish
But we both agree, Fairy Tales are not dead.

Tony Gardner

The Gift - Ian Duquemin

The yellow gorse flows golden
Blending with the craggy rocks below
That rumbling seas applaud
As seagulls rest their weary wings
And with the thaw of winters frost
In a time of birth...
The flowers raise their pretty heads
To welcome all that summer brings
The cliff path winds around the isle
A view transformed with every turn
No artist ever captured
With a weak and mortal hand
As only Mother Nature
With her graciousness and presents
Could recreate the generous gift
The true designer planned

Ian Duquemin

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In Praise Of Coloured Bottles - Tony Bradley

Nobody else I know, just loves the empties
I just want the bottles, not the booze
the beautiful shapes, the curves, reflections
the greens, the ambers, the vermillions, the blues.

Washed well, buffed up, then placed in my windows
of course, their positioning is a pleasant task
and apart from the colours, there's so many shapes
there's the slender, the tall, the squat, the flask.

I rescue them from the skips, all my coloured bottles
and sometimes, if I'm not at my smartest
an on-looker might think I'm on the piss
“It's conceptual, darling, I'm not that sort of artist.”

Tony Bradley

Country Church - Richard Fleming

It feels intrusive, stepping in
through the arched door uninvited.
Money in the collection tin,
a pound coin, appears to right it.
I look about. The church seems small:
not thirty feet from wall to wall.

No stained glass here, no bleeding Christ,
just hymn books, hassocks, modest pews.
In this place, such things must suffice
to promulgate the Gospel news.
The congregation, I suppose,
shrinks week by week and never grows.

Preponderance of tweedy suits,
of wives in self-effacing hats,
an absence, here, of fresh recruits,
of newcomers to swell the stats.
A failure somehow to connect,
is what the vicar must expect.

The stone floor makes my footsteps seem
funereal, my presence wrong
and out of place. No godly theme
runs through my life, I drift along
as most do, unreflectingly,
a spiritual amputee.

Outside, old gravestones vie with flowers
for my attention as I leave.
I came here to avoid Spring showers,
where others come to pray or grieve.
The dead are lost to us, I fear,
while daffodils return each year.

Richard Fleming

Leylandii - Connie Fayre

I love Leylandii. How they grow,
eclipse the sun, block out the light.
I planted twenty in a row:
they are a truly awesome sight.
The neighbours mutter, It’s not fair.
I shrug my shoulders, C’est la guerre!

Connie Fayre

Moonless Sky - Lyndon Queripel

Circles of light spin through the night
The Moonless sky is falling apart
Could it be the hand of God I see
Coming to capture my sinful heart
Time and space leave no hiding place
So was the Rapture about to start
Or would I find it’s all in my mind
Just the dancing illusion of a black art?

Lyndon Queripel

Mayday - Stephen A. Roberts

there's too many bank holidays in May
they should be spread out more, I hear some say

but to imagine that Hitler had held on 'til summer
so that our Liberation day had better weather?

wishing he'd slowed the steamroller from the East
seems a bit controversial to say the least

(OK I'm just joking don't get me wrong
the war had already gone on too long...)

Stephen A. Roberts

Denver’s Marvellous Outdoor Art - Kathy Figueroa

Image: Kathy Figueroa

Denver’s marvellous outdoor art
Presents an astonishing sight
Such as “The Dancers,” which tower
Over sixty feet in height

Of an almost similar scale
Stretches a colossal “Blue Bear”
Peering through the convention centre window
As though to see what’s there

At the Denver Performing Arts Complex
(A sort of “culture mall”)
Rotund “Man” and “Woman”
Both stand thirteen feet tall

The Old Prospector, on 15th Street 
Is more than 125 years old
One hand holds a pick
The other, a nugget of gold

At the airport, startling folks
Who have recently arrived by plane
Rears “Blucifer,” the Blue Mustang
With windswept tail and mane

Continuing this theme of statuary
In deep, rich shades of blue
Is the 16th Street Mall cow
Decorated with pictures and info, too

For those who prefer art objects
In simpler shapes, instead
There’s a reed-like “Red Forest”
Comprised of rods, in vibrant red

This poem about downtown Denver
Wouldn’t seem complete
Without mentioning blue trees
Which enliven many a street

The city is like a huge gallery
Where magnificent art abounds
Far too much to be mentioned here
And of a calibre that astounds

Kudos to Denver’s municipal council
For funding grand artwork in public spaces
And making Colorado’s Mile High City
One of America’s most interesting places!

Kathy Figueroa

"Denver's Marvellous Outdoor Art" was published on April 5, 2018, in The Bancroft Times newspaper.

Windrush - Diane Scantlebury

I’m going on a cruise m’darlin’
To see what’s new,
A big adventure to the mother country,
Far away from our Jamaica’s shores so sunny,
To the land of milk and honey,

I saw an advert m’darlin’
Big and bold print,
In the Kingston news today,
A once in a lifetime opportunity
A call from far away,

I’m going to sail on a big ship m’darlin’
Heading off to the great unknown,
The war’s over and there’s plenty to do,
We’ll be welcomed on those streets of gold,
That’s the story I’ve been told,

I’m sailing on the Windrush m’darlin’
Don’t cry I won’t be gone too long,
Kiss my children
Don’t let their memory of me fade,
I’ll be back soon, when my fortune’s made.

Diane Scantlebury