Today's poem is a "Golden Oldie" and was originally published here in August 2012
Living in between the rays of light strung from the windows of idleness, painted with the colours of your own loving taste.
Where is there an end where there is no beginning? How can you talk when your words just revolve in the circle of an unchartered sea of letters?
When can you explain it?
When can all souls see it and believe that it is you and that it is for the taking.
I want to carry away this thing and yet I cannot lift it from the ground where heroes stood. I am fought back with spears of forgotten wars and the basis of the constitution.
And yet we have wandered in leafy glades past towering love mansions where all noise is wondrous, sounds are voices of peace and loving, where nothingness grows, where friends live in yellow madness, where people are manufacturing the cloth of gladness, where the sovereign is in the trench and the common labourer sits on the throne and shoeless children carve their names on its legs and the elders come to paint pretty designs around those monuments of singular, named existence.
You and I, safe in our own shell of hardest resistance. Love is protecting us from the snatching steel claws of the world around us. The temptation wolves are baring their bus-ticket teeth, the salesmen are opening their treasure troves, promising us heaven and they only have hell. The policemen are wielding their insulated guns but the bullets bounce off our aura of morale. The tarmacadam shines of fresh steam-rollers where the rates have been and gone…..and the shell remains intact.
Where are we going? Where are the others? Where can we find the wanted, needed, required type of idol?
Where is the thing we are looking for? Show us the way…. The simple, easy going, free and easy, carefree life where idleness is the barricade against the prickles of the thorn bush world outside.
Porcupine of politics and magnetic, adhesive existence of deceit, hate, privacy invasion, sacrilegious, nosy, quarrelling, crushing, cheating, doublecrossing, conniving population of the world we left behind.
James Willis
Showing posts with label James Willis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Willis. Show all posts
The Sark Folk Festival 2014 - James Willis
Bright birdsong morning,
Sark weather warming
Seen thro’ the hedgerow
A fine festive glow.
Campers, dishevelled
Wet weather bedraggled,
Welly boot fashion
Pac-a-mac passion.
Sark Festival singing,
Folk music ringing,
Fast fiddle fingers,
And folk song singers,
People connecting,
The words reflecting.
Noises of choice
In fine fettled voice.
Musical gold
For young and for old,
Tunes we know well
With a story to tell.
James Willis
Sark weather warming
Seen thro’ the hedgerow
A fine festive glow.
Campers, dishevelled
Wet weather bedraggled,
Welly boot fashion
Pac-a-mac passion.
Sark Festival singing,
Folk music ringing,
Fast fiddle fingers,
And folk song singers,
People connecting,
The words reflecting.
Noises of choice
In fine fettled voice.
Musical gold
For young and for old,
Tunes we know well
With a story to tell.
James Willis
The Dragon Tree - James Willis
Today's poem is a "Golden Oldie" and was originally published here in March 2012
In fertile fired fissures grown
The weirdest wonders ever known,
But the strangest single sight to see
Is the rare Canarian Dragon Tree.
This agricultural aged delight
Spreads its limbs to heaven’s height,
Its ariel arteries grow, but slow,
To root, again, in the ground below.
A branch is born and grows, intact,
Another sprouts, to counteract,
Balance and ballast and buttress combine
In an Archimedean spiral design.
The sap that oozes from broken bark
Is rusty red, to leave its mark.
Medicinal remedy lore is rife
Of Dragon ‘blood’ enhancing life.
Disputed dates, debated wide,
Rumour oft retains its pride.
The sight emits emotion, strong,
The centuries seem to roll along.
Tales are told, of time and size,
Of great gatherings of the wise,
Who met and massed within the girth
Of the amazing oldest tree on Earth!
James Willis
In fertile fired fissures grown
The weirdest wonders ever known,
But the strangest single sight to see
Is the rare Canarian Dragon Tree.
This agricultural aged delight
Spreads its limbs to heaven’s height,
Its ariel arteries grow, but slow,
To root, again, in the ground below.
A branch is born and grows, intact,
Another sprouts, to counteract,
Balance and ballast and buttress combine
In an Archimedean spiral design.
The sap that oozes from broken bark
Is rusty red, to leave its mark.
Medicinal remedy lore is rife
Of Dragon ‘blood’ enhancing life.
Disputed dates, debated wide,
Rumour oft retains its pride.
The sight emits emotion, strong,
The centuries seem to roll along.
Tales are told, of time and size,
Of great gatherings of the wise,
Who met and massed within the girth
Of the amazing oldest tree on Earth!
James Willis
Our World - James Willis
Living in between the rays of light strung from the windows of idleness, painted with the colours of your own loving taste.
Where is there an end where there is no beginning? How can you talk when your words just revolve in the circle of an unchartered sea of letters?
When can you explain it?
When can all souls see it and believe that it is you and that it is for the taking.
I want to carry away this thing and yet I cannot lift it from the ground where heroes stood. I am fought back with spears of forgotten wars and the basis of the constitution.
And yet we have wandered in leafy glades past towering love mansions where all noise is wondrous, sounds are voices of peace and loving, where nothingness grows, where friends live in yellow madness, where people are manufacturing the cloth of gladness, where the sovereign is in the trench and the common labourer sits on the throne and shoeless children carve their names on its legs and the elders come to paint pretty designs around those monuments of singular, named existence.
You and I, safe in our own shell of hardest resistance. Love is protecting us from the snatching steel claws of the world around us. The temptation wolves are baring their bus-ticket teeth, the salesmen are opening their treasure troves, promising us heaven and they only have hell. The policemen are wielding their insulated guns but the bullets bounce off our aura of morale. The tarmacadam shines of fresh steam-rollers where the rates have been and gone…..and the shell remains intact.
Where are we going? Where are the others? Where can we find the wanted, needed, required type of idol?
Where is the thing we are looking for? Show us the way…. The simple, easy going, free and easy, carefree life where idleness is the barricade against the prickles of the thorn bush world outside.
Porcupine of politics and magnetic, adhesive existence of deceit, hate, privacy invasion, sacrilegious, nosy, quarrelling, crushing, cheating, doublecrossing, conniving population of the world we left behind.
James Willis
Where is there an end where there is no beginning? How can you talk when your words just revolve in the circle of an unchartered sea of letters?
When can you explain it?
When can all souls see it and believe that it is you and that it is for the taking.
I want to carry away this thing and yet I cannot lift it from the ground where heroes stood. I am fought back with spears of forgotten wars and the basis of the constitution.
And yet we have wandered in leafy glades past towering love mansions where all noise is wondrous, sounds are voices of peace and loving, where nothingness grows, where friends live in yellow madness, where people are manufacturing the cloth of gladness, where the sovereign is in the trench and the common labourer sits on the throne and shoeless children carve their names on its legs and the elders come to paint pretty designs around those monuments of singular, named existence.
You and I, safe in our own shell of hardest resistance. Love is protecting us from the snatching steel claws of the world around us. The temptation wolves are baring their bus-ticket teeth, the salesmen are opening their treasure troves, promising us heaven and they only have hell. The policemen are wielding their insulated guns but the bullets bounce off our aura of morale. The tarmacadam shines of fresh steam-rollers where the rates have been and gone…..and the shell remains intact.
Where are we going? Where are the others? Where can we find the wanted, needed, required type of idol?
Where is the thing we are looking for? Show us the way…. The simple, easy going, free and easy, carefree life where idleness is the barricade against the prickles of the thorn bush world outside.
Porcupine of politics and magnetic, adhesive existence of deceit, hate, privacy invasion, sacrilegious, nosy, quarrelling, crushing, cheating, doublecrossing, conniving population of the world we left behind.
James Willis
When You’ve Got To Go Spend A Penny! - James Willis
This piece was written as a spoken satire. I subsequently realised it could be performed as a ‘Talking Blues’, with guitar accompaniment in flat picking style. Further, it could be performed as a musical satire in cabaret or as ‘Lounge’ entertainment with piano. James Willis.
When You’ve Got To Go Spend A Penny! - James Willis
The dearest loo in the whole damned nation
I thought the one in Victoria Station
It boasts by far an extortionate fee
For it’s twenty P to have a wee!
There’s turnstiles…………
No change machine……….
You can’t even sneak in the ladies………..
It seems to me
When I was wee
I could have twenty wees
for twenty P!
That’s inflation………..
Liquidity……….
Bladder splitting……..
Cross legged people on the trains!
What’s even more of a sensation
When I do a further calculation
Twenty P was four bob, you see
….That’s 48 ‘d’
Four dozen wees for twenty P!
At one a day…………….
A pound lasted eight months………..
A year was one pound fifty………….
Today it would only stretch to seven-and-a-half days…….
But things get even more sinister
For there’s a loo or two down at Westminster
Where they have the cheek
To charge ten bob to take a leak.
They have a special offer …….
Two for the price of one……
Buy one, get one free!!!
Have one now, save one for later!
But all of that gets a little bit blurred
When I get some news that’s totally absurd!
I’m told, at Harrod’s, if you need to get rid
It’s goin’ to cost you all of a quid!
Twenty shillings…….
Two hundred and forty ‘d’……
A nicker………
That’s wet!
That’s taking the P*** !!
James Willis
When You’ve Got To Go Spend A Penny! - James Willis
The dearest loo in the whole damned nation
I thought the one in Victoria Station
It boasts by far an extortionate fee
For it’s twenty P to have a wee!
There’s turnstiles…………
No change machine……….
You can’t even sneak in the ladies………..
It seems to me
When I was wee
I could have twenty wees
for twenty P!
That’s inflation………..
Liquidity……….
Bladder splitting……..
Cross legged people on the trains!
What’s even more of a sensation
When I do a further calculation
Twenty P was four bob, you see
….That’s 48 ‘d’
Four dozen wees for twenty P!
At one a day…………….
A pound lasted eight months………..
A year was one pound fifty………….
Today it would only stretch to seven-and-a-half days…….
But things get even more sinister
For there’s a loo or two down at Westminster
Where they have the cheek
To charge ten bob to take a leak.
They have a special offer …….
Two for the price of one……
Buy one, get one free!!!
Have one now, save one for later!
But all of that gets a little bit blurred
When I get some news that’s totally absurd!
I’m told, at Harrod’s, if you need to get rid
It’s goin’ to cost you all of a quid!
Twenty shillings…….
Two hundred and forty ‘d’……
A nicker………
That’s wet!
That’s taking the P*** !!
James Willis
Dan Dorey - James Willis
Is it that you know Dan Dorey?
For now it’ll be a bit less,
It’s not long I remember reading
Dan Dorey has died, on the press.
Is it you remember Dan Dorey?
He lived near the Hampshire, alone.
It was ninty steps for to get there,
And a hundred and fifty goin’ home.
It’s a fact you’d remember Dan Dorey,
He’d one of those memorable faces,
He’d travelled all around the world,
And various other places.
You’d never forget Dan Dorey
For he disarmed a German, barehanded.
He was caught celebratin’ gone curfu
When the Canadians in Diep had landed!
A well known man was Dan Dorey,
In the pubs and to the bookies as well,
Of his winnings he’d often talk proudly,
But of his losses he never would tell.
Lest anyone forgets Dan Dorey,
His name is carved out in stone,
“Dan’s Cottage” cut in the lintel
Over the door of his home.
James Willis
For now it’ll be a bit less,
It’s not long I remember reading
Dan Dorey has died, on the press.
Is it you remember Dan Dorey?
He lived near the Hampshire, alone.
It was ninty steps for to get there,
And a hundred and fifty goin’ home.
It’s a fact you’d remember Dan Dorey,
He’d one of those memorable faces,
He’d travelled all around the world,
And various other places.
You’d never forget Dan Dorey
For he disarmed a German, barehanded.
He was caught celebratin’ gone curfu
When the Canadians in Diep had landed!
A well known man was Dan Dorey,
In the pubs and to the bookies as well,
Of his winnings he’d often talk proudly,
But of his losses he never would tell.
Lest anyone forgets Dan Dorey,
His name is carved out in stone,
“Dan’s Cottage” cut in the lintel
Over the door of his home.
James Willis
The Dragon Tree - James Willis
In fertile fired fissures grown
The weirdest wonders ever known,
But the strangest single sight to see
Is the rare Canarian Dragon Tree.
This agricultural aged delight
Spreads its limbs to heaven’s height,
Its ariel arteries grow, but slow,
To root, again, in the ground below.
A branch is born and grows, intact,
Another sprouts, to counteract,
Balance and ballast and buttress combine
In an Archimedean spiral design.
The sap that oozes from broken bark
Is rusty red, to leave its mark.
Medicinal remedy lore is rife
Of Dragon ‘blood’ enhancing life.
Disputed dates, debated wide,
Rumour oft retains its pride.
The sight emits emotion, strong,
The centuries seem to roll along.
Tales are told, of time and size,
Of great gatherings of the wise,
Who met and massed within the girth
Of the amazing oldest tree on Earth!
James Willis
The weirdest wonders ever known,
But the strangest single sight to see
Is the rare Canarian Dragon Tree.
This agricultural aged delight
Spreads its limbs to heaven’s height,
Its ariel arteries grow, but slow,
To root, again, in the ground below.
A branch is born and grows, intact,
Another sprouts, to counteract,
Balance and ballast and buttress combine
In an Archimedean spiral design.
The sap that oozes from broken bark
Is rusty red, to leave its mark.
Medicinal remedy lore is rife
Of Dragon ‘blood’ enhancing life.
Disputed dates, debated wide,
Rumour oft retains its pride.
The sight emits emotion, strong,
The centuries seem to roll along.
Tales are told, of time and size,
Of great gatherings of the wise,
Who met and massed within the girth
Of the amazing oldest tree on Earth!
James Willis
Bio - James Willis
 |
| James Willis |
I am now retirement age. I have been in Guernsey for 44 years and I have a wife, Win, and 4 boys, now all married.
I was Technical Director in an engineering firm for 33 years working for the Horticultural industry as well as diversification into other areas towards the end of that era. Theatre was my hobby, both on and off stage. I was the Events Manager at St.James for the last 10 years. I have written poetry since my early teens, with a gap when I was busy house building and raising a family. I have had a number of poems published in books and magazines and my name is on the Roger Perrot Trophy in the Eisteddfod. I have written and directed a Guernsey play in the GADOC One Act Play Festival.
James
Guernsey - James Willis
Of gull grey, dull grey, glittering granite
The habitat of cormorant, guillemot and gannet.
Sea waves crash and sea spray splash,
Where Guernsey clad, Guernsey lads dash.
I’ll remember then, the fishermen, in broad beamed boats,
With winches and nets and bobbers and ropes.
Pots in trots and rollocks and anchor,
All combined to fish Pollock and chancre.
A grand man, the land man, ploughing the soil,
Hoeing and sowing and growing his toil.
Fenceless field, the common ground,
With cattle grazing rights , profound.
In privateer and pirate years, long past,
The ecological mould was cast.
The seigneur shrewd, the feudal mule,
For centuries did his fiefdom rule.
Smooth yellow sand, green mellow land,
Where houses and history and heritage stand.
French by connection, British by election,
A community committed to right protection.
James Willis
The habitat of cormorant, guillemot and gannet.
Sea waves crash and sea spray splash,
Where Guernsey clad, Guernsey lads dash.
I’ll remember then, the fishermen, in broad beamed boats,
With winches and nets and bobbers and ropes.
Pots in trots and rollocks and anchor,
All combined to fish Pollock and chancre.
A grand man, the land man, ploughing the soil,
Hoeing and sowing and growing his toil.
Fenceless field, the common ground,
With cattle grazing rights , profound.
In privateer and pirate years, long past,
The ecological mould was cast.
The seigneur shrewd, the feudal mule,
For centuries did his fiefdom rule.
Smooth yellow sand, green mellow land,
Where houses and history and heritage stand.
French by connection, British by election,
A community committed to right protection.
James Willis
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