I Used To Be A Dreamer - Lyndon Queripel

I used to be a dreamer
I had faith to keep
But now I just can’t sleep
The dawn will break
And I’m still awake
The Sun will rise in my eyes

I used to be a dreamer
And you know it’s true
That I had visions too
Now there’s a part
Deep in my heart
Where memories just freeze

I used to be a dreamer
Sowing seeds to reap
But now I just can’t sleep
The shadows fall
On the wall
On my bed and in my head

I used to be a dreamer
Lost in my own mind
But I’ve been left behind
The time has passed
Much too fast
Where did it go I don’t know.

Lyndon Queripel

Image : Pixabay - LeandroDeCarvalho

La Roque Lane - Tony Gardner

In the nooks  and  the  corners  of  La Roque  Lane
Images,  memories  ever  remain
That  was  where  my  education  was  gained
In  the  soft,  mossy  corners  of La Roque Lane

There  I  learned  about  women,  much  as  a man  can
For  ladies  are  ever  so  not  like  a  man
Of  what  we  discovered  they  did  not  complain
While  learning  our  lessons  in  La  Roque  Lane

There's  a  green  shaded  corner in  La  Roque Lane
That  sweetly  and  softly  will  ever retain
Mem'ries  of  youth  and  of  young  love  that  died
Life's  lessons  learned  as  we  laughed  and  we  cried

And  though  I  am  happy,  content  with  my  life
And  deeply  and  dearly  in  love  with  my  wife
Sometime  I  dream  of  those  bright  days  again
In  that  green quiet corner  in  La Roque  Lane.

Tony Gardner

Image : Pixabay - JACLOU-DL

Preparation - Stephen A. Roberts

It’s on the TV now 
The things never discussed 
The inevitable 
The return to dust 
My parents never faced it 
Left a mountain behind 
For jumble sales 
And recycling yards 
Someone’s lucky find 

Let’s go through all my junk 
A catalogue of loss 
The indispensable 
The metal and the rust 
It seems a shame to waste it 
To throw it all away 
Memories and 
Faded photographs 
Of those salad days 

Stephen A. Roberts

Image : Pixabay - Alexas_Fotos

1967 - Lyndon Queripel

What happened to the flowers
You used to wear in your hair
Now you have grey streaks there
What happened to the people
That so long ago it seems
All shared the same dreams
The heaven of nineteen sixty seven
A summer of love and peace
When the young were so strong

Were the days of freedom
Just numbered on charts
A club of only lonely hearts
Tomorrow may never know
But if it was guaranteed
Would the blossoms go to seed
The heaven of ninety sixty seven
For me the music was the key
But things got strange, began to change

There was something in the air
Do you recall before the fall
It just transcended it all
Life was dear and love was free
But without a shadowed doubt
The spirit has been all sold out
The heaven of nineteen sixty seven
A promise of skies to kiss
Words were spoken and then broken.

Lyndon Queripel


Image : Pixabay - keaton

At Grandfather’s - Richard Fleming

Along the entry
he would come caterwauling,
striking bin-lids with his stick,
through the backyard
knocking over milk bottles.

Up the wooden stair, rolling
like a tar,
to lifeboat-bed and disapproval:
his salty, mermaid wife
growling like an ocean.

On Sunday mornings there,
we children crouched, like mice,
digesting toast and catechisms,
as grandma stepped,
stiff-backed, around him.

He would be still as stone, his bowl
of porridge cooling.

Richard Fleming

Image : Pixabay - aamiraimer

Sons - Richard Fleming

On a yellowed flyleaf, half a century ago,
my mother wrote to say Birthday Wishes
and Mum, that name that buries self away.
I was her firstborn, headstrong, loving,
exuberant, wilfully astray.
My childhood fears, unbidden tears,
the small, lost battles of the day,
she dissipated in her arms.
My daughter holds her sons that way.

Richard Fleming

Image : Pixabay - VaniaRaposo

Revenge - Richard Fleming

Perhaps there is an explanation, dear,
but you’re not here to set my mind at rest.
Death puts a stop to questions, so I fear
this one must stay unanswered or addressed.
Among your things I found a photograph:
it must be recent, you look hardly changed.
A stranger smiles beside you as you laugh,
your hair and solemn features disarranged.
In looking closer I can ascertain
you two are linked: there is a recklessness
about your pose, while he is cool, urbane.
It pains me so, this photograph, and yes,
our marriage wasn’t perfect: I would stray,
but, posthumously, you’ve made sure I pay.

Richard Fleming


Image : Pixabay - Free-Photos

The Old Oak - Tony Gardner

There's a big old tree in the corner
Of the field just along the way
It's the only tree around here
So it's special....well to me anyway

I've known it since I was a nipper
When I used to climb up and sit
On it's branches so strong and sturdy
And contemplate Life for a bit.

I loved to see new leaves in springtime
And the acorns as they grew then fell
Many's the time I would wonder
What stories this old tree could tell.

Did it grow from a careless dropped acorn
By a bird flying so high above
I like to think someone with vision
Planted that acorn with love

Maybe he dreamed it would flourish
And that many years after his time
A boy would climb its strong branches
And be moved to write a small rhyme.

Tony Gardner

Image : Pixabay - mbll

Blue Woods - Tony Gardner

Blue bells nod their sleepy heads
In old sun-speckled woods
To spring time music of the birds
In glades where once she stood.
Her laughter rang like Fairy bells
In youth when Life was gay
And often we would wander there
Along the blue bell'd way

Today I walk that path alone
But still she's there with me
Her shadow dances soft upon
That old sun-speckled tree
I hear her laugh like Fairy bells
And I'm not sad you know
I can always find her here
Where the Blue Bells grow.

Tony Gardner

R.I.P. Sean Connery 1930 - 2020 - Anon.

Dr No was first to go
then Blofeld followed after,
now they are joined by Bond, James Bond,
there in the Great Hereafter.

Sean Connery, AKA Bond,
the very first back in Year Dot,
has left us shaken also stirred.
He was the best Bond of the lot.

Anon.

What a pity, about Aunt Kitty - Tony Bradley

Aunt Kitty used to stay with us,
for a fortnight, once a year
after 2 weeks of her Scrabble
we’d had enough, of the crafty old dear.

She’d bring her own Scrabble set with her
and with it, her own set of rules
but every game, she’d move the goalposts
and make us all look like fools.

She liked to play for money, not a lot
we’d start maybe with a pound in the kitty
but she’d win, almost every game
raking in the quids, saying "what a pity."

Last year, sadly, her eyesight failed
so no more Scrabble, for poor Aunt Kitty
Scrabble was her life, so she passed away
we miss her shenanikins, and "what a pity."

Tony Bradley

The Rhyme of the Obstinate Boy - Tony Gardner

I rested so sad and downhearted
In the fields where the buttercups grow
Where the cows chewed the cud and then farted
The only music they know
The drone of the flies was sweet buzzing
And the Crows were a-cawing on high
Then I thought once again of my cousin
Who I last saw in Ardingly
He was chewing the grass and chanting
The Rhyme of the Obstinate Boy
Who refused to say Grace at the table
But was full of such curious joy
I do not pretend to have knowledge
Of such wonderful words that are said
But I try to keep on bib bib bobbing
And to keep my fingertips red
So that's why I sit in the stubble
Where the cows fart and buttercups grow
Sad and depressed and downhearted
It's the only joy that I know
     Know know know
         Know know know

Tony Gardner

Long Time Passes - Lyndon Queripel

I’m sure I’ve seen your face before
But your name has slipped my mind
So I’m going to look in my book
Just to see what I can find

I’m sure I’ve seen your face before
But I can’t remember when
I try to free my memory
Every now and then

Long time passes
But I’d never forget if we met
Long time passes
You bet I’m not out of debt yet

I’m sure I’ve seen your face before
Now I don’t mean to stare
A shadow cast from the past
When the Sun was there to share

I’m sure I’ve seen your face before
It’s another mystery
Make no mistake I give and take
But you won’t remember me.

Lyndon Queripel

Train Of Thought - Tony Bradley

It seems these days, that my memory deserts me
half the stuff I thought, that I was taught
I’m left stranded, at the station, ‘cos my education
just left again, on the last train of thought.

Tony Bradley

Hello - Kriss Lee

© Kriss Lee

© Kriss Lee

I say hello to you every day
But you no longer reply
That breaks my fragile heart
And I just sit and cry

I say hello to you every day
And talk about the fools we were
How sadly now it's gone away
The memories now all become a blur

I say hello to you every day
And talk about so many things
I tell you what I'm doing now
And open up with all my feelings

I say hello to you every day
With almost a nonchalance
But my breath hitches and stutters
As yet again there's no response

I say hello to you every day
With an aching deep in my heart
Knowing no answer will come
So long it's been this way, now we're apart

I say hello to you every day
But there’s no reply, all I hear is Myself
With these trembling old hands
I replace your Urn upon the shelf

Kriss Lee

The Body Keeps The Score - Kate Gallienne

As I stand in my garden, surrounded by trees
I question what’s real and what’s not
My senses inhale the nature around
My memory brings back the forgot

See my body remembers what my mind's erased
Taking me back in time
As if I was reliving the past that was
I begin to question my mind

I am safe here, it is not true
The feelings I feel deep inside
I look to the outside instead of within
I begin to question my mind

Confusion reigns as I’m torn between
Myself and all that I know
How can I trust my feelings
When to do so, I’d let myself go

So I hold on tight to this day and time
I breathe into myself again
I steady my body which soothes my mind
Bringing me back today…and then…

Calmly and slowly I begin to heal
Understanding the disconnect
For my body remembers what happened
Whilst my mind it's tried hard to forget.

Kate Gallienne

Last Goodbye - Tony Gardner

The old man died in Saskatoon
His home for many a year
He sleeps beneath the prairie moon
Canadian friends are near

His spirit flew the day he died
Back to his childhood home
Back to the Guernsey countryside
Where once he loved to roam

It danced along the Jerbourg Road
Sang as it gambolled on
Re-living memories of old
Recalled from days long gone

It flew across the rugged coast
Above the sun-gold gorse
And spied the little fishing boats
Safe in the tiny port

From Saints it passed until it flowed
To where La Gran' Mere guards
The age-old church where long ago
His life was giv'n to God

His spirit satisfied at last
By memories richly strewn
Returned across the ocean blast
To rest in Saskatoon

Tony Gardner

Still Dancing - Diane Scantlebury

Out in the middle of the floor
Poppa and nana dance,
To a song, an up-tempo rendition
Of an old much loved classic,
Curiously out of rhythm with the music
They hold hands and laugh,
As they’re transported fifty years back
To the time they first met,

Nana in her short skirt, giggling,
And poppa with long hair
Trying hard to catch her attention,
Back then the dance floor
Was the place for courtship,
Back then, they knew all the words
And could keep time with the music,

Out in the middle of the floor
Poppa and nana still dance,
Their grey haired heads
Strangely nodding against the beat,
Robbed by dementia, nana’s mind has gone,
But in her eyes there’s a twinkle
A memory of fifty years back,
Of when poppa, nervously,
First asked her to dance
And she said “Yes”.

Diane Scantlebury

Memories of Scotland - Tony Bradley

I've spent many happy days with my lassie and crommack
trekking over the Highlands, the crags, and screes
the dark, deep waters of the misty lochs
as the eagle glides high, in the morning breeze.

Thro' leafy glades, sun's rays dance silver
in trickling streams below
Spring-scented flowers embroidering the
Highlands' green rolling vales
I lay mellow, for hours, on soft fragrant heather
or 'neath craggy rocks, shelter,
from my Scotland's strong gales.

Tony Bradley

Passing Through - Ian Duquemin

I sit here reminiscing
Of days long in my past
Those years have travelled swiftly
They've come and gone so fast
Those times spent round the campfire
Where flames danced through the night
Leaving smoldering embers
As dawn replaced its light

Those friends who were my brothers
In caravans called home
They were the closest family
That this man had ever known
We'd smoke what nature gave us
While music filled the air
What little we all had back then
We'd find enough to share

We found a place to settle
A road side with a view
Beside a rolling river
Like us just passing through
The hills a welcome shelter
The winters hard to bear
I'd never found a place called home
Like I had found right there

That fire keeps on burning
It warms my soul and heart
That family still remains with me
However far apart
And like that river passing through
We'll meet again sometime
I'll keep our fire burning
In this gypsy heart of mine

Ian Duquemin