Used To Be - Lyndon Queripel

I used to be a folksinger
Left without a word
There was nothing I could do
I just could not be heard
For my voice it was broken
From calling through the rain
But somethings are best unspoken
Than misunderstood to explain

I used to be a gambler
Taking half a chance
Slipping through my fingers
The cards began to dance
Spinning wheels and rolling dice
It wasn't hard to choose
But I never would've played
Unprepared to lose

I used to be a soldier
Bullets flying around my brain
Before I get much older
I think I'll go insane with pain
The doctors tried so hard
To help rid me of my doubt
They told me not to worry
There was a lot of it about

I used to be a drifter
Just moving from town to town
Then one night down by a harbour
I thought I heard someone drown
So I dived into the water
And swam against the rising tide
I knew I'd lost when the current crossed
And I never reached the other side.

Lyndon Queripel

Conversation Overheard - Diane Scantlebury

Woman in the seat in front
Speaks too loudly on her mobile phone,
Her personal life exposed,
Laid bare for all to witness,
Her face unseen, her voice unknown,

Revealing every intricacy of her travel plans
For half an hour unwinds the tale,
Until mercifully a tunnel intervenes
Brings respite and silence with a technical fail,

But,
"Allo" "allo" the woman still shouts
As if across a continent her friend could hear,
What remained of a banal conversation overheard,
Unsolicited eavesdropping,
Too tortuous,
For fellow passengers to bear.

Diane Scantlebury

The Fairy Ring - Andrew Barham

Today's poem is a "Golden Oldie" and was originally published here in November 2012

There's a ring around the sun
After the rains have come and gone;
Later, I see it reflected on the ground
On a knoll within a circle of stones.

Where are those Elven Folk
Who once peopled these ancient hills?
The stones around the ring are soaked
With the light which spills
From the sun dying across the sky
Just above the World Edge it lies on
Where Sky and Earth meet to try
To form a new horizon.

This forsaken place is empty now,
Forgotten – a remnant of a past time,
Not even the abode of a stray sheep or cow:
Man has moved on – and that's fine –
Science has brought us greater wonders.
The Moon is a goddess no more
And Apollo's chariot no longer blunders
From skyline to skyline on the new day's shores,
For we have set foot on Diana's soil
And probed the heart of the Sun;
Through creative blood, sweat and toil
We have met the gods and won.

Andrew Barham

People - Trudie Shannon

They sit in the café,
Just the few
Who have weathered the weather,
The wet and the cold,
Who have donned waterproof clothing, coats, hats
And carried umbrellas.
Now, in reward, sit warm, in the café
Drinking warm drinks, warming cold hands.

Not too faraway
Others have fled bombs and guns
Crossing into foreign lands and then braving the sea,
Huddled miserably in leaking boats
Waves washing over them.
Cold, wet, worn with fear and exhaustion
Finally they reach land, but not salvation.
The wind blows icy and the sleet
Cuts into fragile, exposed skin.
Babies cry, children are stilled into abject silence.
They fall to the ground in open fields
And sleep the sleep of near death
Shelterless.

In the café people bemoan the inconvenience
Of the drizzling rain.
Such a difficult life.

Trudie Shannon

Daydreams - Bryony de Lat

I used to use dreams, to create and design
but now my dreams come, cemented in rhyme
before, there was an exact brief, a strict deadline
but now, the only constraints are mine.

Don't underestimate the power of imagination
the ability to float away, thus boredom forsaking
to mentally stroll off, for a whimsical walk
later returning to now, neither wheezing nor aching.

Store in your mind, a place to wander
whistle, or sing, if you think you can
and always have that daydream ready,
for when the shit starts hitting the fan.

Bryony de Lat