The Best I Could Do - Ian Duquemin

I never deserved you...
So your closest friends said
But those letters I sent you
They must never have read
The words I strung together
Were the thoughts I had of you
They may not be much... But the best I could do

I may have been angry...
But I smiled when I could
If I swore that I'd love you
Then I possibly would
But something in my heart, said
I may not be true to you
I tried to be honest... That's the best I could do

Those times we were happy...
They weren't meant to last
I tried to light up
But the shadows were cast
I'd look towards the heavens
Tried to will a brighter view
I never gave up... That's the best I could do

I'm sorry you're leaving
But what can I say?
You may find a lover
Who will want you to stay
I'll try to think about us
Like an old flame's meant to do
It may not be much... But the best I can do

Ian Duquemin

Little Chapel - Richard Fleming

On full-moon nights the Chapel glows
with Holy light. No tourists now,
with cameras or summer clothes
or catalogues to tell them how
the Chapel grew, how earth and shards
created, like a house of cards,
this tiny masterpiece that stands
here in a valley far from Town;
how loving, dextrous human hands
raised it, from soil to spire and crown,
through faith for spiritual reward,
so long ago, to praise the Lord.

Only the barn owl, hunting low
over the meadow, and the shrew
crouching immobile, eyes aglow,
in the accumulating dew
of the amazing full-moon night
bathe in its spreading, mystic light.

Richard Fleming

Anyone For Tennis? - Oscar Milde

We hit words to and fro,
employing power and back-swing,
serve and volley,
determined, each, to score points off the other.
We both started out with Love
but now it’s Six-two, Six-three
and the neighbours are complaining
about the racquet.

Oscar Milde

Oetzi - Stephen A. Roberts

Image Source

This is the story of iceman Oetzi:
A cold case murder mystery  
Where the world's oldest blood has dried 
The crime preserved, mummified
  
In a mountain village long ago 
A traveller came down from the snow 
He is welcomed and offered sustenance 
As they listen eagerly to his accounts 

But with his tales of nomadic life 
Oetzi charmed another man's wife 
The jealous husband  was dismayed 
And scored the visitor with a blade 

Oetzi apologised, moved on, bade farewell 
But the wife had changed and all could tell 
She took on a mournful distant look 
So the man wanted Oetzi brought to book 

This interloper caused him loss of face 
How dare he challenge his rightful place 
Enraged he sets off , bow in hand 
Towards the high alpine pastureland 

The wanderer strolled on unaware 
Far above the meadows, into cooler air 
Then Oetzi sat: he had dined his last 
He reflected on the women in his past 

She was the one: in the valley below 
It only took one look to know 
But she belonged to another man 
And Oetzi respected this higher plan 

Musing as he climbed the glacier 
One day perhaps he would again see her 
(If he turned back now he would have seen 
The villager turned killing machine) 

Still tracking the stranger for cruel revenge 
Three hundred years before Stonehenge 
Above his rasping mountain breath 
Oetzi did not hear the arrowed death 

Punctured by that fatal blow 
Oetzi laid gasping in the crimson snow 
His killer eschewed the copper axe 
He wanted to leave no fossil tracks 

And maybe underneath that ancient sky 
The murderer stood and watched Oetzi die 
To hear familiar words in an ancient tongue 
"Why my brother? - I did you no wrong..." 

This is a story as old as time 
Forever frozen above the treeline 
Man's cold hatred, built to kill 
Nothing changes, time stands still 

Stephen A. Roberts

Walter, The Pigeon Man - Tony Bradley

Most mornings, he’s there, round about ten
if he’d had a bad night, a little later, then
But Church on Sundays, the birds seem to know
almost as if, he’d told them so.

But then, one day, . . Walter came no more
the birds were searching the pier, the shore.
another dawn rises, and the pigeons hover
hoping for food, . . . but will anyone bother ?

Tony Bradley