Category DVerse

My Man Joe – dVerse Meeting the Bar

freyathewriter 39 Comments

Here’s my long-overdue return to dVerse Meeting the Bar. This week, Gay is asking us to write a song! Now that’s a poetry form that brings back strong memories for me – I immediately thought of my mum singing along to Steeleye Span’s ‘All Around My Hat’ as she did the housework, and being taken to a Chieftans’ concert (and falling asleep – aaah, I was only very young!). Folk music is something that my family really enjoys – there is even morris dancing going on too (my mum again, with my step-dad playing an important musical role too).

Suffice to say, I’m a fan of the old folksy ballad, singing of love, loss, pride and passion. So, here’s my attempt… It’s inspired by the centenary year of the Great War – the War to End All Wars (if only). It’s simple, yet I hope it works.

Do visit the other poets who take part in this wonderful community… you’re in for a treat! And do let me know what you think of my song.

*****

– My Man Joe –

My sweetheart Joe is big and strong
With a twinkling eye and a ready smile
He works on the railways all week long
Just to buy me a posy on a Friday

(chorus)
I’ll always be with you, I’ll always be true
I’ll stand by your side, forever be true

My fiancé Joe cuts a fine dash
Driving his engine through the valleys
He collects his wages and gives me cash
Just to buy me a dress for our wedding

(chorus)
I’ll always be with you, I’ll always be true
I’ll stand by your side, forever be true

My husband Joe is a fine, proud dad
He plays with his boys on a Sunday
He sings in church, gives thanks and is glad
For his family, luck and fortune

(chorus)
I’ll always be with you, I’ll always be true
I’ll stand by your side, forever be true

My soldier Joe walks proud and tall
Marching away to the trenches
God bless my man! God bless them all!
Please let him come back safely

(chorus)
I’ll always be with you, I’ll always be true
I’ll stand by your side, forever be true

My man Joe gave his life and soul
On the far away fields of Flanders
For my boys and me he’ll not grow old
Nor ever be forgotten.

(chorus)
I’ll always be with you, I’ll always be true
I’ll stand by your side, forever be true

Silk

freyathewriter 46 Comments

And so the tissue-thin skin
covering the scar, sealing in the hurt and anger and grief
and burning, scalding emptiness
has stood well against the test of time.
Or so I think.
A famous sportsman has a skiing accident
A businessman dies in a London underground station
Another throws himself from a tall building in the City
A famous actor’s life is cut short – snap – just like that
And the delicate strands of the healing unravel, tear, gape.
The wound is opened, the bloody depths are revealed.
My throat stretches and aches to keep back the tears
and my eyes burn.
I am reminded that grief is not a path from A to B.
It meanders, traverses peaks and chasms, navigates switchbacks and
launches me into the air.
My parachute is gone, only ropes snaking my ankles –
freefall beckons and just, just when I think I will hit the ground
I am yanked back, ligaments and muscles tearing with effort
to just keep going.
It’s the hardest work I ever imagined.
Because that sorrow, that jolt, that catch of breath isn’t for those who have died, or are unaware.
It is for the souls left behind, making new patterns out of just getting through
wanting it to be temporary-permanent-over-never to end.
What’s left on the other side?
It is this. Just this.

******

This week, I am releasing some of my pent-up emotions. Life is filled with light and shade. This is how it is, sometimes.

Please do visit the dVerse Open Link Night for examples of some very fine poetry indeed – and be inspired… Join us! I will link up to this week’s post later today.

The Rush

freyathewriter 29 Comments

If wishes were horses the devil would ride

He’d flay them with cruel whips and cut at their hides

Their strides he would lengthen with means all most foul

And scare their souls witless with a blood-freezing howl.

Those wishes are craven, all carved from regret

They weigh down our spirits, we cannot forget

all those lives we would live if times they had changed

and granted desires, hopes and dreams we’d arranged.

Like soldiers in battle ordered and neat

We planned our bright futures, could not wait to meet

the glorious high-life brilliantly displayed

Now disappointed we curse at the path, disarrayed.

Life is not like a spreadsheet, it’s wrinkled and rough

The devilish detail is knotted and tough

It will consume us in moments, time will speed past

Until we’re sighing our last breath, dismayed and aghast

at the time we have wasted on the roll of the dice

For at the end of the last day, no-one lives twice.

******

This poem came to me (yet again) on my travels on the London Underground last week. We were all herded out of the station as a man had suffered a heart attack and died on one of the platforms. It got me thinking about how there are no second chances, that we, a bunch of commuting strangers probably knew of his death before his own family – I found that fact on its own to be desperately sad. I wouldn’t choose to die in a London Underground station, in public – but that’s the point, we don’t often get to select the when, where and how of our death. So this, this is about making the most of every part of your life, because you really don’t know what’s lying in wait for you. Just don’t waste it, whatever you do… 

Please do visit the dVerse Open Link Night for examples of some very fine poetry indeed – and be inspired… Join us! You can link up later at 3pm EST – or whatever that works out to, wherever in the world you may be…