With a K or maybe a C is often misspelt
Leprechaun sworn torn from green felt
Billiard baize suit worn with a big belt
Scorn cliches like Romans Cornish pelt
Taffs...the Jocks or Shamrocks smelt
In foreign lands so many have dwelt
Velvet villainy Galician or Brittany C/Kelt
Falter but not at Catholic altar knelt
Riff raffs playing the cards we're dealt
Life & death debacle glued a shoe's welt
Riddles tango with fiddles so heartfelt
Calms disarms always buxom not svelte
Lovers then in each others arms melt
No qualms rascal sparkle charms of a Celt
Fickle sunbeams tickle fluttering daydreams...…
Lyrical lapping lullaby encores...
Gingerly stroke sandy shell shattered shores..
Starlings spy…sky high murmurations...
Skimming stones....slicing silky sheens..
Voluptuously verdant riddles…islands within idylls...
Scattered daffy darlings..dilly dally...
Sunshine splattered chlorophyll candles...
Animosity as an ersatz monstrosity shines…
Saluting highfalutin pomposity..devouring skylines..
Notes of cut grass gloats floats from..
Middle class mowed manicured marvels..
Criss cross collaborations… surf the tailored turf....
Billiards baize ablaze with petrichor whiffs
Festooned with afternoon nana nap snores..
The radio's heavenly hum of cricket scores...
A duvet of familiar riffs...murmurs of what if's..
An inkling..whispers of summer's sprinkling serendipity twinkling..
Blue collar school,
Blue collar play,
Blue collar children,
Blue collar praise,
Blue collar words,
Blue collar phrased,
Blue collar work,
Blue collar pay,
Blue collar union,
Blue collar say,
Blue collar terraced,
Blue collar glazed,
Blue collar town,
Blue collar ways,
Blue collar nights,
Blue collar days,
Blue collar skies,
Blue collar greys.
White collar night school,
White collar college days,
White collar degree,
White collar knowledge pays,
White collar nine-to-five,
White collar maze,
White collar union,
White collar raise,
White collar semi,
White collar double glazed,
White collar mowed lawn,
White collar baize,
White collar supper time,
White collar bordelaise,
White collar children,
White collar praise,
While collar world,
White collar haze.
Blue Collar, White Collar,
Whatever we might say,
We can’t forget those Blue collar days,
We can’t change all our Blue collar ways.
Brexit Sonnet No.5
‘To Clothe The Wreck’
A game of chance, the climb to rule this land,
As much a slip of others as trip of yours.
Oft’ ruled by chance events, not thoughts well planned,
Same for freshers new, as time-served bores.
And now we see the cards in shuffled deck,
Prepared again to face the green baize cloth.
Plans anew prepared to clothe the wreck
That’s Brexit, now sad without its champagne froth.
But cards are dog-eared, faded, worn and ripped
With two faced jokers squirming in the pack.
The dealer haggard, drawn and ill-equipped,
Can’t stabilise for strength they plainly lack.
Quantitatively ease this wretched, worn out pile;
Print more talent and from Brexit, please resile.
©Keith Murphy
Through tall iron gates into total serenity
as past meets present, though undesired,
from consecrated earth of high fertility
giant conifers and oaks flourish, undisturbed,
sorrow and pain dispersed over green marbled ground,
labels engraved in black or gold where loved ones are found,
roads and paths that direct our route to our deceased,
history of local communities, gathered without discrimination,
ivy entwining distinctive arching pagoda,over flagged passage
inviting participants that resist, yet encouraging minds imagination,
sight of a procession, sad occupants in spotless black carriage,
freshly dug earth mounded covered with green baize, creation of a hole,
permanent dwelling for all time, the resting place of their soul,
a place where our past relatives and friends can be visited,
deep below the soil covered by a carpet of emerald green,
loved ones that will never again be seen.
Composed 12/06/2016.
Take watercolour peach, lavender blue
a canvas morning sky, the clouds a frame,
gilt treetops harvest fire, leaves brightly hued
awakened now the arbor tips became.
Lone footprints in the dew on virgin track
save leaping of a brook or crossing stile,
the journey was for now, no looking back
just savouring a moment for a while.
Beyond the Churchyard, entering the glade
across the tired bridge with rusty nails,
stream cuts its way through earth, a gentle blade,
carved notches from my youth upon the rails.
From here onward the footpath comes and goes
it hides and peeks just like a timid child,
in stretches bare, the place each walker knows
and where a hedge gives choice it blossoms, wild.
Now finally the sunrise takes a hold
and burns away the morning's misty glaze
the speckled droplets revel in their gold
on bark and branches clothed in mossy baize.
Adam's masterpiece comes into view
Palladian and clad in smooth dressed stone
beyond, the bridge where Cutler Brook runs through
where ends this walk since childhood I have known.
Switch on the phone and head for home again
thus ends these precious hours of feeling sane.
Russet browns and crackling
yellow browns
Traipse idly down from leafy
spill;
For by summers gate
Glorious Autumn awaits
To plough once again, here,
Under Dingles hill.
A pleasant warming breeze
gently caresses the trees
And strokes through the baize
Green frill;
The brooding Sparrowhawk
Flights her rush -
To seize upon her hapless
kill!
Ancient dappled glades offer
Restful, cooling shades
And welcome respite from
Above until:
A waning sun begins its
Seasonal run...
Leaving us all firmly gripped
In Winters chill.
There’s a breathless hush in the Crucible,
A racing baize and the black to win,
To miss that red was inexcusable –
His hand was shaking – too much gin ?
The “Hurricane” is blown away,
We will not see his like today,
But Hendry, Higgins, Doherty
Williams, Selby, Ding Junhui
Are hoping for that one-four-seven,
The perfect snooker, shot from heaven.
The prize at stake is filthy lucre;
To fans this is the World of Snooker,
A game that’s played in clubs and halls –
But for some, a load of balls !
Tiny crystal ball
Resting on a baize surface
Foretells a huge storm.
an east meets west show
the Navaho laid low-
on western art nouveau
* a baize and handspun wool blanket-widely pictured in Stikley's Arts& Crafts mag 'Craftsman'
c 1900
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/tucson_200601A55.html
Digitalis purpurea (Scrophulariaceae)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Conspicuous height with a nitrogen foil
A tubular flourish and biennial splice-
The loveliest fiesta in a sandy loam soil
Discovers importance as seedlings suffice
Flowering spikes sharing things that we love
Pave avenues deep with a dark purple haze,
On various occasions, display the foxglove
Pixie hat throngs viewing grassy green baize
A prominent place giving height to all orders
Can constitute class looking down on its kin
Queen of the hills whilst the smallest of borders
Look back at the foxglove to see if it is in.
Optimum lies where the reasons are many
When sharing the secrets foxgloves take part
Illusions repeat, diagnosed, though if any
Embrace digitalis, for strengthening the heart.
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