Best Shires Poems

When your befuddled mind
Forsakes upon the ragged edge
Of swirling darkness;
Where eternal night awaits
To sate upon purest innocence
Besides an open grave!
When the gravity of your perils
Be foully whispered within
Dismayed
And abject earshot;
Where salvation for despairing souls
Be so hopelessly betrayed!

Then I wouldst draw ye, Meretrix,
As I should draw...

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The Great Meadow

Beyond the high hedge the great meadow extends to the  sky
Its fallow grasses fanned into waves by a breeze.    
While down the slope the bearded barley and rye 
Make a downy golden fabric that clothes the leas

The largest field...

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Yorkshire, 1914
I patch mended her copper saucepan,
Edged an axe, two cleavers and a knife.
I did all the jobs that were required.
By this comely young farmer’s wife.
She served me a platter of rare beef
With chunks of home baked bread,
And along each large slice of meat 
Relish...

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Let's flee to Little Langdale,
where mountains pierce the sky
through layers of cloud and fog,
past birds that swarm like flies.
Let's find the quarry tunnels 
and tour Cathedral Cave 
We'll hear our voices echo
like pebbles skipping waves.
Let's walk the hills till twilight
past crumbling ancient walls. 
We'll stroll...

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I pored over my weather maps contriving a prognostication,
Of the weather forecast for the consumption of the British population.
It comprised all the towns, villages and shires from A to Zed,
To include the burgs of Wookey Hole, Wyre Piddle and Guys Head!

The towns of Crazies Hill...

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First let us take our friend the horse
a noble creature who serves us well
supplying us with a source of good compost 
ferrying us here and there in fine style
pulling carts and carriages with aplume
carrying riders proudly on their backs
seldom a traffic jam and smell the...

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This Regency Dandy flying across the river,
                        
              ...

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Marching out of the cloaked shires
Of landowners, stockbrokers, 
Hereditary Peers, and ruddy faced 
Squires:
A vast multitude of many varied 
Tribes.
Amassing in the great cities, where,
Inhabiting shadowy chambers, 
Behind nodding sighs and hushed 
Whispers, 
The Masonic Civil Servant plots and
Confides.
Standing vigil above forgotten
Monuments
And bronzed statues, that,...

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Bevy of swans in a sea-fowl cloud,
starling mumuration,whispering aloud.
Wray of quail,where teal spring,
tiding of magpie,as larks nesting, cling.

Nightingale watch a hover of crows,
herd of wrens,hosting sparrows.
Flight of doves,lapwing deceit,
charm of finches,swallows sweet.

Kindle of kittens,knot of toads,
a yoke of oxen shed their load.
Den of snakes,skulk with...

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grey skies drop gruel
shoppers shelter in the shires
drinking weather, spoons
whatever, raining, trowbridge 
pea soup puddled county town

by gail...

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(* to be read in the style of Heny V before the battle of Agincourt)

To arms! To arms!
Men of the Shires, rouse from your winter sleep
the game's afoot, waste no more time abed,
to Hardware stores you have a date to keep,
fight through the drapes of...

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These are poems about Dylan Thomas, as well as poems "for" and "after" Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas was one of my favorite poets from my early teens and has remained so over the years. I have written three poems ‘for’ him and one poem ‘after’...

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Brexit Sonnet No. 46
‘A Brexit Gift’
 

What larks! A Brexit gift with double bow,
A tale of two shires with border slung between.
As cameras flash, a cashing stream doth flow
To feed and nourish London’s clear air dream. 
Have I missed a move, a deliberate flit,
To lands...

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Bevy of swans in a sea-fowl cloud,
starling mumuration,whispering aloud.
Wray of quail,where teal spring,
tiding of magpie,as larks nesting, cling.

Nightingale watch a hover of crows,
herd of wrens,hosting sparrows.
Flight of doves,lapwing deceit,
charm of finches,swallows sweet.

Kindle of kittens,knot of toads,
a yoke of oxen shed their load.
Den of snakes,skulk with...

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Reminders of looking back the other way
Impossible to recall 'just' the way we were
Took the road few travel, wiser for it today
And yesterday, took a road to travel away
From here, the angels tears and the silver fir,

Now the Pacific rim sat motionless, dull and silent
No...

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