Best Somerset Poems
Dozy with Cider
The tavern was quiet but for old farmer John,
when the Kings rider strode in demanding a bed,
He ordered his ale and sat next to the old sage,
“Where be all the villagers?” he said.
Farmer John took a sip from his tankard and smiled,
“What brings you to our village, good sire?”
The rider frowned, then with his head tucked down,
His eyebrows rose higher and higher!
“This village gives birth to babes every year
They, being born all on the same day!
And ‘tis known all about, folk here are healthy and strong
And everyone happy and gay!”
The old man grinned, wily,
“Aye sire, ‘tis true. Now, you fill my tankard to its peak,
Many a slip, twixt cup and lip
an’ i will give you the answers you seek.”
“On this day sire, when the season’s mists do rise
to the warmth of the September sun,
The young lads an’ lasses stand ready, in Jackson’s field,
their race of the day has begun.
They run to the orchard, climbing ladders high,
pickin’ apples to throw in to their sack.
Their young knees bending with the weight
of the fruit hanging, from their back.
When they’ve finished their task and the cart is full,
the sun is low in the sky,
An’ the Taverner welcomes ‘em with bread an’ cheese,
an’ their spirits are soaring high!
An’ they drink the fruits of their labour with glee,
then hand in hand, sleep they, in the hedgerows you see!
Every babe born the following year,
is born a healthy, happy mite,
For under those hedgerows, were created love, an’ a natural joy,
A Royal beginning, for girl an’ boy!
An’ the heart of this ritual, if the truth be told,
Is the liquid you drink now sire, our Autumn Gold!"
Strolling by the River Avon, I found somebody,
Strolling to nowhere, I found a person.
I looked at the river, I followed the water.
I saw somebody walking to Bath.
He was my old friend the tailor. Very well known he was.
Near to clothes he spent his life, far from all the beloved ones.
Working for his family to have the best.
Among cloths to get some pounds.
Scisors to cut fabrik, money to grow up a family.
By the River Avon I used to walk, to spread my thoughts.
Thinking of my family I was,
but I needed a beer time to time.
Meeting with friends was such a nice time.
Friends rolled by the river, he never could keep them for long.
He took a journey to Spain,
and he started a new life.
A life far from the River Avon,
a new step to be made.
He is far since then, he's lost
in the dreams of the past.
Looking for the old friends,
Searching for the old River Avon.
Looking for the old friends,
looking for the family that one day used to be a dream,
the unfaithful family he used to work from between cloth to scisors to give them the best.
Now, as a forgotten taylor he dreams with scisors.
As a forgotten father he still looks for his daughter.
As a forgotten friend, he thinks about the friends that have dissapeared.
As a forgotten ex-husband, he regrets to be a husband.
After the years, he thinks about the River Avon, the green meadows, Bristol, Bath, England, anyway, his entire world.
All his world is what I've met: the taylor, the struggling person, the singer, the man I found when I was strolling by the River Avon, my best friend.
Sometimes we think we are in Somerset, time to time we dream about the things we've lost. We can't make a step back, but we will make one in front.
My River Avon, you will always be my rolling back.
Since I was strolling by the River Avon, I found my whole life.
White cars stationary on their roofs blocking rural arteries whilst severing others
Unexpected loss of vertical hold and bodily functions frozen in the failing headlights
Beautiful greenery ablaze, beside the twisted wreckage of man.
A movement shakes away broken glass and the tarmac writhes free of the terrible pictures
Running on the wide screen’s of my mind. Dripping petrol explosions and decapitation,
Gruesome pictures I dreamt up while reality passed the windscreen and
I, I sat there screaming inside.
Luminous blue and an echoing voice rouse me from that dangerous moment,
The phone weighs in once again in my hand. I’m rambling, or worse, but I get the message out
And the comfort of my task ends with the depressed red button as
The door clicks open
A familiar face brings mind of the other and I’m out into the cold darkness
Stepping slowly toward a nightmare vision that grew up in the dusk
I find her and for a second we’re back laughing and smiling. Over her shoulder I see
The groupings of people that sprung up from hedgerows, their halogen shadows
Merged with the darkness of the incident. The car is much too white.
Too strange an angle, yet there they sit
Tingling on the verge of the roaring tributary
And casually stemming the tide
Back then she was singing the blues,
In a smaller club where the sunset-
Splashed the walls in various hues,
On a plummy street called Somerset.
I was introduced to her backstage,
In that far away, long ago place,
Before she had become all the rage,
With her jet-setter's renowned face.
Her voice then was as liquid gold,
And eyes reflected the bright lights,
And her song a melancholy tale told,
Of her dream which had taken flight!
All motion in the club would cease,
Anytime the blue lady in red sang
Her beautiful, musical masterpiece,
In a voice which, like bells, rang!
Now, in the still of a pastel dawn,
My memories wander back to Somerset-
Of those happy, sun days quite gone,
And the blues song I cannot forget!
(etymology of a surname: Larcombe)
somewhere in the deepest dark of Somerset,
was a secret cumb, I know of not yet
where ancients did note
that many a Larke would wing,
for food,
to brood,
and sing
in those times a cumb was understated
with trees aplenty in it's forest,
where insects
unabated,
invite the Larke
fated
to dance with them as their guest.
as such, much gratiated,
the Larke engages in a courtship thrill,
throwing it's voice to dating,
in hope of mating,
and is satiated
by the success of its trill.
then men came to this place,
farming and deforesting,
such that the Larke could not sing,
leaving only space and doom,
and yet men called themselves
"of the Larke Cumb"
'tis still a mystery, where this might be,
twixt tarmac, concrete, or brick maybe,
but it sealed the Larke' s fate,
closing it's garden gate,
as such, was a sad sick twist really
January years ago, confused far away I was with the cold.
Landed in Bristol on a snowy airport, as snowed were the meadows and frosted my mind.
A trip to say hello and goodbye to a beloved one,
taking my hand, she closed her fading eyes into her last sigh. I saw the dark face of life
turning into the beauty of an angel flying.
Sad and freezing with a bag full of mixed feelings, somebody took us to Norton St Philip in Somerset, just to have some fun. My husband and I were surprised.
Feeling blue we were, but soon the George Inn changed our sorrow into happiness.
Family shared moments for the history of our lives, photos in the white snow for a new album, nice food and a toast with white wine in the George Inn, made my trip to England a especial memory to be remembered forever in my heart.
historic George Inn
~elegance in Somerset~
locked deep in my soul