Dorset Poems | Examples

Mary Anning 1799-1847

Born in Lyme Regis Dorset
a palaeontologist fossil collector
in the English Channel marine bed cliffs
and a coprolites (faeces) detector
who at only twelve years old
found the first two skeletons plesiosaur
and outside Germany
that of a pterosaur
yet as a woman who did not
always receive full credit
for her scientific contributions
and ineligible to join to their discredit
the Geological Society of London
while struggling financially
for her it was no shell game
to make ends meet as circumstantially
when selling shells by the seashore
the seashore shells she sold
were her start of the first shell company
by the Natural History Museum in London I was told

D I Y

    There once was a man who came from Dorset,
    Who tried to repair his leaking faucet.
    But he sure did not think,
    He would soon break the sink.
    When he misused his multi tool saw-set.

     11 / 19 / 2024.

Westward

Westward
in the winter mist
unwavering
wing-beat rhythm
thrusting
purposeful
powerful
pale creatures
of a pale world,
outstretched
magnificence
reshaped
from the haughty elegance
of arched necks
and curved wing-folds
white
on a summer’s placid lake.

On a cold foggy morning in Dorset, England, in January, 1992, I heard the distinctive wingbeats of swans approaching. Three of them passed by just to the north of me, giving me a very brief view before they merged back into the mist.
What a wonderful privilege to delight in God’s Creation!

It's A Busy World

It’s a busy world, 
And life can be so full, 
Do this,
Do that,
Be here,
Go there.
But sometimes
It’s just good
To sit,
And watch the clouds go by.

So easily
Enticed
By advertisers’ dreams,
By images and idols,
Flashing screens,
And magazines,
A world unreal,
That sinks its victims
In a sea of debt
And disillusionment.

This leaning-forward life
Of get
And have,
And be,
Invents its own utopian hope
Beyond the hill,
And has no time
Simply
To sit,
And watch the clouds go by.

1999 in Dorset, England, after doing just that.
"The heavens declare the glory of God." Psalm 19:1

Caught short

There was an old woman from Dorset
Who forgot to fasten her corset
When she was in town
Her knickers also came down
 To save her face 
She had to race
To reach a water closet.

Easter-Wester and Resurrection

I
A few hours after April 9th began
My puppies yelping woke me, helping
Me be thankful for this holiday -
Easter day! Better yet: Resurrection Day
For Easter was pagan, named for Oestre
A Persian goddess (?) Yet Persia had early Christ-ians galore
In earlier daylight the further East we are
I'm grateful for my Family, a Friend in Africa,
And all of America (a Maryland lake, Artemesia)
And my kids' friend called Grandma Aurelia
As I celebrate the Resurrection hopes
"Old" writer-college friends Grady Dorset, Jim Link ...
Gone too soon, Jim being missed in Greenbelt
A town begun by the Roosevelts (Elanor had graced it)
But God, Creator Love, gave us this idea:
Eternal Spring with Thy Maker - Jesus, for me - resurrection : death and life in perfect intimacy
I'm so glad Nelson Mandela forgave - Jesus then became real for me

II
I sent out Resurrection Day messages, pics
Already in these wee hours. I bless you all
Shalom shalom in the Prince of Shalom
Yeshua haMeshiach: "Hope of Israel"

Cletihew Barnes

Dorset poet Wiilam Barnes they do say
a C of E rector in his day
Determined to de-saxonise
clothed his verse in dialectic disguise

Some World News

The western media will report less on the Ukraine 
As the worthy underdog.. as putin closes his grip
There, there is real understanding now that Russia
Is able to influence food supplies.. And energy
Also there will
Be reports soon of Ukranian atrocities, as putin holds 
More cards the western media will have no choice
Other than to balance their content  the pope is the
Way in for them ' he has gone from decrying putin
Although I believe he will say anything he's told to
Say by his cabal leaders..Maybe He's one of them?
Anyway to saying he may have been provoked? 
Well he did
See 23 places change allegiance, after the west
Promised not to move nato one inch further east
After East Berlin was annexed in the 1990s ) also any
Idea that Russian ships in Crimean ports are unusual
Will not be heard, neither will it be reported that British
Navy ships in Southhampton mean Britian will invade
Dorset.. I couldn't help that one ' LOL))) So there 
we have It.. Let's see if it pans out as I have written it.?

Old Wounds Never Healed

November 29, 1919

Dearest Janet,
I would love to come to your parents' Boxing Day Party.
I adore you. I want to marry you.
But if you are still angry I will understand.
Just give me a sign ~
I anxiously await your reply.

Forever yours,
Henry



In 2008, Janet Barrett, a guest-house owner in Weymouth, Dorset, UK, received a letter – an RSVP to a Boxing Day party invitation, which had been posted on 29 November 1919. It was 81 years late! (dramatized content)

In Others Words

In the summertime 
On a summer holiday
The north wind doth blow

***

Line one - Ray Dorset.
Line two - Bruce Welch/Brian Bennett.
Line three- Unknown/traditional.

8 March 2021
Contest: Life at a glance
Sponsor: Mystic Rose Rose

Dunkirk

Lines of youth on forsaken beach,
waiting forlorn for an unseen saviour.
Jagged metal machines of war lying lifeless,
once proudly ridden beyond the sea.

Billows roll where bodies now loll,
turning over in crimson foam.
The living watch, all eyes upturned
where riveted winged eagles clash.

Brave lads they all though terrified,
stood somber mid the bombs fall,
and yearned for Dorset Coast
whence came an unlikely fleet.

Remember them, you lads today,
forget nought they fought again.
They once young as you,
those lines upon the beach.

John Robertson

John had an accident with a motorbike, 
Which left him paralysed from the waist, 
So since then Sonar’s have been his like, 
Three to five sailor boats which haste. 

He’s from Sunderland and he trains hard, 
At Weymouth & Portland Sailing Academy, 
Born in February 1972 on the 11th card,
He sails with mates Stodal, Thomas manly.

In the fine Disabled World Championships, 
In the mixed sonar, 2003 Athens, Greece,  
The team of three won bronze for their lips, 
‘Cos their team work paid off with grease.  
 
2005 and Sonderborg in southern Denmark, 
The trio took the gold, so 2006 and Australia, 
Perth, the three took another gold quark: 
2010 in Medembilk, Holland, silver weather.

In 2011 in Weymouth, Dorset in England,  
The three of them made the silver position, 
And in 2012 at Charlotte Harbour’s sand,
They gave a fine bronze medal exposition. 

In the London 2012 games they came in 5th 
So 9th in Rio, and John also plays tennis, 
No phobias, his hero’s Valentino Rossi, pith,  
And his favourite venue is Perth, simply bliss.

A Bright Star

Nearly two hundred years have gone by
When a man left these shores to die
In foreign lands he did go, but on his way
He landed in Lulworth Cove for a day.

What would I have said to him on that beach?
For his gift to the world to me he could teach
In that sweet short stay, in that tiny bay,
He wrote a beautiful sonnet in just a day.

Only to depart in the mist of time gone by
Makes the sadness of his departure cry
But he did what he said he ought
And thought his poetry came to nought.

And entered eternity a Bright Star.

Apr 2013


Note: Keats is one of my favourite poets, in 1820 when John Keats went to Rome to die he landed on the Dorset coast believed to be Lulworth Cove and wrote the sonnet Bright Star

Picture Perfect Ii-

The Dorset Naga

world's hottest chilli pepper

a contorted face

The Physician

At the end of a dry, harsh August, as
Autumn slowly descends upon Whitechapel, 
I begin my vicious practice.
From Buck’s Row to Hanbury Street,
I make each house call brief.
My methods most precise—each cut, so deep,
So effectively fatal, soft and discrete.
A secondary incision—
Across my new friend’s abdomen—
Completes my process.  
Showcases the subtlety of my craft.  
In Dutfield’s Yard, with a sharpened stroke,
I slice open her tender throat.
In Mitre Square in public view
The next victim shall follow suit.
At Miller’s Court, off Dorset Street,
I complete my grotesque exhibition.  
With this sequence of dissections,
I have ushered in the twentieth century.
My ritual of dominance, with my altar—
The architecture of London herself.

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