Shires Poems | Examples

Currency joins New York Jazz

Currently the security profit programs is hesitant 
Sista bad ways the masters degree premonition holder has eliquented us inside of the never growing fortress of people's passed economic struggles as mimes

Yet the obstructioni zing doth not permit a permit 

Ye of vittles portion lacks the fortitude of good days in labor 

Between Camarillo livibility lengths and Newbury Park rotations as the same 

None may improvith stations whilst sista bad feelings goes into debt full idea administration worry

It was autumn 
Before the round 
Something shivered 
Tools wasn't full
Vans change, tools out strange the work 
All damseled
In respite
Shane apprehension grovel
Lost beside his print 
Finding his father's name
April,  too new city managers 
Yorks and shires bereaved
I wasn't your only father's rent
The war counted on better rays 
Rates add fits
In byes gondolas say
To write wrongs
Haven't worried sensibly
The round became my leaving board 
A pond as his mother's springs 
She sheltered little in life
Deathly burden to me
Manhattan Surrender my moons light

Australia I urge this course'

Be not drawn in other directions be not' for such' or other cause
Or any external wars.' Make fixing your country the ultimate
Chore..Call out corruption.' And examine your laws return
To God give Him trust, He will guard the shires and
Your soverign shores.'

WORDPLAY

WORDPLAY

Scores of work to read and think deeply
Stores of enthusiasm can reduce steeply
Snores are heard and can attract curses
Snorts from a few less tolerant nurses
Sports offer very different entertainment
Shorts that sometimes lack containment
Shirts bearing logos of sponsors’ brands
Shires with accents nobody understands
Spires of churches that need renovation
Spares at the ready for every occasion
Spores of inspiration should be heeded
Shores with grass dunes, never weeded
Shares in publishing may remain frozen
Stares received if no works are chosen
Starts and endings complete all verses

Prologue To Alternative Earth

Imagine a world that
Could have been
A little more rural 
Of forest and green
Steam is the power
Coal is still king
And they rely a lot
On the clockwrk spring.

A much slower world 
As Shires pull loads
Along its network of 
Near empty  roads.
Canals are  still busy
Towpaths are still clear
Though it’s more likely
Steam barges will  appear..

Eyes closed to imagine
Let your brain give birth 
To that  concept of
My alternative Earth. 
 If you are now ready
To accept that  scene
Then I’ll tell you my stories
Of what might have been.

What He Calls Heart

The thing he calls heart 
Man’s for long lost beyond trace 
For lifelong to part. 
What heaves in his hollow case 
Keeps him alive, runs dead cart.
-------------------- 
Gulzaar | 02.04.2023 | Tanka
Poet’s note: Translation, from my collection of lyricist Gulzar’s short shires.

Woh cheez jise Dil kahate hain¸
Ham bhul gaye hain Rakh kar kahin

The Life For Me

For far shires beyond the western red sun
  I’m leaving the Land of the Long White Cloud -
to journey across the far horizon
  where cockatoos in bloodwoods sing aloud.
Trading in my black singlet and swanndri 
  for a swag and a croc tooth akubra,
so hoo-roo Long Bay and gidday Bondi
  where blokes drink Bundy Rum, not Coruba!
Leaving a world where reality bites
  for the Dreamtime People’s great southern land -
outback bushies and cork hat urbanites 
  in the convict Land of the Long White Sand.
Now the Sunshine Coast is the life for me
in palisades and canals by the sea.


               Written: July 1997

Mother Nature

by Joseph Christopher Liguori and Robert James Liguori

Shh. Can’t you hear her talking to me. 
Her voice is the whisper from a tree. 
Sweet arms are the branches that grab me tight, 
And lift me towards the light. 

She’s the angel of the shires 
With rolling honey combs of bees to put out my fires 
She’s as strong as oak, though soft as pine, 
And her embrace soothes me like delicate wine.

Her sweet breath gives me life. 
Being near removes my daily strife. 
Tender leaves shade me from my fears. 
Powerful roots dry up my tears.

Her jealous friends lack the thorns,
So they attack with frenzied acorns.
But she protects with her ancient stature
For here is my girlfriend, Mother Nature.

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Call To Arms

(* 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 cobwebs in your sheds.
To arms!
 Unshackle pasting tables, wipe the trays
for paint rollers not used in many moons,
the paint brushes that have seen better days
left to go hard in pickle jars since June.
To arms!
The squeaky front gate mocks you as you pass,
the peeling paper teases in the hall,
Greenhouse offends thine eye with broken glass
house number upside down upon the wall.
To arms!
Onward, onward you face your foe alone
tirelessly strive, no weaknesses, no flagging,
your only ally, her true colours shown
through bouts of sharp critique and constant nagging.
To arms!
We few, we happy few with common bond
will tackle each new challenge with no fear
for though  the day be long you see beyond,
when all is done you're off to have a beer.
To arms!

Brexit Sonnet 46 - a Brexit Gift

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 with stranger names I do not know?
Wonder or Never look a perfect fit, 
Where puff and bluff are seen to run the show.
At Camden’s line, keep thy steely gaze
‘Gainst escaping toffs with stupid schemes.
A channel bridge, some bodies to be raised;
And poetic gaffes galore with clumsy themes.
   So watchtowers keep your silent, weary guard.
   See him escaping, blow your whistle hard!

 ©Keith Murphy

The Great Meadow

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 in England, so it's opined
Though a child beside an endless Kansas prairie
Beneath heavens that can be reached by heart and mind
No distant scene but a piece of homeland friendly

As I walked its hidden life became revealed
A  pheasant ran with ungainly comic indignity
A startled cat leapt  from a nest concealed
And a sky lark rose to sing an unfettered symphony

Across the counties were such prospects planned
From days when mighty shires hauled their wains
And still the fields and hedgerows shape the land
So let it ever green and pleasant remain

Collections In Verse

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 fox,
shires stabled and boxed.

Business of ferrets,labour with moles,
span of mules in a string of foals.
Harrass of horse,husk of hares,
rake of colts with a stud of mares.

Drove of cattle,with a tribe of goats,
downs of sheep,pack of stoats.
Spider cluster in a thatch,
brood of game,hatched,matched
and despatched.

Circumspice 1

Part 1 - London's Medieval Minster

Cathedrals come, cathedrals go, 
but none impresses or enthralls 
(summer drought or winter snow, 
sparkling springs or foggy falls) 
quite like the Church of Old Saint Paul's. 

Six hundred years this marvel stood, 
surviving earthquakes, wars and fires: 
vaulting not of stone, but wood, 
with one of Europe's tallest spires, 
so plainly seen from eastern shires. 

The doors of transepts north and south 
(the shorter "arms", that is to say) 
were never closed. Each monstrous mouth 
admitted strollers, night and day, 
like Shakespeare, off to see a play. 

But nothing lasts. All things must pass. 
No permanence is ever found. 
Grief follows joy. All flesh is grass. 
First, the mighty spire was downed, 
then the roof (by now unsound) 
was razed completely to the ground.

7th Five Fabulous Fun Footles Not For Contest

The Thames
Pretends 

To be 
A sea,

But knows
It flows

Through towns 
And gowns

And spires
  And shires. 


(One last one.)

Trowbridge, a Tanka

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

by gail

Regency Dandy

This Regency Dandy flying across the river,
                        
                        Jumping Jack Flash of kingfisher blue that 

              I was lucky t see, this dainty dandy of English rivers and streams.

                         A compact colourful apparition my sore eyes waited some 

                    Sixty years to see, others boast much earlier visitations of these

              Bluish-green, orange and red feathers attached to a Cyrano De Bergerac 

                                                     rapier beak,

              Outshining the honking harrying flotillas of Canada geese not capable of 

              Competing with this fisher of minnows, as we strolled across the Georgian 

              Bridge at Blatherwycke straddling the nonchalant flowing Nene of this 

                                                  shire of shires,

               Now of only one squire, but still many fine spires in this shire of Northampton.

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