At sweet sixteen she'd never been kissed
And then she met Miss Kuni Lynn Guist
A sweet Valentine
Would suit her just fine
And Mr. Wright would never be missed
The shame was relished
when met with wanting eyes
How I longed to be held
and open up for sexting blighs
When every thought I had to have was..
trust for shaming eyes
When ever trust I knew to see
was faith for moving thighs
When all at once a voice would say
don't move for what comes by
When at that time were fates what made
more safe come back for time
As at that light was one response
more plates come back to dine
When in that Hell more words go by
than sakes claw back on line
When everywhere each person's reach
brocks back for each to rine
Is everywhere each hopes the least
tore out from beast oblign
And every hope
all lost to man
unqueath
you'll cost to clan
When every time you waited for
was blessed more plate to find
When every fall where plate could tyne
was placed on death for kind
And calling all who feel the shame
to come down to the pain
When even love's past half that mind
And most flee post-bast bain
CALL OF THE TYNE
The river fog grey-green
Hides the silent piers
Of bridges which lead
To roads unknown.
The Tyne’s call of the deep -
Fog-horn, long missed
And far buried within me,
Shows the hidden way unknown;
Feels slowly cautiously
Through miles years
With low-pitch note,
Penetrates the unknown.
13 October 2019
TRAM BELL
Steep streets everywhere you played,
Where your football would roll away forever;
And sawdust spilt out of the butcher’s onto the steep sidewalk
Among the feet of the tram queue,
All listening keenly to hear the bell sounding
From the tram which was overdue.
All gazing distantly over the rainy Team Valley
And its mills and foundries turning coal
Into steel bridges and ship hulls
For the steeply entrenched Tyne.
At the bell’s sound, everybody shuffled forward,
Leaving the sawdust footprints
To be washed away in the rain.
Tyne Cot War Cemetery
White head stones in countless rows
Soldiers all from the Great War battles
Thousands dead now glory served
Each one a son and loved one
Victoria Cross engraved as heroes found
Known unto God a sad refrain written
On the stone “Their name liveth for Evermore”
A Christian Cross on top of a German pill-box
Sacrifice for the “War to End Wars” unfulfilled
A hundred years past but still it begs belief.
© Paul Warren Poetry
ONLY TWENTY YEARS
Who can know the future of twenty years
And discount the dim offerings of Gateshead?
What 12 year old can imagine
The emptiness of prairies in Montana
Or smell from fifty miles away Russia’s boreal forest
Or feel the rocky fossils of Donegal
Resisting the Atlantic combers
Or standing on a windswept Gateshead corner
Can hear the beauty of old Quebec French
Or collecting coal pieces in cobbled streets of Teams
Can feel the blueness of flax fields in Alberta
And crossing the Tyne bridge
Can see over the Roebling bridge
On the Ohio at Cincinnati?
Intrduction -Byron’s Sonnet
If I can say the lines that make her mine,
and stay from speaking trite words she would hate,
but rather play her praise of golden weight,
then homage I would make gods so divine.
For weeks now she’s been ever close in mind,
just knowing I will be soon introduced,
Lord James hath promised daughter seen reclused
when she returns from Convent River Tyne.
A maiden fair taught by nuns marriage age,
whom I saw Yule past close to parents keep
arriving late in a rich handsome stage.
Now patient waiting time’s reward will reap
surcease of strain her close presence engage
with hope instilling joyous great heart leap.
ONLY TO THE DOG
Dialect abandoned with education and travel
Now only speak Geordie to the dog on walks
In unguarded moments
Awkwardly recalling how the pronunciation goes:
No longer an unhesitating morass of flat vowels
Floating on the muddy gurgle of the Tyne,
Like your long-ago first wife’s name, coming unerringly
To your lips in the presence of the second.
.................................................
Geordie is a speech dialect in Northern England's Tyne valley.
SUNLESS IN NORTH SHIELDS
It’s painful when the sea wind
Drives rain into the eyes
At the end of Yeoman Street,
Where I waited so long for that girl in the yellow raincoat,
Who never came.
Seagulls mocking down distant streets
Of Utrillo roofs and closed doors.
At her absence I became an empty sack of strength.
Instead of a warmth of yellow and an inspiration of kisses,
There was only a solitude of tears.
I squinted against the rain, and the whiff of fish,
And the sunless world -
Rough tussocks sloping down to the murky Tyne,
Row of houses huddled against wind and spray,
Sprouting mushroom chimney pots
With jagged edges like jester’s hats.
...............................................................
Note...North Shields is a small coastal port in North East England, always cold even in summer.
Other poems of mine, similar to this, are available at
https://www.fictionmagazines.com/magazines/five/
NEWCASTLE - NORTHUMBRIAN CITY
Half-English, half-Scot: martial roots in the past,
Newcastle - once dark from its coaly drama -
A breathless place ever ready for change.
Shudder at the Keep and Black Gate’s near defeat
By the march of Victorian railway builders ;
In narrow streets now widened,
Shiver with winds from sea or moors.
Tyne, father of this town
Famed for guns and ships,
Is o’erleaped by a platoon of steel bridges
Grabbing the south bank, binding the city to England.
GATESHEAD MUSIC
Not a storybook place of rhymes and chimes of bells
My childhood England was dark and dirty,
And instead of the skirl of bagpipes or the weeping fiddle,
There were factory sirens
And clashing steel loads on trucks to the docks.
Caught between black coal and brown ale,
I searched the streets for music and found nothing.
One day I never returned -
And note by note forgot their tuneless heritage,
Now in the silent moments of creeping age and grown children,
The steep pitch of streets down at the waters of Tyne
Draws my mind and probes the waves
Where the sound of coal dust still echoes -
And always will.
And I hear again the empty places, dark places, the places singing
My name in dialect I have long abandoned.
Somehow their music is not off-key;
And my inner melody
Seems to merge into that blackened score.
I hear its siren song and cannot shake free
Its bass notes from the balladry of my life.
Surrounded by the glitz and frippery
the ribbons, bells and stars all meant to warm you,
on the mantelpiece, parading with the cards
the one that silently ' regrets to inform you'.
Muffled merriment, jaded joy
from those who gently tiptoe round your loss,
they turn their heads to gaze up at the tree
as you turn yours to gaze down at the cross.
How many times a century ago
was this scene playing out from street to street,
as far away in muddied bloodied fields
the unknown sank beneath their comrade's feet?
You walked those trenches, too, not long ago,
at Ypres bowed our heads for the last post,
stood speechless at Tyne Cot in rows of stone,
raised a glass to those that fell and drank a toast.
Then only yesterday the word came through
you'd lost a bitter battle of your own,
this time the only casualty was you,
and so I raise this glass to you alone.
Sleep well, my friend
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Dackel was nine
He sniffed the breeze for the traces of Rhine
In the show there was a foe
Badger was biting his toe
He whined and sent badger a valentine
Roger the badger went to Kebbit the rabbit
A sneak and scratching dick was badger's habit
And he gave the buck a ruck
Dackel's valentine guck
"We really got sucked in by this muck"
WASHINGTON POST Saturday, February 14
Fifty Shades of Grey - Valentine's Day
Badger Beauty got a card from Curious, lively, charming, and brave Droozy
Suffering from tunneling syndrome
This Dachshund may be right for you.
Six minutes to six. I’m ready for tea,
The forecast for shipping – what is in store ?
My chair is a vessel far out on the sea,
Rain, moderate or good, occasion’ly poor.
There’s warning of gales in areas all,
The Low in the Faeroes promises more,
South-easterly, storm force, tending to squall,
Rain, moderate or good, occasion’ly poor.
Home by the fireside no sailor am I,
But share in the ritual, listen in awe,
Watch the storm brewing and see the clouds fly,
Rain, moderate or good, occasion’ly poor.
Fisher, Tyne, Dogger and Forth, German Bight,
Deepening depression and gales by the score
In Plymouth and Portland, Dover and Wight,
Rain, moderate or good, occasion’ly poor.
Not easy to concentrate, riding the swell –
Turn up the volume against the wind’s roar,
The man from the ‘Beeb’ has conjured up hell !
Rain, moderate or good, occasion’ly poor.
Caerphilly is a small town
Famous for its cheese
Has a castle looks like its falling down
With a Moat around with geese
Outside now stands a large Statue,
It needed to be big he would boast.
Thats what the nature of this man
Big, but stupid loved by most
Its a statue of Tommy Cooper
Comedian a magician that fails
Wore a Fez as his trademark
Born here in Wales
The sculptors name is James Done
A great friend of mine
Has a wicked sense of humour
Smiling all the time
Jim isnt Welsh boohoo
Though he's lived here a long time
Regards himself as proxy Welsh
Though his accent sounds like Tyne
The day Tommy's statue was presented
Was done by Sir Anthony Hopkins no less
Who mentioned he would have loved
To have met Tommy in the flesh
Now it stands there for all to see
The larger than life comedian
Well done Jim your Bronze is f.c.
Can even be seen in *Torfaen"
The link goes directly to the Tommy Cooper site showing pictures of the statues. Mentioning James Done the sculptor.
Torfaen (torfine) is an area next to Caerphilly
f.c. First class
http://www.thetommycoopersociety.org/statue.aspx
Dated 23 January 2013
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