Mary King’s Close
Set underneath the cobbles
Below the Royal Mile
The close is dimly lit
You can visit there awhile
Go back into the past
Explore the narrow wynds
Live the overcrowding
Get inside their minds
Look out for scurrying rats
As they scavenge to survive
A battle of the shrewd
Where rats appear to thrive
See where chamber pots were emptied
Into the streets below
Gardyloo the warning shout
The one you needed to know
Within these city walls
Is where the plague broke out
Death was more than likely
Of that there was no doubt
Many people perished
A horrible painful death
Suffocated and poisoned
To their very end breath
Not all the dead have gone
Some spirits stayed behind
It’s a fact that they are evil
Sinister, they are inclined
If your heart starts racing
Hairs rise upon your neck
A spirit may be lurking
Very slowy - - turn and check
If a spirit you do disturb
To the exit I advise
For these spirits are demonic
Heed my words and be wise
Breath of the North
It comes from the north
Calling me to follow as it blows
Bringing scents of the hills and sea
Filling my soul and senses
Drawing me back to times
Past and some days ago
Yearning for sun sets glow
Across the firth where Dolphins play
Beneath the cliffs where seabirds go
And in the fields crops ripen and grow.
Fair blows the wind sighing
Extolling me to follow
Like a summer swallow
To where once grew a boy
Into a man to forget his toy
But blowing pain into the mind
Stravaig the paths and the wynds
Breathe in creations air
To find the boy within the man.
A.P.McIntyre 15/7/2012.
Sea the wight-capped waives rolling inn the see;
here the howling wynds, wile I’m standing hear,
whale and forme hi waives. Theirs eh jumping wail-
tale upp inn the ayre! This should make gneiss tail
two tel wen eye get holm. Butt now theirs too
blew wales inn wiaves- there water spouts just blue!
Whether getting worse, kneed two sea weather
it's my thyme too lieve since wynd now blows it’s
grate, whiled sounds awl across the see, witch great
allowed and shriek. Could bee, I’m knot aloud
write hear two stay- dew knot want gnus too right,
“Sum man fell inn the see and payed the some
witch cost his life from storms angry whiled which.”
Week legs mite make mi sync and fall; eh weak
wood pass before they fined mi with eh would
bored inn my grippe from roe boat beet and board
bye waives and whild wynds that kame and flue buy.
Eye no, its thyme too lieve, cum back wen aye
cee com, and eye can stay eh wile two sea
wails jump inn waives without the wynd’s whiled whales.
April 7, 2015
~2nd Place~
Contest: Only Homo’s Allowed
Sponsor: Jerry T. Curtis
Judged: 04/30/2015
(Homophones)
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