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Neil Mcleod Poem
Hot Air
The name of that wind is Satana
It’s hot and it’s dusty and dry,
Don’t call the wind Santa Ana
In error, for that is a lie.
Saint Ann the mother of Mary
Is remembered in so many ways
But not for a wind that blows from the desert
And makes your skin and eyes craze.
In Nineteen O’ One a reporter
In error rushed his dispatch in
He wrote Santa Ana the rotter,
It is he that committed the sin.
The name is Vientos de Sataná
The wind of the devil that’s hot,
A weather man called it Santana
But that is a name it is not.
So we are left here in confusion,
Raymond Chandler back in ’thirty eight
In “Red Wind” to Santa Anas made allusion
As conditions the local folk hate.
The wind blowing in from the passes,
Curls your hair, makes nerves up tight,
Drying the air and scorching the grasses
And everyone’s edgy all night.
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2015
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Neil Mcleod Poem
I stood by the bridge
Gazing down at the greens
Of the trees on the banks
At the union of streams.
Through mossed balustrade
Reflected I'd spy
The spires of Magdalen
In watery sky.
Leaves on the water
Red, yellow and gold
By unseen currents,
The near bank hold.
Bright against grey
In light autumn shower
A shimmering halo
Above the stone tower.
Wide wavelets circling
The still picture flows
A fast spreading mask
Where the hidden fish rose.
By the far bank
The ripple passes
Halting the gaze
Of hanging grasses.
Thinned willow and elm
Where pigeons coo,
As in the past
They forever will do.
Now Michaelmas comes,
New faces appear,
But Oxford unchanged
Will greet the new year.
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2013
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Neil Mcleod Poem
It was from the roadside,
All crushed with battered wing,
That they retrieved that injured bird
Which could no longer sing.
All limp without a spark of life
No brightness in her eye,
The very life light drained away
They feared that she would die.
That pretty bird had not a prayer
Was all that could be said,
By those who saw her frail form,
She surely must be dead.
But soft within her battered chest
The wounded heart still fluttered
And from the souls of those who saw
A mercy prayer was uttered.
The uttering grew, it gathered strength
It echoed up to heaven
And God who knows and sees all things
Smiled on this life He’d given.
It seemed some task lay incomplete
A song remained unsung,
And deep within the spirit moved;
The healing had begun.
All of those who ministered
Who carefully made repairs,
The heart-struck congregation
Who offered up their prayers,
Were astonished at the blessing
As life returned once more,
Determined to praise God anew
More fervent than before.
For it was God preserved her
That she might sing again,
To lift her voice in chorus
To echo the amen.
No other explanation
Can possibly be made
Now we see His purpose in
The life for which we prayed.
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2017
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Neil Mcleod Poem
A Ship In A Bottle
My great Grand Father sailed to New Zealand on a ship called the Wild Deer in 1872. I have always loved ships in bottles, and one day decided I would drain a pretty bottle of its contents and put the inspiration back inside. It took three months to complete the project.
It sits there on the sideboard
Or on the mantle shelf,
And after such a long time
You don’t notice it yourself.
But should you have a visitor
Or younger child come by
It will spark interest anew
And gasps of “Me oh my!”
It’s then the curious wonder
How the ship was put inside,
And where the opening’s concealed
And was it hard to hide?
And if you put it in there
How many times you tried?
And if it went in through the neck
How could it be so wide?
It’s then you tell the story
Of going to the store
To find a bottle of good clear glass
With a shape worth planning for.
Dimple Haig is famous,
Carduh’s pretty fair,
The first one is triangular,
The other one is square.
The bottle must be decanted,
When empty cleaned and dried,
And a careful measure taken
Of the dimensions inside.
It’s then you render drawings
Of the ship you want to make,
And plan out going backwards
Every step you’ll have to take.
First you carve the hull
Of wood with grain that’s fine,
Then step the masts with hinges
So they fold down in a line.
You add the sails and rigging,
Check how they’ll erect
When’s time to pull the halyards
Through the bottle’s neck.
It takes months to finish
Doing a little every night,
I had my children watching
And remarking at the sight.
They saw me put in plasticine
To mold and shape the ocean
And carve wave crests with a spoon
To give the water motion.
When at last the time is right
And everything is ready
You carefully set the ship upon
The sea and hold it steady.
Then pulling on each halyard
The sails are slowly raised
And those who watch the process
Stand enchanted and amazed.
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2014
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Neil Mcleod Poem
Getting Back On Track
You can’t be tying a string around your finger
Every time you have to remember
Why it is you went into the kitchen,
Or what it was you came into the garage for anyway.
You stand in front of the fridge,
In a room cluttered with thousands of memory joggers-
A block of carving knives, that lasting gift from your wedding,
The painted rose on a plate from a grateful patient,
A colonial tea canister from Williamsburg
With a key to stop its contents being purloined,
And the gallery of photographs held by magnets on the door,
And it is as if you were gazing at some rebuilt city,
Which has been completely redesigned
After an atomic bomb has wiped
All the definitive land marks off the map,
Wondering why you are there,
And what pressing task,
Which was screaming for attention,
Caused you to sleepwalk,
And if the telltale signs of senility
Are already devastating your mind.
Then picking your way back to the bathroom
You peer into the mirror
Straining for the clue,
And with an Archimedean exaltation,
Discover the switch of memory
And reluctantly admitting your humanity,
Put your day back on track once more.
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2015
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Neil Mcleod Poem
L A Blue
Blue sky every day
In sunny Los Angeles,
An endless summer.
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2015
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Neil Mcleod Poem
The Growing Trees
When I was a younger man,
So many years ago,
I looked out of the window
To see them in a row,
Well established conifers
Growing on the hill,
Level with a tiled roof
Beyond my window sill.
Today I paused reflecting,
Gazing through the glass.
I see the trees grew taller
As those years come and pass.
Their trunks are soaring upwards,
Crowns stark again the sky.
While they shall all continue on
My life is passing by.
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2015
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Neil Mcleod Poem
Misconceptions so often prevail,
They rob us of honest detail,
They clutter the mind,
With notions that bind,
Of the cleverest female or male.
We really should root them all out,
Removing the reason to doubt,
That the tales we are told
By the young and the old
Are really worth bandying about.
To tell you the truth I despair
At the apple that fell through the air,
And struck Isaac’s head
Releasing the thread
Of the theory of gravity there.
When Washington’s dentures you view
It’s simply not right to construe
That they’re made out of wood
For wood is no good
That popular myth is not true.
Michelangelo, its widely known,
Lay on his back ’neath the dome
Of the Sistine to paint,
Well that’s something that ain’t,
So the next time you hear it please moan!
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2015
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Neil Mcleod Poem
Bedyet
It’s not time to go to Bedyet, I’ve frequently been told,
By people who won’t travel, be they four or nine years old.
And others even older won’t visit the Bedyetter
They leave it late, refuse to go, although they should know better.
Have you been to Bedyet, you really have to go
There’s something there for every one, I promise. I should know!
I’ve been myself, so many times, I know the places well.
And you should too, and if you’re quiet and listen I will tell.
The folks who go to Bedyet have heavy hooded eyes,
With droopy lids that seem as though they’ve grown to twice their size.
Their hair it seems disheveled, with whispey random curls
Not at all they way we choose to see on proper boys and girls.
The Bedyetter are fliers, they cross the colored skies
And when they fall they safely land as if on rubber thighs.
And each of the Bedyetter, from babes to those full grown
Can tell a tale that’s better than the best you’ve ever known.
The Sandman’s a Bedyetter, a busy chap is he,
He visits every dreamy head before the morning tea.
And when you get your cuppa you may feel a little grain
Like sugar on each eyelid, and he’s the one to blame.
Some of the folks in Bedyet have mouths that open wide,
With long and breathy smiles, and teeth moving side to side.
And arms bent at the elbows that seem to point the way,
For others that will follow them before the end of day.
The children there are dreamy their thoughts just run astray
And they don’t seem to hear too well, no matter what you say.
I even heard it said that some have let their faces droop,
So far down to the table that they wind up in the soup.
But all will wind up cozy when you travel to that land
And though you don’t expect it, things always go as planned.
Just pack yourself off early, and always floss and brush,
And take yourself to Bedyet and join the rest of us.
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2015
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Neil Mcleod Poem
Midnight at Blackfriars
The city spires are hidden,
It’s getting colder fast,
It feels as though we might have
Some snow this month at last.
The wind sweeps keenly through St. Giles(1)
The hour is getting late.
Fleeting forms across the scene,
Are making for the gate.
December is upon us,
The year is wearing thin,
Parishioners from town and gown
Now are gathering in.
Rosy cheeks are shining,
There’s a spirit of good will,
We’re coming in for Midnight Mass
The Christmas Eve Vigil.
Forgotten is the riot
Of Saint Scholastic’s Day,(2)
To celebrate the Savior’s birth,
We worship now and pray.
Conjoining with the acolytes
Dressed in cassock’s white,
We’re caroling together,
Upon the holy night.
A gallant in best evening wear,
Bow tie and cummerbund,
And a high-heeled damsel on his arm,
Is down from Summertown.
A staff nurse from the Radcliffe,(3)
Whose shift was at an end,
Was seated close beside them
Clutching at her friend.
There the widow all in black,
Who cleans the votive stands,
Holds her missal open
With stubby fingered hands.
She blends with the congregants,
Ignoring the celebs,
And is back up for the service
From somewhere in St. Ebbs.(4)
A student in thick sweaters
And ragged scarf of grey
Is seated on the furthest aisle
Hair all in disarray.
Across the nave the prayer chairs,
Range back in their rows,
Filling up with congregants
In coats and gloves and throws.
In from the rear the friars process
With candles all aglow,
Up the side aisle to the chancel,
Caroling as they go.
Above their heads upon the walls
Are stations of the cross,
Reminders set in stark relief
Of this night’s final cost.
We see the prior in chasuble
For the apse proceeding,
To celebrate communion
And give the sacred reading.
The greatest story ever told
Unfolds with familiar ring
Filling our hearts with the promise
Of Christ the new born king.
Then with the service over,
We make for the hall below,
Where cocoa and mince pies and sherry
Are served before we go.
Outside the snow is dusting
The chained bikes in the Fair,
Contented now we homeward fade
Through the Christmas air.
(1)Saint Giles Fair - Convergence of the Banbury and Woodstock Roads in Oxford extending south the Magdalen Street by Martyrs Memorial.
(2) The St Scholastica Day riot of 10 February 1355
(3) Radcliffe Infirmary - The first Oxford Hospital
(4) St Ebbes is a district of central Oxford, England,
Copyright © Neil Mcleod | Year Posted 2013
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