© roy ballard 2012

A life is very like a holiday

Straight from a winged womb, passport controlled,
sent down a tunnel which no one gainsays
we come into a world both new and old
where things are said and done in unknown ways.
The language that we hear is honky-tonk;
the words we speak break every sort of rule.
The traders drink cassis and blanc de blanc
as we set off for loaves in morning’s cool
where those magnificents in fire machines,
the pompiers, at lunchtime take their ease
in scented shadows beneath evergreens,
on canvas beds, consuming loaves and cheese
while gorgeous girls pluck figs and give you one
and all is over soon as it’s begun.




Daffodils

They all wear the paper ruff,
the six-fold yoke of April, cruel lord.
They flaunt the colours of their noble lines
on herald trumpets coloured orange, red
or sulphur yellow or the palest peach,
exclusive ensigns of ancestral dye.
For only those well-born
are fit to dandy in his dire court,
to bend and bow before the shifting winds
of chancy April;
who brings hail despite the sun;
breaks necks despite beauty;
and of a sudden often lays them low.