© roy ballard 2012

 

 

Within a faded attic of the mind

I saw you; it was dusty with despair,

with dry, dead leaves on flowers left behind,

with bleaching silk and curtains, half-drawn blinds

and then I thought saw you standing there

within this faded attic in my mind.

I saw you there but words I could not find;

too many words had flown and left me bare,

like leaves that wilt on flowers left behind.

You called my name and whispered something kind;

your cherished voice sang in the arid air

within a faded attic of the mind.

Love lost for words grows empty and confined

to hang on what a wilted stem can bear

like leaves that dry on flowers left behind,

like flower buds that never did unwind

for vanished seasons left them hanging there,

within a faded attic of the mind.

© roy ballard 2012

      Love song

You little, bright-eyed wanton,

who lately left me smiling,

of love you have convinced me

with every kind beguiling

but so convince me every day

for love is wont to slip away

with swifts and swallows flying,

to leave a lover all aheap

and everybody crying.

I see the garden where you are

and feel perpetual pining

to search the heavens in your eyes

and count the stars there shining.

At night I see a desert place

with stars above its sandy face

with you and me reclining

though not a star is half as bright

as you and me entwining.



             Lovers' flowers

What's the lover's favourite flower?
Gorse in bloom for me and Jenny,
golden blossoms, ten-a-penny,
every month and every hour.
What's the reason? Love's in season
when the gorse coes into flower:
every month and every hour.

Twenty skylarks set to singing,
twenty throats are none too many
when the songs are sung for Jenny.
Crowding on the day's beginning,
silver-throated, Jenny-doted,
scented music, darting,  flinging,
potent-pointed, sweet and stinging.

              Ski draglift phenomenon

The sun burns bright; the snow glares back

from slopes that dazzle as we pass

then change to unexpected black,

to shadows seen through darkened glass.

All night the moon was on the frost;

stars danced upon the shining snow;

in careless merriment they lost

their jewellery, flung to and fro.

Now gem-strewn, glinting, diamond-laced,

turned shadow still in sun’s full blaze,

the black snow flashes, crystal-faced,

and scintillates with coloured rays.

The crushed snow creaks; skis cut and hiss

but we are silent, lost in this.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,

I do not like your looks at all.

You have aged indifferently

and what I like I do not see.

No matter what the pose I strike

what I see I do not like.

Mirror can you really claim

that you and I still look the same?

Soldiers on parade, Eastbourne, 1938

Some preferred the piping men

and some preferred the drums

which have a yellow tiger skin 

portending as it comes;

with tum-te-tum and tum-te-tum

I skipped along beside the drum.

I preferred the whirling sticks,

the polished leather gear,

the tiger skin, the braided coat,

the splendid volunteer

whose beating drum aroused our cheers

and tum-te-tum for mother’s fears.

War came to the piping men

and to the drums came war

which flayed them like a tiger skin

with bloody tooth and claw;

with tum-te-tum and tum-te-tum

it took them all to kingdom-come

Daffodils

They all wear the six-fold ruff,

the badge of April, cruel lord,

but flaunt the colours

of their noble lines

with trumpets of the red

of sulphur yellow or the palest peach.

For only those well-born

are fit to dandy in his chancy court,

to bend and bow before the shifting winds

of changeable April;

who brings hail despite the sun;

who breaks necks despite beauty

who of a sudden often lays them low.

© roy ballard 2012


Here’s my hand, depend upon it

and my love whilst I’m alive;

I, my love and this poor sonnet

are contrived for you to thrive.

Summer turns to late September,

matched we are and yet star-crossed;

the breath of fate upon an ember

flares a light that had been lost.

History and rainy weather…

not for me to reason out

mystery and us together.

We shall live the season out

bringing just what needs to be:

me to you and you to me.

 
Multiple Sclerosis

She comes in slowly, hanging on the air.
'MS' I'm told 'She's only thirty-one'.
They park her gently 'til her name is called.
She's pushing on the stick. Can she get up?
Uncertainly she rises; dials whirl;
the altimeter spins; horizons fall;
the ground revolves; the airspeed clock goes mad.
Her head is high. By God, she's bound to stall
but up she gets and makes toward the desk.
I watch. She's leaving; careful with her things,
she mounts a tricycle and slowly checks
the brakes, trim, undercarriage, radiator, guns,
or so it seems to me. Then chocks away!
Beyond the tarmac enemies await
but out she rolls; intrepidly she flies
to join The Few who dare the dangerous skies.


















Harvest moon
once
seen
not
quite by chance
now fades in the daytime haze






Pheasant shoot at West Harling

Upon the painted meadows contented cattle graze;
the distant, towered churches brood on half a million days.
Black Carr is dank and sedgy but Micklemoor is high;
so here the Ancients settled and here their bones still lie.
The beaters whack the branches; the sportive springer runs;
they drive the tribe of pheasants to the boding line of guns.

Wrapped in the reeds by Roman Wood, the stag stands in alarm;
his ears pick up a warning, his nose the scent of harm.
The duck seeks hidden ditches, the fox forsakes his lair;
the pigeon flies across the sun and dodges like a hare.
The pheasant sounds his brassy bell, he whirrs his wings to fly
and every ear seeks out his voice and every gun the sky.

Across the heath and forest, six thousand years ago,
their fathers' dress was formal when hunting they would go.
In buckskin boots and sable, with feathers in their caps,
in moleskins and morocco they were well apparelled chaps.
And pheasants do require it, when coming to be killed,
that turn-out should be proper, be it corded, tweed or twilled;
the greasy mark of tractors, a trace of ferret stool
and hints of dogs and ditches bother nobody at all.

© roy ballard 2012


Words

To counterfeit reality with words
what limp, insipid and unbellied things
are languages. What twitterings of birds!
What dessicated, snaky scribblings!
Beyond the power of languages to tell
the soaring eagle lives in heaven's eye;
he needs no words to ride the wind so well
or tell him how it feels to rule the sky.
If it is real, the world in which we live,
then we must feel its chill upon the cheek;
the reassurance that the cold winds give
cannot be found in any words we speak.
We have to feel the snow upon its wings
to know the message that the cold wind brings.

© roy ballard 2012


Old lady

This is the time of Michaelmass blue daisies,
of frosts not far ahead and a late sun,
of a small, grey lady pausing, slowly walking,
who loves the long, blue daisies,
the late sun and the frosts not far ahead.
So she comes singing past the church and talking.
She's scattering her verses, one by one.
Like dust they dance the long, reflected trail
that glances off each casement in the sun;
they join with frankincense and galingale,
the smoke of silver censers, swayed and spun,
with sweet flag, cinammon and lemongrass.
Too old, these casements, to be worth the mending,
they yet flash sunlight to a distant pass
where one who waits can read what they are sending
and learns her songs which never have an ending.

© roy ballard 2012


Alzheimer's
I met him in the garden where the roses grow.
He stole away so secretly, so silently and slow.
Though now he can't remember me he smiles and says hallo
for the simple, social graces are the last to go.

The ivy and the bramble, the sharp and peevish sloe
are equal to the roses in the hoar frost and the snow
and summer turns to winter when they creep and overgrow
the roses in the garden that you used to know.

© roy ballard 2012


Field of dreams
As evening lets its fragrant shadows slip
beneath the cedar where we laugh and sip
the ghost of a player comes out from the corn
and asks in a low voice
'Is this heaven'.

I was there once
among the evening sun and the pine cones
picnicking on champagne and friendship.
Seven ballons passed:
one was all green diamonds;
another shot with rainbows, bubble blown;
one precious amber, glowing in the sun;
a cardinal came next in crimson silk;
a dark one, witchlike;
then one in navy-grey, no colour at all
and one in every kind of blue:
acid-blue, azure-blue, basic-blue, brilliant-blue,
Cambridge-, litmus-, navy-, prussian-, rhodanile-,
ultramarine-, xylenol-, xylidyl-,
deep sea-, south sea-, shallow sea, wine-dark sea-,
Oxford-blue and rook-black-ultra-blue...
to name but a few.
You could not tell where one blue stopped and another started.
They all laughed, these balloons, as they passed
and we all laughed back.
The owls and the sheep laughed too
and even the silver satellite
who had gone up far too high
and was no longer in this world.
A thousand heavens of the evening passed
unmarked, like strangers, all unknown,.
They left unrecognised, alas, alas,
wrapped in a moment each and quickly gone.

© roy ballard 2012


By Mount Ybba Moghrair (27 North by 41 East)

Inflaming at the end of night,
a sudden blaze of hostile light,
the sun comes darting on the tents,
the savage spires, the wild ascents
and barren lands where Moghrair stands.

No morning call of bird, no dove
foretells the flight of stars above;
the distant mountains fade and quiver,
they ripple on a molten river
and  morning comes with beating drums.

A dry wind hurries down the waste;
it chokes the breath, it shrivels taste,
the earth is cracked, the body spent;
a fiery light pours through the tent
and all thoughts yearn the night's return.

Dusk comes at last;  the air turns cool;
the cold moon rises from a pool
of airy deeps and purple trails,
of starry gowns and lacey veils.
The herdsman, weary of the sun,
gives thanks to God the day is done.
He goes to find the common fire,
a cup, a song, the heart's desire,
refreshing rest and talk of rain.
Dawn brings the deadly rays again.

© roy ballard 2012


Bluebell wood                                
Between the oaks and through the briars
and underneath the sycamores           
the bluebells run like spirit fires,
inflaming on the leafy floors;
besetting lovers, hotly yearning,
lying where the fire is burning.
Burning!
Burning, burning all aflame
with a fire they cannot tame.

The nettles grow near Bluebell Wood
and rafters rot beside a wall
where other lovers came and stood
their names and faces past recall.
Busy moles and worms interning,
leaves and mould to nettles turning.
Turning!
Turning, turning; fallen petals
unremembered turn to nettles.

It’s time that damps the lovers’ flame.
Impatient time cannot delay
obliterating every name
and rushing everything away.
Time is blinkered, love is ranging
ever further, ever changing.
Changing!
Changing, changing as we lie,
changing into love gone by.

 

Nocturne
Do you remember, white, white maid
how pretty was the couch we laid?
Oh! Call it heather, call it ling,
bare on the naked heath we’d cling,
close to the very noon of night,
the summer moon in roundest light
atop the trees while we, beneath,
in shadows black upon the heath,
like silver trout in some dark pool
each took the other one to school.
The summer moon, her face all red
from watching us, lit up our bed;
a friend who never hid her face
nor gave away our hiding place.
 

© roy ballard 2012

His and mine

His love is like a red, red rose
which on a thorny thick bush grows.
My lover's bush is soft and kind
and all its ways a joy to find.
His love is newly sprung in June
but mine goes on from noon to noon;
it sounds forever, deep in me,
outlasting any melody.





 

© roy ballard 2012

O mistress mine, sweet Venus can’t complain

that love’s dark altar that she set in you

I ever did neglect nor take in vain

but you commanded it and I withdrew.

See what a thing is love when it is whipped,

snake-tongued and left to live on air:

as fleshless as the bones left in the crypt

and tattered as the relic shrouds they wear.

Love cannot take its sustenance from showers

nor dine on nectar where the bee has sipped,

nor, like a swift, snatch flies from airy towers

nor fly at all with wings so cruelly clipped.
Since love is not a heavy coin to spend

the love you cannot give me you can lend.

© roy ballard 2012



Soldiers on parade

Some preferred the piping men

and some preferred the drums

which have a yellow tiger skin,

arousing as it comes

the call to skip beside the drum

with tum-te-tum and tum-te-tum.

I preferred the whirling sticks,

the polished leather gear,

the tiger skin, the braided coat,

the splendid volunteer

whose beating drum aroused our cheers

and tum-te-tum for mother’s fears. 

 

War came to the piping men

and to the drums came war

which flayed them like a tiger skin

with cruel tooth and claw;

with tum-te-tum and tum-te-tum

it took them all to Kingdom Come.

© roy ballard 2012



Your love's absence
Though winter is a gaoler it will bring,
to all its prisoners, relief assured
for winter dies and leaves another spring
but your love's absence is an age of ice
and memory a meagre squirrel's hoard,
misplaced or mouldered, carried off by mice,
too insubstantial fare for times so hard.
The mountain bird that's feathered winter white
that haunts the snows and icy ridge unmarred
finds joy and comfort on his windy height
and bobs with pleasure among rocks and drifts.
I, like a bear can only fall asleep
in some dark cave until the ice-age lifts
to dream of summer days and your sweet gifts.

© roy ballard 2012


Let's brighten England
Scots wha hae
purloined from me
an hour a day of light;  I say
let them be free
to go their way,
the clock set right
and Summer Time recovered be.

Epitaph for a lover
Bony fingers intertwine,
lonely fingers: all are mine.
In this grave my bare skull lies
seeing you with wanting eyes;
smelling all the scents you wore
though I wear a nose no more;
sighing, though I have no lungs
for another touch of tongues.
Bones recall the wanton time,
lying on you in their prime
with the coming waves, deep-sea,
washing over you and me,
finally to crash on shore,
now unmoving evermore

© roy ballard 2012


Ex-wife
At the Plough Inn
after mum's funeral
she gave him a certain look:
questing, tender, sorrowful, intense
and somewhat apprehensive.
It lasted long seconds
or perhaps a lifetime.




Hope makes cowards of us all
Your love oppressed him: it is worth too much;
base metal he was made for, not for gold
which makes him twice a traitor to himself:
for fear of spoiling what he loves to touch
and dread of losing what he longs to hold.

When you were smiling at him, understand
that as your summer dress blew in the wind
hope fled away in cowardly despair
though wishes hung and every hope was pinned
on walking with you always, hand in hand.

So now the stag stands in a wintry way;
in frosty fields he stamps a craven hoof
and waits upon your call in silent air
but he will venture close and offer proof
that hope returns when love has come to stay.



Pygmalion moments
Upon a time when things could not be worse,
like 1940 when we stood alone
our souls are lifted by a cheerful curse:
so Churchill to the errant microphone
when looking wryly at his spattered hat
'The bloody seagulls are dive-bombing us'
and every weary Tommy laughed at that
despite Dunkirk when Hitler missed the bus.

The misdirected hammer hits your thumb
and for a millisecond silence reigns;
how unalleviating to be dumb.
You dance upon the spot to ease your pain
which common imprecations don't dispel;
you utter words unfit to shove down drains
while sending grinning bystanders to hell.

Sad are the moments when one must be mute,
when there is simply no profanity,
no turn of phrase, no idiom to suit
and we must cling to our urbanity.
Once, post coitus, lying on the bed
she said to me 'You're great, I love you Fred
which with a sudden pang dissolved my joy
and left me speechless for my name is Roy.

© roy ballard 2012

            Aging ski-bum

T

ime shapes the mountains, did you know

that rivers fresh with melted snow

are washing everything away:

the great rocks to the plain below,

to running sand beneath your feet

that slides and flows between your toes

where surf or soil and rivers meet.

Age steepens mountains, this I know;

the hillside and the high plateau

where I was free to sport and play

are now forbid for if I go

I find that I cannot repeat

the slides and flows beneath my toes

that in my memory are sweet.

©

The Queen’s diamond jubilee

War and peace, war and peace,

she stayed with us through war and peace.

As a princess, young and charming,

when our lives were long of lease,

when the whole world was rearming

when the bombs began to fall,

when there seemed no hope at all

she was with there without a fuss,

wearing khaki just like us.

Shepherds never built a fold

that could guarantee their sheep;

every hurdle can be holed;

round the realm assassins creep,

bringing terror and defection,

vexing to a sovereign’s sleep.

Sixty years with fifty nations!

She deserves the celebrations.

Bring on flowers, banners, bunting,

marching soldiers, big ships hooting,

parties, galas, airplane-stunting,

bonfires, fireworks, gun-saluting,

flags aloft on poles and gables,

bands of brass with fifers fluting,

pies and jellies, trestle tables,

oxen roasters, sausage fryers,

revelry, celestial choirs

and everything that she desires.