© 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.