© 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.