© roy ballard 2013

Relic

Your garden now is empty, barren ground,

not desolate of flowers but of you.

A ring I gave you was there lost and found

among the leaves that fitful breezes blew.

Today I wish that twist of gold still there,

a buried treasure in the soil you tilled

when scents of roses floated on the air;

where you watched stars when busy days were stilled.

It does not rot; far better had it stayed,

a little crock of gold by fortune spared

for that small acre where the gift was made,

a lasting relic of a pleasure shared.

Yes, there are things, delighting us when found,

that would be better left beneath the ground.

Good night! Good night! I cannot say

I want the end of this good day

for it was hallowed when we kissed

but days must pass or else be missed.

© roy ballard 2013

 

 

Into your song I gradually dissolve;

you whisper in the dusk, the twilight dies.

Through you I see eternities revolve

for love allows me vision through your eyes

and you through mine for we are both in thrall

to that sweet essence that now unifies

my willing soul with yours, commanding all.
 By Muraski Shikibu (974-1031) daughter of Fujiwara no Tametoki 

My thoughts, like drops of morning dew,

my dreams, unsteady butterflies,

are scattered when I think of you:

my love, my fate, my lucky prize.

Wild as I am, I cherish, clasp

my butterfly but still it flies

or perishes within my grasp.
Muraski Shikibu (974-1031) daughter of Fujiwara no Tametoki .

The sound of footsteps leaving is a blade

between my shoulders piercing through and through.

I tremble as I hear your footfalls fade

while wishing every happiness for you.

Towards a barren shore I make my start

where I shall dwell in desolation made

by one to whom I rashly give my heart.

 Muraski Shikibu (974-1031) daughter of Fujiwara no Tametoki .

 

  

© roy ballard 2013

 

 

© roy ballard 2013

The skies are grey;

your scent is on my pillow

though you are far away.

                      

                        Tangles

We are such tangles, such a skein of knots,

our threads and schemes thrown in chaotic state

by Fortune’s spite, bad luck in drawing lots

or by the double dealing hand of Fate.

How can we find the ends of all these ropes

and matted loops that should be separate?

Good order is the object of my hopes,

the tangles coiled up and securely set.

How can I find you amid so much choice

of convoluted cords and trapping lines

without direction or reliant voice?

At every move another snare entwines.

Yet you, my love, who are myself on wings,

cure every catch however close it clings.

 

                         Where we walk 

How black the winter seemed despite the snow

but when you stood beside me, took my hands,

a journey ended that had far to go

though we were travelling to foreign lands.

I dwell where you are; there I make my place,

beside bright mountains or the shifting sea,

in foreign palaces or commonplace;

if you are there then it is home to me.

What is a home? It’s not of bricks and mortar

but moves upon the earth like wind and water;

it’s where we walk in kind tranquillity;

it’s where you give your hand and heart to me.

A cloud hangs on our mountains, once so clear,
yet they still shine for me when you are near.

                      

 

© 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.