Category: verse

Childish Song, No.5 – without refrain.

Where fragrant blossoms lit up the day,
Now dried out dead head sticks decay.
Once vibrant reds and golds and hues
Are now but fifty shades of brown.
Those bright blue skies with fluffy clouds
Are grey and muddled, dull as death,
And rain falls down like bitter tears
My dreams and hopes to drown.

Where warmth and light made our joy,
Now half-light dank and damp deploy.
Once loud and happy songs of birds
Are now a whisper or a hush.
Those sun filled days without a care
Are choked with mud, and with despair,
And my tears commingle with the flood
My heart and soul to crush.

Ben A Harvey
February 2014.

© Ben A Harvey. All rights reserved.

A new addition to my occasional collection of Childish Songs. I hope you find it of interest.
Gogwit.

Childish Song, No. 3 – without refrain.

Chalky alkaline blues
and pale pastel pinks
Acid reds and yellows
And every shade of green.
Every hue in nature
The spectrum and creation
Side by side, together
In the Garden I have seen.
 
Ovate, Palmate, Pinnate
Lanceolate, Digitate
Simple leaves and compound leaves
And shapes of every kind.
Every form conceivable
In endless combination,
Side by side, together
In the Garden I will find.
 
(C) Ben A Harvey
July 2013CE.

Church Street

“Are you going to Ibiza?“

Smart-casual bar disgorges
Tall, summer frock well-filled
And heels click-clack on to
The pavement.  Loud, confident,
Cultivated big girl’s voice, as fake
As her tan, as real as
The extra height her shoes afford.

Indistinct low muddy voice lost
In reply; no-one of importance.
“Why not?” incredulous, contemptuous,
Supercilious, arched interrogatory
With plucked brows and painted
Expression of perpetual surprise.

Indistinct low muddy voice lost
In reply; no-one special, outclassed.
I do not need to stop, to look
Behind but laugh out loud
And continue on my walk.

Ben A Harvey,
July 2013

(c)

© Ben A Harvey. All rights reserved

Shout, shout, up with your song!

Shout, shout, up with your song!
Cry with the wind, for the dawn is breaking;
March, march, swing you along,
Wide blows our banner, and hope is waking.
Song with its story, dreams with their glory
Lo! they call, and glad is their word!
Loud and louder it swells,
Thunder of freedom, the voice of the Lord!

I reproduce the first verse of Ethel Smyth’s “The March of the Women” (1911) in honour of the Women Chainmakers’ Festival 2013 – Saturday 8 June in Bearmore Park, Cradley Heath, B64 4DU.

Mary MacArthur – the pioneering founder of the National Federation of Women Workers – organised and represented the poorly-paid and hitherto unorganised women chainmakers of Cradley Heath winning the right to a fair wage for them and many others on a pittance. The strike/lock-out lasted 10 weeks in 1910.

Mary was also an activist believer in universal suffrage, hence my reference to this contemporaneous song, Ethyl Smyth’s gift to the women’s suffrage movement and its anthem.

So here are some photographs taken on Saturday 8 June 2013, Cradley Heath High Street as the banner procession moved from the Mary MacArthur Memorial to Bearmore Park.

1234

 

The weather stayed fine. Gogwit was on duty as a TUC steward, closing off the High Street to allow safe passage to the procession, hence the sparse and relatively poor quality pictures from my iPhone.

A brass band – all the way from Durham – headed the parade made up of Trade Unions, Trades Councils, labour organisations and other activists, led by Mary MacArthur – actress, obviously!

I wonder what this dynamo of an organiser would think of the events that unfolded following her death, from cancer, in 1921: Of the great popular gains – she died before her ideal of universal suffrage was realised; Of the ‘Spirit of 1945’ and the Welfare State; Of a population who’d ‘never had it so good’ and the ‘white-heat of technology’ and ‘the-pound-in-your-pocket’ to Saltley Gates, The Three-Day Week, The Winter of Discontent and the conservative backlash – Thatcher to Cameron, Orgreave to the Riots.

Your guess is as good as mine but it is my guess is that she’d have been in the thick of it.

 

Two New Verses.

Childish Song, No.2 – without refrain.

If you ever meet somebody,
Somebody you fall in love with,
When you meet that somebody,
Surely you must tell them;

Tell them that you really love them,
Love them and adore them only:

Or however will they ever know,
Know just how you feel toward them?
How will they know that it’s alright,
Alright that they feel this way too?

Ben A Harvey
May 2013.

© Ben A Harvey. All rights reserved

Real Men: A Lament.

Real men have no manners.
Real men have no grace.
Real men never say ‘please’ or ‘thank you.’
Such things simply have no place
In a real man’s world.

Real men do not sit by bedsides.
Real men do not stay to hold your hand.
Real men’s eyes never brim with tears.
Such things – such things – have no place
In a real man’s world.

Real men go on expeditions.
Real men return after you have died.
Real men place lilies on your grave.
‘To have and to hold’ has no place
In a real man’s world.

Real men will start a charity.
Real men will raise money in your name.
Real men will say it is what you’d have wanted;
But what you wanted had no place
In a real man’s world.

Ben A Harvey
May 2013.

© Ben A Harvey. All rights reserved.

A Childish Song…

This has been kicking around inside my head for the past few days, or so.

Childish Song, No.1 – with refrain.

I do not know why the sky is blue,
It just seems this is right.
Learnèd souls will tell me how
My eyes fill with reflected light.
I wonder if I always knew
Or whether I was told –
That the sky is blue.

I do not know why a fire is hot,
It just seems to be the case.
Learnèd souls will tell me how
Radiant heat falls on my face.
I wonder if I always knew
Or whether I was told –
That a fire is hot.

I do not know why the night is dark,
It just seems that this is said.
Learnèd souls will tell me how
The Sun has gone to bed.
I wonder if I always knew
Or whether I was told –
That the night is dark.

And I do not know why love must hurt,
It just seems to be the way.
Learnèd souls will tell me how
There is nothing they can say.
‘Though I wonder if I always knew
I suspect that I was told –
That love must hurt.

Ben A Harvey

© Ben A Harvey. All rights reserved