Tag: naive

“Machin Road, B23” — New Verse.

I played in this pocket playground as a small child.

Machin Road, B23

Tarmac square, lifeless
Dull as ditchwater,
Laid out there
Blot on the landscape.
Sterile, barren, devoid.

Dust and sand kicked up
By little feet. Laughter
Ringing through wooden menagerie.
Children scramble, clamber excitedly.
Playing, acting out other lives.

Plot of land, corner of suburbia,
Pound, playground, car park now.
Tomorrow, next year, next decade
Who knows? Deader still,
Soundless still, no such thing
As childhood now.

Ben A Harvey

October 2018

(c) Gogwit’s Blog, all rights reserved.

New Verse for Easter

A visit to an East Kent churchyard on Easter Sunday rewarded me with a surprising sight, one which sparked ideas which are set out on this page. I have never before seen a thick, healthy, leafy rosemary bush growing upon a grave.

It made quite an impression on me and suggested the theme of my second piece of verse in this current creative spell.

Rosemary Adorns My Grave.

Rosemary adorns my grave.

Profuse cut flowers by many hands marked
My final resting place; fewer and less frequently
As time passed on and by.
Hues pure and funerary fade, vanish into earth,

Even as have I.

And left behind is mottled stone and the green
Of the thriving bush, which grew from the sprig
That struck and took so many years ago.
Plucked in sorrow from my own back garden
Planted, in love, by a solitary hand.

Whether, by chance, you visit me or your presence
Here is by design, run your fingers through
My leaves, rub one and sense
The earthy herb, this shrub, my bower,

Relict, in memoriam.

Rosemary adorns my grave.

Ben A Harvey
Easter 2018

(c) 2018, All Rights Reserved.

St Paul’s Square, B3.

This is the first sustained creative work I have delivered since 2015, I believe.

It came to life on the X14 bus on my way to visit my dentist, Dr Jalif, and was finalised on my return journey, by train, from Selly Oak to Sutton Coldfield.

I hope that you enjoy reading this work. I enjoyed writing it.

St Paul’s Square, B3.

Open field hemmed in by buildings
Workshops, forges, manufactories.
Parts of these turned into houses
For the owners wealth and riches,
For the craftsmen leather breeches,
Tools and ale and most of all
A bed and roof over their head.

Simple people with religion
Men and women all of God.
They raised a splendid place of worship
Visible from house and workshop,
Visible from home and tavern,
Reminding them of place and duty
By then the open field was gone.

Wooden box pews, songs of praise
Hymns ancient and modern.
Blight and blitz and times of plenty
Baptise, confirm, marry, bury,
Offices of life and death,
The churchyard is a garden now
To take the place of field and heath.

Ben A Harvey
24 March 2018

(C) 2018, All rights reserved.

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.

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