After Christmas Day

After Christmas Day

The lights have gone out.

Much ado about

Nothing. Except for

Those who cared. Those who

Did not have lost not.

The food stores may be

Depleted but full

Cupboards remain as

The gluttony is

Never matched by

The urge to store up

Against winter’s test.

Gifts, broken, ignored,

Discarded, litter

Bedroom floors. Cluttered,

Needle spattered room

Corners with hidden

Treasures. Whilst tired and

Battered relatives

Gladly return home.

Hopes and wishes may

Not be fulfilled but

For most, there is next

Year, and tomorrow

And the day after

Each special in their

Different ways. Each

A blessing, for life

Affirms the hopes and

Wishes we all have

Within us. For those

Without these blessings,

There may not be an

After Christmas Day.

Dave Urmston c Christmas Day 2016

Foggy Day

Foggy Day

A world full of certainties;

Fog changes all that for us.

Familiar places are

Strange, distances foreshortened.

Features shape shift and linger

Within a swirling world of

Change. Woven from the mist loom  

Emerging spectres swirl and

Play tricks. The Goblin pranksters

In their element lead you

Astray. Whilst you may ponder

The restricted world before

You, the cold air will grip and

Enfold You, cloying, clinging,

A Spider web of dew drops.

Dave Urmston c 2016

A Fire-side Poem

A Fire-Side Poem

Poems should not be cosy

Like the warmth of a winter-

Fed fire. But imagery

And the far flaming giver

Of enlightenment attest

To the spark of an idea.

The flaming coals a hot nest

For the flickering nuance

Of words consumed like a log.

Slowly ingested in dance

The realisation warms

The soul, as the fire dog

Holds back the discarded words.

Engulfed in the destroying flames,

Destruction and creation

Licking into ghostly shape

Fragmentary Ideas

That escape vaporously

Like so much rising hot air.

Dave Urmston c 2016

Music

Music

I know what I like

I like what I know.

“An eclectic taste.”

Easy answer for easy music.

I know little about how

The sounds interact

With my brain, but I do know

The emotional tugs;

How music can take me away

And I become detached.

Lost in a dance or

Just lost in a trance.

The rhythm and

Dissonance.

Whilst rhyming lyric

A syncopathic

Synchronisation,

Realisation

Of something that means

So much and yet is

A trifle; a sweet

Dessert to our life.

Dave Urmston c 2016

The Writer

The Writer

I love to luxuriate in a book.

There is something good

And wholesome to look

Within a soul. I could

Imagine myself in that world

Where reality is formed.

As I sit and read curled

Within a chair turned

To the fire, I know that

I have a friend, a cell

Companion. Not the cat

For he has no story to tell.

Yet this cosy sense of being;

This relationship with fiction

Turns sour whenever

I seek to write a novel 

Of my own. Then the book becomes 

An enemy to be defeated at all costs,

A time consuming demon,

Taunting me night and day.

Haunting my waking dreams

And forever weakening my resolve

And questioning, always questioning.

Dave Urmston 2016

Coldrum Stones

Coldrum Stones

Be not appalled

As the children

Slip and slide down

The stones enthralled.

Men hauled the stones

In ancient times.

They built the mound,

Funeral domes.

But now the hill

With token-strewn

Tree, is a play

Ground and not still.

No reverence,

But an awesome

Place to sit and

Stare in silence.

Dave Urmston c 2016

Fog

Fog

The birds were silenced;

Airless, song less, flightless.

Familiar trees and hedges

Took on a new diffused air.

Thoughts dew-dampened

And enfeebled

Cannot disturb

This silent hour.

I need to clear

My head; blow the

Fog from my mind.

Dave Urmston 2016 c

Encounter with a Stoat

Encounter with a Stoat

One day whilst scrambling over boulder strewn bank

I came upon one bolder than I.

A small creature with glinting eye

Revealing the truth of its aristocratic rank.

I tried to follow through rock and scree,

An elusive spirit that watches me.

A relentless chase ensued;

My stealth against the vigour of one pursued.

I sit to watch this dry wall highwayman

Who cheats the wire of man

Emerging from his lair

To feast on the rabbit in its snare.

He shrinks not from me

But condescends to still that life

For a brief moment of indignation;

No enfeeblement of trepidation.

Even man, the great molester,

Cannot match his constricting stare.

Rabbits may run from the gun,

For him, seizure is their life’s sum.

Dave Urmston  2015 c

Scudding Clouds

Scudding clouds cross wide skies

As the cloying mud tugs the footsore

Workers who’s munching and cudding

Produces the paleness that the clouds

Cast upon the sky with darker shadows.

Fielding the gathering

Swallows who feast upon

The flies that garner the bovine waste

That blends in the mud and oozes the

Life out of wet pasture.

Shrew-like shrew sleek creatures

Tunnel through grass funnelling

Seek still smaller creatures  

Keeping hidden but all-seeing through their

Whiskers as they feel for their prey

This way and that twisting

To reach for a tiny morsel

Always hungry, never seeing the sky.

Beneath the breathing earth

Black velvet scurries and twists

Avidly devouring cast off worms

Blindly following tunnels of earthen

Mould to uncover untold harvest

Hillocky evidence foretells their presence

The non-seeing unseen earthbound mole.

Dave Urmston 2012 c

Bridport Market

Bridport Market

Sleepy town revives twice weekly

A sepia past emerging on wooden tables

Hustle of modern life conspiring to sort

The detritus from past esteems.

Streaming people give and take,

Checking, sorting the fake

Giving and taking, meekly

Following the streams

Looking for they know not what

Finding what they never sought.

But, its not all about trade.

As the sounds and scents fade,

What remains are the recollections

And not the collections.

People-watching beats buying

Free and without taking

It has its compensations

For all whose countenance falls

Upon the watching,

Observer.

6.8.10  Dave Urmston c

Poundbury

Poundbury

Conceived on a hilltop,

Conceptualised by a pillock.

A cancerous growth destroying

The fair Dorchester town,

Its Teutonic undertones

Ancestral reminders

Of the cultural heritage

Of the clown of a lost family.

Tesco-like structures.

Soulless spic and span

Planning. A princedom

For a tinkering

Aristocrat who will

Never live there.

Come friendly bombs

On this slough of our  

Intellectual thinking.

Dave Urmston c 2010

The Hawk

The Hawk

Patience is the life of the hawk.

She will sit long hours

Concealed within

Tree boughs, watching

And waiting; preening and shuffling

Feathers. Her very life

Dependent upon these fragile

Fibres. Then, when hunger signals,

She leaves her secure perch.

Shape shifting bandit of the skies;

Silent witness to the slaughter

That meets her desperate needs.

Death comes swiftly as the hawk

Spreads her cowl around the corpse.

Speed, agility and guile

All keened to the killing.

Dave Urmston 2016 c

The Stag

The Stag

Upon a hillock posed the mighty stag,

Antlers sway to announce his possession;

Warning all pretenders to his succession

With his eight pointed flag.

A state of tensed muscle and sinew

Roaring an echo throughout the glen,

Stretching neck and flaring nasal tissue

He challenges all to match his phlegm.

He dares not relax for e’en a moment

To let go the fruits of his endeavours

And release a hind from his embroilment

Seeking fresh pastures, gone forever.

What drives this beast of the hill

Whose herbivorous ways breed contentment?

No prisoner to the bloodlust; no need to kill

This ripe veteran of many an engagement.

It is the instinctive desire to procreate

That motivates and designs his behaviour

Seen in his violent attempt to berate

Challengers to his role as harem saviour.

It is not in anger that he flays the gorse

But to scent mark a warning,

Informing his foes

He will defend from night till morning.

King of the hill he shall

Remain until a pretender

Should answer the call.

Then the king may fall

For none can for ever

Stop what must come.

However we claim: never

Shall we succumb.

Dave Urmston 2016 c

Solace

Solace

So much of the talk is of Michelangelo

And I wish only to know

When the end will come

Of people who come and go.

My own rich thoughts

Of value rare

Are where my mind desires to go,

And the intrusion into these

Rare thoughts pollutes

The rarefied atmosphere

Of my intellect.

What then for a cloistered

Glass bead affair

Where in the thin air

I can focus on all that matters?

Dave Urmston 2015 c

Man's Best Friend

Man’s Best Friend

Surprised to see how much he understands,

Perhaps I underestimate his insight.

Different species can comprehend,

And I strive with all my might.

One day I lay on the floor.

Not my usual repose on the settee.

He came through the door

And came to lie beside me.

He knows when I want a walk.

I give no explicit sign.

There is no need for talk,

 His needs combine with mine.

He senses my emotions

Though by species we differ.

There are certain sensations

He can simply infer.

Most of all I wonder

At the loyalty he does show.

That a dog should wander

With his man in tow.

Please Call

Please Call

Sometimes I think:

How far can I sink?

There are other times,

When the signs

Are for the better,

I have to remember

Not to recall

When no one at all

Thinks to call.

Lonely

Lonely

The times of most despair

Are when the happy smiling

Faces are seen everywhere.

Then I find myself falling.

Of the things that hurt,

That hit me hardest,

Are the simple curt,

Polite enquiries.

People want too much

Of me. Things are such

That I cannot give.

I can only live

For and by myself.

Early One Spring Morning

Early One Spring Morning

From dormancy to bud burst

The trees emerge unseen

On heath and hurst

To bring forth the green

That heralds the Spring

Celandine and heartsease

Bejewel the earth

Whilst thrush will tease

From the greening turf

Food for hungry young.

Deeply hidden nests

Hold eggs and chicks.

A clowning hare jests,

Jumps, twists and kicks.

To thwart advances.

Sparkling waters where trout

Lie and lay their eggs

And thereabouts

The female kingfisher begs

From a dripping mate.

A pastoral scene

But not from yesteryear

This can all be seen

But you must take a care

On a spring morning.

Dave Urmston 2015 c

If Ever I Should Doubt My Love

If Ever I Should Doubt My Love

If ever I should doubt my love, I only

Need look to your eyes to find

Reason not to. It is your lovely

Nature for which I pined

When forced away from you,

Losing sight of the few

Joys of my life.

But it is not as for some

Who weigh the sum

Of their life’s esteem

In the reflected love

That seems to teem

Within the mirrored dove

Grey eyes of the one

Who loves them.

My love has no price;

It is unconditional;

It will not vanish in a trice

But will be there for all

To see from this day.

And if we are so blessed

And life is spared, we may

Pass each and every test

That comes our way.

Dave Urmston 2016 c

Winter

Winter

The night day beckons snow.

Last night’s sharp, sharp frost,

Means I lie here and cannot bear to throw

The covers from where they are tossed.

Care worn women fight the storm

To garner provisions for the store

Against nature’s mighty form.

To protect the children they bore.

But I stay here and when it comes

It will be no card scene

But the silent reminder that becomes

The chill, cold and mean.

No one can come,

But none would come in this season

Of nothingness. A time to sum

Up what has been and for what reason.

I am the winter.

Its loneliness and stillness,

Only I am older,

A more solemn witness.

Dave Urmston 2016 c