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