Evening Walk
A chattering bush,
Betrays unruly sparrows,
Waiting for the seeds to fall,
From the groundsman's barrow.
A cloud dog chases
A rabbit across the evening sky.
And the setting sun holds
Stratus between its teeth.
We walk easily in the warmth,
Now winter has retreated,
Beneath the soil.
Spring leap.
April 2023
Tag: Southborough
Old Boy (Hamish)
Old Boy
I shall miss your snores
From beneath the dining room table,
Between the larder and the front door.
Their low mumble through the wall -
The sound of a continuity announcer on Radio 4.
Old Boy
I shall miss your meet
And greet, with wagging tail.
Your dolphin nose nudging my thigh,
Leading me away from the open sea,
To calmer waters, the safety of the shore.
Old Boy
I shall miss that long
Sigh and those puppy eyes,
Your shoulders slumped and head hung low,
As if you have never been less loved in your life,
While loitering near to where the treats are kept.
Old Boy
I shall miss you lying
In the middle of the kitchen floor,
Immovable, inconvenient, oblivious,
To the humans stepping over you,
Like clumsy astronauts walking on your moon.
Old Boy
I shall miss that noble,
Gentle, heart of yours,
In that lumpy, bumpy body
Held aloft by those stiff old joints,
Trembling with every step.
Yes, old boy, I shall miss you.
It’s been the best of walks.
May 2022
On Bidborough Ridge
Another poem inspired by my local area with references to Bidborough, Southborough, the Downs and A21!
On Bidborough Ridge
My heart lies in the hammock of this green valley
It’s gentle sides I pull about me on my return,
Grateful for its soft embrace and the chance at last,
To rest, far from the world I once devoured,
Before it turned on me and then took chase.
The field where I fumbled through my teenage years
In golden nests amongst the hay -I heard not long ago,
she had passed away –
The white bell-tower of my old school
From whose negligence I made a full recovery.
But today, when I climbed to the high ridge
And looked below, at the remnants of that
Which I used to know, beneath this sky
That silk screens the clouds, I saw
Nothing beyond the road that slips
Beyond the dusty evening Downs.
An unknown future beckons and I am reluctant,
To follow, an old dog dragging behind its master,
Beneath St Peter’s clock which has been three minutes late,
Ever since they bound and gagged,
Our churches with black tape
And the birds became our evensong
In a clear cathedral sky.
This land
My comfortI shall gladly take
But I am no fool, this is my end
There are no pastures new.
July 2021
Holden Pond
The blacksmith’s hammer
And the tanner’s mallet
Fell silent here a long time ago.
Their calloused pounding hands
And leather beating hearts
Now lying six feet under.
Earthen scars of forgotten
Trades, slowly fade in the shade
Cast by carefree trees.
And, but for the ducks
With their flotillas of young,
These waters would be still.
The perfect place
For my troubled mind
To rest and forge these lines.
SD 10/4/21
Simon Denegri Poetry 