Nigel,

Thank you for enlightening the reader beforehand the basics of a Sonnet.

Really puts a smile on my day to read the words, then giving an extra moment or two to put all the thoughts together. Now the realization gives way to knowledge and the beauty combined. Each Sonnet with its own meaning. Beautiful!!!!!!!!

Gerry

How beautiful this was to read on a cold dark and lonely night, fraught and racked with pain, your sonnets bought back memories of school English Literature learnings many long years gone by. Thank you. Gods gift is we can find beauty, love, & solace in anything when we pause to try.

A cherished gift
*
To awake at each and every new dawn
as sleepy eyes, the night’s loss mourn
and realise with a furious wonder
that just for you is another day born,
is to know of gratitude’s true import
and be tightly bound by the thought
of what cherished gift you’ve been lent
and that the time of it’s loan is short.

field of whispered sighs
*
Meet me there in the field of whispered sighs
where rest all the missed ‘Goodbyes’,
and all the tears that in secret have been wept,
there amongst the grass are kept.
I will wait for you til heavy lids I can not hold
and my body gives into wilful cold,
listening to the field trapped sounds gently rise,
to wander lost under changing skies.
Meet me there in the field of whispered sighs
and set free our missed ‘Goodbyes’.

A Slight chance of love
I read in the paper that the omens were good,
as foretold by the pattern of stars up above,
I know it’s all rubbish but I still think we should
as long as you agree there’s a slight chance of love.


Scientists say ………

‘There will be sadness no more
it’s dying out due to something, we’re quite sure
We’ve measured smiles, laughter and even giggles
and though our work may have a few niggles,
our figures and data prove only one thing,
the coming centuries will happiness bring.
Darwin was right it’s evolution you see
sad people die younger so happy’s the key,
so we’ve worked it out and what comes next,
is we’ll evolve to be ‘smileys’ and live in* text.
Then no one will understand what’s been said
so instead of angry they’ll feel nice instead.

A kiss blown


I remembered most how we kissed
so across the room I blew you one
and now send ‘X’ in case I missed



Late evening by the Loch
*
Before me lies such a canvas divine
that surely must I, my heathen soul doubt
and see as some great Architect’s design
this place that makes my Poet’s heart shout.
Spread before me lies a liquid gloss sheet
blue black with sapphire droplets of star flash,
snug with shadowy dark leaves that then meet
in the sky a sepia summer moon splash.
Over yonder glints a croft’s amber light
swaying to a lone piper’s mournful keen,
there to honour the sultry Highland night
that’s by darkness still a beauty serene.
Lake edge water, toys sand with kitten laps
within the solemn stillness of approaching sleep,
while heady floral scent around me wraps
and a voice whispers a part of you we’ll keep.

Mad by degree


I left the Doctor’s feeling quite glad,
he’d said “ I’ve decided on a diagnosis,
I’m sorry but you’ve got a psychosis,
in other words you’re quite mad.

*I replied “Oh dear is it very bad ?”
“ not as a box of frogs if you please,
but if pushed I’d say mad as cheese
so there’s really no reason to be sad.”

I said “what makes you think so”
“well you teach wasps to make jam
keep several goldfish in a pram
and think god made the sky too low.”

*“Oh, so it’s just something I said,
not that I think I’m a shark
or understand every dog’s bark
and keep biscuits under my shed”

“Not in the slightest old fellow
why I often think I’m a bat
while reading books to my cat
and I keep my trifle in a cello ”

Nigel, you are always so positive your words flow and sing. It makes the day lighter.

The lover’s first kiss

There is that moment,
a pause,
that does not trouble time
with demands for days, hours or minutes.
It is when a thousand pieces of jigsaw
fall to earth as a picture whole,
or when a single drop of rain bursts
upon each and every leaf at once,
and when eyes blacken,
the pupils opening wide,
offering mutual surrender, releasing
lips to gently purse and touch.
All around greys to a fade,
and sound holds it’s breath as
senses gather and focus on this one act.
An act that can never be just so again.
That love and passion,
will always express themselves with a kiss
is certain and always here after
remains that knowing,
only this one time can
a kiss feel like this.


Generations v2

Cake crumbs tumble from eager lips
as small hands wipe buttercream,
smears on school trousers,
watched by dew laden pale eyes,
that sparkle still under a creased
brow and the lock of a white hair
question mark, that seems to ask
what he’s thinking.
The old face, lights up as young
legs tap in time to her favourite song.
She loved to sing.
He hears her still
when the lad comes calling, asking to
hear the old tunes , with tea & cake,
sat in a well worn chair scented with
strange pipe aromatics, the smoke resting,
spent from working the heat of hot coal.
Young eyes look again, hinting, at the
box on the hearth.
An old smile given consent and it’s opened.
Bits and bobs placed with reverence on
the chair arm, the beautiful singer, cap badges,
cigarette cards, each has a story heard before,
that young ears want to hear again
and an old voice again wants to tell.

I fear to miss her special day

I fear to miss her special day,
when all her beauty,
without and within cannot be held,
but leaps at life and is wondrous,
wondrous as a kiss between sun and moon.
She will turn Gothic stone into
flawless marble that day, and the
air will be filled with rose scent
floating on the crackling static
about the chosen few, as their heads
swivel hoping to claim first sight.
And I will smile, when alone, silently
holding her favourite stuffed toy,
watching her sleep one last time,
in a room forever hers, before the morn.
And the music will sing
‘Behold the bride !’
and I will see only my little girl,
my beautiful child.
I know on that day, the love she feels
will not be for me alone,
and though another man
has stolen my throne,
my blessing I will gladly give.

A raindrop

I caught a raindrop before the shower came,
or maybe it caught me,
my cupped hand I held out, so to tell
if the storm was on it’s way.
It’s landing left only the slightest touch,
and in an eyelid flick of time, it ran,
capturing odd tiny rays of light as it
coursed around callous and crease on
the miniature palm etched map .
From how high had this perfect pearl
fallen, only to be delayed in completing
it’s mission by my unexpected hand.
Undaunted, it slipped over my skin
to the ground, disappearing into that
beneath, to refresh the first crocus
as it struggled to arrive in spring time.

“The richest man is he who sees wonder each time a bird takes flight.” N P Smith


I PICKED AN APPLE


I picked an apple from the bowl,
it was russet and hazel,
uneven in shade.
I bit into it and tasted it’s flesh
exposing the seeds waiting in
it’s core and I wondered.
Awaking at midnight I saw the moon’s
curiosity had got the better of her,
as she had crept close under
cover of night to sneak a peak
at the sleeping world
and I wondered.
A river trout broke the surface,
for a second free from it’s
fluid prison, it gasped at a midge
before breathing water again
slowly it’s form undulating
making me wonder.
And a dove taking flight,
denying gravity’s purpose,
slipping loose from ties
that prevent me from soaring
aloft and swooping through
the invisible seas above,
always makes me wonder.


Is that you


Is that you I hear,
at times,
in the half light shade,
a silken voice as though all
the world’s songs of love
are a single melody,
caught and carried to me
by precious memory.
Is that your touch I feel,
sometimes,
in the morning mist’s
promise of light to come,
when time blinks and
I feel a hand pass
over my cheek leaving
a tear’s ghost in it’s wake.
And as I lay pleading for the
night’s pity to grant mercy
and take me to where all
is possible, I place a kiss on
the dark nothing beside me
that is you.


As sleep ebbed

As sleep ebbed into dawn’s first touch,
the morn still held fast by night,
there above the snow gilded streets of
a town’s first winter wake,
flew a silent flock of creatures unknown,
swift and with purpose,
a ghostly grey shimmer
against the dark’s dominion,
tiny bodies and blurred wings
caught by the ice mirrored lucency
of fading moonlight.

My Ghost is there still

I loved
the slight crunch
of fallen needles underfoot,
the seeping balsam hint,
redolent of something past,
just on the nose then gone,
the secret glade of baize like grass,
where drowsy with calm,
I would sit against the thickest bark,
just in the shade, to gaze
at the contrasting glare
of sunlight swatch before me.
I would follow the beck,
knowing where every foot
needed to be placed,
slow and deliberate as
that place became me.
And by the bridge,
where clumps of violet Bluebells grew,
their delicate petals bowed,
shy or tired, vivid against
the deep emerald of wild garlic.
My ghost is there still.

In the shadow of a smile

I woke in the shadow of a smile
from the Morning Star born,
and as she leaned close
and let slip a hush
upon the waking world,
I saw in that moment brief,
that all the love once thought lost,
was never lost at all,
but drawn by her breath
into the sapphire light,
there ever to remain
as the Morning Star’s bright.

Nigel,
As always very thought provoking....

I PICKED AN APPLE; I had to read it a few times before I found myself "wondering".

Sad; but beautiful, Is that you....? Reminded me of a place in time that still occasionally returns.

And... where we have been in the past, our Ghost remains. Again; "thought provoking"..

Thank you again for sharing.

Gerry

Niggs your words are always thought provoking, I read them yesterday and came back again today.

Your beautifully written words took me to to ponder the words sad and whimsical. To consider how each emotion can influence the readers every thought. Words are amazing they can lift you up, hold you there and sometimes drop you without a care.

Is that you took me to a place where I imagined my long lost nana who used to care for me as a child, she passed on my 14th birthday.

Beautiful words, cleverly crafted together. Thank you

Firefly jars



The days fading heat melts the air.

into the amber wash of twilight fall

and with a brush like breeze so fair.

then thinly paints the cottage wall,

as across the bay escapes a song,

almost lost upon the water stilled,

to weave amongst shadows long,

as all with summer's scent is filled.

While above, the darkening sweep,

can now reveal those early stars,

glittering facets dispensing sleep

and infant dreams of firefly jars.



Beech

The colour of limes, cooling in shade,

appears, seemingly as watched,

to feather the venous cradle

of branchlets with downy leaves,

that hint of suede, and curl up or back

when buffeted by winds of late spring.

Some flashing their modesty, their underside,

while others part gently,

like a child's hair being combed by

a doting mother,

startling the sparrows and finches

about their work within,

who are rendered

briefly quiescent, until

the lunge and parry

of their beaks returns.




Beach storm

As if tethered to the above,

the sea was drawn back,

back beyond sight and sound,

until there was nothing but sand

yielding to footprints, which blurred,

and sank between blinks,

and bits of errant sea

caught in shallow dips while others

formed rivulets to hasten

after the rest.



Into this nothing the sky dropped,

smothering all with shades of steel

and iron, weeping rain such that

soon it may leave no room for the

returning tide, its fury tumbling

the spray laden air, lips glanced

by its salt spiced edge, darkening

dunes until they caked and fell.

I have seen fog congested forest

and sheets of sleet cutting

across pasture,

and found beauty,

I could not honour this place so.



Lover or friend



Would you leave tomorrow's tale

a virgin sheet,

on which no pattern of life,

by hand encrypted, will lie,

and future meet........

such that I must ask of others also, were you real?.....

or has memory jumbled truth

with wishful want, erroneous sight

and false feeling.

Your scent is freed

as I press your clothes to my face,

yet no print of a lover confused, stains them from garment

into shroud of filigree lace.

Perhaps it is I who would bring

this story to its end,

who would write a final chapter,

if so, I would know with certainty

whether the premiss past

was lover or friend.



Burden

My burden is greatest at sundown,

before evening smudges the sky

with charcoal fingers,

when Swift and Swallow, soar on

warm summer risings,

freer than silver bellied shoals that

flare their brightness as one,

in a dark that is as clay to air,

and draw my sight to lift and

fly amongst them............

and when dogs wonder about

a last walk of the day,

and mothers shout ten minute warnings to tired kids that

won't come in, but marry

the warm day's slowing,

regaling past glories and games

of endless playtimes,.............

when life's set-backs did not exist,

and the approach of night's vagaries,

heavy with intention to make sport with

troubled minds was a fear never felt.


The sweetest drink


She is delightfully lost to all,
in her small garden kitchen
as she makes dinner for a family waiting for time to catch up.
It looks like pine cone stew
she stirs, in between picking
buttercups for afters,
enjoying make-believe tea,
with those I cannot see.

Her tiny face tells the story
as lips purse and pout in
mime, telling proof of the way
grown-ups can sometimes be.
She then looks up with a start,
a smile exploding before me,
I'm offered an imaginary cup,
and my first sip made me think,
it was by far the sweetest drink.


Dead bird


Huddled kids await the moon,
hoods tilted to the ground,
there by the hopscotch rune,
all forlorn without a sound.

One grabbed a shed lent stick,
to move the sky fallen form,
with a silent funeral flick
under the threatened storm

A hole was scraped by spade
for wings that no longer soar,
stone marked in daisy shade
the grave for a bird no more.

I counted 50 fireflies a minute last night.