The Honeymoon’s Over

Posted on 3 August, 2017 by PoetJanstie

Spring’s promise of high summer
has passed, the lush greens gone,
and now less vibrant. Parched.
Stale somehow. Disappointing.

The promise so much sweeter
than reality; the heady warmth;
sun filled days and mirage haze
the balmy heat, hot naked nights.

We should enjoy this time, by rights
but if it brings us closer to the fall;
the Autumn of our life, if that is all
then can we not enjoy the cooling

promised winter chill, another world,
its yielding to the blacks and whites
mysterious greys, the icy haze,
the freezing hibernation, preserving.

But no. An earlier Spring, that comes
too soon, and sooner still the melting
Arctic ice. One day, there’ll be no more
dreaming of a summer honeymoon.

© 2017 John Anstie
All rights reserved

About PoetJanstie

“Life is short and art long, the crisis fleeting, experience penniless and decision difficult” ~ Hippocrates. As a young man, John was sporting and fit. It was then as much his recreational therapy as a cappella harmony singing, music, walking in the hills and writing is now. Playing Rugby Union for over twenty years, encouraged in the early days by a school that was run on the same lines and ethos as that famous Scottish public school, Gordonstoun, where our own headmaster had been as a senior master. This gave shape and discipline to a sometimes precarious early life. His fitness was enhanced not only by playing rugby, but also by working part time jobs in farming, as a leather factory packer and security guard, but probably not helped, for a short time, selling ice cream! His professional working life was spent as a Metallurgical Engineer, Marketing Manager, Export Sales Manager, Implementation Manager and Managing Director of his own company. Thirty five years spent, apparently in a creative desert, raising a family, pursuing a career and helping to pay the bills, probably enriched his experience, because his renaissance, on retirement, realised a hidden creative talent as a writer of prose and poetry. He also enjoys music, with a piano and a fifty-two year old Yamaha FG140 acoustic guitar. He sings bass in three a cappella harmony groups: as a founding member of a mixed voice chamber choir, Fox Valley Voices and barbershop quartets. He is also a member of one of the top barbershop choruses in the UK, Hallmark of Harmony (stage name of the Sheffield Barbershop Harmony Club), who, for the eighth time in 41 years, became UK Champions in 2019. He is also a would be (once upon a time or 'has been') photographer with drawers full of his own history, and an occasional, but lapsed 'film' maker. In his other life, he doubles as a Husband, Father, Grandfather, Brother, Uncle, Cousin, Friend and Family man. What he writes is sometimes autobiographical, often political, sometimes dark and frequently pins his colours to the mast of climate change and how a few humans are trashing the Earth. In 2013, he published an anthology of the poetry (including his own) of an international group of poets, who met on Twitter in 2011. He produced, edited and steered the product of this work, "Petrichor Rising", to publication by Aquillrelle. His sort of strap-line reads: “ iWrite iSing iDance iChi iVolunteer ”
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11 Responses to The Honeymoon’s Over

  1. Pleasant Street says:
    3 August, 2017 at 11:35 am

    This is very close to where my head is lately. You’re breaking my heart —

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    • PoetJanstie says:
      4 August, 2017 at 5:59 pm

      I’m sorry. I don’t mean to break your heart, my dear. It is my wee message for the world of Donald Trump, if, that is, he inhabits anywhere other than a barren desert?

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      • Pleasant Street says:
        4 August, 2017 at 6:19 pm

        Aha–I should have read your tags. I thought it was a breaking down relationship

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        • PoetJanstie says:
          5 August, 2017 at 9:47 am

          Ignore my repeat message. I am so interested that this poem made you think that. I’m fascinated in different interpretations of my writings. But I guess it does look a bit like a relationship break up! However, as you have already determined, it was not intended that way.

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          • Pleasant Street says:
            5 August, 2017 at 2:11 pm

            I used to have a reader that always told me what my poems meant. It seemed to mean so much to her I stopped contradicting her. It made me realize that probably happens to some extent always, the one reading brings to the poem their own experience.

            Like viewing a painting– or hearing a song on the radio

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