Message from Mother Earth

I woke to feel no breath, as if at birth,
so I could hear the breath of mother earth.
She heaves with sighs of lives foregone,
reminding us we need to change our song,
review the wiles of new invented ways,
trying to persuade us of the days
that technological control had won.
At peril, ignore the words of those who’ve gone.

If you reinvent the wheel each day,
immunise yourself to change, betray
the days when unencumbered views were so
much clearer, simpler, more humane than now.
Actions of our past have brought us here
so, whilst the need for redesign is clear,
let’s not allow the ego arrogant
beguile us with its human hubris cant.

© 2011 John Anstie

(View the author’s commentary on this poem)

Posted in conservation, environment, experience, green, Hope, nostalgia, poem, poetry, political, technology, wisdom | Leave a comment

Limerick Three

I have to come clean about me
I’m really a charlatan, you see,
full of intention
with some good invention
but nowt that’ll pay for my tea.

© 2011 John Anstie

Posted in fun, limerick, poem | Leave a comment

Real Heroes

(the plastic coated deceit of 20th/21st century life)

Who are the real heroes and people of true courage? Find out in this blog post

… and in this poem.

Posted in courage, experience, Heroes, Prose, story, War | 1 Comment

Goons at The Graves

It’s eight o’clock and all is well
for Peter, Spike and Harry.
If they were at The Graves to tell
the time, how long we’d tarry.

© 2010 John Anstie

(View the author’s commentary on this poem)

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Enthusiasm, Optimism and Entropy

Get your brains round this

Posted in cosmos, Hope, Prose | Leave a comment

Twitter Anniversary and World Poetry Day Twaiku

Tweet spring inception
it is not going away
but coming of age

© 2011 John Anstie

Posted in anniversary, fun, Haiku, poem, poetry, technology | Leave a comment

Ninety Two

(First Draft)

There is one I know (though there are some,
when they are ninety-two, are good as done),
but she is good for another ninety-two,
refusing the acknowledgement of age;
denying understandable excuses;
rejecting even a hint so to eschew
yielding toes to daisies
or the mind to numb.

So much to say, of this special one.
Somehow, she has been almost everywhere;
seen all, done all, but still with much to do
for life’s great jigsaw puzzle’s looking large,
larger and, in fact, more colourful;
with more know-how-do than me or you,
carpe diem! disports
herself to warmer sun;

to paint a picture of a favourite view:
yellow tinted dusty outback hut;
a portal vista bathed in flesh warm light;
the portrait of a pet by photograph.
Then there is that haunt, familiar,
wants to remind us and, thus viewed, it might
imbue us with a vision
that only came from you;

and yet, who can match your swing, the fullest
ever seen at any age, but how
the lightest touch belies a steely strength,
province of the best the world has seen,
to grace the game for more than eighty years,
addressing ball, its flight to joy and length,
moves competing youth
to cry on fallen crest.

And once they realise their pointless task
is folly in the face of such sagacity,
especially when rewarded with a cake
produced with fine ingredients, so
fruitful in the end, to help forget
lost points to Stableford, a big mistake,
will make them think next time,
before they dare to ask

and challenge you to any kind of game,
’cause they will bite off more than they can chew;
more in fact than anyone would bet
more than pride itself would dare release
to chance, without first bargaining the odds.
There’s no-one been this way before, and yet
less chance there’ll be again;
they’d never be the same.

© 2011 John Anstie

(View the author’s commentary for this poem)

Posted in age, experience, poem, poetry, wisdom | 2 Comments

In The Garden

If I don’t answer
I may be in the garden
But then I might not

© 2011 John Anstie

Posted in Haiku, poem, poetry, recreation, wisdom | Leave a comment

Limerick Two

A dashing romantic young student
was advised that it would be quite prudent
to avoid the infection
by wearing protection
that looks rather odd when you’re nudent.

© 2011 John Anstie

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Big Comfy Cushion

(for Sophie)

Every morning you get up to greet
me at the door and, like an automaton,
pad off to where your breakfast bowl has been;
habit borne of sixteen years of life.

In this house you’ve ruled our every moment,
and emotion, every wistful sigh,
as you lie upon a lap, your tummy
turning upwards, scrummy, mottled brown.

Your ugly face, the essence of your charm,
your sturdy temperament, unfailing, cool;
your bagpuss belly, never varying
its udder-likeness swinging as you walk.

That steady walk, wherever it is you go:
inside, outside, wanting us to know
you are grimalkin and, yet, vulnerable
so you never really leave us, day or night.

This morning you did not get up to greet
me at the door, nor barely twitch a whisker.
But I see you in your favourite place:
lying hunched, but comfortable, close by

the garden mouse hole or a cornered spider;
playing hide and seek amidst the trees;
returning from the hunt with cobweb clung
behind your ear, you didn’t even notice.

Sitting (fairly) neatly waiting for
something – only you know what it is –
only you decide when you are ready
for your tea or for a sleep, who knows…

…where it is that you are off to next,
which is, as ever, entirely up to you.
You take your time, whilst you sit there on
your big comfy cushion in the sky.

© 2011 John Anstie

Posted in animals, Love, melancholy, poem, poetry, sadness | Leave a comment