Simply said

 Simple stuff 

We revel in the simple

We salute the word ‘enough’

For joy is found in free things

Not in gold or sparkly stuff. 

We can mine some goodness

In the bottom of our garden 

Warmth can be found sunny corners

More effective than drafty corridors

Our sights are focused on the present

For the future looks compromised 

Plans and projects are abandoned

For the sweetness of the here and now. 

We can stop and stare at life

We can embrace the very now

We will kiss and hug the moment 

We will milk the present somehow. 

Great people speak of decades

To change our lives and save the world 

But if like me you don’t believe 

The well intentioned commentary. 

To stoop beneath the gates of history 

To slip outside the wedding tent now free

To forge a path less traveled and less worn

Perchance to meet a pilgrim on the road. 

We mark the end of Quaker Corner

As we reach the end of Covid road

Our focus now on golden spires  

As Ukraine strikes out for one and all. 

Now it’s time to change the guard

For every chapter must have its close

And so a new one opens 

Un hora menos now takes over. 

Hasta La vista! 

29th April 2022. 

Ozymandias

 Ozymandias

The king looked across the ravaged country

And heard the cries that carried on the wind

Of peoples once proud and worried only

For their Spanish villas and their French weekends. 

They have lived beyond their means for half a century

Heedless of good luck and thinking it hard work

While millions famished in the Horn of Africa

Not seeing millions toiling in the Philippines. 

The only question is why it took so long

For the tottering pyramid to come tumbling down

How gravity was suspended for five decades

How the party lasted onto the  dreary dawn?

Look around and see the wasteland now

The soil degraded by the stuff at home

Once bought, forgotten and discarded

If we could only throw the dice again. 

The sun goes down on broken buildings

With shattered glass that housed the business center

No longer needed when the crops don’t grow

Survival is the only game they know. 

Son of man, don’t be sad

Just be grateful that it lasted

All good things will have an ending

Enjoy this journey while you can. 

79

 Seventy nine and a bit

I arise today to eat my porridge and bran

If I am what I eat I’ll become a healthy man

Banished like serpents are wine and the crisps

And in their old place are the tea and the biscuits.  

Gone is the chocolate, in with the apples 

Gone are the dentists, nowhere to be seen

I’ll fill up my plate with lettuce and cabbage

Like a true Irishman I’ll eat all my greens. 

I’ll silence the Twitter now Elon’s in charge

I’ll leave Facebook til August perhaps even later

Saving the hours and with the spare time 

I’ll write poems  and verse that occasionally rhyme. 

With a blast from the past when I bend over

To the sound of knees creaking and everything leaking

All the pills marshaled on the bright breakfast table

Counted and swallowed as fast as I’m able. 

With less teeth to manage and less hair to brush

Nothing is urgent that merits a rush

It’s a wonderful life, a marvelous time

To reach the old age of seventy nine. 

Easter Story

  Easter Story

The greatest story ever told 

And yet the most imprecise

With conflicting details

From the very start. 

However from the distance 

Of twenty centuries we can deduce

Something quite magnificent

That turned all history upside down. 

For me the story is quite simple

That following his death we learned

His presence and his teaching still remained

Overcoming both the shame and pain. 

And so his death does not define his life

His words ring clear across the seas

Across the decades and the centuries 

Without agenda and without mystery. 

Easter happens every day we read his tale

Every time we listen at his feet

Free to those who choose to follow

Truth is timeless and complete

Limited offer

 Somewhere along the line

Somewhere along the line the message got confused

Good news for all became time limited 

The offer now reduced to believers, 

Belongers, followers and subscribers. 

What was free to all became rather small

And the unlimited became conditional

The God who counted every hair now counting points 

All applications required in triplicate. 

The prison of the promised people

Extended east and west

But still remained a place

By invitation only.  

Old habits die so hard

In the beauty of the desert

The habits of two thousand years

Refused to go, we know. 

If there is a God, it’s for everyone

Especially agnostics and unbelievers 

If there is a heaven, it will be full

Of those who never stood in chapel. 

Heaven will be another earth

Where the undeserving live

Cheek by jowl with holy ones

Just like the Prodigal Sons

Running.

 Running, running

Running, running from the soldiers

In East Ukraine and elsewhere

Women and children flee for their lives

Escaping from death and from despair. 

Running, running in the playground yard

The five year olds enjoy their play

Happy lives lie straight ahead

Laughter rings this joyous day. 

Running, running up the ladder 

Of the business world

Making contacts, playing golf, 

Making hay while time permits. 

Running, running in the airport hall

To greet the daughter who returns 

Tattooed and tanned from foreign lands

Tears of joy and relief hand in hand. 

Running, running is what we do

Running from grief, heading towards life

Movement the heart and very soul 

Of sadness and laughter, hope and belief. 

Blue, blue sea.

 The blue blue sea

The blue blue sea beneath the azure sky

The April sun roasts our little corner

In the garden with the new mown grass

Suggests we’re not in Wexford but in 

Spain. 

White white the lighthouse stands so proud

Above a swirling sea where breakers crash

On treacherous reefs that guard old Tuskar

Whose light has saved a thousand ships or more. 

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty the mercury is rising

While out at sea a ferry sailing

Serenely past our rustic hedge

On its way to Rosslare Harbour. 

The dogs are curled in balls beneath the tree

That bursts with pretty buds about to flower

With promises of apples come the harvest season

While birds have fallen into a drowsy silence. 

Peace invades and conquers all 

Enveloped in the noontime heat

Exiled all sorrows for the while

Expelled the narrow troubles of the world. 

Days like this that recall Eden and our innocence

The week that follows Easter and the holy incense 

That lingers in the nave of Pugin’s church

Gives pilgrims comfort as they gather in the sanctuary. 

Wexford peace and the world lies still

Captured, enraptured in the magic moments 

That soothe our hearts and cleanse our souls

On a splendid day in a country garden. 

Sometimes

 Sometimes 

Sometimes a face is all it takes

To the tell the story of a war

Behold the harrowed face of Zelensky 

Aged forty years in little more

Than Jesus in the desert. 

The sorrow and the pain are etched

They tell the tale better than a speech 

These eyes have seen what no one 

Should have seen and are appalled. 

Angry that those in power have failed

To give enough support when needed

Saving no one’s blushes when addressing

A world waking from its moral slumber. 

Look on Putin’s face that launched 

A thousand bombs on children

Cruel eyes that reveal a soul

Sold out to evil many years ago. 

The eyes are a gateway to the soul

Even through a villain’s smile

Look hard and you will see

The absence of morality. 

The face of Ukraine’s pain

Captured in one man 

Sears our very soul

And vividly reminds us 

This horror on our doorstep 

Could well invade our kitchen. 

  

Taken

 People taken from us

People taken from us 

Are growing by the year  

Every spring remember them

And shed a little tear. 

In losing them we’re losing us

A chapter in our lives

Which are diminished and reduced

By their sad demise. 

A part of us is missing

A light no longer shines 

New friendships can’t compete

With the bonds of yesteryear.  

And sadder still the loved ones

Lost on Covid’s watch

Helpless to attend them

On their final march. 

My mother used to say

In her latter days

She knew more dead and gone

Than alive at end of year. 

The burden and the favor

To live a long old life

To attend so many funerals

I said it to my wife. 

We now are married longer 

Than the folk we knew at school

Whom we considered ancient

Our time has come, it’s true. 

It seemed

 It seemed

The last chapter had been written

Or so it seemed last Covid Winter

Had we reached the final lap

Or did life hold another venture?

We had to summon up the courage

To lay aside the clinging doubts

To throw the dice another time

Regain lost confidence and advance. 

Advance again into the breach

Laugh at fortune and it’s wiles

Find courage to man the barricades 

While sirens whisper failure. 

Every decade is a challenge

New to every man that’s born

No one can teach us what we have to learn

On the job or not at all. 

Some men grow old while others don’t

Some fight the fight, others throw in the towel

Belief will move the stubborn mountains

Will deliver bread from hardened stones. 

There lies the vice of lassitude

To wish the dwindling hours away

Precious days are lost alas

In the wastelands of the ordinary. 

Every day a new adventure

Even better when unprepared

Exciting when spontaneous 

Daring and courageous. 

And so this story has not ended

New chapters written every day

Roll back advancing years

Borrow freely from the Bank of Time.