SHEEP
The sheep are doing it again
Trodding the path others trod before them;
When will they learn that
Imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery,
Merely the last kicks
Of a soon-to-be-dead battery?
sheep
THE GREEN FORGOTTEN VALLEYS
THE GREEN FORGOTTEN VALLEYS
Those green forgotten valleys,
No longer can be seen
Lying hidden behind the tall fir and larch
That have made these brown hills green
Relentlessly marching down the hills
Burying everything in their wake
The dead are long gone from this place
The pike no longer in the lake
The houses just hollow shells now
Where the past ghosts eerily through
The vacant windows and doors
With rotted frames and jambs that once were new.
Back then there was no silence, only the sound
Of human laughter, and bird-calls to each other
The dogs growling at a wayward sheep.
And children’s scrapes kissed better by their mother
Nature is having the last laugh now
Soon there will be no trace of us at all
As the trees come marching down the hillside
No one hears the lonesome curlew’s call.
VIADUCT IN PONDERS END
VIADUCT IN PONDERS END
If I were a sheep
Picking a living on this canted grass
I might wish to communicate with my friends,
Similarly pitched across the way,
But would be unable to do so,
Barred by this tarmac valley
That gouges its way between us
Conversation would be useless in any case;
This crew-cut corridor is filled
With the tuneless dissonance
Of steel engaging steel
The cadences of piston power reverberating
The never-ending whine and grind
Of this rusty city…
If I were a sheep
I think I would wear ear-muffs
from my new collection’ 67′. http://www.tinhuttalespublishers.co.uk/67/
My Writing Life 