Pay it forward every time;
let it be a habit.
When a wonder happens
roll it onward down the line.
.
Give it to a neighbour
or some random frowning stranger.
Pass it on and on and on
and watch it raise a smile.
.
See it put a twinkle
in the eyes of little people.
Watch it make a tired man
walk the extra mile.
.
Keep it while you need it
but be sure to pay it forward.
I’ve heard it springs eternal
if you nurture it a while.
.
.
Copyright: Lorraine Voss
.
Throw another poem on the fire, Uncle Bob.
Burn a Dante epic;
do a proper job!
Let it smoulder ’til we’re older
than Methuselah or God.
.
Throw the works of Homer on the pyre, Uncle Bob
and everything by old romantic liars
or Welshmen fuelled by whiskey
who were flammable and risky
and full of rage I’ll wager, Uncle Bob.
.
Draw them from the ashes with a wish, Uncle Bob;
remember in the embers there’s a song
about ritualistic burning
and the learning and the yearning
of those who came and went,
or lie in wait to come along…
.
Copyright: Lorraine Voss
It was tender, like a fontanelle;
soft and warm as kitten fur
and weightless as the powder
from a pili pala wing.
.
It was utterly contented purr
a metaphor to comfort her,
light on her skin, like gossamer,
that cwtch that came with the crio.
.
.
Translation: Welsh to English
pili pala – butterfly
cwtch – cuddle
crio – crying
.
.
Copyright: Lorraine Voss
We parked and stopped for coffi at the
Owl and the Pussycat
before we took the short walk
to The Boathouse near the bay.
.
The ‘slow black, crow black’
was more like mizzle grey today
and squally through the blusters
where we wound our gentle way
.
to the summit of the brittle steps
where hand rails turned to railings,
turned to ivy walls and tall bamboo
and printed signs that say
.
‘This is not the Boathouse’
this is Dylan’s writing shed
where the wood became intrinsic
to Undermilk, the play
.
and the rhymer in the long tongued room
typed his days away
watching redshank and curlew
flick their wingtips in the spray.
.
Copyright: Lorraine Voss
.
Time is the gardener, blind and old,
who trims with shears of tarnished gold;
pruning reality, taking hold
and clipping immortality.
.
Still, the fruit tree bends and sways.
It’s fallen crop on windswept days
will nurture on in countless ways;
it writes its own reality.
.
Copyright: Lorraine Voss
Lorraine Voss (aka Ven) 