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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

Verses arrive (some of the time)

through the dark of soft soil

or the crackle glazed bases

of terracotta pots.

.

They linger under fingernails

or sticky weed hitch-hike

on a cardi

or the woollen tops

of Auden’s

grubby gardening socks.

.

They defy all the clocks,

any timely habits,

missions,

traditions

and seasonal gardening law.

.

They come when they want

sprouting and waving

through cracks in the paving;

spreading their tendrils and

savouring light.

.

Their roots are in prose

but their shoots give birth

to rhythmic philosophies

offered on loan

to borrowing poets

who write them but know

that the essence must hold

past the edit.

.

The next seeds are sown

while we’re pruning the lines

of Virginia Creeper

that sneak in,

gate-crashingly blind side.

.

.

Note: W.H. Auden, best known for Stop All The Clocks, had an explicit and metaphorical appreciation for gardening, believing it symbolized a healthy relationship with the earth. He incorporated this idea into his ‘Daydream College for Bards’, where he instructed his students to cultivate their own garden plots as an act of principled living against societal exploitation of soil.

She does or she doesn’t.

She will or she won’t.

She might or perhaps she might not.

She’s a yes or a no.

She’ll stop but she’ll go

’til you think that you’re losing the plot.

She’ll remain undecided

for most of the time;

She’ll seldom just go with the flow.

Changing her mind

is her gender’s prerogative.

Born with it, didn’t you know.

.

Copyright: Lorraine Voss

A baker’s dozen is more than twelve.

A cobbler’s work is done by elves.

Narcissists only talk to themselves.

Cupboards with doors are better than shelves.

Fat people probably ate all the pies.

Welsh cakes contain half currants half flies.

Women past sixty have purple eyes.

Politicians tell whopping great lies.

Stairs are made from apples and pairs.

Drainpipe trousers are wider than flairs.

Only a Care Bear truly cares.

This poem has 10,000 Facebook shares.

.

Copyright: Lorraine Voss

I used to be a Samurai. I did, I swear it’s true.

I had a blade of folded steel and I could run you through

as clean as antiseptic glass and quicker than you’d know it.

I used to be a warrior, before I was a poet.

.

I used to be a Samurai back then before I knew

that penmanship was mightier than running people through.

For words can cut much deeper than the finest folded blade

and the kills are so much cleaner in the poems that I made!

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Copyright: Lorraine Voss