Royalty sups ale at The Bell in Purleigh, Essex.

Prince Charles and his consort Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall were guests of The Pub is the Hub yesterday to witness first hand how vital an inn can be at the heart of a community.

Hall of Mirrors

 

Drawn as by duty down a line

Dropping. Scraping the sides of a dark nothing

Viscous. Imagination pulls

At the echo of a colour lost to reason

So into slime the journey churns

Where daylight may be an escape

But I am fascinated by the threat of malevolence

Wherein I,  the author and the victim

Ask why. Why not make this a parody

And set me in a circus of smiles,

Or rich guffaws

But not the gallery of screams that pop

From an arcade of paid for thrills

Why am I, even in my own head

An outsider with dread

Let me please enjoy a loosening of the coils

That seem to constrict my pleasure

Obscure my vision and bring me

Always to the edge of pain

Let me exchange with the man in the booth

Small change for folly and blind excitement

Not the never ending centrifuge of fear

That falls twisting as a mirror to fate

Wake-up call

Dull, insistent, penetrating noise
The sound of a pump
It sprays water from the shower head
As I lay nearby, somewhere in line
For the ablutions. This mark of urgency
The willingness to act
I am. Therefore I will get wet
Cleanse off the dark attitude
And emerge bright. Willing
But perhaps I forget
That others in other places
Suffer my hardship
But, wake-up without water
Without warmth. Bereft. Alone
And still they must go out
Into another day without support
That I so grudgingly
Take for granted
I live in the friction of my own selfish desire
Knowing only in glimpses
That others share the world with me

Scene stealer

The mist. Impervious quiet
Ranks low over the cold ground
And settles a silken blanket
Over all the inert scenery
Everything I might interpret
Everywhere I may have to navigate
Dumb. Is it dumb?
Implacably indifferent it leeches colour
From the landscape of morning
And questions whether timely progress
Would profit from any enthusiasm
So. Still and quiet without a face
The day just waits
It is impervious to me. Implacable
In the dimness a shared heart
Asks with a throb for us to wait
For what will occur in hide and seek

Tributes to the risen water

These boats stand on-end. A salute to the power of the water that on better days will carry them as pleasure craft. Today they are sentinels against a flood.

A scene from the river-bank at Shepperton on Thames.

Forced optimism

Oh, the waste

As each day opens with sloth

And waits for duty or conscience to prick

The torpor that lays like fog

Over the mind, the body and the being

 

Oh, the slog

It is to inhabit clothes

That signify an aim in life

That indicate a desire to do

That will last the course and return to base

 

Oh, the hope

That in all of this recurring effort

The point should not be lost

That we are morsels, fragments of fate

Who can crawl around reason and smile

For we have plans

Free gifts

 

Society confers status upon those

Who leave footprints

But it forgets the ones that whisper

Omitting to grant gifts to the quiet

In case the strident march

Is ignored or simply allowed to pass

So when you receive your inscribed pen

An embossed note-pad or signature robe

Sit up and clap and know

That you are in the club

We, the mute drones

Will sponsor you and lay tinder bones

As sleepers for your railway

For loud, exclusive progress

And wilt as the whistle of celebrations

Rounds the curve and vanishes

We losers will wait once again

For the late running train

We are patient because we know that virtue

Consigns value to a different order