The innocent photographer

What happens when a friend goes looking for foxes

The fox-hunt

Sneaking through the old park gates
intent on photographs she said
not cognisant of local pastimes
trouble lies ahead

Parks the car, her quarry sighted
mounts her flash, and fires away
but she's not the only flasher
working there that day

Cars draw up and park alongside
windows dancing up and down
seems there are a lot of randy
dog-foxes in this town.

Slowly comes the understanding
all she sees is not OK
starts the car, escape intending
she is now the prey...

©Rob King 2018

New poem - first in a long while

In contrast to my previous post, we seem to be having a run of dull damp days again, which isn't very helpful with so much to do in the garden after a very wet and cold winter.

I need some sun

My bones are longing for the sun
to warm and penetrate my flesh
and ease my aching, swollen, joints
and make my heart feel young and fresh

My eyes are longing for the sun
to coat the world with golden light
to fill the woods with contrast colours,
lake reflections, diamond bright

My brow is longing for the sun
to change the colour of my skin
from winter white to golden brown
to indicate warm life within

My back is longing for the sun
to warm my soul and drive me on
and do the work the garden needs
to grow some food to live upon

My feet are longing for the sun
that some day in this year I'll feel
the warm sand in between my toes
A seaside day - now, there's a deal!

My life is longing for the sun
that I might in my hammock lie
beneath the dappled shade of trees
and quietly watch small clouds drift by...

©Rob King 2018

I wrote this several years ago and thought I had put it in my blog, but no. 
Anyway, it's pertinent to this beautiful day.

Crystal Clear

Just now
The heavens have a clarity I've seldom seen before
The air is perfect crystal, not a mote my eyes endure
To see it, feel it, breathe it; could I ever ask for more?
Such perfection in a day to be remembered.

Later
when the Summer grows, and turns the furnace on
and haze will shield the vista presently I gaze upon
I'll come back to day remembered and feel the sun that shone
allowing colours to be so vividly presented.

© Rob King  2012

A quiet hammock-nap

Having had a busy morning, I opted for a nap in the hammock after lunch. Tucked between a lilac and a large mahonia bush, and overlooked by climbing roses not yet in flower, but grasping thin air for more support, I lie there, sheltered from the cruel North-Easterly and it's wicked attempts to nullify Phoebe's yellow heat, my eyes are drawn to the tattered rags of the low cloud scudding across the cyan space, and am mesmerised. A small bird alights in the naked ash tree above my head, silhouetted, and mouth full of feed, impatient for me to remove myself, so it can feed its young. Far too impatient, and trying not to expose the nest site it decides to attempt a route from another direction, flits, and is hidden.
A small procession of swallows appears from the south, wheeling and churning, picking flies out of the sky as ever they do, before disappearing as rapidly as they came.
My gaze returns once more to the clouds, where my eye is captured by a movement - a buzzard, soaring, with a slow gyration, quartering the local grasslands for a lame or injured rabbit. Such eyes they have! he is so far up that his markings are indistinguishable, though I know him as a regular visitor. As he passes out of view, I spot his mate, following a similar route, and being somewhat bigger, her markings are a little more obvious. How many more people have spotted them, I wonder? Few in number, I'm sure.
A commotion!  A lone sparrowhawk fleetingly scythes the air across the garden, mobbed by several smaller birds, attempting to distract the express predator from the naive fledglings whose only thoughts are food, regardless of safety first.

Everything settles down again. The clouds unerringly drift and scud South-Westward on the breath of the cold wind.
I close my eyes, and think how lucky am I, to have seen so much in the space of so few minutes.

A cold North-Easter in Spring

Drawing back the curtains
I am dismayed to see
the grey blanket
of sullen cloud
that has assembled
to be ushered in
under cover of darkness
ahead of the ponderous
North-East breeze,
barely moving, but
sucking all the joy out of the
head-hung wisteria
making her hold her perfume
for yet another day.
Donning my togs
my energy I squander,
wander to the wood-shed
returning with logs and kindling
and rain-spots on my glasses
and once more
re-light the Rayburn.

A poem I wrote in 2014

Noise

His ears were filled with ambient noise
not his, but incidental
to the sounds of daily hand-to-mouth, of constant give and take
it seemed to him quite ceaseless, undiminished, incremental
and he longed for total silence, just to give his mind a break.
From the moment that his morning eyes
took in the world around him
his head would start to fill with sound, incongruous to his thought
like the rattle of a Gatling at commencement of a battle
and he couldn't shut the noise out, no matter how he fought.
He swore beneath his silent breath
not wishing an addition
to the chatter, natter, patter, clatter echoing in his brain
it weren't as if the sound was kind, a steady repetition
such as falling water, sighing wind, or even driven rain.
Oh no - these were man-made, every one
demanding that he listen
requiring that he be a part of other peoples lives
when what he really wanted was the chance to do some thinking
and not have his thoughts dismembered by others' noisy knives.
Thus it was, he found himself
in a glen between two rising walls
a glaciated, hanging valley high in Scotlands hills
where noise was Nature's own dominion, nothing more than whirring pinion,
shushing grasses, bubbling burn and quietly running rills.
He came across a Thinking Stone
and there he sat in reverie silent
taking in all manner that presented to his eyes
and hearing not another sound that man had made or uttered
he delighted in the silence
and deemed himself quite wise.


© Rob King 2014

Cannon-fodder

There is nothing left to feel

the mud and blood have sealed my eyes

there is nothing left to heal

even pain my mind defies

the whistling bombs and rattling guns

no longer frighten me to death

for Death is standing over me

arms folded, waiting my last breath.

To think that all I ever dreamed 

a life of love, and love of life

destroyed by powerful men who schemed

and used the likes of me in strife

They will never face such thoughts

as, smashed and shattered, I face now

The future will my bones expose

exhumed by shiny-breasted plough

and once again the shining sun

will warm my relics in the tilth 

and birds replace the booming gun

forgetting all this bloody filth.

© Rob King 11th November 2016

Unsettled

Sunset over Scarning Village

I've been feeling a bit troubled recently with all the political crap that I'm coming across. This puts my feelings into words.

Unsettled

The sun is bright, but has no warmth

the days are growing longer

Winter's truly done and gone

but I'm not growing stronger

I need to set the blood a-coursing

throughout my limbs so weary

but there's too much crap inside my head

and I sit here feeling teary

Is it me or is it them?

that cause me so much trouble

that make me feel that all is bad -

reduce my heart to rubble

It seems to be a daily fight

to find a happy thought

when the world around me isn't just,

and doing what it ought

I read the words and hear them said

and try to understand them

and assay to divine the truth

but find I can't command them

there's lie on lie, and lie returned

all words of propaganda

and liars thrive within the hive

paid out with a backhander

So if I say "the truth to tell"

I mean it as I find it

and cannot offer guarantees

to the truth that lies behind it

for I can only speak out loud

of truth as it's presented

but walls are built with bricks of lies

and with more lies cemented

© Rob King

Ode to the Rayburn

Ode to the Rayburn

Throughout the Summer you solid squat
an iron mass, doors numbering four
your heavy eyelids held tight closed
chrome eyelashed like some blinged-up whore.
Your brooding blackness fills the corner
lends it darkness, saps the light,
no comfort will I find within you
whether it be day or night
for should I chance to get too close
your skin will suck the heat from me
the needle on your gauge at zero
you slumber, and I let you be.
But come the Autumn you awaken
I brush you down and clean you out
surround you with fresh feed and fuel
make you feel less cool without
The ritual begins in earnest
paper first, then willow chips
and thicker sticks, all laid in lattice
tunnels where the hot flame licks.
Now logs to crush the embers down
and slowly make an ashen bed, 
so Ash goes in and shrinks to ash
while giving up its heat instead.
Quietly you start to sizzle
water in your boiler warms
spitting willow in the firebox
sparks contained will do no harm.
The needle on the gauge is lifting,
oven warming, hotplate too
I lift one eyelid, you respond
awakening with work to do.
Kettle filled I gently place it, 
but water on its underneath
spits a violent reaction
instant steam demands relief
I sit back and read awhile 
aware that you are gaining power
the kettle gently starts to sing
from nought to a hundred,
Half an hour!
Tonight, above your shielded hotplate
ironing will be hung to air
a silent job to last the night time
but you will neither know nor care.
So as the winter’s wicked tendrils
creep through gaps ‘tween door and floor
You become the silent heart
of welcome in our home once more.

© Rob King

Olivia Juliette

You cleave unto my wool-clad chest

as a starfish to a rock

with tiny perfect fingers clenched

and bootied feet a-splay

I watch you as you dream in sleep

of things you know-not-what

and caress your gossamer covered head

and hold you, while I may.

I kiss your head, and smell your skin

and taste the peace within you

Your tiny lungs take in a breath

and gently let it go

I watch your rib-cage rise and fall

so slight, it's barely moving

my giant hands hold you in place

but I don't think you know.

I wonder if there'll be a time

from deep within your memory

that you will get a feeling that

I kept you safe and warm

while you just lay there sleeping

and listening to my heartbeat

unworried and cocooned in love

protected from all harm.

For you, I wish a peaceful life

a life of constant loving

that you might give, and yet receive

all pleasure, without end

For holding you so close to me

I feel a bond between us

unknowingly, you give me love

my darling little friend.