MY 2ND PUBLICATION OF VERSE!
Tales of The Swan-Dyke
March – July, 2020 – CV-19
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TALES of the SWAN-DYKE ~ 7
To celebrate the launch of my 2nd self-published booklet of 11 diverse poems and essays entitled : TALES of the SWAN-DYKE along with Illustrations and Authors Notes – I am happy to offer a signed, printed hard-copy for just £5 inc. post/packing for orders within the United Kingdom and £6.50 inc. shipping for orders outside the UK ! I wrote these poems and 1 essay during my COVID-19 isolation and over nearly 4 months
#NOTE ~ please email ME AT:-
stepheneede689@btinternet.com
Alternatively you can post a comment in the comments box at the foot of this page and I will forward details of how to make payment ~ PLEASE include your name and the address where you would like the printed copy to be sent + PLUS indicate if it is to be a gift.
Many thanks ~ edenbray
TO Celebrate this occasion I am re-posting all eleven parts – today I am re-posting part 7 : TWO HAYSTACKS WITH CONVERGING LINES..
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Foreward to the Publication
In March 2020 at the recommendation of the British Governments Scientific Health Advisers I entered a period of isolation as a ‘shielding’ measure due to my previous and ongoing health issues and to avoid the threat of Covid-19, a dangerous strain of Coronavirus which attacks the respiratory system, especially of older and susceptible, clinically vulnerable persons. The full total of Covid-related deaths will not become clear for some while but it is already huge on a world-wide scale. This pamphlet of verse and writings came out of that period of isolation.
Most of the writings were composed from notes made during daily, long, walks I made in the fields at the rear of our home in Lincolnshire with either Ruth, my wife or on my own. These writings reflect wider concerns over the pandemic itself, national issues that developed during this period such as BLM but also very real and more personal matters concerning growing old, loneliness, our future – plus mental and physical health worries.
This selection from the poignant ‘This World So Sad’ to the more comedic ‘Predestination’ or ‘the dog’ may at times seem controversial, they contain ‘adult’ words but each of these works is important to me in conveying the true ‘feeling’ of the time and together they hopefully capture the full rainbow of human experience. I hope the reader will catch the humour intended as well as the more serious points of reference.
Thanks for listening edenbray 06.07.2020
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Two Haystacks with Converging Lines
Giant Haystacks
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O Albion, O Albion princess among the wolves
Your lithe ways betray your sensuous moves
O Albion, O Albion she lay down in the hay
Her dog-bitch must brought on by a brewers dray
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I know I love thee, I love thee more than money
and in the morning we’ll go walking
out on the horizon
we are never coming back
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That egg-blue horizon where lost telegraph wires
suffer the same morbid attenuation of a nation
grey lines disappearing
behind two flaxen stacks
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It’s hard to believe until you shake the sieve
that all these lines will meet one day
inside the passions murmuration
where only grizzled monsters grieve
Converging and concentric lines
the 1,000th part at heavens gate
where even Romulus and Remus wait
Sanctus Paulus et Petrus there conclude
with pious Pope both their parallel fate
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This tattooed Isle ~ this tortured Isle
conscience-worn and stricken
attitudes vile, uninformed, yet still uncertain
Where tolerance becomes a dirty word
and love the final treason
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Please rush past my window
with your flutter and your pomp
Don’t bother knocking at my door
you will never find me in
Until you bow the knee,
and then confess your sin
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Two haystacks stand in the corner of this field
huge obstacles that can be turned to fodder
Two giant haystacks in a field
One said to the other
You are my brother, did you know
We came from the same mother?
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The sun had burnt one to black
thus proved it were an older stack
showed against the younger’s gold
that younger was not that old
Or wise, or thoughtful or caring
just spent its evenings staring
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What is the weather forecast today ~ cloudy?
What is the forecast for today ~ sun?
What was the forecast for us today – run?
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Have we now forgotten how to cry
or forgotten how to laugh?
The golden future of tomorrow
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Have we forgotten how to love
or now forgotten how to give?
God opened a stained-blood window
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I took an orange from the bowl today
peeled back its orange skin
I tasted fruit so sweet and driven
could not smell its culture’s sin
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Farmer came to clear the stacks away
To open up the skyline panorama
Loaded they upon a cart in threes an’ twos
To preclude this allegorical dilemma
Not a hamstrung minister of indecision
Nor repentant priest, no sharp contrition
We nurse the absurdity of change without drama
compose a litany where waters run most deep
While only two things mean anything in this life
God, and your heart, where then should we start?
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edenbray8today
ref.21062020