Poetry - November 2023

It's Not Christmas Yet

It's still November
And yet everyone seems to play
All the festive Christmas hits
Please stop them and please go away
It's still the middle of November
There's ice rinks appearing everywhere
Which would make sense if it's cold
But early in the month was set fair
It's still in November
I can see so many offers in a shop
It's almost as if they know that
Black Friday will be a sales flop
It's very much still November
And I don't want to hear Wham or Slade
Or any other festive singalong
Because I'm already feeling low laid
I just want a time when
We can enjoy the festive season more
But to hammer it home in November
Is something I just utterly deplore.

(If it's December, then fine, please do anything festive that you would like. But November? Just too early, and too much reminding people of the season to come where they might not want to be reminded of it and any pressures so early. Let's just take a step back shall we?)

River Walking

The weather may not be at its best
But I find myself heading out West
The river calls me to walk some more
In a place that I've come to adore
There may be some muddy paths
But I know that having done the maths
The walk is mainly flat and with trees
So doing the four miles should be a breeze
I take the steps one by one at the river
Seeing some people jogging makes me shiver
Thinking they must be keeping warm
As they're not wearing much in the rainstorm
As I gradually curved around to the bridge
I can see that there's so many walkers on the ridge
A four mile stroll has been done
And it really was quite a bit of fun.

(I must admit, doing river walks along the Thames Path at the moment has been a nice bit of escapism.)

The Darkness Falls

You can tell the clocks have gone back
As the sun sets earlier on another day
And it is getting dark before I leave work
Heading home on the bus and darkness today
There's a sense of only seeing daylight
When out of your office at lunch
Unless you're working at home and can see outside
As you're having your mid morning brunch
The skies start to get darker
With the festive lights sparkling way too early
But it shows just even more the black skies
With the trip home being light polluted you see
It's a real sense of foreboding for Winter
As the darkness falls today
So be ready for this for the next few months
With a sense of black until March, I'd say.

(Definitely if you are affected by seasonal adjustments, this time is not for you at present.)

Hope in a Nuclear World

When we see the campaigners
Vigorously against nuclear energy
Citing disasters that can happen
And they have happened too
From the threat this energy creates
To the jobs this energy creates
There is no winner in a nucelar world
There is only hope that exists
Hope that people will see sense
And terminate everything involved
With this dangerous form of power
That would kill us all one by one
Should war ever break out
It has to be destroyed
Before the nuclear world destroys us
Otherwise all we can live for is hope.

(Some of you will know that I once wrote a tune on the Commodore 64 called "Hope In A Nuclear World." These are the spoken word lyrics I wrote to go with it. The idea I had was that I would re-record the tune on professional equipment but it never saw the light of day.)

Watching Cat Haiku

Brian watches on
As the workmen do their job
He surveys their moves.

(Brian the cat has been monitoring the workmen outside and has an eye for approval of what's being done - it's really entertaining to see.)