Treat me gently dear reader.
May my meagre efforts to warm your ears suffice as a gift.
If Wordsworth-like phrases stride across the paper,
don't toss your chin or click your tongue;
if adjectives dare to contrive to paint a vivid picture,
don't let condemning eyebrows and wrinkled forehead
frighten my words to the corners of the sheet....

My World Atlas calls from the bottom shelf.
A weighty volume, it stretches my muscles..

Feet jut out intentionally from the ends of our legs
keeping us erect, like no other creature,
stretched between earth and heaven.

A big letter dropped through the letter box
with a lovely bright card for my birthday.
Someone out there loves me I pleased to say
To put a smile on my face annually.

Born in the war in a field in Essex.
Daddy milked cows, Mummy made cheese,
pumped water, lit oil lamps and the wood-fired range.
I got muddy knees crawling in the long garden.

Ranks of red-robed regiments
marching down The Mall,
a marvellous, monstrous machine,
moving as one - left, right, left, right.

I really must eat more cooked greens,
broccoli, peas and sprouts and beans.
These should comprise your Five-a-Day,
supposed to keep cancer at bay.

The sun is gleaming through the bare limbs
of the lime tree avenue,
dew is on the grassy verge,
morning mist hides the view.
Leather satchel slung over my shoulder

Falling with a crash
into starless night;
no chink of light
except the dawn of understanding.
I beg for
A friend explains, "It's not a breakdown,
it's a breakthrough."

I have a little friend who goes about with me
So when I am in need of help he's there.

Now, I'm not one to let you know,
but someone else should tell it;
how my paunch was allowed to grow
and extend two holes in my belt.

My boots had eaten up over 25 miles
hiking for four days along the 500-year-old Inca Trail,
through Andean peaks wrapped in pelts of coarse grass,
and forest where plants on branches sucked moisture from misty air
brought us to a pair of built stone pillars, standing to attention -
the mighty Sun Gate, Intipunku....

My handwriting has not always been
the microscopic scribble I create today.
At eight, learning joined-up writing
my steel nib stabbed unasked through the page.
I blotted the monitor's inkwell spills
navy circles spreading on spongy pink.

Stretched on that rock amidst olive trees
in abject fear blood breaks through your skin.
Startled at your traitor's kiss
you go to carry the curse of our sin.

While people are still safe and warm in bed
birds perching on their nests, balancing
on the topmost branches and on electric wires
call out gladly to each other, 'Prepare.'

HAROLD:- REX:- INTERFECTVS: EST