C Richard Miles Poems

What’s a Q4?
It’s just another question
After Question 3, the next one
Or, it’s rather,
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As threatening thunderstorms may mask a rainbow’s hues,
Hard, hateful, hurtful words may hide more tender truths,
Since sometimes criticism is to help, not harm
For when the hurricane is past, there is pure calm
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And is it that the Advent air no longer loudly rings
With any bell of recognition for the King of Kings?
When frazzled Christmas shoppers push in crowd-crushed Oxford Street
Have they a sentimental inkling they might ever meet
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Far too early in the morning, I bypassed the breakfast room.
Trotting through the pavement puddles, I traversed through cold Cologne.
On that wretched, rainswept morning, worries trickled through my brain:
Would I make the railway station? Would I catch that waiting train?
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Lend me your ears so I can whisper soft
And tell you what I really mean to say.
Lend me your eyes so I can look aloft
And watch for clouds that threaten us with grey.
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I am feeling like a wally,
For I’ve left my milk and wellies,
Like a berk who’d leave a brolly,
In the carriage of the tube.
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When we were young, we would explore
To while away the daylight hours
And climb the crags on Farnhill Moor.
We were intrigued by what we saw
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The little ferryboat no longer shuttles
From Harwich harbour down to Felixstowe
And it gathers every barnacle that settles
Upon its hull to calcify and stay.
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As long as I live, I shall always recall
The day that we painted the school playground wall.
It was part of a day, when all Londoners, workers
And children in schools performed tasks, in a circus,
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Harsh white the motorcyclist’s headlights
Shouted with impatience at the world of cars:
Inferior beings, cloistered, sheltered, guarded
Who have no rights to claim the tarry track
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