You tripped and tumbled down that slippery slope
Which lay in wait, agape before your feet.
Did you not see that slyly hidden hole,
That trick, that cunning catch which I had set?
...
The bare, black lime looms large,
Tall by the well-trod granite paving stones,
Its silhouetted shape,
A ghost etched on November’s neutral tones,
...
Pulse after pulse drums its beat in the city
Throbbing like heartache deep down in its veins;
Globs of humanity cram into carriages
Until they emanate grey from the trains.
...
First-born of Mary, though of lowly birth,
Not just a baby: God in man on earth,
Starting Your story, suffering and cold,
First-born of Mary, only minutes old.
...
Deep, deep down in the dull, dark dungeon,
Doomed, the duke’s dainty daughter dwells,
Fastened firm by fearsome fetters;
Cell safe-secured by secret spells.
...
Dear David, as I start to type
This message, after all these years,
I pause, for it is only time’s
Dimension that now separates
...
I pause to cross the rough-hewn, part-patched, shaky step
Of weathered fence-stile on my winter walk, to stop,
Sit on the stoop and gaze across the yellowing scene
To where, in summer, swaying grass-blades graced the crop.
...
The swaying Santa at the car wash
Blindly beckons paying punters in
To spruce up petrol guzzling tin
For a temporary Christmas treat
...
Tawdry commercialism cozies up to history
At Kirkstall where the trade-tired superstores
Sit so uneasily beside black abbey walls
And, though devoted monks are gone,
...
Some time has passed, since that grey day, December last,
Since I went out, content to stray and lark about,
Just for a laugh and nothing more, along the towpath
By the canal, up to the war memorial.
...