C Richard Miles Poems

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,
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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The swaying Santa at the car wash
Blindly beckons paying punters in
To spruce up petrol guzzling tin
For a temporary Christmas treat
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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,
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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.
...