C Richard Miles Poems

Fly by
Blue Butterflies
As you dimly remember
Distant days of drizzle-drenched spring
...

Clatter of shuttle and rattle of looms
Shattered the peace of the weaving rooms
In Yorkshire and Lancashire’s high rolling hills,
Where masses of mill lasses chattered in mills
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In the nineteen-sixties, when I was a lad,
On Saturday mornings, whilst mum went with dad
To do all their shopping, until they came back
From our nearest town, I’d stay with Uncle Jack.
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This poem doesn’t rhyme though it looks like it does:
The line ends look similar but that’s not how it goes,
For, all along, the rhyme-scheme seems to suffer from a hiccough
When you look at it more closely and try to run it through.
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When we were young, we climbed on walls
And scaled the splashing waterfalls
But in these days, the kids are bores
And watch TV and stay indoors.
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River…
Bright blue ribbon
Lacing up a green dress
Worn by flock-filled, flower-filled flat frills
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Do not dare carve my name on some cold stone
When I am gone; I shall not sleep for long,
Though flesh may rot and moulder in my grave,
Since, unconstrained by space and time and shape,
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Our teacher had false teeth;
She kept them in a box
Inside the classroom cupboard
Which she forgot to lock,
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Does a terracotta army hold much terror for the fray?
For it hasn’t got a chance to march with sluggish feet of clay
And its terracotta armour would just shatter into crumbs,
If a terrorist determined that he’d lob some mortar bombs.
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