C Richard Miles Poems

Truculent, I trudged across the muddy public park,
narked at pure necessity of popping to the shops.
Wild winds whistled, wuthering and, though dank rain had stopped,
grey, glowering clouds gloomed, gathering; the sky was drawing dark.
...

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
...

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.
...

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.
...

River…
Bright blue ribbon
Lacing up a green dress
Worn by flock-filled, flower-filled flat frills
...

Our teacher had false teeth;
She kept them in a box
Inside the classroom cupboard
Which she forgot to lock,
...

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,
...

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.
...