Len Webster Poems

On a small headstone, a name,
a date, a short story
sad in the telling, tragic
in the reading between the lines.
...

He hummed the summer of '71.
Having fulfilled an ambition on the West Coast,
he surrendered in Reno and took the Greyhound route back,
watching the sun rise fierce and optimistic in the east.
...

There is a man sitting on a plain, home-made wooden chair in the centre of the room.

The man's arms are stretched behind the straight, wooden back.
...

I fill them up,
these bulky notebooks,
fill them up with words;
some crammed into lines
...

Since when did caution
become a term of abuse,
to be spat vindictively
at those who would prevent disaster
...

Is your teacher very smug?
Does he care about you?
Is he a she or a bit of both,
A budding captain or one of the crew?
...

We don't take photographs any more.
The routine is too familiar.
Or perhaps we want to keep ourselves secret.
We know each other too well for more deception,
...

Throwing a word in the air
Watching it curl with the breeze
Taking a magic carpet of Turkish Delight
Willing others to follow
...

Who are these people I see in my photographs?
Their names have gone and were only briefly with me
Yet here they smile at me,
The pleasure of bygone summers in their eyes.
...

Down dale - a picture comes to mind
Of North Midland summers green and rolling,
Of childhood chases and skirts flicked by the breeze,
Where roving Bennies run free and manic
...