Len Webster

Childhood Is

when the world to come
is an adventure to be met
...

he's there
grey hair balding
on the stage
facing the rows
...

Locked in their minds,
hidden behind masks,
books carry their own lives with them,
lives in ranks,
...

he grew old
worrying about being old
not expecting to reach
this age-old problem
...

Piled high among the ruins of leaving,
The shattered hopes and wasted dreams,
The age-old, dated books and wicked papers
That forced the countless ones to sweat in summer;
...

A kind of poetry in the telling
and a hint of fear in the eye
but inside a sense of adventure
waiting to happen.
...

She's the boss. Purring, snaring
Many with that smiling, feline countenance.
She rubs her words against you, a tiger waiting to pounce.
When SHE smiles near, everyone wonders
...

Since genes were discovered
the trendy, wilful young
have unwittingly
set out to prove
...

He was judged by the old university to be
A man about whom nothing bad could be said
And all of his colleagues were certain that he
Knew enough about words to deserve a degree
...

I stare at the picture:
my father at thirteen.
The boy who saved the day,
keeping goal for the school team.
...

This poem is about a man
Who always had a reason
For being unhappy.
...

They were the cheated generation:
Young between two wars
Then trapped in promises
Of better times to come,
...

Old age is

When the winter is never-ending
And bones groan through
...

If Shakespeare died today
would the lights of Broadway
be lowered
and the BBC World Service
...

This is the city of which we sang,
Of which we were encouraged to dream,
For which our hearts each missed a beat
As we thought of the mushroom clouds.
...

lipstick, smug,
superior,
a fixed expression
on her unresourceful face,
...

Can't spell?
Can't speak?
Why not teach English
To the meek?
...

They stripped me down beyond bare essentials -
Even now I can't tell the new from the old -

Dressed me in the finest green and black livery
...

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,
...

I was brought up
in a lost time
when a liberal
education
...