Len Webster Poems

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
...

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

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
...