Patrick Ladbrooke

I remember nights of roaring surf,
The long rods nodding with the pull,
Watching in the hiss and glare of pressure lamps,
Waiting with my father, for the fish to run.
...

There is a five bar gate,
white, by a woodland track
where, half a century back,
we talked till evening late.
...

On the trailing edge of winter, pale light led me
To the cut, where alder and bowed willow stand
Reflected in the greys and browns of long waiting,
While winter burdened boats slack at their ropes.
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Tall the abbey tower,
Now with no bell to call
Through a perfect arch to nowhere,
But a crumbling abbey wall.
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Ahead, in rain, the morning surges
With brake lights on the dual carriageway;
Around a slight curve traffic crushes
Yellow blinking to the outside lane.
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No black is blacker than the darkest night,
Without star or moon,
Or guiding light,
Of love.
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A stranger he will be
The sailor home from sea,
To child left in the womb
An infant now he's home.
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When I last walked down this lane
I was just a boy
Short trousered and muddy kneed.
The puddles were much deeper then
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Orange lines of sodium
Beckon through the mist,
Lanes flowing, slowing,
Climbing up to Saddleworth.
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I tread the leaves,
Which rustling, fly;
Life's steps I've gladly taken
Blackened lie,
...

I thought the grass was greener,
On the far side of the hill,
I searched in vain,
Found only pain,
...

Swinging sixties

From boy to man
And a string of girls
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Bluebells

From a distant wood, a boy,
I gathered bluebells by the armful.
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Saturday evenings,
With resin'd hair and blistered toes
I chased a girl
Who triple salco'ed in a tutu.
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That dear old friend
Once, crisp and timely
as a metronome, now
Shouts in my ears each night
...

Lists

I love to write a list
1. And prioritise.
...

Smiling from their cosy nest,
two puppies rise and fall with her every breath,
bursting to escape, they taunt
' You'd like to feel our peachy warmth? '
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Old men on a shelter bench,
With newspapers and sticks,
Each day the same as yesterday,
The morning tide, the ships;
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When autumn came, the sea would swell
With the harvest to deliver,
And the air was filled with herring smell,
From quays along the river.
...

Thompson took the crease;
with broken pallet plank in hand,
tapped at the cracked concrete.
Smith bowled, right arm over dustbin
...