Jubal's poems

[Jubal]

Snow Days

Ice covered treetops
Snow filled deep ditches
Snowflakes like fairies
Sledges like witches

Dancing in waltz-whirls
The snow glides to earth
The blackbirds that huddle
And nurture their girth

Snowdrift and snowmelt
And bust pipes and cars
A nation in snowfreeze
- thank god that it's ours.

The children that laugh loud
And throw snowballs too
The pale quiet treetops
And me, thinking of you.

[Jubal]

The Beacons

Yesterday
They lit the beacons again
Along the wall where they once were
A thousand years and half again
Ago.

Yesterday
People came to the wall once more
They did not need the Empire; the Empire had gone
They did not need the soliders; for they were dead and buried
They did not need the wall; for the wall was in ruins
But the people were there.
The people could light the beacons.
The people did not change.

Tomorrow
We may look at a darker earth
Where danger lurks and people suffer
And death is as bitter as painful birth
And we are alone.

Tomorrow
People will need to light their hopes again
They do not need a nation; the nations are failing
They do not need an army; the guns are useless
They do not need to hate; for hate breeds hate
They just need themselves.
The people can light the beacons.
The people, still, can look to the light.

Hope remains.

[Jubal]

Three Bridges

The remains of broken bridges stand in front of me today,
And the world that they connected stands to fall in disarray,
The dark clouds roll and the long rivers swell
And the sound of breaking bridges
Pulls us onwards into hell.

A bridge once hung over gorges deep
With great iron chains to hold it fast
And even when the planks were gone
The bridge was fought over as a base for future planks
And a country's future.
But did anyone win, at the last?

There was a path among seven hills
That led across the waters deep
It stood proud for the work of an Empire
But when the Empire was gone, the bridge fell
Until it led to nowhere.
And so the past falls, in time, to sleep.

I looked out then on tarmac'd streets,
And longshoremen in work-filled calm
Yet none of them dared to be themselves,
And when one did the law and justice fought
Nobody won
But I mourn the villain still, with a certain... alarm.

The remains of broken bridges stand in front of me today,
And the world that they connected stands to fall in disarray,
The dark clouds roll and the long rivers swell
And the sound of breaking bridges
Of man and mundus breaking bridges
The sound of breaking bridges
Must be heard... so mark it well.

---------------------
Challenge to the reader: can you work out which bridges they are?  

[Jubal]

A Bloody Awful Day In Norfolk

I walked down the fenland track
And met a man coming the other way.
Both hooded
Both booted
On a normal Norfolk day.

The rain pattered down
Bringing life from above
And drawing life upwards
To the newly wet mud
And the raindrops hung from the laden trees
Like pearl earrings.

The mud oozed under my feet
Trickles of black gold
From which trees grow
In which the multitude of life exists
From which the riches of the fen were gained.

And the trees stood around me
Like the pillars of nature's cathedral
Ancient, unfeeling,
Immune to the petty cares of man.
And for their strength
And their reality
They were beautiful.

The reed-beds whispered
In the Norfolk wind
Which bit my face a little
And then whisked onwards
Windswept horses stood in the distance
Wind-tossed buds shook on the bushes

I looked at the other man again
And all I heard him say was this:
"It's a bloody awful day in Norfolk".

[Goldyrulz]

Shouldn't you be revising instead of writing poems?

[Jubal]

Shouldn't you be revising instead of commenting on them?  

[Goldyrulz]

Making them probably takes longer than commenting on them

[Andalus]

The Norfolk poem is awesome, and I love 'The Most Beautiful Word'. Great poetry, Jubal.

[Jubal]

Thanks! I'll get back to it once exams are over hopefully, the GCSE system is crushing my latent creativity.  :ermm:

[Jubal]

Thoughts About People

Some see red, and some see blue
Some see black, and some see white
Some the sun and some the moon
Some the day and some the night

Are the people we know
The people we think we know?

Do we only know
Our own ideas of the people that come and go?

If I imagined another, could they be real?
Are the ideas in my head as human to me as the living bodies that think and feel?

Some are soldiers, some are priests
Some are dark and some are fair
Some from west and some from east
Some from here and some from there.

Are the dreams we are shown
A mirror on reality, or reality of our own?

Is what make us us our will to create?
Do we know more than the mere whim of fate?

You, the reader, may be evil or just
But to know that I know you I have only trust.

You are fey and you are wise
You are foolish, you are calm
You clean my doubt with shining eyes
We will keep each other safe from harm.

[Jubal]

The Fairy

The Queen of Faery followed me,
Through wood and hill and greenwood tree.
The Queen of Faery followed me,
And bounded through my dreams...

She wore a dress of purest white,
And stood on a hill in the morning light.
She wore a dress of purest white,
With pure swan-feather seams.

She looked at me with an ice-cold glance,
And whirled me round in a desperate dance.
She looked at me with an ice-cold glance,
And shook her hair in bright sunbeams.

I tried to run away for good,
But only found a darker wood.
I tried to run away for good,
But I was bound by her beautiful schemes.

So what can we two do, my dear,
When she is close and you not near?
And will I, waking, ever find,
Queen Mab, the ruler of my mind?

[Jubal]

A few nursery rhymes, updated in the light of the comprehansive spending review:

Baa Baa Black Sheep
Baa baa, black sheep, have you any wool?
No, sir, no sir; DEFRA* took it all.
Some to test for skin mites
And find out who to blame
And more to sue the farmer with his petting farm AGAIN.

* UK govt. Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs

Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
All the king's men looked quite sorry and said
"Our budget's been cut," then they left him for dead.

Hey Diddle Diddle
Hey diddle diddle, the taxes were fiddled,
The banks were over the moon.
The chancellor laughed to see such fun;
Hurrah that it's bonus time soon!

The Grand Old Duke of York
The Grand old Duke of York had lost a thousand men
He marched them up into Lashkar Gah
Then his funds were cut again.
When they were cut, they were cut
Equipment was down, it was down
They had no boots nor guns nor tanks
So they got run out of town.

[Phoenixguard09]

You were scratching a little with Grand Old Duke of York weren't you?

Just kidding, its all really good.  Especially the Beacons.  I have to ask, Rome Total War or King Arthur?

[Jubal]

There was an event a year or two ago where people re-lit beacons right along Hadrian's Wall. Rather epic.  

[Andalus]

Heh, I like them. Nice work!