POETRY - VERSE VARIOUS
A variety of poems using various forms and some collections of poems relating to different topics.
STAND ALONG VERSES
Serenade to Arts
By Phyl Lobl 2019
This poem grew from recognising the ways in which different species of birds demonstrate creativity. Birds build nests using skills of weaving and clay modelling, build structures to house collections of Bower Bird treasures. They entertain through dance and song. Many species add to their repertoire of heard sounds by composing and adding new music patterns.
This poem’s structure was influenced by the rhythm patterns of the Haydn / Hoffstetter Serenade for Strings Opus 3, no. 5
Arts and artistry a priceless treasury;
They are children born of love, pain and memory.
On wings of hope and thought, their joys come to me.
Displays of sound and colour they can steer me
Away from chains of grief and out of darkest misery.
Arts and artistry they surely carry me
With colour and feeling played as sweet melody.
Weavings of rhythm, word and rhyme, they capture me.
Art transcends bonds of humanity, unlocks minds and sets us free.
A human legacy that can help us see,
A better way, yes, a better way, that we can be,
Everyone can be part of the human family.
When the world has soured rocky roads we climb.
Arts they lift us far beyond the aching stretch of time,
And though we cannot fly, we can reach for the sky.
In the ‘web of life’ we’re caught
With art an escape that can be sought.
Making art, however simple, is a joy that can’t be bought.
From muscle and eye, turned or trained to mould
Sound or movement, thread or colour, muted, misted, bold,
Brain and body give their energy, becoming ‘souled’.
Feathered muses were the first to find the key,
Feathered muses were the first with artistry,
The Arts their legacy, a priceless treasury.
COLLECTIONS
VERSE - IN A TIME OF VIRUS
Unprecedented Twist
By Phyl Lobl 14th March 2020
The word for 20-20 is the word ‘unprecedented‘
First applied to fires, but soon burned in our brains,
Because as the clouds descended its use became extended,
Applied then just as eagerly to drought dissolving rains.
Before the floods had ebbed away more trouble moved upon us,
The population held in sway by the CORVID-19 virus.
Like fires the virus spread it could not be circumvented,
So repeated and repeated was the word unprecedented.
Yes the word most often vented was the word unprecedented,
From the throat of every second politician in the land.
They were slow to bite the bullet. Alarm bell?, they wouldn’t pull it,
Like the emu of our symbol kept their heads deep in the sand.
Then a hope began to flower in my isolated brain,
It’s a hope that come November U.S commonsense will reign,
An ’s’ would replace the ‘c’ in the word unprecedented,
And with ‘i’ instead of ‘e’ Trump become ‘unpresidented’.
Virus Etiquette So You Don't Get It
By Phyl Lobl 14th March 2020
Keep, keep your social space.
And don’t touch your face,
Best stay in your place
Until the virus goes.
Wash your hands and wash your clothes,
Use hot water not the hose,
Bin the tissue from your nose
Until the virus goes.
Tissues in the bin you throw,
When you sneeze use your elbow,
If there’s a party just don’t go
Until the virus goes.
The curve will peak and then go flat.
Like the stretching of a cat,
The world will say ‘well that is that’.
When the virus goes.
Flattening The Curve
By Phyl Lobl 16th March 2020
Flattening the curve, what’s new about that?
Flattening the curve I’ve tried most of my days.
Flattening the curve’s what you do when you are fat.
I’ve never succeeded though I’ve tried many ways.
Diet books weigh down the shelves in my room.
Fitness books do that as well.
Pilates and Yoga and running and such
Did not work a Magical Spell.
This curve is different I realise that.
But will the job be any easier ?
This curves’s not the same as the curves made by fat
And this curve could make one feel queasier.
‘Out damned spot‘ I say every day
As I soap, wash and rinse both my mitts.
‘Out damned spot, get out of the way.
Though it’s true you won’t give me the shits’.
So all that Loo Paper stacked in the hall,
And all the rolls under the bed,
All that Loo Paper I don’t need at all,
I should have bought Champagne instead ....
A Question For Scientists
By Phyl Lobl 24th March 2020
If a pet dog or cat had vacated their mat
And had gone down the street for a wander
And if that pet dog or cat trod where ‘someone’ had spat
Then it’s given me reason to ponder....
...If that ‘someone’s’ spittle had just one little ‘bittle’
Of the dreaded virus COVID NINETEEN,
Would it be outrageous to think it contagious,
That place where the dog or the moggie had been?
Would paws need to be sprayed before ‘he’ or ‘she’,
Could be let in when returned from their roam?
I know they can’t sing while they do Paw Washing,
But aren’t clean paws essential for a virus-free home?
No-one has said clearly when the virus is deadly.
NO timing of when, how or where?
If the STEM people know they are not saying .. SO
My question just hangs in the air.
But it seems I’m alarmist. There is no harm.
I’m told it won’t be spread by pets,
They can still roam, but we must stay home.
Should we run out of doctors, there will still be vets.
LINES BORN OF LOVE - PROOF OF LOVE?
Laughter Lines 1969
The lines around your eyes of laughter,
I’d like to think I’d helped to carve a few
By some quick word,
Shared in a bright moment we had made.
Some, they were there
Long before I knew you
And I can I only hope to carve them deeper
In the time that’s left
Love Lie By Me 1970
Tune see Alcyone Album
I found a true love when springtime was turning,
We planted a wildflower in place of my thyme.
We lay in the stillness made by the loving,
Where thoughts need no reason and words need nor rhyme.
Chorus
Love lie by me, I'll not tie thee,
But I'll show you the joys and the pleasures of love.
Breezes find voices in green trees of summer,
There's songs to be found in the branches of love.
The birds in the green trees sing of the sunrise,
Rejoicing in blue skies but I’ll sing you love.
Love with its pleasures and love with its paining,
Sometimes will wither and oft times will cloy.
Hearts that are constant find grief at the sunset,
But memories of loving bring mornings of joy.
Ship of Fools 1980
Circa 1980’s Tune see Wanderer Album
The title comes from a mediaeval morality play 'Das Narrenschiff' by Sebastian Brandt, the theme of which was used for a book by Katherine Anne Porter. A film was based on that novel and the poem /song grew out of the influences of these but expresses many of my own thoughts.
When we ride the ship of fools we play a part,
And live by foolish rules they teach us at the start.
When we ride the ship of fools we're on a trip,
And never know just when we have to leave the ship.
Some will share the table that drinks the Captain's wine,
But some will travel steerage on this line, this flotsam line.
On the Starboard or on Port,
Everyone is sold or bought,
When we ride the ship of fools,
Bought or sold we learn the rules.
When we ride the ship of fools, we search for love,
And promenade on deck to find a heart to move.
When we ride the ship of fools, we make a deal,
On just how much we will allow ourselves to feel.
For love’s a coloured canvas patched with solid blue,
For some it’s a growing rain, for some just morning dew.
On the Starboard or on Port
Love’s the web in which we’re caught,
And the merchant will entice,
Take your choice and pay the price.
Salute to a Gypsy 1980
Tune see Wanderer Album
Written in gratitude for Freda my mother died 1982 - aged 84
You've gone down the back road its milking time again,
I smile a bit to think of how you're dressed.
In a butcher's stripy apron you found on the road,
And a Digger's hat now well past its best.
Yes that's how I'll remember you down through the years,
And how you'd calm the fears that childhood lends.
And although we often differed on the subjects of the world,
I think we had a good thing there as friends.
CHORUS
So I salute a Gypsy who would never let self pity,
Ever get her by the throat and take control.
Who showed me by her giving the stepping stones to loving,
And by loving how to reach another's soul.
You would talk about the old days and how you met your love,
How your faded stockings made you want to hide.
You ran across the paddock but he caught you at the gate,
The ruby ring you wear reflects his pride.
But days can't have been easy when he went away to war,
On a farm you're far away from any friend.
And its not a good position with six kids on a pension,
But you made it still smiling at the end.
You had never been a gypsy till the years were adding up,
And the family spread around the countryside.
You started travelling round us became the tie to bind us,
For family links get lost in growing up.
And though time will take you from us I'd like to make a promise,
The legacy you leave, that stepping stone.
And the will to hear life singing not a down and out bell ringing,
Is something I'll try to make my own.
Timeless Land 1990
Circa 1990. Previously-THE LAND. Tune see Crimson Chats Album
Once she was a timeless land, where time ran on for ever.
To the Dreaming People there, she was Land of Never Never.
Fish and fowl she had in plenty and her stones were given worth.
In their hearts they held her holy, and they thought of her as earth.
Then she was an open land, where few would bow to bosses,
And the working people there, thought they * 'called or barred the tosses' *
Where the convict and the settler, earned their freedom by their toil.
In their hearts they freely thanked her, for to them she was the soil.
Then she was the Lucky Land but her future now looks sour,
For the greedy people there made sure profit had the power,
**Soon they sold her stony hill sides, and could take her very heart.
In the greed of their intention they think of her as dirt.
Now she is a changing land, upon the point of turning.
Where she'll go it’s hard to say, are we wise or lost in learning?
For the ones who are to follow, she's the land we hold in trust.
Will she be to them the earth, or will they call her only dust.
Will she be to them the earth, or will they call her only dust.
* This is a phrase used in a ‘two up’ game . The toss of the coins could be challenged as fair or not. The word 'tosses' could easily be substituted with 'tossers'.
** The threat of using the centre as a Nuclear Dump was behind this verse even then but of course is now back on the agenda...
Seal Upon My Heart 1997
Tune see Alcyone Album
CHORUS
‘You are set as a seal upon my heart,
for love is stronger than death,
And you are the seal upon my arm,
Until I draw my last breath.’
Quote from SONG OF SOLOMON
I will measure the hours without any hands,
I will measure the footprints silent.
I will measure the memories as they wash,
The sand from the glass of time spent.
CHORUS
I will sing the songs that Solomon sang,
I will sing till the sun is sleeping.
I will sing past the ache of a hollowed heart,
From a throat that has tired of weeping.
CHORUS
I will keep our times, I will hold them deep,
As I keep the mind's eye learning.
I’ll be keeping the joy that can set the spark,
To the hope of life returning.
CHORUS
* Written for Geri upon his death July 1997
Love Passed 2019
You’ve gone, and years have passed as years they do
on calendar’s impassive blocks of time.
If in my mind sweet memories of you
turn clock-time back, is that a mental crime?
‘Do not look back’ I heard my Mother say.
She knew such grief and worse than is my share.
I do look back to where my comfort lay.
I loved, and I was loved, and I still care
to think upon the times where ‘joy was king’.
The open sea, a boat with sail unfurled.
So many songs to write and play and sing.
We were united, facing winds and world.
Alas such joy is never meant to last.
Age comes, and far too soon the past has passed.
A PACK OF PARODIES
Daisy the Cow
TUNE: ‘Daisy Daisy’
They planned a festival down the coast,
Nine-teen, healing ninety-one.
Ernesto Murgo he worked the most,
On Daisy the colourful cow.
Wire and paper and kids willing hands,
Skateboard to help her ‘mooove’.
Painted coat then of a clever design,
And Daisy was ready to groove.
Daisy, Daisy, Kiama’s community Cow,
Striped or Paisley what colour is she now?
The tourist camera angles,
Record her spots and (her) spangles.
We’d like the lot, so send your shot,
Of our crazy, chameleon, cow.
Daisy rolled out as the months rolled on,
Gaily, daily.
Many a group gave a bovine design,
To Daisy the colourful cow.
Soon came the day that Ernesto said,
‘Time now to do her in.
Her form no longer gives pleasure to me,
Its the knackery or its the bin’.
(Chorus)
The council they counselled as councils do,
Noted, voted.
Offered a price to Ernesto too,
And rescued that colourful cow.
All round the world towns are rolling out,
Cows in the thor-ough-fares.
Could Kiama’s Daisy have been the first,
The one to inspire theirs?
(Chorus)
After last chorus,
(that crazy & comical.
true anatomical,
coloured kaleidoscope cow).
The internet has sites that will give you the tune to sing along with.
Beware, here is an introduction.
http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/b041.html
Another slower version can be found at:
http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/daisy.htm