English Poems From Unfinished Work

The Building of St Machar's Cathedral The River Don looks like a Bishop's crosier, When it runs past where the Cathedral stands St Machar obeyed God to build it there Bishop Cheyne ordered the restoration. With many tradesmen, part of a huge team To carve and sculpt, assist the renovation Folk say the left arm of Sir William Wallace Was set into these ancient hallowed walls The building, fit to be a Bishop's palace And Bishop Elphinstone men duly hired To raise the building to its grandest form. The nave and towers on the west, admired By worshippers. Good Bishop Dunbar then Commissioned a great ceiling built of oak With 48 heraldic shields, Amen! The choirs sang out, while I worked up on high A master tradesman, teetering on scaffolds With hammer, chisel, fit to touch the sky Up there, as I gazed down upon the pews I could have shaken hands with good Saint Peter Or watched parishioners pray, sing or snooze And every day I climbed down with my tools Went home to pottage with a hunk of bread And fished the Don for salmon bright as jewels What do you think of it, my famous ceiling? Nobody mentions me in history books I take the pay, my talents well concealing I much prefer a floor beneath my boots Stages of Grief Watch the coffin lifted, The slow steps to the church Follow the sermon The minister's confidence That beyond the constellations Is the Happy Ever After The pipes of the organ Boom out Hosannas Does the dead one know That today he enters Heaven? Later, stand at the headstone Study the carved names of his kin Death bolted him down like a hungry wolf Wreaths give up their pretty lives In three short days. Grief however Never slackens its bite The Park Clang. Gates shut in the public park Intrepid starlings hover over a glass green house Mist slips over the trees like flimsy negligees The walks are the haunt of ghosts, Of owl and mouse The dead reassert their presence Those who loved this place in life Cashiers and shop girls, Edwardian ice cream seller in her chilly stall Trumpet players, picknickers, lovers High stepping ponies pulling racy gigs All see-through, all nebulous Shades of long ago. A Pekinese semi-visible Trots through a low stone wall Magical rabbits pop from secret burrows A duck pulls the V of her offspring over a pond A downy swan tucks her head beneath her wing Like Anne Boleyn Rain drops like ink, from a nib to Basildon Bond A single leaf tugged off in a rough breeze Swops its aerial view for the low domain of the grass Ghosts in their faded finery glide and pass The park is the poor man's garden Stocked with statues, fountains, flowers, a cornucopia Band stand, children's playground Emptied of day, it assumes another persona Eerie, edgy, nudging towards the sinister As if to say ‘What are you doing here? Why aren't you tucked up at home? ' And slowly, silent shadows creep from the leafy gloam The Register Forty years Miss Denby read the classroom register Always amazed in what her pupils became Mousy little Dolly Ewen Sprott Blossomed into a ravishing soprano The tessitura an timbre of her voice! Giving the opera circuit all she'd got And who'd have expected skinny little Gerard The boy with halitosis and eczema Of turning into a basketball supremo? Brilliant Archie, who soared like a rocket and fell As a timed-out crackhead, and timid Mary Jenkens Ending up as a medic in an Iraqui desert Who ended up dead. Lineage What's the lineage of the swallow? Did its ancestors borrow its colours from the sky? What's the lineage of the crocodile? Why did its forebears lie in the mud and wallow? What's the lineage of the fish? That finned enigma, air-breathing folk can't follow? The human tribe doesn't care but maybe it should Before the chance to conserve is gone for good Ambulance Like the town's criminal-ferry, the Black Maria Rushes by, closed like a can of tinned soft strawberries The ambulance is a white pariah What issues lie within? Heart attack? Bleeding ulcer? Ruptured spleen? The siren makes a loud ear- splitting din Like the waves of the Red Sea, traffic parts Will this mad rush save one life, young or old? Will another stalled heart start, resume its life? The Unfinished Task Nearing the end of my seventh decade I am an unfinished task. I would love to be fluent in Latin I would love to go on retreat in Tibet or Japan I would love to sail along the mighty Mekong I would like to speak in Gaelic like a native I am a work in progress I am an unfinished work I'd have liked to walk in the woods with Robert Frost I'd have liked to chat to Napoleon or Cleopatra I'd have liked to be on a cruise with Ben Disraeli I'd have liked to share an hour with William Blake Well, maybe another time, if Death allows. Speaking of Death, what's the etiquette for dying? The Aberdeen Burghers Ambassadors to serve the city's needs Burgesses once repelled her enemies Donated weapons to the armoury Paid for a feast to treat town councillors The burghers held a guild box full of funds Banded with iron, with four locks, four keys Before the days of safes and internet No scams back then, no IT expertise In the sixteenth century Norwegian ships At Newburgh whilst unloading, there were seen But Newburgh was not a free port then- Under the jurisdiction of Aberdeen The Dean of Guild came with an armed officer Arrested the crew, removed sails from each mast If paperwork was wrong he'd set in motion Attack, declaring it a pirate ship, in the past In fifteen ninety seven, the Deam watched over Burning of witches, pirates' execution The rebuilding of part of the old town house In all things civic, seeking a solution Isobel Skuddie was burned as a witch in March Needing loads of peats and fir for the fire Tar barrels and a stake to tether her Pay for John Justice, hangman, to light the pyre Most executions were on Heading Hill Thousands of citizens came to watch the scene 22 women in one year alone Met death by fire as a witch in Aberdeen Today, the Guild supports selected citizens The guildry award scheme gifts grants to the special The dean in full regalia joins Remembrance Sunday, kirkin of the council As in the past, still in the town today The burghers put the city's fortunes first This port that is a global trading point This cradle that its citizens has nursed A Beautiful Night in Tokyo A beautiful night in Tokyo Under the influence of cherry blossom A light coverage of petals brightens the streets Like stepping into a painting by Auguste Renoir No waiter arrives with a chilled drink In this food-free zone But tethered owls on perches Meditate (or not) on the crueltyof limitations A unique experience? A hoot? Is flying time built into the owls' regime? In the Emergency Waiting Room A pensioner chats about feral children While nursing a broken thumb. He thinks it is on the increase He thinks it is something to do With additives in ready meals A jockey is nursing deep tissue injuries His hobby - horse is cuts on the NHS He's forgotten what a doctor looks like He tells a porter. Sixteen ambulances Park outside the door, waiting to discharge Their damaged cargo. A vet with prostrate problems wears a path To the toilet. Frequency is a pressing issue. X-rays get down to the nitty gritty The bare bones of the matter Aunty NHS is a very old lady now Arthritic in places, lacking financial lubrication More high tech developments than staff