Paper Moon

 

Paper Moon

 

Across the firmament she rides

And rules the heavens, this silver queen

A paper moon she silently glides

Reigning benignly supreme

 

Remote, aloof with dignified mien

Reserved, the essence of tranquillity

Radiating her lucent gleam

Sailing the night sky into infinity

 

Detached, this muse, her surface seen

With cratered volcanoes long extinct

Mountains, valleys and lava stream

Far off still outlined quite distinct

As we gaze up so she looks down
With her cool hypnotic stare
Serenely regarding our earth below
Impervious to our mortal cares

Week by week she waxes and wanes
Gradually slipping behind earth's shadow
Once a month her full face revealed
Then diminishes to tender crescent narrow

Shedding her chilly radiance
She pulls our tides by gravitation
The rise and fall along the sea shore
Equalising the ocean's equation 

Gazing up at this distant being

Its hard to believe with the passage of time

Though detached she appears from human fears

Men walked that ground in 1969

 

 

 

Robber Baron - published Cambridge News 3 July 2014

Robber Baron

 

I thought I loved my blackbird

I thought he was my friend

I fed him dainty morsels

From Christmas to year's end

 

The poor bird seemed so thirsty

He hovered round the pond

Picking round and looking down

Beadily watching each frond

 

He stepped down upon a lily leaf

With neat precise and dainty skill

And seized a small amphibian

Then darted away with his kill

 

Its gilded belly was turned to the sun

It struggled in vain but had no where to run

The blackbird gripped his prey and sung

Then flew off in triumph to feed his young

 

He serenades me all day long

He croons with a beak full of food

But this blackbird has a blacker side

With living prey he feeds his brood

 

My garden's made for wildlife

In nature lies our roots

But that doesn't include this blackbird

Who is brazenly sealing my newts