Gathering in the Harvest - Published Cambridge News 5 9 2013

Gathering in the Harvest

The grind and the roar and the column of dust 

Boiling up like a storm

The combine with invincible thrust

Is shearing it way through the corn

From its jaws the riches pour

Rotating reel and scissored teeth

While whirling mass of harvest chaff

Is spewing out beneath

Reaped and winnowed and threshed in one

Along the chute the grain cascades

This liquid gold collects in hold

Gathered in by flashing blades

He’s riding high above the turmoil

Controlling this colossal beast

Driving in insulated capsule

Harvesting the country’s feast

  *

And all alone bewildered hare

                With ears alert will pause to stare                  

Gazing at the field around

His land laid waste is stripped and bare

Seagulls - Published Cambridge News 1 October 2013

Seagulls

The atmosphere filled with shrilling cries

Piercing the tractor’s labouring growl

Strident and racous they're filling the skies

As it strains to turn the heavy ground

Line after line of glistening furrow

Shining ridges of new turned soil

With shrieking clouds of gulls that follow

And trail in the wake of the tractor’s toil

Their intricate pattern in constant shift

They rise and whirl in upwards swirl

Gliding and riding the wind as they lift

Then  swoop and dive and wings unfurl

Together they squawk and squabble and bicker

Vying  for worms as the rich earth turns

With sunlight catching on wings that flicker

They jostle and fight as the ploughshare churns

With angry beaks and yellow feet

And glinting light on flashing wings

They fiercely compete over scraps to eat

Feasting the harvest the turned earth brings

A revolving flotilla they wheel and bank

Curving their wings and gracefully slide

Spread feet and tails to break the descent

Cupping the air as they downwards glide

They circle and settle and soar again

Continuous complex dance they weave

Moving in sinuous billowing cloud

Reaping the bounty the tractors leave

Tantalizing Butterflies (click cursor over a photo for details of image)

Photographing Butterflies
                   ***

Photographing butterflies

That briefly pause then flutter on

An infuriating exercise

Alighting there but not for long

You take a breath – away it flies

A most frustrating enterprise

You raise the lens and then they’re gone

They’re passing right before our eyes

This image I’d immortalize

But the butterflies just carry on

They hover flit and tantalize

From that mystic world where they belong
And all our skills will utilize 

And all our photos jeopardize

So thus our pictures turn out wrong!

Whoever tries  can sympathize

And if they fail – will empathize

                      ***

While the butterflies just cruise  along

                                                                      

        

Feather for Two

 

 

 

Feather for Two

When walking together

They found a feather

Of iridescent hue

Brilliant scintillating blue

Which floated from heaven

This azure treasure

And this marvel of beauty shared

From their love of nature around

For the same things they cared

All the wonder that them surround

And this their two hearts tether

Thomas the Tank Engine's Telephone.....

Thomas the Tank Engine's Telephone

I can’t see my cell phone anywhere

We’ve searched the home from end to end

Up the stairs, beneath the chairs

Its enough to drive you round the bend

While the children are absorbed in play

Driving their trains around the floor

Thomas with Gordon and coaches and more

Its kept them happy throughout the day

They busily push them along the rails

 With tunnels and bridges for engines to run

An occupation that never fails

To provide them with hours of innocent fun

And finally in our despair

So we can hear its ringing tone

We dial that elusive phone

And hear it ringing over there

Its strange – that tone appears to move

As though like trains its on a groove

Bumper to bumper and fender to fender

The phone is in Thomas the Tank engine’s tender…

Combine Colussus - published Cambridge News 12 May 2014

Combine Colossus



A vast combine harvester

The Colossus of farming

The farmer’s pride of the countryside

Like some prehistoric monster

Revolving reel ten meters wide

Advancing with invincible might

Its scything blades relentlessly bite

Cleaving their way through the corn

Land naked scarred by shaven swathe

Leaves wake of stubble newly shorn

 *

Inexorable roll is taking its toll

This majestic  leviathan

With its 500 horse power

Massive progression and tractor procession

A Sherman tank turned into mower

Then  preying mantis arm extending

To discharge golden river of grain

Into satellite tractor drawn trailer

 Churning on with arm retracting

And spews out chaff where waste was lain

 *

Great hammerheads of dust arising

These billowing columns in spirals rise

Like a battle field horizon

Black against the summer skies

His grinding roar then rumbles on

And echoes far into the night

In silhouette against the dark

Eyes eerily pierce the gloom with light

Leaves vista out across the land

Now stripped and shorn by mighty hand

 

 

BT Internet Assistance...

Internet Assistance

It's the sheer aggravation

And appalling frustration

The robot voice intones "get help on line"

When the whole explanation

Of my seething indignation

Is the Internet's NOT working at this time

So the cause of irritation

Is the terrible privation

Without broadband I can't access Help on Line

So I plead your commiseration

With this parlous situation

Because the loss of broadband is a crime...

(No photo because internet is down again...)