Starting Over
A poem written for a friend's dad who sadly passed away this year:
Car and the kerbside, our permanent goalposts.
Days in the sunshine can't come to a stop.
And in darkened window your dad holds a tea-towel;
Smiles at your overhead kicks. Spion Kop.
There in the kitchen, your biggest supporter,
Watches the game with one eye on the grill.
And though all your dreams be tossed up and blown,
His reflection remains in the window, still.
Still his reflection is there in the window;
Still his heart beats, as the grandchildren play.
He's there in the garden; he's there on the driveway;
He's there for the bedtimes and throughout the day.
And Lennon songs fill up the house with the past.
They ring through the rooms to dispel the pain.
And clasping the photograph forty years on,
You Imagine those two Starting Over again.
Published 28th Jul 2016 | Tributes
Bettisfield Remembered
Poem in progress for the forgotten Bettisfield miners of North Wales.
Too long in the dark, too long underground.
No tales from the Bettisfield Pit, no sound
From the deadly black seam or the scene of the blast
To reconnect present with past.
The Blackeyed Boys from the shelves of the Dee,
Under blanketing clouds pulled over the sea,
Took the deafening shaft and plunged from the light
For a lifetime of toil out of sight.
The crutters, the hewers, the trappers, half marrows,
Who mined the black diamonds and loaded the barrows
Were made from the north western earth and the sky
With coal on their skin and flint in their eye.
Scarred arms swung the picks that splintered the stone;
Blisters that cut through the skin and the bone;
For a pittance of pay lost in a raw hand,
They fired and lit up our land.
Pressure for millions of years drew the line
200ft down in the Bettisfield mine.
And their sweat and their blood on the rock left its stain
Where their pained conversations and stories remain.
But in light, no one spoke of the hardship down there:
The straining for breath and the venomous air.
The coated black lungs, desperation for space
Weren't marked on the Welsh miner’s face.
So remember our miners from pits now neglected -
Their images, stories and songs resurrected.
Recall that brave history y glowyr begun
And lift them back into the sun.
Published 25th Aug 2016 | Tributes
88 Years (For York City FC)
88 Years
From footplate of bus and from platform of station,
Through Saturday lunchtime’s acclimatisation,
The scarved and bob-capped from days gone and present
Have strode through our streets to the lights of the crescent.
On weekdays and weekends our action replay;
Devoted, uncoated from August to May.
We chanted their names and we sang for the team;
We watched from the wings as they lived out our dream.
For this is the place where Wilkinson, Storey
And Bottom and Fenton took City to glory:
In ‘55 Blanchflower, Ramsey were gone
As we rolled over Spurs in the Cup, 3-1.
In ‘48, Patrick, v Rotherham hit five
As the red and white thousands in here came alive.
Those epic encounters when Liverpool came,
And the back from the brink in that Southampton game.
And that icy last minute with hearts in a knot,
As the ball took its place on the penalty spot.
When the Crescent grew hushed and the Arsenal did quake
And Houchen rolled in and made this old ground shake.
Let’s remember the men who anointed this turf:
From Forgan, MacMillan, through David McGurk.
The good on the deck and the great in the air -
See Boyer and Burrows and Parslow and Blair
The soldiers supreme that were glued to the ball:
Canham and Creswell and Bishop and Hall.
And the boys in the dug-outs behind all the thrills:
Worthington, Lockie, Dennis Smith, Gary Mills.
And this is the place where we’d curse or discuss:
The three in attack or the parking the bus.
The tip of a diamond, the man-to-man marking,
The roaring, the shouting, the growling, the barking
The chipping, the bending, the lobbing and curling;
The scarves and the flags and the banners unfurling.
The spins and the grins and the tricks and flicks
And the tap-ins, the clapping, the overhead kicks.
The chanting and ranting, the whinging and moaning;
The car journey home and the radio phone-in.
For here on this ground are the fakes and the feins,
And the race down the flanks and the rush in our veins
The tackles, the barges, the trips and the slides -
And the ghosts and the glides and the never off-sides.
This is the place where the mud and the sweat
Gave us just past the post or a bulge in the net.
And this is the place that thumps its own chest,
That looks to the future and kisses its crest.
And as day turns to dark and the floodlights grow dim
And the shutters are drawn and the shadows move in.
As the kit bags are packed and the boot room is cleared,
When the fans and the players have long disappeared.
As the lines on the overgrown grass start to fade
And the hard hats move in with the pick and the spade,
We’ll roll up our programmes and save souvenirs
And we’ll look to the future through eyes full of tears
And the songs from the stands will ring in our ears
As the whistle blows time on our eighty-eight years.
Published 21st Aug 2021 | Tributes
For Sam & Matt
Happy Birthday Sam & Matt
Two score years and ten then - the days come rolling in.
But is it time that blurs the years? Or all that Black Sheep gin?
It doesn’t seem like yesterday when you two got together
And started up a life of Yorkshireness in northern weather.
So here’s a little tribute now you’ve hit that special number;
You hang around with us lot, so is it any wonder
We’d want to put the record straight and watch your blushes growing
As we sum up what you mean to us in this birthday poem.
Way back in the mists of time, your partnership began
When study rooms at university had you in their plan.
The meetings after lectures; the looks across the bar;
The waning concentration throughout the seminar.
Fast-forward then past awkwardness and date and rendezvous
(The trials of early twenties that we all have to get through):
The nice boy from the Midlands and the farm girl from up here -
This one’s for you both from the ones who hold you dear.
But Matthew, things weren’t all plain sailing in those early days:
You had to learn a thing or two about these northern ways.
You tried to bring your southern hugs and double kisses, Matt -
But soon found out that Yorkshire lasses have no truck with that.
So what’s that magic something that goes to make you you?
What are all those qualities that we aspire to?
You’re honest and you’re steadfast, with principles of granite:
Organic this and eco that with both eyes on the planet.
From fair trade bar of chocolate to reusable nappy -
It’s morals and integrity that rightly make you happy.
A flask, a well-packed rucksack, a Wainwright or Munroe;
An early start and crisp fresh air with Alastair and Joe.
You’re never more contented than when lacing up your boots;
For rainy, windswept hills and crags, there are no substitutes.
And whether as mother, father, husband or a wife,
You hold your dear ones closer on the steeper paths of life.
It’s true though, let’s all face the facts, now you’ve both turned fifty,
You demonstrate your Yorkshireness by being rather thrifty.
We know that on your laptop, buried somewhere, we suspect,
Is a coloured excel spreadsheet with every penny checked.
But family, as is evident, is where your hearts both live:
You always find the energy to give and give and give.
And even as the time rolls on, you bat those years away
And somehow keep those aching bones and wrinkles well at bay.
So happy birthday Sam and Matt - have this one on us.
A couple oozing honesty, kindness and no fuss
A pair of this life’s good guys, whose compassion never ends.
We’re blessed you share your lives with us, and proud to call you friends.
.
Published 28th Jul 2023 | Tributes
For Liam
Liam
Dad, this is an honour, to stand as your best man,
And just for these ten minutes, wear the crown.
My chest puffed out with pride, and I won’t lie dad, I cried -
Until I found out everyone else had turned you down.
So let me get something off my chest, that’s been bugging me for years:
Now, I’d hate you all to see me as a moaner.
But why is it, when follicles and a barnett ain’t your strength
Do your colleagues call you Bart, and never Homer?
I’m not saying that you’re lazy dad, or guzzle too much beer;
It’s not the lack of wit or repartee.
It’s not that fading fitness or that slowly expanding paunch,
But that razor-sharp yellow cartoon - why he?
For when it comes to characters from film or off the telly;
For me ol’ chap, there’s only one real choicey.
I know that Victor Meldrew or Uncle Albert fit the bill,
But for you dad, it’s the one and only Boycey.
That second-hand car salesman, unflappable and suave,
Shining that Black Audi to its ends.
Oozing in composure and controlling all the room,
With more than his fair share of dodgy friends.
Or maybe it’s James Bond who you’ve more in common with?
Quick-witted like a bullet from a gun.
Sharp-suited, on a mission, never stirred or shaken,
And debonair and classy, like your son.
But seriously, dad, I can’t tell you just how proud
I am to stand up here and take the floor.
And I know that I’ve indulged myself in gags at your expense,
But fasten your seatbelt sunshine, here’s some more.
I wonder if you remember that day I asked the question:
‘Between your car and me, which gets you high?’
You closed your eyes and pondered it, while I stood open-mouthed,
And you guessed it folks, I still wait for a reply.
And that penchant for a dad joke that’s never far away
Could be seen as one of your few frailties.
But I believe that’s just another thing that makes you you,
My corny partial throwback to the eighties.
So Marlene.. I mean Lisa, are you sure you’ve worked this out?
Are you ready for a life spent back in time?
Can you bear to be with me and him in our nostalgia-land
In a constant state of 1989?
So raise your glasses one and all for a simply super bloke,
Someone who’ll fix a problem if he can.
‘Cos if you want the best ‘uns, and you don’t tend to ask questions,
Then dad and my best friend - you are the man.
Published 28th Jul 2023 | Tributes