Fools Rush In

Perhaps the only way to win

Is not to play

Perhaps we’ll save our powder for

Another day,

And in the cultured gloom

Of empty rooms

The doubters will avoid the chance

To have their say.

And when the vision leaves the tracks

And marks the door,

They’ll claim the failure to predict

The final score,

Inevitable fate

That dissipates

the recollection of a time

When less was more.

John H Davies

8th January 2011

Empty Space

Somebody has dimmed the lights

and turned down the volume

just a notch,

and there’s an empty space

in the air hereabouts;

a large empty space

that somehow dilutes

as it fills.

But the images that repopulate it

stick like glue:

Big hands, big face

big smile, big heart;

(to name a few),

recycling his memory

with every breath.

And sometime soon

on a day much like this

when the light is dim

and the air seems thin,

the space around us

will fill again like oxygen

and we will

know him still.

(In memorandum MW)

John H Davies

7th January 2011

Suffer Little Children

Suffer the little children, for they will suffer.

Spare them the odd tantrum, the lapse in manners,

the having all and wanting more.

Ignore the notion that you’re spoiling them,

instead indulge them rotten with only a modicum

of caution and less so guilt, for it won’t always be so.

With every passing moment their vision will improve,

like the boy with the lazy eye who removes the corrective

patch and begins to gauge the world in greater depth.

So just for this fleeting moment, give them the gift

you so jealously guard, feed them with flashbacks, and

forbid them not, for they will be forbidden.

John H Davies

6th January 2011 

Bragging about our dads - Part 1

‘My father swears

any gun dog

should be thrashed

to within an inch

of its life

before a shoot,

if it’s to be

any good.’

I wonder if it improved his aim?

John H Davies

5th January 2011

Dilworth

The fountain pen was missing

from his brother’s effects

and a little money,

but he took his ring

and the oil skin coat and had

‘something personal to fight for now.’

He’d only joined so they would

face the Turk together

but Tom caught scarlet fever

in Cairo and was gone

forever, and yes

the padre said

dulce et decorum est,

even though he hadn’t fallen

in battle (he reported to his parents)

adding that if ever he got

into action, poor old Tom’s death

would make his eye clearer

and his aim surer –

Someone shall suffer!

Dilworth didn’t suffer,

the officer wrote the following month.

John H Davies

4th January 2011

Upon You Will The Stars Shine

Upon you will the stars shine,

when the moon had dipped

below the horizon;

when the sun is obscured

by the shadow of the past;

when the fire’s last ember

cools to fatal dust:

Upon you will the stars shine.

John H Davies

3rd January 2011 

Bridges

I will cross that bridge

when I get to it,

whether it be a

bridge too far or a

bridge over troubled

waters, I will bridge

the gap not with a

bridging loan or an

abridged version, but

a large bridge building

exercise: A full

span multi arch box

girder cable stayed

cantilever toll

charging suspended

and latticed covered

pontoon bailey bridge.

John H Davies

2^nd January 2010