Ending

Do you have it in you?
Could you call time?
A friend said once
on hearing of a successful attempt
that he was a coward.
Took the easy way out.
If he but knew
the pain you have to feel
to get you to that moment
you would liken him to a lion.


John H Davies
29th III 2026

Cross to bear

We all have a cross to bear.
I can smell the aroma of mine

Damp wood as it struggles to burn

It feels heavy, but not all the time
As if occasionally some memory
Lifts the weight from my shoulder.

And then, without warning,
Despite the smoke
It weighs down heavily
Digging into my shoulder
(I remember from my soldiering)
Forcing the knees until they buckle

I know what it is now:
I know what to do
I know what it is
I know that if I’m patient it will pass.

But recently, the burden
Has seemed too much
Such that it would be better
To discard that cross
And watch it smoulder by the wayside

Until the rain
And the green
And renewal
And annoyance…

John H Davies
28th III 2026

Here be ghosts

The ghosts here are kind.

I’m in an old wooden house
Flat packed from Birmingham, England
To Kenya in 1900.

Earlier, as I emptied the bath
I heard voices.

A conversation from beneath the tub,
And I looked hard to find its source.

Sometimes when I’m sitting
Reading

I feel someone pass along the verandah
Outside

I don’t mind - I rather welcome
The ghosts

They keep me company
As no other living human
Managed.

John H Davies
28th III 2026

Maasai

I met a stranger
as I sat in the pick-up
surveying unfolding savannah
from an elevated hill.
 
He had materialized from the
fresh and scented earth
dressed in Maasai garb
and approached the car
 
with a stranger’s greeting
I’ve only known
on this continent,
where everyone might need a friend
some day.
 
He was well into his years,
with weather beaten face
exhibiting a dose
of pure integrity,
 
a red shuka
draped in the local way,
tied in with a huge
intimidating panga
swinging from his belt.
 
I was not afraid.
And soon we got to talking
in a cobbled mixture
of English and Swahili
(I cannot speak Maasai).
 
He didn’t know how old he was,
but his eyes betrayed
a careworn fatigue.
 
His family grown up,
departed;
his purpose diminished
and forgotten.
 
So he had returned
to the nomadic life,
the story into which
he’d been created.
 
I reached into the vehicle
to offer him water
and when I turned back,
found him gone,
 
dissolved into the bush
as dark clouds
threatened the sunset.

John H Davies

16th V 2025

▶️Watch me recite this poem

Through the looking glass

I gave you some advice last night over the phone.
You were worried your best friend
was being unfair to someone
and wouldn’t change her position.

I suggested your friendship would allow you
to act as a mirror and encourage some introspection.
To examine her position.

This morning
I looked at my face in the mirror
for the first time since childhood.

At some point in my life
I decided I wouldn’t look at myself.
It would be a vain thing to do.

But now I wonder if I was scared of what I might see.

Scared to know how others saw me.
Scared of what was behind those eyes.
Scared to witness the passage of time.

And to be honest
I was OK with what I saw,
the decay
the grey

and I saw my smile
for the first time,
and liked it.

John H Davies
2nd X 2024

▶️Watch me recite this poem

Exit strategy

At least twice a month
he’d wake up
wishing he’d never been born.
 
He was used to the feeling,
which had accelerated
with the years
 
especially on reaching
a time of life when
people who’d led
 
ordinary ones were
thinking about retirement
 and settling down.
 
No chance in his case,
his pension stolen,
he’d need to work
 
for several years.
So it would be easier
to end it all,
 
to ease the pain,
the burden,
the responsibility.
 
There were two ways
to accomplish this,
he fantasized:
 
The first to discover
a means to depart
that did not hurt,
 
the other to suddenly
come into money.
So every week
 
he checked the lottery
in the vain hope
his numbers came up.
 
John H Davies
19 VIII 2024

Clocks back

Only silence
in the early hour
of grey October.
Just the guiding ticks

of unseen clocks
disturb the dawn.
Waiting to greet the
guardian who’ll gently

cease their beat.
One hour of rest
in all the year
as gentle time

adjusts her state,
and dutifully waits
to compensate.
Imagine what great deeds

might be achieved
in this, the absent hour?
What miracles might occur
if folk would stop

and contemplate.
And all too soon
the virtual hour is past.
And who’s to judge

if we employed it well,
and used its spell
to good effect?
For now the clocks,

awakened
tick again.
Accompanying Earth’s
rhythmic pulse

to test our spirits
without fear,
and meet the darker half
of the year.

28th X 2007 (re-worked 17th XI 2024)

Foot prints

We met again for the first time
after fourteen years, we’d calculated.
Our parents gone,
she came to the cradle of humanity
to restart our nascent journey.
 
And memories arrived on the flood,
as a Serengeti dry riverbed
fills in minutes
after long anticipated rains,
 
rejuvenating the germ and spirit of life
across the plains,
attending to nature’s shortcomings;
washing away old prejudice.
 
I was happy we ignored those things
that had separated us, instead
choosing to acknowledge
our shared heritage;
the joy and privilege
gifted to us.
 
And we both felt a warmth
to remember we
had a sibling still,
for there was always a niggle…
as a twin detects an absence
of the other.
 
Was it ever thus
for those who walked

before us, whose footprints

are embedded in
ancient lava fields
not far from here?
 
For those social complexities,
developed and evolved over
three million years
and arriving at us,
make our fourteen
seem rather trivial.

(for Siân)
  
John H Davies
11^th VI 2024
Serengeti

▶️Watch me recite this poem

Perpetuity

These things will still be here.
When all is said and done
When nature’s course has run
When fate has taken leave of fear
And dealt the final blow
These things remain just so:

The ruffle of a feathered breast
The mystery of a chosen path
The haven of a traveler's rest
The crackle of a warming hearth

The outline of an ancient hill
The bleating of a newborn lamb
The quiet of an evening still
The stars unchanged since dawn of man

The harmony of season’s birth
The memory of a special friend
A chance remark that ends in mirth
A friendship that will never end

The joy of a resolvéd chord
The welcome of a loving child
A pleasure borne of due reward
The fervour of a heart beguiled

The comfort of a knowing glance
The harbour of a fond embrace
A love that grows from fleeting glance
And deepens till it bears no trace

These things will still be here
When all is said and done
When nature’s course has run
When fate has taken leave of fear
And dealt the final blow
These things remain just so.

2011
John H Davies

Immoral support

The pre-op sister spoke in reassuring,
confident tones and you seemed fine
as you took it all in, matter of fact.

Yet despite this, there was a brief
moment when the reality of what
you would soon undertake

hit me square between the eyes.
But I couldn’t show it, as I was
there for moral support. I couldn’t

show how much I admired you
and how much harder I loved you -
if that was possible.



John H Davies
23rd VIII 2010 

Rough Justice

It seemed fair to assume
there’d be thieves in a prison,
but after our last belonging
had finally gone the way
of the others, and we still
had no idea who the culprit was,
we planted an imaginary object
under the bunk of the
most likely candidate
and beat the shit out of him.
There wasn’t any more trouble
for a while.


John H Davies
2nd IV 2011 

There’s more fruit this year

There’s more fruit this year
hanging from the trees.
A bumper crop, but
one less letter home.

Today will to a certain boy
acknowledge a right of way

that angry motorists
at home feel their duty
to display, vocally

on some congested motorway
that is their world.

But here, the guardsman
cries a different cry,
because he’s probably going to die -
‘Incoming!’ And his CSM
reinforces the lie

or the truth
that no-one dies.
Not on his watch.

And as he fades

he confuses words
intoned in an East Midlands
lilt…
‘Allahu Akbar’
Which roughly translated says:
‘Not today my son.’


John H Davies
20th XIII 2013

Harry's Game (or the law of returning diminution)

The hearing aids are turned down,

just a notch, for the noise

that accompanied his presence

will remain, long after the batteries

have expired.

No need to recharge memories,

for the law of diminishing returns

has been upended;

as he slips the clutch

and rounds Governor’s Bridge

for the last time,

not a shadow in site.

Quick to the heel

and fleet of foot,

the ever present

sparkle in his eye,

which we inherit

for a different reason:

Because just for now

as the Kohima sun goes down,

we lucky few rejoice

that he gave his today

for our tomorrow.

(In memorandum ‘Henry James Fraser’)

John H Davies

26^th VII 2018

Gratitude in a veil

I have an inkling

you know the gratitude,

that you are owed

and not always given.

I may not have the means

to express my debt.

For eons of etiquette

prevent the modern day

gushing of emotion

so awkward for you and I.

And yet, we learnt to embrace

our brave new world.

And while we agonize

over what to say

and not to say,

I say this:

There is not one soul

in my small microcosm of existence

as you;

no greater champion of support;

no finer guardian of friendship;

no shirker of the truth;

and no person who,

despite time’s distillation of

old conventions, would not

speak the unspeakable.

And so I do

now.

John H Davies

8th V 2018

(For TF - Serengeti)

Marangu

They climbed the hill
to Marangu
un-noticed, yet born
in dust and hard knocks

and centuries
of birth and death
informed
and un-informed

and today forged
of a new life:
A swaddling babe
damp to the underside

of a dutiful embrace.
A beaming mother
glad of the attention.
Proud.

And later
not much later
the boy who fed it
didn’t understand

why it foamed
at the mouth
after he fed
the meal

and wondered why
so many climbed
the hill to see
his still sister.

They locked up
his beaming mother
thinking it better she
were dead

less bother they said
as they descended
the hill
from Marangu.

5th XI 2015

War Memorial

It stands alone
On a forgotten fork in the road
Amidst a patch of unkempt grass
That many pass without a thought.

A simple monolith of local stone
In want of some repair
For time has worn away
The names of those
Whose passing gave it birth.

But once a year
A modest group arrives
To stand in silence.

Two frugal minutes.
Yet that moment still
Invokes the infinite

Which is the lives
Of those who fell

Unfulfilled.

11th XI 2007

▶️Watch me recite this poem

Sabbath

The lure of Sunday
Alluded him, if he was honest,
Church long since forsook,
And in that void
A shadow took residence inside his head
While most, he imagined
Lolled in bed, or watched tv
He struggled desperately
To fill each second
With something useful,
Something worthy. That
People might think:
My god, he keeps himself busy.

Bed Fellows

Sometimes the memories

bump into each other

as you are trying to sleep.

It’s awkward

because the person with whom

you share the bed

has no notion

of what’s going on

inside your head

nor should they.

Steal away through the net

and hope you won’t offend.

Perhaps a drink

or read a book;

send an email, connect

until it goes away.

Discussion for another day.

The days get farther apart,

but the memories still bump

into each other

as you are trying to sleep.

It’s awkward.

John H Davies

20 X 2014

Brother (an elegy to Down’s syndrome)

I knew you not,

you, who time forgot,

while society denied

your opportunity to be

those things you might have been.

Much easier to have you hid away

and brought out on a rainy day

one Autumn, much like this:

My father brought me to the place

where you were kept.

“Wait here in the car” he said, and

(me, expecting you to come with him)

returned alone.

And then your stooping image

was gently led

into our field of view

along a covered walkway.

We sat and watched, as at some zoo

and I, unprepared,

had not the slightest notion

what to do, or say.

And nor I think did he.

And all too soon you’d

reached the end,

and soon your life.

But I recognised you.

And looking back,

I contemplate the fear

that held me in that moment,

wondering what might have been:

had I alighted from the car

and walked across

and touched your arm

and looked into those eyes

that could not see.

I doubt you would have

recognised me,

despite our shared craving

of them, that turned their backs

and to this day

smile awkward smiles

and look the other way.

And I regret my reticence.

7^th II 2014 

Birthday Present

What can I give you,
now the gift of giving
is altered, and poverty
but a state of mind?

If I were an architect
I would build you
a house of glass walls
and old timber floors.

If I were a king
(for I am not wise)
I would lay jewels
at your feet.

When I am a shepherd
(with your help)
I will bring you
the first lamb.

But for now,
because I am who I am,
I give you
these words.

John H Davies

28th III 2012