Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

Your giant leap gave hope to all mankind:

you lived our dream, soaring among the stars,
for back in ’69 we truly thought
a glorious new future could be ours,
bright as the moon upon a cloudless night.

Nonetheless, cynics doubted your brave heart
and with your passing, something else has died,
leaving us earthbound, struggling to survive.

© Gill Dunstan

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It is all over, between us?

Will I/won’t I give you one more chance?

Strictly speaking I’m much too old for this.

No; I’m no longer much inclined to dance.

Come on, this is hardly a fine romance.

But I start to remember, reminisce…

Will I/Won’t I give you one more chance?

Moonlight and roses, Rome, Venice, France

- for a time.  When did we last kiss?

No; I’m no longer much inclined to dance.

Maybe goodbye - not another glance.

Dare I fall down into the abyss?

Will I/won’t I give you one more chance?

You are a boil that I should lance

full of poison I mistook for bliss.

No; I’m no longer much inclined to dance.

Oh, yes my lovely I’m taking a stance:

no more questioning. It won’t be amiss.

Will I/won’t I give you one more chance?

No; I’m no longer much inclined to dance.

© Sophia Roberts

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Tony Benn – in the style of EJ Thribb (17½)

So.
Farewell then
Anthony Wedgewood
Benn.

(Not Mr Benn
On children’s
Telly.)

You were the
Last great socialist
Hope.

Nonetheless you were
born with a
silver spoon;

Though nobly you
Passed up a 

Chance to soar

In that ‘Outer
Mongolia for retired
Politicians’ the

Other Tony
          Would
                     Frankly 

                                Kill for.

© Tim Scott
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A deafening boom over Colorado

After Hunter’s passing
his ashes were fired out of a cannon
accompanied by fireworks and ‘Spirit in the Sky’.

We sent him soaring heavenward, fuelled by hope. 

What he wanted.

Hadn’t he said, “I hate to advocate drugs,
alcohol, violence
or insanity …
but [nonetheless] they've always worked for me.”

© Sophia Roberts
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The ashes of gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson were blown into the sky from a cannon in Aspen, Colorado

Overheard

Merlin:  Do you regret your words, misquoted, spun and made into a cross for youth to bear?

Shakespeare:  I wrote for others’ pleasure, not their pain.  Let each take what he may.  What think you of your Avalon today?

Merlin:  My lost Isle of Apples?  It was ever thus.  When we set Arthur, in his funeral bark, across that lake –

Shakespeare:  Your once and future king is needed now.

© Gill Dunstan

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Can I be old enough?

Can I be old enough

To remember milk churns at the roadside awaiting collection,

Ernie on his milk float bringing bottled milk to the door?

Can I be old enough

To remember the first broadcast of Dr Who,

Cowering behind the sofa at the sight and sound of daleks?

Can I be old enough

To remember Grammar School green regulation knickers,

And hiding to avoid running round the school hockey pitch, boys gawping?

Can I be old enough

To remember the long haired, long robed freedom of the hippy years

And now see these clothes marketed as ‘vintage’?

Can I be old enough

To remember walking 20 miles, much of it barefoot,

And still feel able to do the same, but knowing I can’t?

Can I be old enough

To have worked all my life, and suddenly to stop?

Of course I can!  With Spring in my step and joy in my heart!

© Helen McIntosh
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The Rivers God/Authority and Jeremy Fisher

Of the 64 flood warnings, issued tonight, Jeremy,
17 of them are severe.

The buttercups by your door will go and the
deep waters become unclear.

What will become of the minnows, then, Sir?
The deep-swimming trout and the pike?

I cannot abide to serve dinner, Sir
That the Alderman and Sir Newton dislike.

© Isabel Hare
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Green

Concrete rivers, strident lighting, rusting

Metal, rotting timbers on sodden chipboard.

Half-forgotten people, long ignored

Neglected wastelands, not dead but sleeping.

Except at edges, under hedges, creeping grasses

Straggling, growing, tender grasses, Hopeful

Greenness: glowing, glistening, a grassy whirlpool

Un-noticed so far, save by gypsy-led horses.

© Isabel Hare
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Zeus eavesdrops on Sisyphus

Sisyphus:  Per ardua ad astra ... nearly there!

Zeus      :   Nearly, Sisyphus? You fool yourself.

Sisyphus:  Just one more push ...

Zeus      :   ... and down it goes again. That's seventy-two thousand five hundred and

                   thirteen. Ha!

Sisyphus:   ... and down. All is well. Death lies not in chains, but she cannot enchain

                    me. Per ardua ad vitam!

Zeus       :  This is absurd.

                                                       

© Sheila Rogers

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Overheard conversations: 'Waterloo'

Ah, my Bony,

Doesn't it make you feel excited?

By the thunderous battle scene,

when I 'ear zee rifles crack,

it’s like an aphrodisiac -

make you feel like rumpy pumpy ?

Non, it's giving me zee 'eadache

Not tonight, Josephine                               

© William Botley
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