‘Seals Basking Upon A Cape Cod Beach’
March days stretch away
Down to the waterside
Second highest rise and fall
Of tide in the whole world.
Or so I once was told
Canada’s ‘The Bay of Fundy’
Trumps the muddy River Severn
But who is measuring, anyway ?
Not me. I’m happy simply to see it
Each new today day as I open my eyes
No surprise surprises. A river content
To play its part and chart the boundary
Between ‘The Forest of Dean’
And ‘The Land of my Fathers’
Unequivocally and unremarkably
Fresh Wye water meandering down.
Meandering down and along
The Bristol Channel to The Irish Sea.
Past Portishead and sleepy Clevedon
Where once the Pier almost fell down
And we go on day trips with my brother
And eat fish and chips gazing over
The muddy waters, singing their song.
Severn sidling past my once home town.
Cardiff. Once world famous
For shipping coal around the globe
Now prim and proper and parochial
A place surprisingly unsurprising.
Then ‘Sabrina’ as the Romans named it
Heads westwards, past Barry Island
With its candy floss charm
And ‘Cwtch me quick’ allure.
Before a genuflexion to Penarth
Wearing its ‘tidy’ Mothball smelling
‘Sunday Best’ of ‘Yesteryear’
On, tidally dancing between
Flat Holm and Steep Holm
Islands in the Stream of Severn flow
As before you know it we are flotsam
Floating by Porthcawl and Rest Bay.
‘The Grand Pavilion’ where for years
Dear dad performed upon the stage
And thrilled audiences of all ages
In Pantomimes and Summer Shows.
‘Happy days’ indeed they were.
The scene of my teenage days ebbing
And the dream of adulthood dawning.
Cambridge and far away East Anglia.
Beyond that all swiftly becomes
Unrecognised and unrecognisable
‘Terra Incognita’ as the seaward tide
Touches North Somerset.
Licks and laps against
The rocky outcrops of Devon
And takes a Cornish cream tea
Before The Irish Sea consumes it .
The Irish Sea unceremoniously
Takes ‘Sabrina’ into its salty arms
And rolls and ‘roisters’ with it
Upon the seabed of sensuality
Until ‘starfish’ come out to play
And all the live long day
Like mini suns and constellations
Water begets water ever more .
Begets until my little Gloucestershire river
Grows up and weds The Atlantic Ocean
Bound for the magic far away New World
To tell old tales of where it came from
The the seals in Massachusetts
Who let the trace waters of The Wye
Wash the salt tears from the eyes
As they bask on beaches far away.
Seals muse about a place unseen
And day-dream of an old world.
Seals basking upon a Cape Cod beach
In ‘far away’ New England.
Roger Stennett
15-3-26
‘Goodnight Sweet Prince’
( For my ‘Chum’, Phillip Manikum)
There were no ‘Fat Ladies’ singing
Just family gathered in a gaggle
Some weeping, gathered round
Your imported Hospice bed upstairs
Stone silent. What little breath
You had left could be
Measured by the tea-spoonful.
I came as fast as I could
I hurried from a train and found
The only taxi to take me to your side
To read to you, one last time,
‘Seven Ages’. The poem I’d written
For your 80th Birthday‘bash’
Now become our shared last words.
Delivered ‘live’ to your dying ears
As your family silently wept at every
Spoken, broken, syllable of mine.
Declaimed, not timidly whispered .
This was now our shared song
Of leaving. The final act
The curtain down … Finale.
A long life, well lived
An Actor’s final lines.
Science says the last sense
That leaves us, as we cast off
Our mortal incarnation
Is ‘hearing’ . Cruel fate
Already had blinded you
You were like ‘Gloucester’
In the tragedy ‘King Lear’
High above ‘Beachy Head’
But never did I ever hear
One single word of self-pity
Leave your lips.
No ‘woe is me’
Just mellifluous tones
Sometimes lubricated
By a decent bottle of ‘Red’
A standing order
From your Vintner.
You might have been
Their very best customer
We clocked up
Almost half a century
At ‘the crease’ together
No fair weather partnership
But rather a double act
Batting with old time sincerity .
Determined to do our ‘bit’
You acted in plays of mine
‘Scouting for Boys’ the zenith
Of your master craftsmanship
You toured it far and wide
Our joint dramatic creation
That sad, but resilient, Boy Scout
Defending his threatened heritage.
Caring about a world disappearing.
Under the burden of bitter change
Sadly never ever for the better .
Now that you’ve made your exit
Into ‘the wings’ who will i have
To share the singing of sad songs ?
Who will raise their voice with mine ?
We go far back, to a tender time
Before my beloved son Sam was born
You even shared a TV screen
With my beloved father, Stan.
We two have what The Cops call ‘form’
We drank vintage Port together
In the World Wine Festival each year.
And followed it up by a ‘snifter’
In Renato’s , next to The Bristol Old Vic
Where you so often trod the boards
And exercised your thespian craft.
You drove me to The magistrates court
To say well rehearsed ‘Mea Culpas’
For speeding in the early hours
And sometimes I toured with you
Stage managing our creation
‘Phillip Meadows’ as he paddled
His own canoe, holed beneath
The Baden Powell water line
Who now is left for me to tease
As I practise my gallows humour ?
‘Answer came there none’
Most others have already
‘Shuffled off this mortal coil.’
Progressively and long since.
You were my ‘chum’
In Welsh Grammar School parlance
That is as good as it gets.
I don’t have ‘friends’ .
Long since that species
Died off in my young life
But still ‘chums’ remained
And last night took one more.
I read my poem to you
As the watching world wept
I said ‘Goodnight Sweet Prince’
So my very final words to you
Weren’t mine, but Shakespeare’s.
Fitting though, I thought.
“Goodnight sweet Prince
And flights of Angels
Sing thee to thy rest”
I am the ‘Horatio’ to your ‘Hamlet’
Five minutes after my soliloquy
You died. The candle snuffed
The spotlight extinguished
So what am I to do now ?
A shapeless Friday in mid March
I will try to do what I do best
Try to find a way to understand
‘Reality’ through crafted words
‘Truth’ through transcendent poetry
I process my emotions
Through metrically orders lines
And give thanks for your kindness ‘chum’
In all our moments of caring sharing
And every glass we lifted
To toast and ‘roast’ a world
Consumed in confusion
We grappled like ‘Trenchermen’
Taking the ‘pee’. ‘Two Gentlemen’
Mercilessly never sparing.
Dedicated to our own ‘truth’
Now it’s just down to me
‘To sing sad songs
Upon the death of kings ‘
And to wish you a happy flight
To a ‘First Night’ upon a new stage
With old chums there of your very own.
A new world premiere… God Bless you.
