... Roger Stennett Poetry  Page ...

'Quietly Inspecting Him'

 

One sunny Spring afternoon

In Grantchester, before the War.

Rupert Brooke sat in The Vicarage garden

Studying ‘The Birds’ and contemplating

‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ and whether

Song Larks and Linnets

Ever could really have fashioned

A city amongst the drifting clouds

When one cloud, drifting along

Through the endless skies

Over flat Cambridgeshire

Interposed and interjected itself

Between Heaven’s beneficent rays

And the flowing locks down below

Of ‘ The Handsomest Man in England’

And whether, in that brief intermission

A coldness fell upon Rupert below ?

Gods’s glow, interrupted for a second

As if a Seabird had swooped too low

Over a rocky promontory upon Skyros

Where in years, still yet unborn

Rupert would be laid to rest.

Not footsteps treading over his grave

But flapping wings and salty screeching.

 

I wonder whether, given the choice

The boys from ‘The Shires’ would have chosen

Which way their days would have been taken away ?

Bomb or bullet ? Shredding shrapnel

That flayed flesh off the bone

Or fiery Mustard Gas that spiced up

The fetid air above ‘ No Man’s Land”

And made it piquant and so deadly !

A Sniper’s solitary bullet

With their middle name upon it

Or a Howitzer shell that atomised

And sprinkled you into bloody mud ?

A solitary Mosquito sting. Which was the quickest

For the soon-to-be dead ?

Which one would put you out

Of your misery, once and for ever more.

Certainly preferable to hanging on the wire

Like dirty washing no one wanted to collect.

But none of that was even thought about

The day that the camera captured you

Studying Classics in a classic garden

Contemplating crumpets soon to be toasted

And roasted upon a Varsity toasting fork

Honey drops dripping and droppjng.

Butter melting like golden snow

 

Today was but a cloudy “prescience”

A fleeting withdrawal of God’s Grace

His sunbeam face hidden only briefly

His beatific smile just a cloudy frown

Only briefly felt upon the ground below

But it was enough for Rupert’s eye to blink

And recognise some changing weather.

Upon the church spire the cock shifted

And on the dreamy river Cam flowing

At the garden’s edge, the Mayfly’ wings

Beat temporarily out of sequence.

A shiver strolled across the grass

Rupert caught his breath, not knowing why.

‘Death’ quietly was inspecting him

Like a house-buyer contemplating

And no-one knew, least of all The Poet

Why the peaceful sunlight sighed

And stammered. Then, all was well again.

Though now we know that Fate had taken

A black and white snap for ‘The Scytheman’

And made a ‘Diary entry’ for a future day

Far away from these Fenland clouds rolling

Above King’s Chapel, snagging upon its Spires..

 

Roger Stennett

 5-5-26

‘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.

 

'Afraid To Make Too Many Wishes'

(Written in 2022)

 

Sunken eyes darken

Perhaps seeing times to come.

Looking forward into a future

Unborn, but maybe hinted.

Echoes of sounds, not yet made,

Memories of moments not yet lived.

Metropolitan railings frame him

Soon they will disappear, as well,

Ostensibly to make bombs and tanks

 But bogus really. Proper Propaganda.

Just like the ‘morale raising’ stuff

You toiled over, under cover of a hangover.

Burberry scarf, thrown on like caution

Bottle green shirt. Knitted knotted tie,

 Getting by on extraordinarily little sleep

 ‘Liquid libations’ instead of real food,

Who do you have, these Soho days

To cut off your eggshell top

Like your Welsh ‘Mam’ did, Dylan ?

A pointless Birthday greeting to you

A picture not seen by me before.

Slipped through the net.

 Like a rogue mackerel

Hiding in a harbour of salty seas

But held fast, for one grainy instant.

A ‘shutter snap’ that caught you,

'Birthday Boy’, red handed

And perhaps a little embarrassed.

Afraid to make too many wishes.

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