Poetry for Pleasure

By James Hathersage

A further collection of traditional poems on subjects ranging from Bell Founding to A Railway Scrap Yard to a Washing Line! One or two poems are allegorical, hidden meanings abound, and personal experience makes for believable experiences. The female perspective is used here and there.The mystery of love is touched upon but covered more fully in a collection of love poems  taken from eight of the previous books. A small collection of Limericks are at the end of this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Hathersage
• Release date: Nov 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393703532

Book preview

1

On Barry Sidings.

––––––––

For one whose punctuality inspired,

When bunkered full and boiler fired,

Now stands midst heaps of flaking rust,

Condemned to decompose to dust.

Who’s boasting paint laked crimson red,

Now drained of colour as if bled.

Stood riddled like some lobster creel,

That once was wrapped in solid steel.

No history defines the ghost,

Chained fast as to some viewing post.

T’is best by far to lie concealed,

And decompose beneath a field.

-

Come close your eyes then you can dream,

Hear the impatient whistle scream,

See in your mind white clouds of steam,

With rake of coaches, red and cream.

Head boarded, a prestigious train,

Snaking across a Cheshire plain.

Small faces ‘gainst the window pain,

Those who some beach may entertain.

Fast rushing to a tunnel, dark. . .

And then I hear a trilling lark,

I open up my eyes to see

that rusting giant facing me.

Who reads my dreaming soul awhile,

His smoke box door with sadness smiles. . .

***

2

May There Be Rest.

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I’m sitting with the silent sun to thank,

A river idles slowly past my feet

hung pendant from the grassy river bank,

My late September’s golden, Autumn treat.

Amber leaves twist down from amber trees,

Alighting on the water’s surface with gentility,

Soft gliding with the river’s timeless ease,

A scene enwrapped in apt tranquillity.

-

Where am I when I close my tired eyes?

Still here beside the river’s sleepy charm?

Or swept by my imagining afar?

To touch some soft, elusive, summer balm.

And how long may this imagery sustain,

That wafts away the worries of the day,

Before a stark reality returns,

To focus on life’s problems, as it may?

-

And yet. . . and yet those difficulties decline,

Perception of one’s strength rest can enhance,

As softer seems the hardness of the world,

And stolid marching surely turns to dance.

But wait. . . but wait one must not rest too long,

The very act of inactivity erodes

ability to right those hard won wrongs,

Who bests the balance ‘fore one’s life explodes?

***

3

Missing the Point.

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OK arithmetic is here,

And I should learn it well,

But do I have the skill I’ll need?

Well, only time will tell.

-

I’m told a number’s integral,

Before you reach ‘the point’,

And then the rest is fractional,

As if the point’s a joint?

Fraction though a shorter word,

Has fooled me none the less,

What chance have I with