Spring Stratagems & Other Poems

By John Nandy

Poems about life, love, war, peace, hope and redemption; about the song that is never heard but also the rose that never dies; about endings and new beginnings; things that inspire me and make me smile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Nov 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483487502

Book preview

(Ed)

Spring Stratagems

B indweed moves by night;

creeping up on chain link

and white queen kisses

capture diamond spaces.

Raindrops play Go games

upon spiderweb grids,

then rainclouds reveal

April’s hidden armies.

Spring is conqueress Yin;

the living Art of War;

her life force bursting forth

in battle yells of colour.

The silk worm of the earth

spins her emerald banner;

she takes brutal winter’s

cold encampment by surprise.

Sun drums the horizon

as the jade empress advances;

on chariot wheels of time,

her sun blades chime.

The dandelion sage

shatters yang of asphalt;

her meditating head

scatters seeds like moonlight.

Blackbird wrestles worm

of silence with her song

and, poem slow,

the liberated Earth

captures my heart.

A Beach in Winter

S hrill seagulls cry in the cold winter air;

glittering frost coats rocks and broken shells.

The snow that’s deep inland won’t venture here

but still the chill winter casts her cruel spell.

The sand seems grey; the sea, stormy and drab.

Starfishes add a little Christmas cheer

but winter wind nips my nose like a crab

and, otherwise, the beach is bleak and drear.

I can’t wait till I spy that ship of gold

with sunray rigging and full sails of light;

bright flowers and sweet joy within its hold,

then I’ll draw my cutlass smile and join its fight.

Flower in a Thorn Tree (Inspired by paintings of Graham Sutherland)

L et us join hands, we five

and sing a roundel of purple;

purple that pricks with beauty

against the thorny grimness

of a stone shattered