Four Little Soldiers

By Kelvin Smith

This anthology of poetry is a mixture of fact and fiction on thought-provoking subjects, such as love and romance, life and death (which is sometimes deep and bizarre), compiled with umpteen memories of the author's past, along with a lot of dry wit and nonsense verse.

It's hoped the poems will bring the reader laughter and tears, with warmth and sentiment, as they just might recognize things they may have said, heard, or even done themselves hidden amongst the verse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Aug 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514462973

Kelvin Smith

This collection of poems, or rhymes as Kelvin calls them, is just a few of literally thousands he has written over the years since he started writing at secondary school at the age of eleven back in the ’60s. So when you read any of the author’s poems, they can well have been written at various times of his life, by a teenager, by a young father, by a middle-aged man, or indeed, by a grandfather in his sixties, which he is now.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Kelvin Smith.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015914047

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-6299-7

                Softcover        978-1-5144-6298-0

                eBook             978-1-5144-6297-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/27/2015

Xlibris

800-056-3182

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

719225

CONTENTS

1)   Dear Reader

2)   Four Little Soldiers

3)   The Corridor Outside

4)   Bags and Sags and Bingo Wings

5)   The Cross

6)   Lilac Day

7)   The Soldier’s Death

8)   Toilet by Numbers

9)   Ironic Day

10)   In This Moment Just for Me

(A Housewife’s Thoughts)

11)   There’ll Never Be Peace

12)   Forever Friends

13)   I’ll Put the Kettle On

14)   Wonder If It’s You

15)   What If?

16)   Love Hurts

17)   I’m a Taff (St. David’s Day)

18)   Born in a Tent

19)   Ten to Four

20)   There’s a Tree Outside My Window

21)   Athlete of Life

22)   Ceri’s Memory

23)   My Grandson (Callum)

24)   Marley Sky – Lullaby

25)   Hello?

26)   How Many Eggs?

27)   Stuff Your Bloody Diet

28)   Twenty-seven People

29)   You Are Everything

30)   Load of Bull

31)   What Chat-up Line

32)   Moths’ Balls

33)   Bumble Bee (To Wendy)

34)   Poems on the Underground

35)   Sheep

36)   I Could See

37)   Why Aren’t Parents Adults?

38)   Wild Flowers

39)   Bread and Jam

40)   Rainy Day

41)   Regretted

42)   The Haunting Wind

43)   Do You Remember Me?

44)   Uncle Bill’s Bus

45)   Welcome to the Circus

46)   No Money?

47)   Tell Me!

48)   Paranoid

49)   Bluebells

50)   The Pain of Rain

51)   They Grow So Fast

52)   Polar Bear

53)   I Fell in Love that Night

54)   Better Late than Never

55)   Daisy Chain

56)   My Sons Two

57)   Behind the Smeared Glass

58)   Blink Bonny

59)   Forever

60)   Pillow Talk

61)   Bin Day (Father’s Day)

62)   The Black-and-white Shop

63)   Waiting for a Cloud

64)   If There Is a Next World

65)   I Thought of Something

66)   What’s in that Box, Mum?

67)   Tears Too

68)   Lady in the Window

69)   False Moustache

70)   Haunted

71)   Ship the Sheepdog

72)   Dad Has Fixed the Telly

73)   Just Let Tomorrow Happen

74)   No Mugs

75)   The Black Brook

76)   Redemption

77)   Honestly Contradictive

78)   You’ll Grow into Them!

79)   If I Ask You for Your Hand

80)   My Horoscope

81)   Wrong Side of the Bed

82)   Yesteryear

83)   Dog in My Garden

84)   Little Gem

85)   Patchway (Uncle Cyril)

86)   Walking with Dad

87)   Standing Still

88)   My Neighbour

89)   Victorian Dream

90)   Down but Not Out

91)   Memories

92)   Lion at the Door

93)   Megan Plowright

94)   The Girl Next Door (Melissa)

95)   Nursery Rhymes Revisited

96)   Dead a While

97)   Dowlais Top (Merthyr Tydfil)

98)   What Else but the Lamp Post

99)   Cwtch and Cake (Off Aunty Olive)

100)   Rosie’s House (Rosie Treherne)

101)   Gungersing (My Sister’s Hamster)

102)   Too Many…

103)   My Teacher’s Boobies (Form 3 Thoughts)

104)   Cenotaph

105)   Jenny in the Chip Shop

106)   The Isle of Wight.

107)   My Holiday

108)   The Tenth Commandment

109)   Those Three Little Words

110)   Tears

111)   Shady Wood

112)   Daffodils (II)

113)   Freddy the Flying Frenchman

114)   A Grave with My Name

115)   Run and Rhyme

116)   Sky of Colours

117)   Simon (RIP)

118)   Devil’s Hat (Halloween)

119)   Money Spider

120)   Soap Addict

121)   Nobody’s Perfect?

122)   My Heart You’ll Mend

123)   Crimson Lass

124)   To Kiss a Dying Butterfly

125)   Sweet Sixteen

126)   The Alcohol Trail

127)   Rainbows, Buttercups, Songbirds, and You

128)   Thank You (My Dear Cymru)

129)   Shadows

130)   Spitting Black

131)   What’s the Point

132)   Sad So-longs

133)   Sung in another Song

134)   Four Little Beatles

135)   Fly

136)   Where Were You Born?

137)   Beware Bullies!

138)   Dear Old Dad

139)   Looking through the Window

140)   Free

141)   Down in Bedwas

142)   Bull Night

143)   Busker

144)   Just a While

145)   Who’s a Tasty Boy Then?

146)   Secondary School (Form Four in the 1960s)

147)   Old Dear

148)   When My Life…

149)   Memories of Trecco Bay

150)   Grapes, mmmmm

151)   Morning Bird

152)   Paddy

153)   Make Time

154)   TV

155)   If I Was Gran

156)   The Insurance Man Said…

157)   Little Easter Bunny

158)   Poets

159)   Come Christmas Day (I’ll Think of Them)

160)   Paracetamol Christmas

161)   Not a Time to Gobble

162)   So Long

163)   Nos Da!

Dedications (2015)

Arthur Brinley Williams

Colin Davies

(Who didn’t like relish in his burger!)

And

Cousin Jeanette

(Who really was a sex bomb)

1)   Dear Reader

Keep it to yourself

And don’t go telling

Anyone