My Life in Verse

By Bill Inglis

As long as I can remember, the only thing that fills my brain are words, and ever since starting school and falling in love with rhyming iambic pentameters, I have been writing “old-fashioned” poetry! This collection has been garnered and put together from hand-drafted papers and (my sister having taught me how to type so that she could read my scrawl!) from a life’s collection of typed manuscripts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781528953115

Book preview

My Life in Verse

Bill Inglis

Austin Macauley Publishers

My Life in Verse

Copyright Information ©

Behold

My Love

Colquhoun Street, Helensburgh

My Saviour

My One True Love

The Awakening

Airport Reflection

Evening at River Lodge Hout Bay, South Africa

Berit Vogt

Love

The Woodland Monster

A Silver Wedding

The Wrong Kind of Apple

Technology

A Twenty-first Century Sonnet

Kernyk Cottage

The Fungus Creature

The Treasure

Ivy

Indoors, Outdoors

Nature

Leaves

Woods

Trees

Blessed Rain

The Waterfall

Change

Dreams

Last to Fall

The Last Dollop of Snow

The Beast

Moss

The Scottie

My Dog

Spring

Woodland Spring

Brambles

Autumn

Trees

Trees II

Trees III

Blackberries

That’s Life

Rosemallow Hibiscus

That’s Life

The Exhibition!

Gareside House

Tony Vogt

Amazing Mother Nature

Skunk Cabbage

Dusk in the Country

Screaming Dreaming

The Skull

My Walk

Sunday, Then

Mother’s Instructions Woof! Woof!

My Moems

The Guardian

Janie 1970–2005

Ivan Zvegintzov Master of Reels

In Praise of Moderation

Betty’s Bay

Whalestone House

The Wind Orchestra

Camilla

Toenails

The Empty Boat

Dad’s Dinghy

My World

Our Hut in Our Woods

No. 1, 58th Avenue

Grown from a Stone

Gentlemen’s Loo Rules!

Covid-19 I

Manners

Lockdown I

Grandpa’s Apology

The Lost Glove 1

The Flames of Fires

The Fern Root Beastie

The Gareside House Bricky

The Lost Glove 2

On Reaching 80

Oh Deer, Oh Dear

The Wooden Horse

Summer’s Here!

The Surprising Tree

Covid-19 II

Tall Green Larches

Lockdown II (Covid-19)

Classic FM My Lockdown Saviour

Hot Tub Massage

Ode to Miss Arnold

Lockdown III

The Hot Tub

Ageing

Ode to Blondie

In Praise of Tanith A Parent’s View!

The Little Yellow Duck

The Hall

My Beloved Wife

Weeds

Bags

Rain

Ziggy!

Autumn Leaves

The Pandemic’s Holy Cross

Clouds

The Phone

Reading

Youth

Bricks

Words

Gravel

Covid

Crosswords

Blades

Clothing

A Toast to the Lassies

The Fallen Tree

The Red Rose

Morning Sounds

Looking Back

Crazy Mother Nature

The Girl of My Dreams

Mother Nature’s Orchestra

Idleness

The Umbrella

Cold Feet

Cold Feet 2

Confusing Words!

Broken Bottle

Our Hens

Ancients

Cutting

Family

Wife to Be

Unpacking

Things Fall Apart

Sudoku

Faith

My Last Limerick

Copyright Information ©

Bill Inglis 2023

The right of Bill Inglis to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528950350 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528953115 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Behold

Black as jet, convex and sixpence-round,

Cimmerian marbles cobalt ringed,

Nesting alive in almond snowballs;

Such eyes burn living memories on the soul;

Powerfully silent messengers of will,

They speak more words than ever human dreamed,

Creating thus superfluous the tongue,

Since tongue-words are mere shadows of true thought.

Scornfully proud and Everest-mighty

They cleave a highway through the jungle of life,

Holding at bay, base, beastly carrion,

Striking with fire-hot glance at mortal jackals.

Those eyes, the very mirror of her soul,

Diamond bright, and yet, so swansdown gentle,

Will never cease to tell me of the love

She holds so true for one—and only one.

My Love

Lovely as at dawn departed,

Open, kind and golden-hearted,

Ultra-keen her sense of duty,

Innocent of her great beauty,

Seeming young, yet full of learning,

Ever sets she my heat yearning.

When I call her, she’s so sprightly,

Treating all her burdens lightly.

Radiant, gay, of dew-drop clearness,

Arresting in her very dearness!

Needing her this man who woos her—

God help me should I ever lose her!

Colquhoun Street, Helensburgh

(7.45 pm on 27 May 1970)

Vigorous wings create inconsiderate whirlpools in a cyclamen sea

Releasing anti-gravity cherry blossom waterfalls

Whose tinted, iridescent spray alights,

Non-wet, with summer affection upon the unseeing,

Uncomprehending, unfeeling, soul-dead, self-world being

Whose thoughts are turning on the lathe of self-interest

And are fashioned only by money!

My Saviour

Soul-dead and weary from Life’s pounding days

An outward hull of man was thrown along,

His empty being marking not his ways,

His beaten, taunted heart too full of wrong.

His mind too full of bitterness, which flays

And mocks all decent thought. Thus, mid the throng

Of buoyant, life-glad living, so he prays

For strength and will to join their happy song.

Out from this throng there came a woman true

To give him back his will and self-esteem;

Her peaceful, gen’rous nature matched by few,

She pulled him from his vicious, drowning stream;

He could not help but take on life anew,

This woman as his purpose, as his dream.

My One True Love

With sleep caressing gently conscious thought,

A loving call prized open weary eyes;

They wandered slow, half sleepy yet, ’til caught

In happy wonder of such new surprise.

She stood so proud—her love in every line—

In every gesture tenderness and care,

And at her cool and gentle touch all time

Stood still—each was of only one aware.

Her beauty she enhanced with simple grace

By tailoring a Persian table-round

To fall in full and easy lines to trace,

In queenly style, the lovely frame it bound.

The love she holds is not for any man—

’Tis mine, and mine alone, her truest fan!

The Awakening

Fathomless in sleep

I lay soul-happy and content,

Each crying nerve controlled to rest, each restive

Muscle relaxed and blanket-warm.

My conscious mind

Climbed slowly from unconscious depths

And waltzed in happy, glow-worm patterns through

Love-memories but hours old.

Love-tender lips,

With butterfly lightness, gently lay on mine,

To repeat, I love you—words to massage into

wakefulness my still half-sleepy brain.

And thus awakened,

Brain-conscious to her presence there,

The quickness of my being knew again the love

I bore for this amazing girl!

Airport Reflection

In Holland this weekend gone by I saw my little girl,

We had a mad, gay, happy time and lived life in a whirl!

And never have I been so glad, nor loved so deep and true,

Because, my darling gorgeous girl, I am in love with you!

I am in love with you my sweet, so try hard not to cry—

I WILL come back to marry you—as fast as I can fly!

I love you from my inmost soul—with everything that’s me—

The world it thinks I have gone mad for ’tis plain for all to see!

Now never doubt my love for you—’tis yours till time shall end;

And thus again—in simple verse—my love for you I send!

Evening at River Lodge Hout

Bay, South Africa

Slowly meandering, haphazard through the trees,

Gently, in a dreamworld, there strolls the evening breeze.

It lingers over treetops, clear against azure skies,

Carrying the soundtracks of bird and cricket cries.

In the gathering twilight