ANOTHER FOUR SEASONS
By Richard Smith
In grateful acknowledgement to the Italian composer and violinist Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) who’s own four seasons helped to inspire this work
PRELUDE: If it’s not
If it’s not winter cold sores
Its summer heat stroke
If it’s not winter bronchitis
Its summer asthma
If it’s not winter flu
Its summer sickness
If it’s not winter gloom
Its summer storms
If it’s not winter revellers
Its summer lager louts.
If it’s not winter heating bills
Its summer holiday expenses
If it’s not winter difficulty
Its summer nuisance
There’s always something
For all seasons
RESURRECTION SPRING
Healing spring sunlight
Hallows an old poet’s stomping ground
With glistening, glittering, golden beams
Eagerly provoking an
Easter resurrection of plant life
Woolly sun-shimmered clouds
Drift lazily over
A bracken-strewn moorland ridge
That looms like a petrified wave
Over the sooty terraced houses of
Mytholmroyd village
Tucked sleepily in the valley below
Once a future Poet Laureate
Had played there
Feeding an imagination
That would express itself
In the poems I was
Forced to study at school
Each one portraying nature
As something bleak, savage and cruel
An arena of death for many an animal
But now a thousand sunshine daffodils greet me
Providing testimony of new life
As I tenderly squeeze the hand of the woman I love
A muffled roar of traffic
Drifts up the valley side
Amidst the bleat of new born lambs
Each noisily proclaiming
‘This is Easter time,
The occasion for new life and fresh hope!’
Birds circle overhead
Providing their own gentle greeting
The faint tangy scent of moss
Confirms the natural scene
A stile lies ahead
The first of many to clamber over
The squeak of an opening gate
A climb over a slippery wooden ladder
One last glance thrown back to Mytholmroyd
Then up into muddy woodland
As gently laboured breathing
Marks the beginning of a long walk to Hebden Bridge
SPURN HEAD SUMMER
Hot summer
Late June weather
Warm breeze
Flat horizon
A remote location
Lost villages
Kilnsea Farms
Roadside hedgerows
Swaying trees
Shifting sands
Curving peninsula
A coastal breeze
Chirping birds
Crunching pebbles
An insect hums
Aching back
Baking hot feet
Cooling breeze
Sewerage stench
Mudflat smells
Sweaty odour
Parched mouth
Dry cactus tongue
Liquid relief
Clearing lungs
Unclogged airways
Easy breathing
Advancing waters
Retreating shoreline
Rising sea
Nibbling tides
Falling mud cliffs
Crumbling clay
Rotting groins
Flood swept cottages
Broken walls
Old bunkers
Wartime ruins
New debris
Narrow path
Slow passing vehicles
Distant views
Tidal marshes
Brown mudflats
Protected wildlife
Creeping dunes
Crunching Seaweed
Needle grass
Rocky beach
Engraved fossils
Broken jetties
Peeling paint
Abandoned lighthouse
Shut entrance
Strong currents
A long, high jetty
A ship’s wake
A lifeboat
One brave crew
Saved lives
Closed cafe
Ugly radio station
Bobbing ferry
Estuary view
Old fortification
Lapping waves
Sandy spit
Flanking waters
Estuary border
Cruising boats
A standing oil rig
Grimsby view
Welcome rest
A consumed snack
Refreshing drinks
Faint feeling
A sunshine doze
Perfect rest
Unusual beauty
Now a memory
On this paper
AUTUMN NIGHT WIND
Hear the night wind blow
Hear the night wind blow
Hear it gather strength as it whips across choppy ocean waters
With ships lurching and swaying in its wake
Hear it swirl over a weather-beaten shore
Hear it cross muddy ploughed fields
Hear it push its rain drenching clouds
Over a bleak moorland ridge
Blow, blow mighty shrieking wind!
Pluck the dying leaves from swaying autumn trees and
Throw them near and far in furious whirlwind eddies
Pluck the slates from farmhouse roofs and
SMASH them onto the cobble stoned farmyard below
Pluck the wooden farm gate from its hinges and
THROW it against a dry-stone wall
Pluck the scarecrow from the ground and
HURL it into a distant whispering hedgerow
Blow, oh blow, mighty strengthening gale
Blow with a frenzied, awesome fury
Blow you noisy herald of a chill, leaden winter
Tell of snows and floods yet to come
Strike terror into the hearts of proud humanity
Show what a hurricane storm can do
Listen to the cattle lowing in the field
Hear the bleats of frightened sheep
Note how the horses neigh and paw at the ground,
Galloping this way and that in equestrian panic
Even the pigs squeal loudly in protest
From inside a darkened farm kitchen a dog barks wildly
With even the cat sitting upright in its basket
Ears pricked up
Attentive to the howling onrush
CRASH!
A tree is plucked from its roots
And flung onto the ground like a broken matchstick
The wind catches overhanging cables
Causing them to emit a high-pitched hum
A chain beats against a metal gate post
An old plastic bag
Is blown hither and thither
High, then low then high again
The door of a lonely and abandoned farmhouse
Swings forlornly to and fro
Echoing monotonously through the night
Repeatedly banging, banging, banging
Against its frame
Twigs are torn away
Like human arms in a bomb explosion
Branches bend backward in abject submission
Before the wind’s all encompassing majesty
An old television aerial
Tumbles down into a muddy farm yard
Soon to be joined by a fallen chimney pot
Something has smashed through
A greenhouse window
A car is buffeted along
A winding country lane
At sea, waves pile upwards
As if pulled by an invisible hand
Only to disintegrate into a fermenting, foaming fury
As they hurl themselves against a sodden shore
The lighthouse lantern blinks steadily on
Warning the ships of the razor-sharp rocks
Lurking beneath this camouflage
Of white foam
Inside his buffeted outpost
The coastguard looks through
His binoculars
But can see nothing
His radar screen alone tracing the
Forlorn ships trapped by the storm
With a plopping sound
Chunks of muddy cliff
Drop into the churning, seething sea
And the coastline reluctantly retreats once more
The gale continues with an unabated, relentless intensity
Another large wave crashes against the shore
Indoors people huddle in their beds
Waiting anxiously for the storm to pass
Listening with straining ears to every unwarranted noise
A dustbin lid is thrown to the ground
Wooden rafters creak ominously in the wind
CRASH!
Another tree is plucked from its roots
And hits the earth
Outside the temperature falls
As sleeting rain
Ricochets like tiny meteorites off
A tightly closed bedroom window
Puddles grow into pools and then small lakes
Filling fields and country roads in an unwanted baptism
Hear the night wind blow
Nothing can stop it
Nothing can halt its progress
Nothing can thwart its tempestuous advance
Onward it goes
Gusting furiously towards a neon lit city
Sixty miles inland
Do not trifle with its ways
Do not resist its relentless course
Do not fight this ferocious beast of the air
Lest you be tossed aside like a broken rag doll
Hear the chill wind blow
As it sweeps onward toward a midnight horizon
Leaving colossal airborne destruction in its wake
GRIDLOCK WINTER
Part 1
I saw a nation near total collapse
…near total collapse
Arctic winds blew hard from Northern Siberia
…from Northern Siberia
Dropping a white blizzard shroud
…white blizzard shroud
Gridlocked roads were covered in wet slushy ice
…wet slushy ice
Trapping motorists, needing rescuing by hard-pressed police
…by hard-pressed police
Having to spend the night in cramped overnight shelters
…cramped overnight shelters
Part 2
Many city and country schools had to remain closed all day
…closed all day
A February ice age having halted our transport system
…our transport system
Shivering TV reporters covering the scene from gale-blown motorway bridges
…gale-blown motorway bridges
Gently mocked by colleagues reporting from snug, warm studios
… snug, warm studios
Laughing children eagerly throwing white balls of snow
…balls of snow
Their play marking a return to lost childhood innocence
…lost childhood innocence
Four guilty bankers grovelling before a parliamentary ‘Select Committee’
…parliamentary ‘Select Committee’
Their self-serving apologies so utterly meaningless
…so utterly meaningless
Their negligent folly having brought a bitter economic freeze
…bitter economic freeze
Gloomy economists trapped by inclement weather inside an ice-bound Oslo Hotel
…ice-bound Oslo Hotel
Along with bankers, analysing a global financial crisis
…global financial crisis
But unable to plan concerning any possible remedy
…any possible remedy
Part 3
Newly unemployed looking for jobs that no longer exist
…no longer exist
Their mortgage payments already badly in arrears
…badly in arrears
No longer able to afford basic necessities
…afford basic necessities
Will this economic winter ever come to an end?
…to an end?
Which one of us can hope to answer this question?
…answer this question?
All the relevant indicators show a serious decline
…a serious decline
Financial reporters gleefully state how bad everything is
…bad everything is
The whole world banking system is near total collapse
…near total collapse
Having caused Britain’s bitterly hard gridlocked winter
…hard gridlocked winter