Burrough Hill ('19)

To the south of my humdrum valley home

Burrough Hill stands above the copious loam

Amongst an easy farrago of rolling undulations

It's an empyrean plateau afar from conurbations

The weathered Iron Age ramparts atop to crown

Like an immovable sentinel for the nearby town

With exquisite views across to its namesake village

Betwixt the two, there's a vale and a farmers' tillage

Adorning the verdant slopes are the covert and spinney

Footpaths and bridleways, where horses might whinny

And above in the sky the ravens will rise on the breeze

Before they swoop and they glide with consummate ease

From the trig or the toposcope on the fortified scarp

With keen eyes that are directed, focused and sharp

Seen in a summers', vaporous, heatwave shimmer

The distant glass towers of Leicester might glimmer...

And on a cold, but clear day and afar from the masses

When the wind is crying, there's a scattering of ashes

Caught by a north easterly it's a last salute to the city

To celebrate and remember, there's joy without pity...

It's a home for cattle and sheep and the occasional pig

And is often a place for a university's archaeological dig

Above the fields of crops and amongst other undulations

Burrough Hill timelessly stands afar from conurbations

Autumn Equinox

Summer slips and falls and winter awaits like a nemesis, Legion

But here and now, autumn sprawls before us, for another season

Farewell light, 'tis now the realm of darkness beyond this equinox

Until the tide of time realigns the days, all gauged by restless clocks

All too soon the witches will awaken their cold reptilian blood

To course through veins, like the Styx, in a dark Cimmerian flood

And SAD will stir itself from its slumber and take centre stage

On its sadistic mission to consume us all in its parasitic phage

Now there's no time or space for summer, for autumn's calling

And the sombre gathering shadows are disconsolately crawling

So light fires to dispel the demons, let beacons burn upon the tors

To cast the dwindling twilight across to distant and future shores

For soon, leaves will fill the air, golden brown and russet red

To fall to the earth, they were once alive, but now they're dead

For the tide of time is dire and pours through three month blocs

Flowing into a realm of darkness, after another autumn equinox

The Vale of Belvoir

It's picture perfect and for the artist a patchwork quilt to sketch

The resplendent views of the Vale, as seen from Stathern edge

Maybe take a pen or pencil and pack some perfect parchment

And draw on natures bounty, from the airily placed escarpment

Savour the scene below, for you're one hundred metres higher

Note and name each sleepy village, under their church's spire

Rambling through shady woods, the sun will creep and dazzle

As you cross teasing undulations, on the way to Belvoir Castle

There flags will fly, upon its bogus ramparts, atop a hidden hill

And maybe you'll hear them jousting, as they fake another kill

Or take in the verdant landscape, when the days are summer long

For there's a copious heart to the Vale, that lies beyond West Wong...

Below Hickling Standard a canal meanders across to Brewer's Grave

Navigating through the crops and pasture, in a water parting swathe

Barges no longer pass, only quacking ducks and misanthropic swans

Watched by grazing sheep and transient dogs with lolling tongues....

So stay awhile, or even longer, or just wander an extra couple o' miles

To another county, over a babbling brook and sporadic wooden styles

There you can climb an enchanting hill, or walk to Woolsthorpe wharf

And return to the Vale of Belvoir, on the towpath, initially west by north

The Wandering Wreake

It gently flows, but sometimes it babbles, from east to west

And there're certain places that it lets you wander at its behest

Passing weeping willows, cottage gardens and crumbling locks

And on a sunny day you might see a wary rabbit, or a weary fox

It twists and turns upon its course from Melton to the river Soar

By quaint villages 'on-the-Wreake', old mills and past Bleak Moor

Herds and flocks will gather on its banks, by humpback bridges

To drink the waters, that feeds the herons and lures the midges

It's placid and pastoral and in the depths of winter it rarely rages

And it's been realigned and abandoned by us at different stages

But like time itself, it only flows one way and though it's not unique

There're poetic reflections in the company of the wandering Wreake

I Am Dead Inside

She looked through my eyes with a knowing wry smile

For she shares the same blood and our place of denial

And her gift of gif awaited behind the blinking red light

A vacuous image of a man who was more akin to a wight

I could feel my heart sinking, like she had turned a dark tarot

Then my flesh turned to ice, as if I was trapped in a barrow

For with the four words of the text, she had complicity implied

That death's not the end, it's a place to reside, 'I am dead inside'

Sparrowhawk

Look into its pitiless eyes, for those eyes are dead

And in its torturous talons, prey, for mercy's fled

A soulless creature beyond the reach of any pastor

The sparrowhawk strikes, for it's a rapacious raptor

It's a cold blooded hunter that catches to rip apart

And a silent stalker with an eternally empty heart

But it's there on high and it's playing hide and seek

Until lives and time collide, beneath a curving beak

The small scurrying rodents cannot look to heaven

For there're beady eyes watching, twenty four seven

And all those innocent songbirds that hide in bushes

Might soon meet their end, when a talon crushes