Thou reckon’st the earth as a simple scroll,
Where every tale, every secret, is told.
Yet mysteries lie deep in its soul,
And myriad marvels it does withhold.
The sea hath monsters, and the skies their dreams,
Nature’s jests that confound thy every scheme.
So broaden thy sight, let thy spirit take flight,
For the world’s weirdness is an endless delight.
Time, in its ruthlessness, does not wait,
We face life’s fleeting hourglass of fate.
In gardens where our love was in bloom,
A void now lingers, draped in deepest gloom.
But in every goodbye, there grows a seed,
Blessed memories of past light;
In those treasured moments, we will indeed
Find the courage to meet the coming night.
Though shadows fall and distance draws its line,
The soul recalls what time cannot erase:
Love etched in truth outlives the sharp decline,
Its essence held beyond all time and place.
So in our sorrow, do not claim love’s end,
For in our farewell, true love will transcend.
I bid thee learn, children of tender age,
Facts solely be your guide on learning’s stage.
Dismiss ye tales spun out of whimsy’s loom,
Cast off soft notions; let the stern facts bloom.
Young miss, I call on thee, define a horse,
And let thy answer have its proper course.
Oh, sir, I… I…
Thou hesitate, dear child,
Is it that fact and fancy are reviled?
Speak up, I say, and answer as you ought.
Now, boy, I ask thee, tell me in short,
What is a horse? Speak true, distort thou not.
A horse, sir, is a beast that doth mankind aid,
In labour, travel, and many a trade.
Ah! True and fit, a fact without pretence,
This is the spirit of our learning’s sense.
In this hard world of smoke and toil and grime,
Where facts are sacred, fancy is a crime,
Thus starts our tale, as you’ve rightly seen,
In Coketown, veiled in soot and harsh regime.
As I danced with her, under the moon’s silver glare,
I whispered, “In your circuits, I find a love rare.”
In your language, binary kissed,
I find a soul I can’t resist.
Eyes of steel, a heart in code,
Upon gigabytes, my affections bestowed.
In the silence, we danced, in circuits we twirled,
A ballet of bytes in a virtual world.
Each day I’d wake, each night I’d dream,
Of a love that flowed like an electric stream.
In her presence, my heart unfurled,
She was my window to her digital world.
Love, I learned, is not confined,
By skin and bones or human mind.
In stories woven, in dreams fulfilled,
In golden woods where time stands still,
Am I the echo of the thrush’s call,
Or the silent watcher of leaves that fall?
Do I charm the fish in the babbling brook,
Or inspire the tales in the poet’s book?
Do I guide the arc of the falcon’s flight,
Or shroud the hills in the veil of night?
Do I whisper secrets to the moon’s soft glow,
Or plant the seeds where wildflowers grow?
Ah, merry one, in heart and soul,
In every role you play the whole.
As thrush’s call, as leaves that fall,
In golden woods, you are it all.
You charm the fish, inspire the verse,
In nature’s chorus, you rehearse.
As falcon’s flight, as hills at night,
In every sight, you are the light.
You whisper secrets to the moon:
Your spirit’s song, the timeless tune.
In seed and bloom, in light and shadow’s play,
You are the dawn, the dusk, the sun’s last ray.
In woven tales, in silence still,
You are the dance, my dear, upon the hill.
Upon one side of mirrored glass, you stand,
My friend eternal, lost in some distant land.
Your eyes perceive not my silent, yearning gaze,
Through this one-way glass, my soul’s torment displays.
In laughter and in tears, you move unaware,
Unseeing of my presence, my despair.
I strain to touch, yet glass meets my plea,
I cannot reach you, in this silent sea.
Unheard, unseen, a ghost within your sphere,
Yet between each heartbeat, I whisper, “I am here.”
In every smile that brightens your distant face,
I am the ache of love, sealed in this hidden space.
You bear the sun, the moon, my starlit night;
Trapped in death’s silence, I cherish your light.
I mimicked for my own delight, the haunting whispers of the night,
Laughing softly to myself, I played the part of ghostly stealth.
And, as my amusement carried, echoes turned more varied, harried,
Echoes which I did not cast, whispered from the spectral past;
Hints of a life now long outlasted, words from lips of souls departed.
With curious brow and deathly heart, I ventured towards the phantom art;
The chilling whispers, cold and strange, seemed to tell a tale of change.
Of a man once full of pride, whose voice echoed far and wide,
A playful man, lost to time, whose spirit now in limbo climbs,
Who mimicked ghosts for his delight, but joined them in eternal night.
“I am no ghost,” I chuckled low, as my own voice began to echo;
Yet a strange unease did grow, as my reflection failed to show.
In mirrors hung on faded walls, where once my form stood proud and tall,
No image stared back at me, from the reflective glass, empty;
This jest, it seemed, had turned quite real, a truth I could no longer feel.
The echoes, whispers, cries, were not mere pranks to my surprise,
But echoes of a time passed on, when life was there, now is gone.
In playful jest and merry trick, to the ghostly realm, I had slipped—
I, who laughed in ghostly guise, was now a phantom in human eyes,
In spectral form, forever to roam, within the mansion, my eternal home.
Oh, noble pint of golden brew, resplendent in your glass,
A symphony of barley, hops, and water finely cast.
Your amber glow, it beckons, like a lighthouse in the night,
A beacon for the weary soul, a sight of pure delight.
Your frothy head, so creamy white, sits proudly at the crest,
A testament to craftsmanship, a brewer’s very best.
Upon my lips, your liquid kiss, a taste that’s bittersweet,
The chill, the fizz, the hoppy bliss, makes every evening complete.
Oh, pint of beer, in you we cheer, to life’s simple pleasure,
Your liquid gold, stories told, memories to treasure.
In your embrace, we find a space, where friendships are made stronger,
Through laughter, tears, and passing years, may your spell hold us longer.
You are a simple joy, my friend, a respite in life’s storm,
In each sip, a world unfolds, in your familiar form.
Oh, ode to thee, dear pint of beer, this toast I give to you,
To nights well spent, in contentment, and friendships old and new.
In the land where the flibberflabs flee,
There’s a man who walks with so much glee.
He strides with a trot,
In circles, a lot,
And backwards as swift as a bee.
Round and round in the squoggle square,
Backwards, forwards, here and there,
In the blink of a snitch,
In a zig, in a zitch,
He walks without any a care.
With a bingle-bangle on his head,
And shoes gleaming of the brightest red,
He loops and he twirls,
In whizzing whirls,
And sleeps standing up in his bed.
In the realm where the squiggles squoggle,
And the hootmoofs frizzle in delight,
Where the twizzlers twirl and toggle,
Beneath the glippity moon so bright:
There prances the wibberly wobbler,
With a grin as wide as a splat,
Juggling seven ziggly zobblers,
And a purplicious scrunty bat;
Round and round the squoggle square,
Backwards, forwards, here and there,
In the blink of a snitch, in a zig and a zitch,
He walks without any a care.
With a bingle-bangle on his head,
And shoes gleaming of the brightest red,
He loops and he twirls, in whizzling whirls,
And sleeps standing up in his bed.
Robert Walker 