3 poems from May "poem-a-day" project

Red bird days

Because on top of everything else

making you coffee empties the milk jug

it feels today could be the end of an episode.

Or the start of one. Keep the button pressed

to speed up the passage of the hours it says

on the free gift horloge reveil de voyage

the postman brings with your slippers.

On the top of the feeder at seven

the greater spotted woodpecker we first saw yesterday

is back with his head back ready to hammer like the king

of the birds making whatever the call is he makes.

Once he’s gone bless me if for a moment

a big fat bullfinch doesn’t amaze

I think even the goldfinches by appearing.

How’s your history?

I knew Marlbrook s’en va’t en guerre

but until the Versailles programme

last night I was unaware

of the War of the Spanish Succession,

confounding it with the Hundred Years’ War

or maybe - I don’t know -

the Thirty Years’ War.

I knew

tall soldiers with long-legged horses

had paused in twos and threes

by tall trees all over Europe

or at least the Low Countries,

and that a lot of soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me

with your musket fife & drum

had gone on when they found their way home

after all kinds of battles like Blenheim

but the history had eluded me. Now

I’ve got it and furthermore

could I’m sure for a day or two

slot together the Charleses and the Jameses

and William the Third and Anne

in whose reign I know from the fancy lead

down pipes at Forde Abbey

Frances Gwynne was secretary at war

in an early seventeen something.

Poor Queen Anne.

Thinking of the tall men

in long buttoned coats,

buckled shoes with heels and long curls

talking concern over a long table

with a map of Europe

and how to pay the armies

puts in proportion the worries

about us now and what it costs to keep the paras

or whoever it might be this year

in Afghanistan or wherever,

and the state of the banks

and poor old Clegg, poor us. Whatever

became of proportional representation?

Red tail, bindweed & cleavers

A day spent on and off tidying the house,

putting  papers & books away

because my sister was coming to visit.

Then after she had gone

a woodpecker kept coming back

in the garden for more peanuts.

Now we have borage and lemon balm

to plant in the tub by the door. The toys

for my niece’s son have gone.