Poetry

Ebberman

Ebberman

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Cardiff
To the general public, modern poetry is an irrelevance. There is no rhyme, rhythm or meter. Often there is no accessible meaning. Real poetry is an embarrassment to those calling themselves poets, but who have no obvious skill or talent; their tiny audience comprising mostly friends and other poets.

I have a friend whom I have yet to meet, but he is not an imaginary friend.
He and I have published 200 poems together, in two volumes. I intend sharing some with you here.

I wrote this one with Dusty Springfield at the back of my mind.

A Distant Star

The world revolves around you
And it cannot be denied
That we are all bit players
Who are here just for the ride

We're always there to cheer you
So you know you are a star
Your life seems so exciting
As we watch you from afar

But it’s not what you wanted
Cold and lonely at the top
The fickle cheers and praises
Leave you nothing when they stop.
 
Ebberman said:
Limericks are poems. What irritates me is boring prose chopped up into short lines and pretending to be poetry.
Click to expand...
I think you'll agree that this is a strong effort:

Limerick

Sorry but I woke up at 530 with this going round my head. Can't sleep until I write it down. I should move to the next village to stop this from happening. There was an old fella from Datchet, Who attempted to shave with a hatchet. Though in quite some distress, He achieved BBS, But his head...
www.theshavingroom.co.uk www.theshavingroom.co.uk
 
Nothing New

This life is one big cliché
It's all been done before
And certain to continue
In cycles evermore

Embrace the latest fashion
It won't be here for long
And then you'll have to ditch it
Afraid of looking wrong

But you don't have to worry
It all comes round again
The repetition's madness
Yet fighting it's insane

Don't listen to that music
The style is out of date
But it will be re-cycled
You won’t have long to wait

But every word you utter
And everything you do
At worst is plagiarism
At best is nothing new.
 
Nuclear Family

My father was a pacifist
My mother was a bomb
I often used to wonder
How they ever got along

He always would appease her
When walking down life's road
Yet every now and then
My mother would explode

My childhood was a wasteland
A war-torn territory
We were a normal family
Or so it seemed to me.
 
The Gift

When first snow falls and nights are ever long,
And innocents crave things that will not come;
When carol singers sell their tired songs
And those adrift long wearily for home;

When Amazon strives urgently to wring
From hopeless souls still more unneeded cash;
When supermarkets make the earworms ring
To stultify their customers and staff;

Then, stupefied with too much food and drink
God's best and worst creations never think
Why he came on that real or fabled day,
And why there was a price he had to pay.

They celebrate the coming of their Lord
With gifts of futile junk they can't afford.
 
The lockdown severely affected my poetry and songwriting. I had nothing to influence me, or spark me - except lockdown.
I wrote a few lockdown sonnets. Here is one.

Ennui

The summer months have gone without remark
I spent the season safe in my cocoon
And now it's Winter days with early dark
We could be having snow here fairly soon

Why don't I feel excited by the thought?
I don't relate to nature any more
I'm more delighted by the things I've bought
With armchair shopping from an on-line store

I never thought that things would get this way
The order that we knew has gone astray
Which day it is I neither know nor care
There really is no point in being aware
Now you and I, and broken pencils too,
Are pointless, and we don't know what to do.
 
These are brilliant, and relevant, and moving. Keep them coming! It's years since I've expressed myself in what I might attempt to call poetry, and probably isn't. Nowadays as Boycie kindly reminded me of, the best I can muster is comedy rhyming couplets and amusing limericks. Which is entertaining for me and if it gives someone a laugh, is making the world a slightly better place one smirk at a time.

And now I must get back to work, I'm off to join a meeting. Though I would rather skive and shirk than listen to their bleating.
 
Thanks, @hotmetal. Here is another depressing lockdown dirge. I'm wired to be happy whatever the circumstance, but masks and social distancing gave an open licence to obsessives. It wasn't my favourite time.

The Daze Ahead

I haven't seen a soul for quite a while
It never used to bother me at all
And loneliness has never been my style
But I can feel my spirit start to fall

This isolation doesn't want to go
There's many things to do, but I'm not keen
It seems to me each day drags on so slow
Although I try to fill it with routine

I know I'm not alone in being alone
My friends and I have contact on the phone
And yet we never have a lot to say
As we describe our empty pointless day
I sit and think and make sure I'm well-fed
Then write a poem and take myself to bed.
 
I like some of J C Clarke's stuff. That one reminds me of one of my poems. Here it is:

The One

I'm that cuppa you never drank
The helping hand you didn't thank
That twist of lemon to give some zest
When you weren't feeling at your best

I'm the guitar you never played
I'm the bed you left unmade
The thing you bought but never used
That understood you were confused

I'm the food you didn't cook
I'm the one you overlook
The potted houseplant you let die
Now I'm gone you wonder why
 
Wisdom Counts For Nothing

My head is getting full of things
The more that I grow old
Things that I have noticed
And things that I’ve been told

You can choose the wrong girl
Live in the wrong town
Like to move around
When you could have settled down

You want to play the field
And live without a care
But when the music stops
You find there is no chair

You can regret at your leisure
Decisions made in haste
But I keep on thinking
What an awful waste

And wisdom counts for nothing
When it comes too late;
The things that I did in my youth
Have long since sealed my fate
 
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