First Week of Autumn

This is a poem I wrote in 2003 when I was 20, watching the first week of Autumn start to materialise outside my bedroom window in Richmond. It's not poet laureate material, but hey, it's a nice memory.

It's started raining hard through the tired sunshine
A few brown leaves somersault past my window
Caught up in the high winds

The trees are turning red and yellow
In retired memory of the summer
The night air is early
        and feels like Christmas is coming
The sunlight reaches the trees sideways
A small yellow leaf tumbles and blusters
Head over heels down the road
Autumn settles snug in his seat
And the sky above is blue.

Some Awesome Childhood Compositions

Rooting around in my folders, I found two ridiculous but amusing 'poems' which me and two friends wrote at school aged 14ish... These are so goofy, they still make me laugh out loud though. This is pretty much what comes of watching waaay too much Monty Python.
And here they are.

Ode to Moose

Oh ye awesome Moose

Yea, ye make stupid noisesome pestilence,

But thy majestic horns doeth get entangled in tree.

Ye art tracked down, for sooth,

And thy almighty name would be takeneth in vain,

But ye hold strong,

And ye ram thy horns into hunters rump.

Alas! Thy prey doeth need plastic surgeon,

But legendary Moose will prevail,

Faint heart never won fair Moose,

And thy noble antlers art stucketh in gorse bush,

ha ha ha ha ha.

The Pigeon Poem

O yea ye wondrous Pigeon

What feathers lie upon thy flesh?

Ye big fat piece o' lard are ye,

And coloursome are ye.

Yea, ye fly o'er abundant hills,

But yea, ye lose caliber,

Thy rhythmic flaps wit' many a coo

Ye are but yayself an handsome bird.

O'er many a mile yay're eyes doeth hast seen,

Beholding thy nest art the furrows of ye're eye lids

And ye fall off branch,

Into cow pat.

Arr.

Snowmen and Joel Pics

The Snowman we built yesterday at Cliff - 10 feet tall!

I made this!

The Trees outside the Common Room

I remember...

I remember

being four years old, standing in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen in Richmond, with the dark blue square-floral wallpaper, pleading with my mum that it would be my birthday again soon, and asking in mournful desperation 'WHEN will it be my birthday again?'
That feeling that time would just never move on that you lose when you become an adult. I dont miss it.

I remember

going out into the back garden as a kid in the freezing cold morning, and swinging on the dark-green-painted metal swing for so long that I couldnt move my fingers out of the grip position when I wanted to go in. I remember the stiffness of my freezing fingers and how it felt like they would snap if I tried to open my hands.

I remember

intentionally provoking my brother. He had set our pet guinea pigs up in a small pen out on the patio, and had ordered me in no uncertain terms to not let them out. While secretly recording him on a small portable tape dictaphone behind my back I told him I had let them out, and then replayed his explosion of rage at full volume on the family stereo, laughing my head off. I then messed around with a couple of tape recorders to make the screaming repeat over and over. I think it went something like 'i-told-you-not-To-Let-THEM-OUT-THE-PEN!!!!' repeated 10 times.  He was not nearly so amused as me.

I remember

being 13 years old, completely crushed with infatuation on a Christmas day that I didn't enjoy at all. I remember looking back and wondering what happened, and when Christmas Day stopped being the pure thrill it was when I was younger. I remember being in my bedroom, having seen the girl I was utterly in love with that day, knowing that she didn't know I liked her, and that I would probably never be with her. I remember the emotional anguish in my chest, and a few words of the secret poem I wrote that day, and threw away some years later - 'Am I supposed to be happy?' was the opening line, and 'All I can think of is you' was the close