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Flotsam and Jetsam

~ Assorted odds and ends

Flotsam and Jetsam

Category Archives: Poetry

Rearguard Action

Featured

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Lyrics, Poetry

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Love songs


1
Musing on losing this evening:
You said, ‘Can we take a brief pause?’
I’m working out all my feelings,
Am I ‘beyond a lost cause?’,
It’s easy to see all your reasons,
It’s easy to see all my flaws,
And I’m not a man for all seasons,
Which makes me want you more

2
Looking for cues in your subtexts
Evading your traps in my mind,
I’m pretty sure you still need me,
Our forces are better combined,
It’s easy to think of the flashpoints,
It’s easy to walk through that door,
It’s better to savour the Match Points
Which keep us playing more!

July 2022

Come, Take My Hand

Featured

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in poems of place, Poetry

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For T&C: The bravest of the brave

Come, take my hand, stir fading memories,
The canvass of life is now ripped.
Come, speak my lines, prompt doubtful recall,
I’m lost and missing the script.

Come, trace my past, trawl special moments,
The passage of time is now dark,
Come, touch these lips, thaw frozen feelings,
Help me to find the lost spark.

Come, sit with me, replay our movie,
Time-shift the end to the start.
Come wipe our tears, and remember
I’ll always be here in your heart.

March 22nd, 2021

Ghosts*

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Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in poems of place, Poetry

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Brooks Brothers, COVID19, Enfield, New York Times

Poems of Place: Enfield, CT

Somewhere in New England in the gunpowder hills where CT becomes MA, 

There’s a shed that’s strewn with arms and legs, torsos and trunks,

And here and there, you’ll see outstretched arms and palms in supplication, 

Motionless like stone-cold victims of Vesuvius now seen at Herculaneum.

Somewhere in New England not far from the Lego house the Danes built,

Vans bought the sewing tables from a hundred shops which may have sweated once,

But now stand silently, awaiting alterations. 

But the orders will not come. COVID makes blazers and flannels superfluous.

Somewhere in New England not far from Stop and Shop

You’ll find a silent forest of tinsel which once be-decked the halls of mansions like Madison,

Which now are but a dream of Christmases past and stand in gloom

Behind the random cabaret tables which the held neckties, bow ties or pocket squares 

Monogrammed with Golden Fleeces, the badge of presidential approval.

Before us, we contemplate a muster of mannequins, anti-socially distanced, lonely and unmasked:

They do not appear to be having a nice day. 

A picture containing indoor, ceiling, furniture

Description automatically generated

*The Ghosts of Brooks Brothers 

After the retailer filed for bankruptcy, one couple was left with a warehouse full of abandoned mannequins ….

New York Times, April 2, 2021

The (Lonesome) Lockdown Blues

22 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in poems of place, Poetry

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Tags

Covid 19, Lockdown, The Virus, Zoom

30-DSCF2673

Poems of Place: At Southridge, Horspath

Another day of staring blankly in this room?
Even my glass of rosé fails to lift the evening gloom
There’s been too little bandwidth and just too much Zoom,
I think I’ve got the lonesome lockdown blues…

Are you getting bored with all those virus metrics?
And there’s nothing left to watch on Amazon Prime or Netflix
My ennui extends to even You Tube’s pet tricks
I’ve just got the lonesome lockdown blues…

My iPod has just finished its final rotation
The playlist had too many songs of un-splendid isolation
But it’s time to lift the spirit of the Nation
Gotta get out…
Gotta get out…
Gotta get out of the lonesome lockdown blues!

 

NB Some chords could be used for the full lockdown experience:

Am Dm7 E7 G

Am Dm7 E7 G

Am G Dm7 E

Am E Dm7 Am
April 2020

Fifty Shades of Blue

27 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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In Memoriam

 

Blue blood, of course, not collar,

A king of cats, an Oxford Blue

Who loved our terrace

And after-snack sunbathing.

Or looking nonchalantly at Charlie,

Pawing an errant wasp,

And stretching languidly,

Musing on the important questions like ‘what’s for second dinner?’

 

Blue maybe, but never dull and gloomy,

We loved the raffish wiggle in your stride,

The aristocratic belly marked a destiny

For contemplation, not the drudge of work.

Your gourmet palette tuned to modern tastes,

You loved the smell of barbecues

And those who cooked them.

When stakes were high, they win who dare

It’s Blue by name but always medium rare.

 

September 16, 2013

A Love Song to a Merry Wife of Waitrose*

04 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Brands and the Management of Meaning, Poetry, The Language of Voice

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Burrata, The Merry Wives of Waitrose, Waitrose

images-1

Entranced by the elegance

I found amidst these shelves

I stand burrated:

Your beet-rooted servant

Who contemplates the promise

Of a kimchi smile.

Let’s picnic now!

I long to dance the tapenade with you

Clink glasses at the golden hour

Sip Miraval

And partner with appropriate toasts,

Beachcomb for salt and seaweed

To crust and bake our love;

Let’s merge like tagliata

And rocket parmesan,

Before the blowtorch sun retreats

To burn the sugar and so hide

The cream of deep affection.

 

 

*From the collection: Brand New Poetry

 

Cynicus Historicus @Oxford and Yuste

23 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in poems of place, Poetry

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I The Party at Brazenose

Poured house white from green bottle

Onto slaked lips

In the fizzle

Forgot the effects those

Sips would force

 

Liz and Pete

-Enthusiasts!

Danced like drunks in the rain

The bitter sweat of seduction

Increased the pain

I smiled –

But they looked rather mystified

At me

And my green shadow.

 

II Charles of Ghent

Charles of Ghent,

Dubbed by successive men

Of little wit and less sense,

Failure –

Sits in a parched glade at fifty

How pointless his struggle with

Valois, heretic and Turk seems

Compared to this

Unfathomable, but no less

Fundamental act.

 

New Inn Hall Street

Hilary, 1976

Poems of Place: 60611

14 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in poems of place, Poetry

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chicago, Chicago Cubs, Deep Dish Pizza, Fat Tire, Lake Forest, Lake Michigan, McDonalds, Nordstrom, The Gold Coast

IMG_1695 

When I think of you, I think of food:

That first steak – huge and bloody,

The chophouse brown ambience

Haunting the bridge;

The cheesy Wheel of Death

That defeated even Brian,

The Filet-O-Fish and fries we ate in Oak Brook and enjoyed,

The ribs we sucked and gnawed on Sheffield’s garden walk

The Fat Tires we swilled

To debrief and to decompress…

 

When I think of you, I see the Lake,

That seems not to be a lake,

Deep frozen, or mist-bound beyond the lighthouse

Arctic still even on dog-days.

I see my love braving the cold and

Apparently bound for Canada.

I remember late-night emails at the W,

Preparing for the deal that

Changed our lives for ever

 

When I think of you,

I see Lake Forest luxe

And Gold Coast widows,

The mid-western smiles,

The summer vibe

The caps and Cubs at Wrigley Field

The early morning chugging of the L

The forest of your architecture

And all that jazz;

I think of Wabash and the Wackers

The Magnificent mile

The palace of heels at Nordstrom

The smell of books at Powell’s

The shady avenues of the park,

The laughing with the friends we love,

I think of all these things you mean

And the moments you made for us,

Chicago.

 

June 13th, 2018

Poems of Place: At the M&S Café, Walsall

03 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Brands and the Management of Meaning, poems of place, Poetry

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M&S, Marks and Spencer

Poems of Place: At the M&S Café, Walsall

IMG_1502

 

Sitting amidst the rich and zingy,

Zesty feast of flavours that is

The Marks and Spencer Café,

I think of you and me.

 

And as I scan my ebbing latte’s tidal art

I think of places in this town, our town

Where post-school, we met

To court, hold hands and play.

 

I wrote you soppy poems,

Buttressed with pilfered fragments, yet in homage,

Treasured the hour before our haven closed

And the moment came to walk you to the ‘bus

 

Back in town today, ours – but not,

I’m close to where we sat and laughed

Not knowing nor imagining then,

The rich and zingy zesty love we’d share.

 

 June 2nd, 2018

 

 

Another Job for Cyril (1925 -2018)

05 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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elegies, In Memoriam

Who’ll scan my job and scout

The strategic challenges that lie ahead of me?

Who’ll be my hanging wing-man

And place the pencil cross with laser touch?

Who’ll choose the tools and chide

My lax preservation of lithium cells?

Who’ll patiently banish rust from contacts

And soon revive the power-tool’s insistent torque?

Who’ll select the bit to bite the wall’s recalcitrance?

And guide my angle of attack and steady, steady it

Against the white emulsioned concrete?

Who’ll be the matchstick man

To plug the mortar of my unreliable first attempt

And safely hang the artwork from its helix thread?

Another picture sorted in the gallery of life!

But one job you left undone before you went,

Was how to fill the hole you’ve left us with?

 

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Categories

Recent Posts

  • Rearguard Action
  • Come, Take My Hand
  • Ghosts*
  • The (Lonesome) Lockdown Blues
  • Fifty Shades of Blue
  • The of Power Place: A Seasonal Story
  • A Love Song to a Merry Wife of Waitrose*
  • Cynicus Historicus @Oxford and Yuste
  • Poems of Place: 60611
  • Poems of Place: At the M&S Café, Walsall

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  • Côte Poets and more
  • Marians on the Mawddach
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