On top of Bre Garn,
with the winds whirling round,
I stand with my feet
on the stoniest of ground.
.
With moors laying by,
and a world to my eye,
I am one degree closer
to the Laird in His sky.
By the Book (sic)
Bardly Writ
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Tag Archives: Kernow
Holiday Haiku
Alliterative,
and covered in sea salt sand,
from St. Ives, Cornwall.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged #Alliteration, #Beach, #poetry. #poem, #StIves, Cornwall, Haiku, Kernow
When the Romans visited Cornwall
When the Romans came to Cornwall,
in the middle of the night,
they gave us guidance
to see the light;
to make the grade
and give no fight;
to worship Rome,
instead of Paig,
and construct straight roads—
in Cornwall? Vague!
When the Romans came to Cornwall,
in the first century AD,
they taught us to speak Latin
and how to be so cool;
but we were ‘proper’ Cornish,
and would be nobody’s fool.
When the Romans came to Cornwall,
they didn’t understand,
that we were Cornish full-time,
each and every man.
When the Romans came to Cornwall,
they didn’t stay that long,
they sailed away,
one fine day,
singing a mighty Cornish song.
In the little Village of St. Well – Revisited.
St. Well’s Well was, well, it just was – what more could be said about it?
This. It had always been there. Well, that is for just about as long as anybody knew of the village of St. Well, there had been a St. Well’s Well – it’s almost as if the village had been named after the well itself; although some did say that there had been an ‘actual’ St. Well, who had lived in the village a long, long, long time ago – he was rumoured to be a saint, and, some do say, a man of the church.
Not that any sane person would consider taking a drink from the St. Well’s Well, it was barely of a standard to be used for washing clean the narrow lanes of Cornwall after the silage tractor had passed by.
But, as ancient monuments go, St. Well’s Well ticked all the boxes; barely accessible, situated well away from any parking, and a bit of a disappointment when you did eventually find somewhere to park, climb down to the hidden wellhead, and take the obligatory ‘selfie’.
At least St. Well had an ancient monument; some Cornish villages have to make do with a George VI postbox.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged #AncientMonuments, #EnglishHeritage, #FF, #poetry. #poem, #vss, #Well, Cornwall, Kernow, NationalTrust, story
“Oh, no, it’s the Exercise Men!” Revisited (if you can call changing two words ‘revisiting’!)
One day, at about three of the clock in the morning, as the smugglers were offloading their latest cargo of tax-avoidance items at a small inlet upon the island of Looe (aka St. George’s Island, Looe Island, or, way back in time, St. Michael’s Island), there was a voice heard from the lookout, old George Penwithit, his voice still loud and doughty even after seventy-three winters and almost as many summers. ‘Boat approaching!’
‘Oh, no, it’s the Exercise Men!’ exclaimed William Telmother, the youngest of the gang.
Twenty minutes later they were all doing press-ups, star jumps, and crunches, before they were set to run two laps of the island.
Conversationstarter
I’m the seagull poster,
posting seagulls moster,
website seagull hoster
I’m a conversationstarter,
twisted conversationstarter
seagull conversationstarter!!
A seagull’s lament
I may think a pasty is a crab
I may think that a dace is a dab –
it’s all food to me.
Do you see?
You may call me unhip
for my love of a chip;
or names worse than that
that you call –
I’ve heard them all.
You may shoo me off,
when I’m walking about
like a toff;
or lash out with a foot
but, I gracefully put
to flight,
and line you up for a present from aloft,
“Bombs away!”
Revenge is sweet,
and my landing is soft.
Whilst leaning against a 7-bar gate
I look over
(for I am tall enough)
the gate,
and see what there is beyond:
fields, distant woods, lone trees,
cloud-occluded skies;
a part of South East Cornwall
that has melded with my heart;
I am happy to have come here;
and I love the silent Sun
that beams down upon
these little acres.
Looe Island Haiku
This is Looe Island,
it looks like a schoolboy’s cap,
and the gulls live there.
Graeme Sandford 