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.
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.
This is Looe Island,
it looks like a schoolboy’s cap,
and the gulls live there.
This is the ongoing tale
of a seagull called Flap;
not a chip-stealing seagull,
but a nice kind of chap –
.
here’s the thing…
Flap, only has one wing.
.
He was born that way,
many years ago,
so a one-wingéd life
is all he does know;
.
and, ‘Yes!’ I’ll answer,
before you do ask;
Flap ‘can’ fly,
but it’s a bit of a task;
he needs a good run up,
and a following breeze;
there must be a springboard,
to flex out his knees;
and when he is airborne,
by leaving the ground,
he doesn’t fly far,
just around…
and around…
and around.
.
However, Flap is of being an inhabitant of Looe,
as many fine seagulls are wont to do –
East? West?
(East is better, but West is best –
that should keep all the Looevians happy,
for they think that their side of the river
is the only side that is truly blessed).
.
Flap’s home should have been Looe Island;
where, at night, most other gulls went;
but, being unable to fly there,
walking the quayside was how he spent
his time, eating a crumb or a stale bit of crust; which was sufficient,
if rarely sublime;
but, needs must.
.
He did get to the island once in a while;
(as the crow flies it was less than a mile)
and he could cross the short distance from Hannafore on a very low tide;
or wait for the offer of a ferry-boat ride;
but, then, being stuck on the island
was also a pain;
for once he had got there…
getting back again!
.
Flap was a bit of a loner;
though he did make friends with a chip-shop owner,
who put a few tid-bits his way once in a while;
which treats Flap loved,
it caused him to smile
at the kindness of strangers,
of those with a soul;
for, not everyone hated seagulls;
but, Flap still felt a hole.
.
Flap wished for a mate,
a gentle gull to call his own;
not just for a date,
but for a family to raise,
on their island home…
and then in walked Phlip
a gull just like Flap,
one-wingéd,
what on Earth are the chances
of a thing happening like that?
.
Phlip was a pretty Polperro gull,
that had travelled to Looe for a change;
the posh people of Polperro
had pitied poor Phlip,
but told her that she looked, ‘much too strange’;
and, so, she had headed east;
east to find a mate;
and the day that she arrived in Looe
her life was to change,
it truly was an auspicious date.
.
Flap and Phlip
when eyes did meet
they knew they’d met the one;
and Phlip and Flap
did dance on feet
in the shimmering rays of the setting Looe sun.
.
But, how to get to the island?
.
Flap had a left wing;
Phlip has a right;
by holding close together,
together…
they took flight.
.
And now they live upon Looe Island,
where they have made themselves a nest;
and do they have plans for babies?
well, I think you can guess the rest.
.
Dydh da!
Meurastahwi.
Marthys!
Ny wonn vy ‘awenek’
Well, anyway, I’ve used it in a poem;
out of context – of course –
and ‘margh’ is Cornish for horse
which gives the rhyme
to make this a poem,
and just in time.
Splann!
©️graemesandford.com
The waves waved;
the gulls bemoaned the lack of footfall;
and the Heavens opined about the best place
for the rain to pall;
whilst I watched a moistened few of God’s more resilient critters walk limply by.
.
Where is the Summer Sun?
Where the endless day which run
into each other with a freeness of spirit?
Where the bucket & spade brigade?
.
Stuck in a cosy caravan playing cards for matches?
Driving further and further along the coast
searching for oases,
of which, today, there are none?
Or huddled under an awning,
wishing the morning, afternoon, and evening
could be like those of their distant childhood visits?
.
An empty promenade, though washed clean, is not the stuff of picture postcards.
.
But, I ‘do’ like to stroll along
the prom, prom, prom,
writing the words that,
like the seaweed upon the beach,
have sullied this blank page.
‘Shakespeare in Looe.’
The Bard did advance from Liskeard
in a sort of 9-days dance – a la Will Kemp – stopping off upon occasion to compare things to other things.
Nowadays, he would have caught the train; but, then, he preferred to walk upon his ‘legges two’
‘Shall I compare thee to a five-bar gate?
Which is a useful item, at any rate.’
and the like.
With him was his trusty sidekick, Ben – a comedy duo they claimed to be, that went under the name of ‘Will & Ben: Renaissance Men.
‘I say, I say, I say’, quothed Will, ‘Is this a dagger that I see before me?’
‘No.’ answered Ben, ‘ ‘tis The Globe.’
‘ ‘The’ Globe?’ queriéd Will, ‘My wooden O?’
‘No.’ answered Ben, again, ‘ ‘tis just a public house going by the name of…‘ (SFX dramatic chords)
‘… The Globe.’
Ah, well, all’s ale that ends, well, you know what I mean, dear Ben.’
‘More than most; but, all in that only a little, my liege, my fool.’
‘Don’t knock what thou doesn’t understand, Ben.’
‘Knock? Knock? Spake thus Ben, bemusédly.
‘Who’s there?’ responded Will.
‘Ben, my Lord-loon, like as well you know it.
‘Ben, my Lord-loon who?’ asked Will.
‘Jonson! How many times must I remind you?
‘Thrice a hundred, more if there is a Tuesday in the week.’
And thus, with much ado, they arrived in Looe.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged #Liskeard, #Looe, #poetry. #poem, @Shakespeare, birthday, Cornwall, Kernow
As I was (not)
going to St. Ives,
I thought I’d think upon my many lives;
the one where I was just a newt;
that season hanging as a fruit;
the lifetime spent waiting for Godot’s what;
the shortest day, as a Mayfly,
that I’d almost forgot;
the long half-of-an-hour trying vainly to survive;
or the hundred and twenty short years when Moses was alive;
and afternoons drinking gaily with my pals;
or night-time flights with a school of owls;
the briefest tenure as a living thing;
or a long, long, life sowing, then harvesting,
then sowing and harvesting,
as my father and son, wife and daughter,
had, and have, for centuries, done.
Having thought upon my many lives,
I then thought about all the times,
I had actually gone
to St. Ives.
TBC
We need Looe Paper,
we need it now
as we all must have
rolls to play;
cast us, somehow;
roll out the barrel,
(without Colin Farrell –
he’d just act up –
as actors do tend to do)
And the headline for today –
which is garish – does say,
‘We need Looe Paper!
Yes, we do!
Because we all need something
to read on the Looe!’
edhen
yn
an wedhen.
Graeme Sandford 