Tangled Webs

I like ecology as a subject.
However, its intricacies are legion and complex.
So I limit myself to ecology at a mundane level.

 

Tangled Webs

The spider is weaving
Its gossamer twine,
It glints in the rays
Of the lovely sunshine.

The flies may be heaving
As they end their days,
Soft hearts may be grieving
And it’s folly that pays.

For spiders must dine,
It’s done with no hate,
So, everything’s fine;
It’s all down to Fate.

The thrush eats the spider
From out of its web,
But, there’s no decider
All’s flow and all’s ebb.

As a hawk kills the thrush,
So, the hawk too will die
Now who’s in a rush
To understand why.

New spiders are weaving
Their gossamer twine;
They glint in the rays
Of sweet lovely sunshine.

Spiders and thrushes and hawks must be fed,
Yet, all in the end go on to be dead.

© Trevor Morgan 30 January 2018

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Tide Line

I could spend a lifetime walking beaches observing change.

 

Tide Line

This weed at the tide line,
The flies are swarming here.
The flotsam and the grime,
The stink that brings no cheer.

The beach above the line,
There’s pebbles damp with rain.
They glisten in the sunshine,
Around each diesel stain.

Below the dirty beach
The shore is washed more clean.
The cleansing waves here reach;
At low tide there’s a sheen.

Below each rock or stone
Shrimps hide at low tide.
Worms heap up each sand cone.
Sand flats are wet and wide.

And when you lift a rock
The shrimps will dart away,
They flee the sudden shock
Exposed to light of day.

The shore’s a varied place
Some of its full of mess,
But it’s so touched with grace
There’s more here than you’ll guess.

Around weeds at the tide line
The flies are swarming still.
Beneath clouds or bright sunshine,
In weather warm and chill.

 

© Trevor Morgan 17 October 2003

HMS Lapwing

The long battles of the Atlantic and the Arctic were dire.
For over 5 years men of the small escort ships of the Royal Navy fought to defend merchant ships from both U Boat and air attack. even if not killed in action many men’s health was permanently harmed through pneumonia or even tuberculosis. At end the battles were won. Britain was not starved into defeat and the Soviet Union was kept supplied in its darkest hour.
The Lapwing was but one of many disasters.

HMS Lapwing – 20 March 1945

That incandescent glow,
That blast that brought such death,
The shock wave of the blast
That sucks out all your breath.

Last moments

The sloop had juddered as she went about,
The helmsman held the wheel full to the port.
Amidships there erupted such a spout
And blast that rattled right through this escort
And lurching decks reared up beneath men’s feet.
Bones shattered and the icy sea came in.
Eternity hung in just one heartbeat
As all about men struggled in that din.
Then broken backed she lurched with each small wave.
Their next great battle was against the cold;
That cold that kills men who may yet feel brave.
For frozen fingers soon may loose their hold.
Men in the water saw her break in two,
Through white crests of the waves she sank from view.

Crewmen in the water

There, all the waves were cresting white
The sea seemed in a rage.
With floating flotsam just in sight
Those moments seemed an age.

The stern part of their broken ship
Rose up and then went down.
A vortex caught men in its grip,
It was their fate to drown.

The bow and bridge capsized and rolled,
The keel came into sight.
The Lapwing’s death kneel had been tolled
She had fought her last fight.

With oil on hands it’s hard to grip
With fingers blue with cold.
But weary men must not let slip,
That way you don’ grow old

Two, twenty men were on her when
That fish slammed in her side.
One, sixty died of all those men
As arctic breezes sighed.

A Lapwing’s such a caring thing,
Lures hunters from her nest.
She feigns to have a shattered wing
But wolves they hunt with zest.

A wolf it killed a mother bird
And she got torn in two.
Though wolves they sneak away unheard
Most wolves would get their due.

 

Trevor Morgan 29 January 2018
From a work in progress – Arctic Elegies

The Stoics and the Epicures are Gone

The early English believed if Wyrd, what today we might call Fate. It dominated much of their thoughts.

The stoics and the epicureans are gone

“The stoics now are gone
The epicures would fail
The light from Rome that shone
Is fading now, is pale

Dynamics drive all change
Change has a varied pace
The ways of Wyrd seem strange
– Some sink without a trace –

The sun may rise then set
The seasons come and go
Is all of this kismet?
Ah, how are we to know!

Time hides what is to be
Yet some may well foretell
And through time’s curtain see
Hope sink into dark hell

Where Rome had once been small
A town upon one hill
New realms now grow to fall
According to Wyrd’s will

Wrath like some flaming fire
Has its allotted span
Events they turn and gyre
For Wyrd will have a plan.

Beyond the dark is light
Of weaker sweeter hue
Gone is an empire’s might
Small things now grow anew

Here many a shoot will sprout
Yet not all here will thrive
Some may grow strong and stout
Though just a few survive

Trees grow and spread out wide
They cast a spreading shade
Soon shoots beneath have died
Lo, thus new realms are made.”

From: Tales of the Children of Gewis
a work in progress

Trevor Morgan

The Villa with the pictures on the floor

Billionaires love to squander on yachts, massive yachts!
Wealthy Romano-Britons loved their villas and their mosaics.
After the roman elite got crazily wealthy and most the population were penniless the western empire collapsed.
Are our elites as vulnerable now?

The villa with pictures on the floor

“The rotten rafters in the roof
They creaked and then gave way.
This house of those folk once aloof
Had finally had its day.

Impoverished now their kin must toil
To gain their meat and bread.
Those once proud now they till the soil
And dwell in fear and dread.

The tiles and rafters clattered down,
The floor’s now lost from view.
Old pictures, mud besmeared and brown,
Had glistened so – when new!

Where slaves had been at beck and call
Or beaten black and blue.
The haughty had now met their fall,
These times seemed good and new.

The pompous nonsense of this place
Seemed so wrong in this land.
The haughty now had faced disgrace;
Gone are the gross and grand.

To spend a fortune on a floor
Now seems a wasteful thing.
Such waste and folly’s gone for sure;
Oh, hear the song thrush sing.

This land itself is much more grand,
Old villas were pretence.
There’s beauties ever here at hand,
They tingle every sense.

The streamlets that here trickle by
Bring music to the ear.
The skylark’s song sung from on high
Brings such a joyful cheer.

The clouds reflected in a brook
Have such a regal grace.
Gone is the overlord’s dark look,
Gone from this wondrous place.

Grass grows now where the ruin fell
All verdant in the spring.
Here now is where the dormice dwell;
And that’s a goodly thing”.

Copyright: Trevor Morgan 27 January 2018

Suicide bombers’ song

Sometimes the jester does more damage than the gun.

Battered “love”! (Tune : My is like a red,red rose)

Abuse goes on unchecked and even excused
This is wrong.
(This is part of an ongoing composition)

Battered “love”
Tune : My is like a red,red rose)

His love she has a red,red nose;
She “walked into a door”!
And if she told all that she knows
She may be in for more.

His love she’s battered black and blue;
It was an “accident”.
Each day she’s got some bruises new,
His “loving” won’t relent.

He had to be so in control,
He could not face a snub.
He’d beat her then go for a stroll
With his pals down the pub.

He really was a friendly man
To others that he met.
His wife she might do all she can;
But gets more beatings yet!

© Trevor Morgan 6 December 2002

It’s all a Trial

I am working on a piece about the law.
They are far from complete. This, of course, has little to do with justice.
It seems to me legal matters function a lot of the time like the market place.
The highest bidder gets the goods.

It’s all a trial

Now trials are a show you know
And no truth will be sought.
And sad tales of woe may show,
That justice can be fraught.

To watch, you make a study of
Depraved indifference.
Crown council’s a close buddy of
Council – “for the defence” (!!!)

The game is just a mockery
Devoid of all conscience,
We’re better with ad-hockery
Than all of this nonsense.

Each is in their wig you know
And neither will make sense.
Yet each one thinks they’re big you know
But, in truth, they are dense.

Yet it was all a show you know
As taps turned on those tears.
And lies will weep for show you know
A false press leads the jeers.

© Trevor Morgan 6 May 2002

The meaning of “Phew”!

A near miss never exhilarated me.
Churchill said “There is nothing more exhilarating than being shot at without result”. I never could understand that.

The meaning of “phew”

It seemed to pass me by,
It passed you by too.
I then heard you and I
Both quietly whisper “Phew”.

We’d lived beneath a shade,
With a dismal view.
Now sun may light the glade.
Again, we both said “Phew”.

Anticipation’s there,
Both of gloom and light.
There with a mellow air,
Or in a cloying fright.

Omens of foreboding,
Or sighs of relief,
Stress may start corroding
Each false or true belief.

Change may well be strange
It might make you blue.
When Fate’s not found its range;
It’s then we both say “PHEW”!

© Trevor Morgan 13.5.2002

An early version came into my head late in 1963.

Grieve and Grieve

Grief and hard times are a part of our lot.

It is how we manage that is key to a full life. 

 

Grieve and grieve

You grieve and grieve and in your mind
You’re torn by all the strain.
You weep and weep and then you find
That you must weep again.

Chorus

The patterns that are working through
The chaos of events,
They’re never really quite in view;
So nothing now makes sense.

Violent forces may attack
When you are quite at ease.
A rage may then make you strike back,
But gives grief no release.

Chorus

It’s not for us to understand
The way that things work out;
Whether we are so full of faith
Or deeply rift with doubt.

Chorus

The smiles of a grieving man,
The tears of a clown;
Now understand just what you can,
Before your sun goes down.

Chorus

But understanding’s not complete
Despite how hard we try.
Events are never really neat,
So still confused we cry.

Chorus

So cry and cry until your mind
Gets some release from pain
And by and by you may soon find,
You’ll start to live again.

Chorus

The patterns that are working through
The chaos of events,
Are never really clear to view;
So little will make sense.

 

 

© Trevor Morgan 11.10.2001