Chitraka

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

chitraka
City streets at 4 a.m
Are lifeless and alone.
In jungle still she sleeps,
A queen but yet no throne.
Soon will dawn the morning
With briskness and with noise,
Then cheetah will awake
To take her hunting poise.

Spotted cheetah, cheetah there.
I find no fault, I hate to stare.
Graceful cheetah, start to run.
Speed as bullet shot from gun.

City streets at 7 a.m
Are frantic and alive.
Cheetah’s now awoken,
Watches her prey arrive.
Soon there will be bloodshed
Kills she the great gazelle.
Food for life is vital
Within this jungle hell.

Racing cheetah, bound by bound
Leaves no trace upon the ground.
Cheetah gliding through the air;
Weightless gold coat keeps her there.

City streets in lamplight glare
So quiet and undone.
Cheetah now contented
Since she her battle won.
Soon will rise fresh sunlight,
Then process re begin.
Of hunt, catch and killing
No care for next of kin.

Heartless cheetah, day by day,
Life by instinct is her way.
Wondrous cheetah, so inspired
By city streets, I have admired.

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The Motorists Tale (On leaving Canterbury)

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

As I was driving down the road,

I came upon a contraflow.

“Forsooth!” say I, a name so apt,

For I was stopped there in my track.

And as sands did pass from glass to glass,

I could but wait upon my arse,

For peasant carts,weighed down with swill,

To wend their way up yonder hill.

A right o’er me is most perverse!

To move, whilst I can only snarl and curse…..

Pray, who decreed that this should be?

Oh never mind the lights gone green.

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High Heels on Cobbled Streets

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

Folkestone Creative Quarter

A walk, just a walk
Through harbour town streets
With friend (dressed to kill)
New shoes on her feet.
A walk, just a walk;
Slow cobbled hill creep.
Companion constrained,
By heels likewise steep.

A meal, just a meal
In bistro by quay.
At table in sunshine
So ‘people’ can see.
A meal, just a meal
With tales to talk of,
With… revelation
Of impossible love!

A man, just a man
Met perchance in a bar.
Enchanting, enticing;
Seduced by his charm.
A man, just a man
Out on display,
But in truth he is taken:
Not really for sale

Not just a walk,
A walk ‘long treacherous path,
With dilemmas abundant,
Wrestling sense against heart.
Not just a walk,
A walk that must have an end.
Where genuine love
Finds a wonderful friend.

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Ill-literate

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

How absurd
To write words
In a rambling way.
That say,
Quite obliquely
Subtly, discreetly
What could be said
In a sentence alone.

And what could be worse
Than a stumbling verse
Or a limerick with too many lines..
Well,
I suppose
Some hideous prose
With an absence
Of grammatical style.

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Trafficked

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

No visible scars

For the pain so endured.

A man stripped of life;

Left with anger, despair.

Dignity eroded –

Self-esteem acid washed;

A legacy of filth;

Mind and body diseased.

 

Courage, such courage

Is humbling indeed.

For just to witness this story

(Of revulsion, of greed)

Leaves one indelibly etched

Wincing with the pain

Of a young man

Brutalised, tortured, tormented, beshamed.

 

Yet with rage has come fight

And with Faith, has come hope

For others to be saved

From this fate – worse than death.

To listen; not act

Just adds to his cost!

For all who hear must seek justice

For the trafficked and lost.

 

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Perspectives

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

North wind blows, there’s a chill in the air
And the leaves are blown from the trees.
Fires are lit and children wrapped up
At the hint of sniff and a sneeze.
Panic headlines:’Worst Winter in Years;
A 100 days of snow.’
Hospital full with the ‘Not Sick’
And transport sure to be slow.

But a wind has blown and houses are down.
Bodies found as the water recedes.
Fires are lit and children wrapped up
To protect from the risk of disease.
Headlines tell of the death toll
100’s then 1000’s or more.
Hospitals destroyed – lives in tatters
Yet ‘Hope’ is the cry of them all.

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The Completeness of Me

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

In the shade of a bar close to harbour

Sun drenched boats in waters blue

Parasols flail in off-shore breeze

As the pain of past months seems to ease.

 

The phone has ceased ringing, E-mails have stopped

‘Urgent’ texts cannot be received.

A sense of calm is falling

Time to think, to compose, to read.

Small boat roars to life in an instant

Heads turn to locate the noise

Large yacht saunters round

Seeking mooring

As lone dogs’ bark

Echoes round town.

 

Twenty five years have past

Since last within these shores

Seven of pain and grieving

Eighteen of opening new doors.

 

Flags flapping above headland fort

Sails straining as breeze gathers pace 

Town, now mainly deserted

Hot sun driving many to shade.

 

Can’t really say how it happened,

How such a good friend should slip from my grasp?

Why the years should roll steadily onward –

Save,  that fear played a serious part.

 

Locals working hard to make money

With economy taking a dive

Faces etched with the stress of taxation

Tourists oblivious of day to day strife.

 

It’s strange to be here.

With others

Though good that my family can see

How this place holds

A special meaning,

That reunion is needed

Needed for the completeness of me.

 

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Work in Progress

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

The jester plays the fool in the courtrooms of the world;

As the judges make their benches the hardest of them all.

The traitors have ‘not reason’ for their loyalty gone wrong

Whilst the tramps still trudge the road of poverty and fate.

The artist paints a picture to camouflage his mind

And the sculptor chops and changes to fashion his ideas.

The writer is ‘at home’ in his leaves and his spines

As the astronaut sets his sights upon the moon.

Yet the undertaker is in grave danger of being buried by his work

And the journalist is pressed

Whilst the poet scans his lines.

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Prison Visitor

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

Its difficult to imagine

A prison

Where the walls are made of love

Where the bars are made of hope

And the doors of memories past!

Difficult to imagine;

For most maybe

But not for the man trapped inside

Who yearns for the love

To be real once more

And the darkness to turn to light

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Just In

Posted on June 22, 2013 by Stephen Kemp (The Poet Tree)

The time has just gone 9 o’clock

My jobs to read the news.

We’ve a catchy item from Asia

And a siege at Whipsnade Zoo.

A fire at an asbestos works;

A break-in reported at Chubb.

A strike at Swan Vestas matches plant

And a new unsinkable sub!

What’s this I hear – a civil war

In the southern states of who knows where

As fifty troops have crossed a line

A scar on the ground that’s hardly there.

The economy may or may not be improving,

There’s an exchange of ‘innocent’ spies

And the 2013, Slimmer of the Year

Has won a book on exotic fruit pies

Urgent newsflash – Man kills wife!

The kids are alright cos they’re in care.

The crisis in Syria spirals on down;

So many lives  -laced with despair.

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