~
The glass is simple, plain and cheap
A thin raised line says ‘mass produced’
Its stem is thick, the scratches deep
An easy target, oft traduced
A single pair sits on this table
Ancient spoons and plated willows
The whole supplied from basic stable
A tumbler holds a lone red rose
But this wine's taste is one to savour
Floral, fruity, oaked and mellow
Smooth and cool, it bursts with flavour
Shines from within a golden yellow
Our talk and laughs flow as the wine
Free and fresh, clear and true
Our lives entwining like the vine
Seen through the glass, rose-tinted view
Tumbleweed
Windblown I tumble 'cross dry dusty street
My mind sees an old lonely town
Deserted and dusty, secluded and weak
Like me, in decline; broken down
Aimlessly, randomly blown by the wind
Lacking direction in life
Feeling ashamed of the way I have sinned
Leaving my children and wife
Where bubbles the laughter, where giggles the fun
Abundant in days now past
Ask what have I come to, demand what I’ve done
For truly the die is cast
Alone in the desert no refuge in sight
No shield will withstand this heat
Filled with self pity at self-imposed plight
Half hoping myself to meet
Do I know what I'd say to the man I may see?
How would I silence his cries?
Should I give any shrift to his pitiful plea?
Could I gaze without flinch in his eyes?
I tremble with pain at the pain seen reflected
I clutch at the hurt deep inside
I know how he feels: all alone, unprotected
I know that there's nowhere to hide
A memory of love in the kiss of a child
Brings tears of regret once again
A memory of hate as divorces are filed
These whispers forever remain
Alone in my desert, life slipping away
I pray for the new dawn to come
Nothing to keep me, no reason to stay
In one breath perhaps I'll find home
Delirium racks me, a daughter's faint call
Daddy oh Daddy don't go
Echoing down as through cold marbled hall
Don't leave us, we love you, you know
My reason for living is there in abundance
It drags me at last from the brink
To hurt them again is beyond my endurance
No matter what others may think
Trudge back cross hot sand with my blistered head hanging
Still able to tear myself free
Resolved to ascent despite all her haranguing
Belatedly learned to be me
The price that we pay to make space for our living,
The life that we want for ourselves
Must never depend on cessation of giving
The books cannot stay on their shelves
Face up to the fact of your selfish behaviour
Sometimes you must do it for you
Let nothing divert you from being your own saviour
Above all to thine own self be true.
Safe Haven
Upon a storm-tossed angry sea
A ship forlornly sails
The gale has blown continuously
The crew, exhausted, bails
Still close to foundering is the craft
Despite their brave resolve
It can no longer wear the graft
Hot tears in rains dissolve
When all at once through dark cold spray
Glow lights of port ahead
A haven from the deadly fray
A pledge of safe warm bed
"Make fast ahead! Make fast behind!"
The Captain shouts, voice breaking
He steps relieved to accents kind
And tries to calm his shaking
Within safe haven rests the ship
Torn sheets, worn souls repairing
While captain cracks a merry quip
With those whose lives he's sharing
Too soon the time for setting sail
Calm swell a pool of jade
Ship's master, smiling, at the rail
His storm-filled memories fade
Midst grateful smiles the ship of life
Starts out on sea of days
Cuts through time's flotsam like a knife
On Haven's course he stays
What Life?
Where the vacuous mind exercises itself upon the plight of others
can the suggestion to get a life be far behind?
I shall ignore you, foul harridan, as the tree ignores the wind
Bending in front of the assault without need of the Litany
Despite your vaunted education you pretend misspellings
Give disingenuous aspect of smaller intellect
Hide your light from those you would trick into retaliation
To prove your cherished belief that all are rotten as you
But I see you.
I catch your quickness at the keys and the rapid repartee
When all around expect your cleverly cultivated dullard
Hurrying from the room at some imagined slight
Squeezing the last drop of painful pity from those who do not see,
Beneath the shroud of deceit, the crafted persona
I shall indeed not give up my day job
It tries to shrivel my soul but
It pays the rent.
I fly, seated at my keyboard. No need of charters
I live the dream that you cannot even see
The one that you keep from your mind with drink and empty words
How you would like to be me, had you the courage
And there is the nub of it
The reason for your hatred
You can never make that step through fear
to that better life of which you dream
So you wallow in your self-destructive pit
And try to drag all around you into it with you
With unkind words
And overblown insult
Disguised as concern for the topic
You, with all your learning of the mind
Are as far removed from your own mind as a child
Sitting frightened in the dark cupboard
Waiting to be let out.
Casing the Show
(a journey down memory Laine)
A hubbub of expectation
Rolls round the theatre stalls
The stage is bare
But for two chairs
Blue floods wash down the walls
Low whispers of excitement pass
Between assembled friends
The nervous tum
Of Dad or Mum
With restless laughter blends
Now house front dims: the stage is set
Step actors into lights
This risk they take
Can make or break
New life within their sights
Casting directors scribble in their glossy envelopes
Squinting through preconceptions at the brightness and the hopes
What talent trips across these boards?
They’re seeking gold tonight
Who in short span
With careful scan
Will jaundiced souls excite?
Is it there in the anguished bride?
Or abused Juliet?
Or the quiet sand
Of the tortured man
Alone with his cigarette?
With cleverly scripted cameos
Humanity’s depths they plumb
W
e watch their claim
On tomorrow’s fame
A promise of tantrums to come
These desperate folk who e’er would walk in greasepaint and limelight
Stand waiting in the wings of life prepared for fight or flight
Anxiously strain to grasp their chance
Distil a life’s emotion
Concentrated -
Terminated
A drop in drama’s ocean.
The foyer reeks of smoky gloom
While family, friends await
The show is done,
The actors gone
To prosecute their fate
Potential stars are flickering now
Like candles in the wind
But still they vie
For Director’s eye
Until the pack is thinned
The empty stage a lonely place; faint echoes fill the hall
Past joys and jeers, triumphs and tears. Listen. You can hear them all.
Boredom
Inside my head a crawling worm
Its milliard feet is clumping
Externally the faceless firm
Its vacuous shit is dumping
My mind sits tightened in its shell
Just this side of aching
My thoughts on boredom anguished dwell
Just how much life it's taking
The daily work; the trivial tasks
All done. And some repeated.
'Can this be all?' the worn soul asks
Are hopes and dreams defeated?
A bone deep weariness steals down
Sapping strength and pride
A heartfelt cry for past renown
For work once satisfied.
Sit instead and stare at screen
Long time it held my focus.
It stares back now, no longer keen
To hold my magnum opus.
Breakfast, lunch, a coffee break
The beat of patterned day
No passion left, old embers raked
The heat all drained away.
Eggs, Chips and Peas
Flat roofed buildings
Shrunken now
Stay huge within his mind
Halls still ringing
Distant plough
The future undefined
Hot summer sun
Bending air
The new-mown grass and paint
With squeals of fun
Children dare
To shrug off all restraint
Along the hall
The voices
All stilled by passing years
Familiar smell
Old choices
The break-time buccaneers
Unfamiliar
Classroom names
Not North or South or West
But "Beauregard"
Panto dames
Pop culture manifest
But clucking still
Schoolyard hens
Scratch round the pigs and rabbits
The children swill;
Clean the pens
Developing good habits
Smooth worn playground
All replaced
Knee-friendly safety tarmac
Keen danger now has
Been erased
Twixt climbing frame and racetrack.
"Come in, come in!"
Headmaster cries,
"Are you an old boy too?"
A fading tome we
Scrutinise
"We'll find the line for you!"
Time drops away
A child again
He stands before headmistress
On school's first day
Little men
Hints of future promise.
The Techie
The techie is a peculiar breed
Bright of eye and quick of deed
Ideas strewn with lightning speed
And thunder if you don’t take heed
His work is done with utmost care
The hours long; the reward bare
Might wear the badge of thinning hair
And mess with him you will not dare
For there are words best not to speak
Within the hearing of his clique
“Justification,” “costs” and “geek”
Will likely cause a fit of pique
He wears a virtual anorak
Deals deftly with the management flak
Though it may turn his mood to black,
Still keeps to architectural track
Seniority marked by length of beard
By lesser mortals he is feared
“He could be bio-engineered
Or something equally as weird”
Through gritted teeth his bosses sneered
They’ll wish they’d never interfered
When as the project’s end is neared
They see the course that he has steered
A new approach he pioneered
To which, against all odds, adhered
He diligently persevered
’Til light from tunnel reappeared
And heads from over parapet peered
With dregs of budget commandeered
The buying of beer is volunteered
And by his peers he’s roundly cheered.
Mordent Notes
Pure mordent notes drift through the lounge
Trip quietly down empty stair
Like Hendley always on the scrounge
Like candle smoke on breath-blown air
A zebra prances in the house
Mariana shimmies in the hall
Old classic Beatles; a little Strauss;
Old ragtime players have a ball
How sweet the sound of heart-strings plucked
My tears are never far away
So poised with feet beneath you tucked
So calmly let the strain decay
Your notes fly swiftly as your years
Fast fingers blur across the strings
I watch entranced; the camera clears
I listen to your life take wings
Full days of this would not suffice
Or surfeit father's appetite
To melt the heart once bound in ice
To help those parted reunite
The weekend ends and house falls still
Though echoes in my soul remain
You pack your bags and leave until
You bring your music back again.
A Day In The Life
Fresh morning dawns
Bright and clear
Full of hope and promise
The youngster yawns
Dons school gear
Enthusiasm boundless
When lunchtime comes
Eats his fill
Each bite a new beginning
And falling crumbs
Fit the bill
To silence gannets' dinning
By afternoon
Slowing down
Waiting for the ticking
Clock to turn
Hide a frown
Unsure who he's tricking
Evening races
Up to greet
An old man in the car park
Tattered laces
Bind his feet
Long since obscured; his trademark
The setting sun
On wrinkled skin
He rocks, with cocoa cooling
His day is done
So hobbles in
Hides evidence of drooling
Night time heralds
Quiet streets
Silver moonlight glistens
Long infertile
Dead mind meets
The reaper's keen ambitions
About the Author
I am currently a writer who also works full-time as a computer systems architect.
That single sentence crystallises my priorities. Since the first time a story of mine made the rest of the English clas
s screw up their faces in horror and disgust, I've wanted nothing more than to write. I was 12. Later that year I came second in a sponsored writing competition with a short story about how the Sphinx is really a quiescent guardian against alien invaders. I won £10. That was big bucks in 1968.
Since then, real life has stepped in between me and my writing. In my 33-year career in computing I have written dozens of design documents, created and delivered presentations to audiences from 1,000 technical experts to a handful of board members, interviewed dozens of technical candidates and taught my core skills and subjects to many younger colleagues through both formal courses and ad-hoc coaching.
But all that is just a way to hone skills that might be useful to me as a writer. And, of course, to pay the bills and support my family. A man's gotta do...
Twelve years ago, I woke up to the passage of time and decided I had to get serious about writing before it was too late. I hired a writing coach - not just to help with the quality of my prose but to help establish solid habits and accountability. My first major project - my novel War of Nutrition - took 7 years of spare time to write and was finished in 2008. After two years-worth of rejection slips I reviewed it dispassionately in light of critical feedback and rewrote it, cutting 20,000 words to allow it to become my first foray into the world of e-publishing.
Whenever I'd thought of writing, it was as a novelist. But at around the same time I started War of Nutrition I also came across myself one day writing a poem. It was as much a surprise to me as to anyone else. That first example wasn't really suitable for publication but I like to pretend I got better at it as the years ticked by, which explains this small volume.
There'll be another one along shortly. And, probably a few years later, another novel, although I'm not working to any particular deadline with that!
Anything else? Well, yes. Along with a novel and (soon to be) two collections of poems, there's work I've created as:
• A songwriter. I've always loved singing. People tell me I'm good at it. You can judge for yourself - both my albums 'Suburban Nostalgia' and 'Weird and Wonderful' are available on iTunes and can be heard at https://www.beresfordandwallace.com. I've been lucky enough to collaborate with a friend who writes beautiful tunes. I try to match them with the beauty of my lyrics. The songs have been known to make audiences cry.
• A screenwriter. I have worked as co-writer with Colleen Patrick on the paranormal horror/thriller movie Train of Reckoning, which we recently reworked to energise it with the improved craft and experience we've gained in the five years since its first draft. It is still looking for a producer.
• A freelance TV reviewer. I spent three years reviewing a wide variety of UK television for TV Scoop before their radical restructuring in 2010. My reviews gained such plaudits as “Genius!” (from the Artistic Director).
• A playwright. My radio play "Breakages Must Be Paid For" was long-listed for the BBC's Alfred Bradley Bursary Award in 2009. The reader’s comments included:
"With a deceptive lightness of touch this is a dark cautionary tale centred around the unlikely relationship which develops between a home owner and his burglar. The script is well plotted with unexpected reversals, the first of which is the revelation that the burglar Satish, is actually a teenage girl. And so the script continues with a series of unexpected twists and reversals which demonstrate the constant shifting of power between the two central characters. The relationship the characters develop lulls us into a false sense of security in order to reveal an unexpected ending."
I also maintain a personal website (linked below). It includes a blog, where you’ll discover that I spend more time decorating than I do writing.
Connect with me online:
Facebook
Twitter
My web site
Check out my other published work:
War of Nutrition
Valentine Wine (coming soon)
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