Jim McDonald Poems

Hit Title Date Added
1.
London

London
I walk every day under your heavy skies
the grey lid that covers your people.
I walk your filthy streets and step past
...

2.
Filling Time

I met my grandfather again last night –
strange, as he died in 1998.
World Cup Year.
I spent some time filling him in on what had gone on since.
...

3.
Gentleness

for Jack Kerouac (1922-69)

Jack the America of your dreams is gone
Gone the brownstone tenements of the night
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4.
Moving Wood

Spent an hour in the morning moving a wood-pile
from near the house where they need to lay pipes
to a copse I cleared two years ago
of a mountain of twenty year hawthorn and briar.
...

5.
Penny Farthing

On a crisp Kent Autumn morning
My father throwing sticks, tennis balls, even his car keys
into a brown horsechestnut tree.
Down came showers of leaves and conkers.
...

6.
Normandy

Normandy
The path of your seasons is heavy on my heart
Wild winter gales
The early breath of spring-time air
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7.
Uncovering Snails

Gardening yesterday I lifted a large log
and uncovered a teeming party of life.
Woodlice scuttled away
An earwig made its hurried passage to safety.
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8.
Re-Sits

On a warm May morning I am invigilating a pointless Government exam
when a child asks eagerly,
“How much time left...? ”
A question better than any on his exam paper.
...

9.
November, Early Morning

open sky washed clean by a night of rain
sharp breath of autumn covering everything
London almost pleasant in the 6 a.m. dawn light
...

10.
Water Level

At first the patter of a couple of raindrops
Increasing in frequency
Tacklings and cracklings
onto the glass roof above
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