Contents; Some Poetry for my Friends.
[1] The Shed
[2] A Man Came to the Window.
[3] The Last Bee’
[4] ‘Doggy do-dahs!’
[5] Big Bear Bert.
[6] A Little Night Music.
[7] The Helk.
[8] No Dead Dogs!
[9] Birdie Bedtime.
[10 The Hedgehog.
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The Shed
My shed is a real shed.
It is no work of art.
It’s better, though, for being so
and has been from the start.
It is much more than untidy
yet the tools are all to hand.
Bricks and stuff are round the back.
By its side lies a pile of sand.
Cats and birds run on the roof.
Beer and wine are in the fridge.
A plastic paddling pool is in its box
still waiting to be used.
This shed is hot in summer
yet freezing cold at winter time.
It is though a very worthy shed.
Where else is one like mine?
My shed is a just working shed,
It has been from the start.
It is better, though, for being so.
For it is no a work of art!
Tony Kreit 24-06-09 inspired by Tate Modern.
In my view it is easier for me to explain this poem than it is for the Tate Modern Gallery to explain their inclusion of a garden shed into an exhibition as an example of modern art. It was not even a work in progress. It was not unique as an example of a shed. There are millions more or less the same in gardens and on allotments the length and breadth of the country. Such an exhibit is yet another example of the Art Establishment gone mad, spending their subsidy of tax payers’ hard earned money on daft projects that remind one of the old story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. It is art because we say it is; is not an adequate response to such charges, no more than the even more arrogant; “you don’t understand modern art”.
Tony Kreit October 2010.
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A Man Came To The Window.
A man came to the window;
to the hotel ground floor panoramic window.
Two minutes ago he was sleeping over there,
by the wall, the low wall, the long low terrace wall
to my left across the square.
Two minutes ago he was sleeping
under that long low wall across the square
near the waiting place for taxis
The policeman woke him with the toe of his boot
asleep as he was in the cold, spring cold morning air.
He woke him, not kicking but prodding
Not kindly not friendly not tender
No not at all caring but careful,
as if touching might contaminate
that disinterested youthful hand…
“Clear off, move on” I saw him say
To the man now at the window
The panoramic window of that hotel
in the Second City square,
where the March wind whistled cold.
Was he in search of vicarious and
Unachievable warmth;
destined not to pass through the window?
The panoramic window of the hotel
In ‘Brum’, in the Second City square.
The sometime sleeping man
His bedding now around his shoulders
The cold face peered through the window
And into the taken-for-granted warmth of the
Hotel in Brindley Place, in Birmingham.
The cold March wind cut deep into his bones
As it whistled up through the channel between
The buildings there called Brunswick Street
up from the canal in the valley there below.
It cut into the core of the man at that window.
He stood by the window, silently asking for help.
And I? Trying hard not to catch his eye.
I turned away and slowly made my way
to eat a sad and sorry breakfast.
Tony Kreit March-26-2019
I began this poem on the morning of 24th March and finished it two days later. It is both a silent tribute to the rudely awakened sleeping man as well as my confession of my own lack of action. I “walked by on the other side…” Tony Kreit May 15 2019
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The last Bee.
The last bee flies into my garden
She’s buzzing from flower to flower
What have we done to our country?
Why does the land become sour?
The last bee visits my garden,
She collects the sweet nectar alone
For her once busy hive is now quite empty.
No drone, no queen and no throne.
The striped one visits my garden.
What have we done to her land?
She’s nowhere to go at the end of the day.
Damn, she’s just stung my bloody hand!
Tony Kreit [07-06-09]
What have we done to our country? Why has the land become sour? These two questions underline the main thrust of this poem. The bee is a hard worker and pollinates about 80% of our food crops and most of the flowers in our beloved gardens. Yet we have failed to recognise these issues to the extent that bees are dying and we are doing little to support them. If this continues it will be to our huge cost somewhere along the way.
‘Doggy Do-Dahs!’
Doggy do-dahs on the street!
Doggy do-dahs on the pavement!
Doggy do-dahs on my feet!
“Bloody hell I’m going home!”
Doggy do-dahs are no fun.
Doggy do-dahs should not be seen.
There are bags for them, it is well known.
That way you can put them in a bin
Or you can even take yours home!
Doggy do-dahs are all yours,
No need to share, no need at all.
Yours are yours, yours alone to keep
Or in that there bin to now dispose.
There’s your dog and there’s your bin!
That’s still your dog and that’s no farce.
Now in that there bin please put its waste!
Or shove this cork right up its arse!
Tony Kreit.11-06-18
Big Bear Bert
Big Bear Bert was a very hasty man.
When he was young he made a vow.
“I’m going to catch me some bears.” He said.
“As many as I can.”
He thought he’d start off small though.
Big Bear Bert was no-one’s fool.
He did not want to take on more than
he thought that he could do.
Bert travelled down to London
with a ticket for the Zoo.
He’d decided he’d try his luck there.
He had a lot to do.
The bear keeper there he went to see.
To ask he thought he ought.
“Don’t be so silly man.” The keeper said.
“Our bears have all been caught.”
You’ll have to practice elsewhere
the things you want to do.
The bears are all protected here,
Just from the likes of you.
Bert did not feel downhearted
by his visit to the Zoo.
He knew that catching bears
would be no easy thing to do.
Bears are big and strong, fierce and fast.
How could he go about it?
“I really need some practice
if I’m going to try the art.”
To the gym Bert took himself.
He won so many fights when wrestling in the ring.
Big strong men could not last the pace
When Bert to fight they tried to face.
“That’s it”, he said.“I’ll challenge bears
and beat them, best of three.”
And so he took himself to Canada
To where he knew some bears would be.
“I won’t start with grizzlies
They’re far too big and fierce.
The Nova Scotia black bears
will do me for a start.”
The black bears proved elusive though.
They avoided Bert like mad.
They ran when they heard him through the trees.
It really was quite sad.
Bert’s hunt came to a glorious end one day.
Deep in the forest on a bear cub he did stumble.
At last cried Bert, then, where’s your mum?
He heard her growl, too late, his first move he did fumble.
Mum won round one, she beat him good.
She knocked him pillar to post.
“That’s my boy you trod on
and this is his very own wood.”
Bert felt that he drew round two
For mum backed off a bit
When Bert punched her, ‘bang’, on the tip of her nose
It really was a wondrous hit.
By round three the gallant pair were done.
Both were battered and bruised.
Mum had the cub to look after.
Bert wanted a rest and some food.
Bert moved away puffed, and wiping his wounds.
He thought of the future and grizzlies.
“Shall I go on and give them a go?”
“After the fight that mother gave me,
I think that answer just has to be NO!!!”
Tony Kreit [June/July 2009
This was another poem inspired by our holiday in Canada. We saw many wild animals and the idea came to me of a fool called Bert who wanted to fight bears.
A Little Night Music
When I lay my head to sleep
the music of the night does safely keep
my rest in bed at bay.
That persistent dripping tap
The creaking stairs,
The noise downstairs!
That fire alarm from a shop in Town
The burglar alarm from the house across the road
The invasive searchlight beam from that very same house!
A wakeful, waking and persistent car alarm in the street nearby!
Is it mine?
Night revellers from a party, surely not the one next door?
Cats in the shed,
Cats on the shed,
Cats on my car,
Cats on each other!
Cats on an old tin roof!
Cats on the tiles.
Dogs barking at cats whatever they do.
The spits and spats of the same damned cats!
The old red fox making a living and rustling the bins!
Music, not from a party but it’s 2 in the A.M.!
Party? Yes now it is the one next door.
Sirens over sirens!
Police, fire engine and ambulance.
Who can tell the diff at three in the morn?
The morning chorus, those damned birds revving up
to poop on my car!
Cockerels, yes my dears, we know where you are.
Now its church bells…! Oh Dear. Oh Dear!
I think I’ll get up and make a cup of TEA!!
Tony Kreit 26-06-2012.
This poem, as I was making my cup of tea, was my reverence
to the Music of the Night.
The Helk.
I am a helk.
I cannot say elk.
I run like the wind.
I cannot be found when wolves come around.
I am still that helk
who cannot say elk.
Wolves cannot catch me.
I am too fast on my feet for wolves who eat meat.
Still I’m a helk
who cannot say elk.
I am not a deer or even a moose.
I am so fleet on my feet and try to stay loose.
I am a helk.
I have tried to say elk.
I walk like a ghost
on nights when I come to your town.
It is late evening and dark.
The wolves will not come.
The night time is soft
for an elk who says helk.
Tony Kreit [24-06-09] Inspired by Jasper Alb.
I wrote this piece of fantasy whilst on holiday in Canada. On a visit to Jasper, Alberta, I was told by a local chap that elks could often be seen in the evening by the railway marshalling yards. His explanation was that they had learned that wolves would not approach so close to the town and so they were safe there overnight. This poem is dedicated to the craftiness and perspicacity of those HELKS.
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No Dead Dogs!
There are no dead dogs on the beach by Silver Walk
over the water from Canary Wharf.
Fish now swim in the river that passes Docklands by.
The tiny beaches are cleaned twice daily by this river,
A home to fish, that now flows by Canada Water
over the Thames from Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs.
Once as a boy I played on the beach near Tower Bridge
on the putrid sand by London’s landmark Tower
where the river stank and no fishes swam in that fouled and fouling water.
A dead dog there was on that putrid beach by London’s Tower
we laughed a nervous laugh and poked it with a stick,
my friend and I, with a stick by Tower Bridge on the outgoing tide.
We poked a dog to see how it’d died.
Had it drowned in the steamy, filthy water by Tower Bridge?
Perhaps it had swallowed the water and died a painful, poisoned death?
That putrid water that twice-daily filled the river
That oily flow, pushing under the bridge in London town.
How times have changed!
There are no dead dogs on the river’s beaches now.
Fishes swim in the river that does not stink.
The great docks are closed and all is quiet.
The cranes are gone, yuppie flats now guard the bank’s
of London’s greatest river where clean beaches sport…
NO DEAD DOGS!
Tony Kreit June 2009.
I wrote this poem shortly after Joy and I spent a weekend in London at a Hotel by the river in Docklands. Our room overlooked the river and a small clean beach. I was strangely confronted by the contrast between the river as it is now and how it was when I was a boy in the 1940s and 50s
Birdie Bedtime
It’s birdie bedtime
Why don’t you go to sleep?
Put your head right under your wing!
Don’t let’s hear another peep!
You woke me up this morning
with you chirruping and charm.
Now shut your trap and go to sleep
before I do you harm!
Tony Kreit 01-07-12.
More poetic fun, from the heart though.
The‘Hedgehog’My ‘long Sonnet’.
A hedgehog lives in our garden
She came here the other day
She has two hoglets in a nest.
We really hope they’re here to stay.
Good evening Mrs. Hedgehog
I can hear you’re out again.
I can hear you ruffling in my garden.
In your quiet determined way.
You really don’t have much to do
And that’s all that one can say
Yet with your slow endearing fashion
You should know that it’s our pleasure;
That’s if you wish to stay.
With your gruffeling and snuffeling
Among the fallen leaves for food.
Our garden now is clear of slugs and snails
As you rummage through the night-time veils
Of mist; before the morning dew.
And just like the good mother your brood
You have much, much more to do.
So please stay in our garden
And raise your babies here.
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Respect! Autumn 2018.
I wrote this in the Autumn of 2018 as a token of respect for the first Hedgehog who had raised a family in our garden. Sadly she has not returned this year i.e. Autumn 2019.
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