The poetry thread.

[mozgrame]

Ballad of the Hippy
By Garv, with sincere apologies to Henry Lawson

Down the sleazy lanes and alleys
His memory at a loss
The drug besotted hippy
Goes swaggering through the Cross
A swarm of flies attends him
For foul of smell is he
His brains are badly addled
From trips on L.S.D.

His ragged jeans and t-shirt
Both threadbare and unwashed
Are sprinkled well with bloodstains
From bugs and lice he's squashed
His filthy pad is empty
The rent he failed to pay
Last night he groaned and shivered
As in Hyde Park he lay.

Up Griffith way he travelled
On dusty roads and hot
To seek a drug supplier
And now he's high on "Pot"
But needs a shot of heroin
To make contentment stick
Before he hits Macleay Street
To find his grubby chick.

Across the intersection
The Cres Hotel is bright
Two coppers in a police van
Come cruising through the night
A pair of shakedown artists
To duty's call untrue
They've just received a handout
From harlots in the 'Loo.

Their eyes are on the hippy
A most offensive sight
"A pigeon", says the seargent
"To fill our cage tonight".
The hippy ceases dreaming
Of carnal joys of rape
Down Darlo Road he gallops
In hopes to make escape.

But on Macleay Street corner
His bird will wait in vain
He'll never bring her presents
Of "horse"or "pot" again
For in the darkened roadway
A taxi's headlight gleam
A sickening, sodden impact
A terrifying scream.

The sergeant, braking swiftly,
Great rage and wrath attains
As on his windscreen splatters
The hippy's sluggish brains
The cab-man visualising
Great damage to his car
Finds smoking hot intestines
Wound round the bumper bar.

No more we'll see our hero
By heroin made bold
He's won a John Doe ticket
In Sydney morgue house cold
But someone's greatly saddened
And shows with tearful signs
Great sorrow for the hippy
Who on a slab reclines

Through sleazy lanes and alleys
In Sydney's squalid slums
The Black Maria still searches
For junkies, drunks and bums
The coppers sadly wishing
That they were on a spree
While music from the nightclubs
Is pounding crazily.

 

[mozgrame]

Country Town

There’s nothing much to see there
and there’s not a lot to do
It’s the kind of place you glance at
A place you just pass through

There’s a pub up on the corner
And one big general store
There’s a garage and an oval
But not a whole lot more

It’s been the same for years
We’re not that big on change
We don’t think much of city ways
To us they’re just plain strange

We still enjoy the weekend
The shop and garage close
There’s no such thing as ‘rostered on’
On Sunday time just slows

The only signs of rush and haste
Are bees down in the park
The local dogs are fast asleep
They’d rather snooze than bark

The gum trees by the rail line
Give shelter from the heat
On lazy long hot afternoons
They shade the whole main street

It’s quiet and it’s peaceful
And there’s time to stop and talk
You can take all of the sights in
Just by going for a walk

It’s the place that I grew up in
And a place I won’t let down
You can keep all of your cities
For I love my country town

Marc Glasby

 

[Captain Moondog]

This ones too big to post but here's a link....http://www.bartleby.com/41/415.html

 

[Captain Moondog]

The Wreck of the Hesperus
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"'T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!" —
And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light,
Oh say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!

 

[mozgrame]

The Joy Of Being Poor

By Robert William Service

Let others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich;
But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch!
When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare,
And I had but a single coat, and not a single care;
When I would feast right royally on bacon, bread and beer,
And dig into a stack of hay and doze like any peer;
When I would wash beside a brook my solitary shirt,
And though it dried upon my back I never took a hurt;
When I went romping down the road contemptuous of care,
And slapped Adventure on the back -- by Gad! we were a pair;
When, though my pockets lacked a coin, and though my coat was old,
The largess of the stars was mine, and all the sunset gold;
When time was only made for fools, and free as air was I,
And hard I hit and hard I lived beneath the open sky;
When all the roads were one to me, and each had its allure . . .
Ye Gods! these were the happy days, the days when I was poor.

Or else, again, old pal of mine, do you recall the times
You struggled with your storyettes, I wrestled with my rhymes;
Oh, we were happy, were we not? -- we used to live so "high"
(A little bit of broken roof between us and the sky);
Upon the forge of art we toiled with hammer and with tongs;
You told me all your rippling yarns, I sang to you my songs.
Our hats were frayed, our jackets patched, our boots were down at heel,
But oh, the happy men were we, although we lacked a meal.
And if I sold a bit of rhyme, or if you placed a tale,
What feasts we had of tenderloins and apple-tarts and ale!
And yet how often we would dine as cheerful as you please,
Beside our little friendly fire on coffee, bread and cheese.
We lived upon the ragged edge, and grub was never sure,
But oh, these were the happy days, the days when we were poor.

Alas! old man, we're wealthy now, it's sad beyond a doubt;
We cannot dodge prosperity, success has found us out.
Your eye is very dull and drear, my brow is creased with care,
We realize how hard it is to be a millionaire.
The burden's heavy on our backs -- you're thinking of your rents,
I'm worrying if I'll invest in five or six per cents.
We've limousines, and marble halls, and flunkeys by the score,
We play the part . . . but say, old chap, oh, isn't it a bore?
We work like slaves, we eat too much, we put on evening dress;
We've everything a man can want, I think . . . but happiness.
Come, let us sneak away, old chum; forget that we are rich,
And earn an honest appetite, and scratch an honest itch.
Let's be two jolly garreteers, up seven flights of stairs,
And wear old clothes and just pretend we aren't millionaires;
And wonder how we'll pay the rent, and scribble ream on ream,
And sup on sausages and tea, and laugh and loaf and dream.
And when we're tired of that, my friend, oh, you will come with me;
And we will seek the sunlit roads that lie beside the sea.
We'll know the joy the gipsy knows, the freedom nothing mars,
The golden treasure-gates of dawn, the mintage of the stars.
We'll smoke our pipes and watch the pot, and feed the crackling fire,
And sing like two old jolly boys, and dance to heart's desire;
We'll climb the hill and ford the brook and camp upon the moor . . .
Old chap, let's haste, I'm mad to taste the Joy of Being Poor.

 

[mozgrame]

The man who was away

The widow sought the lawyer's room with children three in tow,
She told the lawyer man her tale in tones of deepest woe.
She said, "My husband took to drink for pains in his inside,
And never drew a sober breath from then until he died.

"He never drew a sober breath, he died without a will,
And I must sell the bit of land the childer's mouth to fill.
There's some is grown and gone away, but some is childer yet,
And times is very bad indeed -- a livin's hard to get.

"There's Min and Sis and little Chris, they stops at home with me,
And Sal has married Greenhide Bill that breaks for Bidgeree.
And Fred is drovin' Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh
And Charley's shearin' down the Bland, and Peter is away."

The lawyer wrote the details down in ink of legal blue --
"There's Minnie, Susan, Christopher, they stop at home with you;
There's Sarah, Frederick and Charles, I'll write to them today,
But what about the other son -- the one who is away?

"You'll have to furnish his consent to sell the bit of land."
The widow shuffled in her seat, "Oh, don't you understand?
I thought a lawyer ought to know -- I don't know what to say --
You'll have to do without him, boss, for Peter is away."

But here the little boy spoke up -- said he, "We thought you knew;
He's done six months in Goulburn gaol -- he's got six more to do."
Thus in one comprehensive flash he made it clear as day,
The mystery of Peter's life -- the man who was away.

Banjo Paterson

 

[mozgrame]

A bush Christening.
Banjo Paterson.

On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
And men of religion are scanty,
On a road never cross'd 'cept by folk that are lost,
One Michael Magee had a shanty.

Now this Mike was the dad of a ten year old lad,
Plump, healthy, and stoutly conditioned;
He was strong as the best, but poor Mike had no rest
For the youngster had never been christened.

And his wife used to cry, `If the darlin' should die
Saint Peter would not recognise him.'
But by luck he survived till a preacher arrived,
Who agreed straightaway to baptise him.

Now the artful young rogue, while they held their collogue,
With his ear to the keyhole was listenin',
And he muttered in fright, while his features turned white,
`What the divil and all is this christenin'?'

He was none of your dolts, he had seen them brand colts,
And it seemed to his small understanding,
If the man in the frock made him one of the flock,
It must mean something very like branding.

So away with a rush he set off for the bush,
While the tears in his eyelids they glistened --
`'Tis outrageous,' says he, `to brand youngsters like me,
I'll be dashed if I'll stop to be christened!'

Like a young native dog he ran into a log,
And his father with language uncivil,
Never heeding the `praste' cried aloud in his haste,
`Come out and be christened, you divil!'

But he lay there as snug as a bug in a rug,
And his parents in vain might reprove him,
Till his reverence spoke (he was fond of a joke)
`I've a notion,' says he, `that'll move him.'

`Poke a stick up the log, give the spalpeen a prog;
Poke him aisy -- don't hurt him or maim him,
'Tis not long that he'll stand, I've the water at hand,
As he rushes out this end I'll name him.

`Here he comes, and for shame! ye've forgotten the name --
Is it Patsy or Michael or Dinnis?'
Here the youngster ran out, and the priest gave a shout --
`Take your chance, anyhow, wid `Maginnis'!'

As the howling young cub ran away to the scrub
Where he knew that pursuit would be risky,
The priest, as he fled, flung a flask at his head
That was labelled `MAGINNIS'S WHISKY'!

And Maginnis Magee has been made a J.P.,
And the one thing he hates more than sin is
To be asked by the folk, who have heard of the joke,
How he came to be christened `Maginnis'!

 

[mozgrame]

"Hail! Childish Slaves of Social Rules"
Robert Louis Stevenson

Hail! Childish slaves of social rules
You had yourselves a hand in making!
How I could shake your faith, ye fools,
If but I thought it worth the shaking.
I see, and pity you; and then
Go, casting off the idle pity,
In search of better, braver men,
My own way freely through the city.

My own way freely, and not yours;
And, careless of a town's abusing,
Seek real friendship that endures
Among the friends of my own choosing.
I'll choose my friends myself, do you hear?
And won't let Mrs. Grundy do it,
Tho' all I honour and hold dear
And all I hope should move me to it.

I take my old coat from the shelf -
I am a man of little breeding.
And only dress to please myself -
I own, a very strange proceeding.
I smoke a pipe abroad, because
To all cigars I much prefer it,
And as I scorn your social laws
My choice has nothing to deter it.

Gladly I trudge the footpath way,
While you and yours roll by in coaches
In all the pride of fine array,
Through all the city's thronged approaches.
O fine religious, decent folk,
In Virtue's flaunting gold and scarlet,
I sneer between two puffs of smoke, -
Give me the publican and harlot.

Ye dainty-spoken, stiff, severe
Seed of the migrated Philistian,
One whispered question in your ear -
Pray, what was Christ, if you be Christian?
If Christ were only here just now,
Among the city's wynds and gables
Teaching the life he taught us, how
Would he be welcome to your tables?

I go and leave your logic-straws,
Your former-friends with face averted,
Your petty ways and narrow laws,
Your Grundy and your God, deserted.
From your frail ark of lies, I flee
I know not where, like Noah's raven.
Full to the broad, unsounded sea
I swim from your dishonest haven.

Alone on that unsounded deep,
Poor waif, it may be I shall perish,
Far from the course I thought to keep,
Far from the friends I hoped to cherish.
It may be that I shall sink, and yet
Hear, thro' all taunt and scornful laughter,
Through all defeat and all regret,
The stronger swimmers coming after.

 

[mozgrame]

Do You Think That I Do Not Know?
Henry Lawson
1910

They say that I never have written of love,
As a writer of songs should do;
They say that I never could touch the strings
With a touch that is firm and true;
They say I know nothing of women and men
In the fields where Love's roses grow,
And they say I must write with a halting pen
Do you think that I do not know?

When the love-burst came, like an English Spring,
In days when our hair was brown,
And the hem of her skirt was a sacred thing
And her hair was an angel's crown.
The shock when another man touched her arm,
Where the dancers sat round in a row;
The hope and despair, and the false alarm
Do you think that I do not know?

By the arbour lights on the western farms,
You remember the question put,
While you held her warm in your quivering arms
And you trembled from head to foot.
The electric shock from her finger tips,
And the murmuring answer low,
The soft, shy yielding of warm red lips
Do you think that I do not know?

She was buried at Brighton, where Gordon sleeps,
When I was a world away;
And the sad old garden its secret keeps,
For nobody knows to-day.
She left a message for me to read,
Where the wild wide oceans flow;
Do you know how the heart of a man can bleed
Do you think that I do not know?

I stood by the grave where the dead girl lies,
When the sunlit scenes were fair,
And the white clouds high in the autumn skies,
And I answered the message there.
But the haunting words of the dead to me
Shall go wherever I go.
She lives in the Marriage that Might Have Been
Do you think that I do not know?

They sneer or scoff, and they pray or groan,
And the false friend plays his part.
Do you think that the blackguard who drinks alone
Knows aught of a pure girl's heart?
Knows aught of the first pure love of a boy
With his warm young blood aglow,
Knows aught of the thrill of the world-old joy
Do you think that I do not know?

They say that I never have written of love,
They say that my heart is such
That finer feelings are far above;
But a writer may know too much.
There are darkest depths in the brightest nights,
When the clustering stars hang low;
There are things it would break his strong heart to write
Do you think that I do not know?

 

[mozgrame]

Clancy Of The Overflow
Banjo Paterson

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just `on spec', addressed as follows, `Clancy, of The Overflow'.

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
`Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving `down the Cooper' where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of `The Overflow'.

 

[robbiea]

Spring has sprung
Grass has ris
I wonder where
The birdie's is ?

 

[Captain Moondog]

Spring has sprung
Grass has ris
I wonder where
The birdie's is ?

They say the boid
Is on the wing
But that's absoid
The wing is on the boid.

 

[mozgrame]

There was a fly upon the wall
He flew away, and that is all.

 

[Beer buzzard]

Quoting poems doesn't make you smart. Talking about them is different. Even a pisspot like me can flick open a book and post something.

 

[Beer buzzard]

Here's one. I once knew a guy from Nantucket.......

 

[mozgrame]

Who's claiming to be smart? I freely admit to being a truly uneducated Queensland country bloke, far beneath the brilliant minds that like to orate (usually in the footy forum, I know, go figure, right?) on this site. My spelling is atrocious. My grammar? HA! Forget about it..... I just admire the linguistic skill of poets. Something, due to my own severe lack of education, I am in awe of.

The Man from Nantucket however...although crudely amusing after a few drinks (usually at a Rodney Rude night, of which I've attended quite a few lol) is a little simplistic, and although technically a poem, I have always regarded limericks as more of a rhyme than a true poem. I know I'm incorrect in that thinking, but that's my opinion, inconsequential as it is...

There was a young man from Newcastle....

 

[mozgrame]

Those Names

The shearers sat in the firelight, hearty and hale and strong,
After the hard day's shearing, passing the joke along:
The `ringer' that shore a hundred, as they never were shorn before,
And the novice who, toiling bravely, had tommy-hawked half a score,
The tarboy, the cook, and the slushy, the sweeper that swept the board,
The picker-up, and the penner, with the rest of the shearing horde.

There were men from the inland stations
where the skies like a furnace glow,
And men from the Snowy River, the land of the frozen snow;
There were swarthy Queensland drovers who reckoned all land by miles,
And farmers' sons from the Murray, where many a vineyard smiles.
They started at telling stories when they wearied of cards and games,
And to give these stories a flavour they threw in some local names,
And a man from the bleak Monaro, away on the tableland,
He fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and he started to play his hand.

He told them of Adjintoothbong, where the pine-clad mountains freeze,
And the weight of the snow in summer breaks branches off the trees,
And, as he warmed to the business, he let them have it strong --
Nimitybelle, Conargo, Wheeo, Bongongolong;
He lingered over them fondly, because they recalled to mind
A thought of the old bush homestead, and the girl that he left behind.
Then the shearers all sat silent till a man in the corner rose;
Said he, `I've travelled a-plenty but never heard names like those.
Out in the western districts, out on the Castlereagh
Most of the names are easy -- short for a man to say.

`You've heard of Mungrybambone and the Gundabluey pine,
Quobbotha, Girilambone, and Terramungamine,
Quambone, Eunonyhareenyha, Wee Waa, and Buntijo --'
But the rest of the shearers stopped him:
`For the sake of your jaw, go slow,
If you reckon those names are short ones out where such names prevail,
Just try and remember some long ones before you begin the tale.'
And the man from the western district, though never a word he said,
Just winked with his dexter eyelid, and then he retired to bed.

Banjo Paterson.

 

[mozgrame]

'We're All Australians Now'
by A B Banjo Paterson

Australia takes her pen in hand
To write a line to you,
To let you fellows understand
How proud we are of you.

From shearing shed and cattle run,
From Broome to Hobson's Bay,
Each native-born Australian son
Stands straighter up today.

The man who used to "hump his drum",
On far-out Queensland runs
Is fighting side by side with some
Tasmanian farmer's sons.

The fisher-boys dropped sail and oar
To grimly stand the test,
Along that storm-swept Turkish shore,
With miners from the west.

The old state jealousies of yore
Are dead as Pharaoh's sow,
We're not State children any more —
We're all Australians now!

Our six-starred flag that used to fly
Half-shyly to the breeze,
Unknown where older nations ply
Their trade on foreign seas,

Flies out to meet the morning blue
With Vict'ry at the prow;
For that's the flag the Sydney flew,
The wide seas know it now!

The mettle that a race can show
Is proved with shot and steel,
And now we know what nations know
And feel what nations feel.

The honoured graves beneath the crest
Of Gaba Tepe hill
May hold our bravest and our best,
But we have brave men still.

With all our petty quarrels done,
Dissensions overthrown,
We have, through what you boys have done,
A history of our own.

Our old world diff'rences are dead,
Like weeds beneath the plough,
For English, Scotch, and Irish-bred,
They're all Australians now!

So now we'll toast the Third Brigade
That led Australia's van,
For never shall their glory fade
In minds Australian.

Fight on, fight on, unflinchingly,
Till right and justice reign.
Fight on, fight on, till Victory
Shall send you home again.

And with Australia's flag shall fly
A spray of wattle-bough
To symbolise our unity —
We're all Australians now.

 

[mozgrame]

Everything Changes

There’s strangers in my father’s house
And all his things have gone
There’s nothing left but memories
Of all that he had done

All the things he saw in life
And all the things he knew
just vanished with the sands of time
The day his life was through

My childhood friends are nothing now
But ghosts and faded dreams
Just melancholy memories
How long ago it seems

The places of my youth have changed
And I can’t recognise
The old man in the mirror now
Who looks back with my eyes

The world has changed beyond belief
In just a few short years
It cares naught what I might say
My hopes, my dreams, my fears

In days gone by the haunts I knew
Were always to be found
But changes take my memories
and steal my sacred ground

Everything they say must change
Each dog will have its day
but everything you thought you knew
Will someday fade away

Marc Glasby

 

[mozgrame]

Smell the Flowers

In a nursing home somewhere in Sydney
the old man sat and watched the seasons go
and in his eyes I saw a distant memory
of a place and time that he knew long ago

With no-one left to come and visit
he sat and dreamed of days gone by
and as he told me of his story
I saw a tear well in his eye

"There was a time I was a drover
riding out across the plains
driving mobs up into Townsville
facing drought and flooding rains

I saw the best life has to offer
I lived through times forever gone
but now I'm old and long forgotten
these memories still linger on

I've seen the blooms of golden wattle
stretching out for miles around
I've felt the chill of cold hard mornings
with winter's frost upon the ground

I've ridden high into the mountains
and seen the end of long hot days
ridden out into the back blocks
checking gates and chasing strays

I've seen the hand of so-called progress
I've seen the scars upon the land
I long for all that's left behind me
but sand slips quickly through my hand

I had a wife, I had a family
but that was many years ago
They all moved on to where I'm heading
and time these days is moving slow"

He offered me some words of wisdom
from his life and times gone by
"Stop a while and smell the flowers
give serenity a try"

And then his eyes lost all expression
drifting back from where we are
and once again he rode the range land
and gazed upon the ridges far

And in my wild and hectic lifestyle
I envy him his days of grace
driving mobs across the country
moving on from place to place

So when I can I stop and listen
hear the birds, enjoy their song
I stop a while and smell the flowers
I feel a peace that makes me strong

Marc Glasby