The Beginning of the End

I've stumbled into my first and last as all old people do.

I tried to use the T.V. remote to make a call to you.

There's somethings I did for the last time way, way back when,

like sitting on my mothers lap I can't do that again.

I remember sitting on my fathers' knee for the first and last time, 

age five or six in a rowing boat his hands over mine.

On the lake in Ward End Park one sunny afternoon,

the memory now faded like the waning of the moon.

The first time I kissed a girl and my first sip of beer.

The first shooting star I saw in the night so clear.

The first time I loved someone, my first broken heart,

walking straying streets as my world fell apart.

I probably won't see the sea again, I can't be bothered to go.

I don't think I'll go to the theatre again I'll not see another show.

I've an old friend in a care home he's among strangers,  alone.

For one last time I should see him but,

I'll probably stay here at home.

Into this world we come with the first breath of life.

And exit with our last as death squeezes out the light.

And in between there's first and lasts in everything we do.

We've done the firsts but all the lasts are really up to you.............

The Book

 

This book I made to friends and poets has been a joy to me, It's taken me back to a time when I was young and free.

If I knew then what I know now of the sliding doors of fate but we all know that hindsight always turns up late.

I feel that times escaping, it's running away from me the future fades into the past on that we all agree.

I want to live a long life but never to grow old or fumble around inside my head for stories to be told.

The way an oyster wraps up a small grain of sand and coats it with nacre to produce something grand.

This book I wrapped in leather it had me in a whirl I like to think it's also some type of a pearl..............

Weary Blues

 

If music be the food of love,  I'll have a Bb on toast.

This Brocken violin only played one chord......F demented.......

So I cut the neck off and made it into a ukulele or  Ukulin or a Vioele?

Rhapsadies In Black

 

Jungle nights in Harlem dancing in the streets Duke Ellington band 

playing that syncopated beat.

Across the Harlem rooftops and down in the bars and speaks 

the music all around us the fun is there to seek.

Black renaissance dancers dance to a creole band,  tall, tan, and terrific

those girls from Dixieland.

Harlem was romantic, and strong hard and cold

but the rhythm seeping through you soothes the restless soul...........

 

Ben 1998---2025

 

If the true purpose of life is to live life to the full.

You fulfilled that purpose........

Our wonderful boy. 

Sophia Brigitte and Marilyn

Would I could subdue the thoughts the lustful thoughts of youth,

and then perhaps not think of her in a Basque with stocking tops.

In the doctors surgery reclining upon a couch, with eyes so dark

and crow black hair and painted lips that she would pout.

And Madammselle Brigitte or BB as she was known, with sultry eyes

and sulky lips mon coeur bat pour toi, you belle fille, who I worshiped.

So its goodbye Norma Jeane and the seven year itch, standing over the

subway grating our lives you did enrich.

But to have one more adventure, one more roll of the dice,

one last chance to embrace that feeling, that feeling of

the chase, before I'm lost forever in the shadow of timeless space..........

 

For ever always young....... Ben

 

There no getting over this I've nothing to say,

not a thing I can do to keep sadness at bay.

I find I can't laugh but it's easy to cry,

I cry for myself on that I can't lie.

There's a pain in my heart I just want to scream,

the only thing left for me is to sleep and to dream.

So I just dream of a world I once knew,

clocks don't turn back so I dream dreams of you.....