By Scott Bailey © 2013
Worn out, knackered, done
A brimful of boxy fun
In old Legoland

Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Worn out, knackered, done
A brimful of boxy fun
In old Legoland
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Silver twines
intricate wires
thin and delicate
stretching from misty past
to infinite future
Each one a story
a thread of life
Twisting they come together
Winding, entwining
Further down the road
The twines form a rope
Stronger
Older
Wiser
Thicker
Stiffer
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Stereotypical headlines
Reactions just the same
Ample opportunity
To apportion blame
Night time is for thinking
Sorting truth from lies
But in the sunshine morn
Dreams just fly
So it goes
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Kerching! Kerchang! Pow!
Our economy picks up!
Soul still desolate.
A dagger can be subtle
Not just a sharp stabbing tool
Can slowly cut away supports
Until they fray with time
And then it only takes
A single little pluck
And all comes crashing down
The betrayers hand unknown
Old light from the past
Is still illumination
Wisdom echoes far
A word is a ripple
Spreading through the world
With slow, subtle effects.
Imagine then what a few more, well placed, can do.
Find out.
By Scott Andrew Bailey
Fleeing from killers
The child runs desperately
To fill out a form
Red
Swathes in fields
Too many
Black and white
The headlines
That sowed the seed
Grey
The problems
The ethics
The guns
Yellow
the gas
and the memories
Red
Remembrance
and ledger
Eyes
Red and raw
Seen too much
Filled
With work
and bills
and tears
A Spring of Dreams
365 poems of different forms and moods. A poem a day for a year.
This is the half-light
The magic time
Deep blue light
Fresh born stars
Tales weaving
In expectant air
Firelight dimming
Shadows creep
Tales weaving
Dreams conceived
Past is close
The dead draw near
To hear
Tales weaving
With living breath
365 poems of different forms and moods. A poem a day for a year.
Read in a Spring of Dreams now.
With his faithful tartan cap, its bobble flicking black dust into the air.
Holding in that tousled and already greying hair.
With half hundred weight of coal to deliver down the street.
With his smiling green lorry, tiny windows at his feet.
Walking up the narrow path, a smile upon his face.
Care worn lines deep with dust, crisscrossed like living lace.
Bringing warmth to many homes and our own.
Now the coal has gone but the lines remain beneath silver hair.
Hands hard and black with oil and years of toil and loyal care.
Has no wealth and all wealth one could want within his soft brick walls.
Always ready to respond to our lost and stranded calls.
Tall as a tree and as strong against every withering storm.
A mere spanner in his hands his wonders to perform.
Humble, with every reason to be mighty proud.
With pride these words should be read to all aloud.
In an unremarkable flat
Next to a noisy tapas bar
Is where, perhaps, Hawkins might die
Folded in his chair
It will not be remembered
Unlike his remarkable mind
Such are the vagaries of life and death
Both ridiculous and sublime
Read more in A Spring of Dreams
Another spirit lost
Awash in the swell and foam
Anguished over lost love
Anger dealt him the blow
Arising from the sea
Alighting on the air
A bright bird arises
What’s behind the story
What is the reason for that news
Who gets the benefit, the prize
The envelope with the bread
The law successfully passed
The company tracked greased
Somebody’s life made easier
At the cost of somebody else
The lights on the corners of the boxes of steel
Are giving me a pain in the head
Like the fools who drive slowly in the outside lane
They are driving but their brains are dead
They have a purpose those lights you see
And I expect them to flash
Maybe that is my big mistake
Forgetting people are so rash
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Glistening silver
A delicate spider web
Fallen tree around
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Splashing on the beach
Throwing pebbles in the surf
With red sun sinking
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
I am a tolerant man no more
Intolerant of inequality
And all who promote it
Intolerant of injustice
And all those who peddle it
Time to make the world
The way it should be
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Is society
Tension on the webs between
Elites and masses
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
As a race
We should step up
To eliminate the gap
Between the haves and the have-nots
Between the singers with their bling and the slaves on the line
Between the bankers with their blank cheques and the children in poverty
For most of history most men women and children
Lived in misery, died hungry.
We are a disgrace
As a race
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Back from the shore
Into my arms.
After an explore
In a world of charms
A world full of wonder
Mystery and fun
Of beaches and crabs
And space to run
Breathing salty air
Hearing laughter ring
Dancing without a care
Of what tomorrow may bring
So dance some more my son
Enjoy the sun and sea
When the day is done
Run back home to me
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Another one lost
Too short, too precious, and gone
Little heart flown high
Autumn golden brown
covers the hard icy ground
a leafy carpet
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Bird sings by the pool
in the spring in a soft cool breeze
her voice a sweet sound
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Slowly the shadows pass
As memories retreat and fade
Passing beyond the glass
Like springtime budding grass
New joys together are made
Slowly the shadows pass
This pain we will surpass
And sunbeams will cascade
Passing beyond the glass
Though sometimes the shattered glass
Will cut us like a blade
Slowly the shadows pass
New light will surely trespass
On the lawn that we have made
Passing beyond the glass
Those memories we can’t bypass
But their colour has finally greyed
Slowly the shadows pass
Passing beyond the glass
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Starlight is silent
Waves crash and roar on the shore
Then there is matter
A conduit, a bridge or a gateway.
It goes under many old names.
Open it with wonder and reverence,
For the spell will then be underway.
The weakest of hands can undo it
The portal of magical ways
Connecting one mind to another
With a delicate ethereal wave.
Some portals are heavy and dusty
Some dance with electrical sparks
But they all do the same, all show the way
For strange dreams from heart to heart.
There were even once living gateways
Who opened the way with a look
Always there’s one right beside us
The conduit, the gateway, the book.
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Two trees
Old as memory
Some leaves fallen
A root cut off
Two trees
Explored
Examined
Noted down.
Two trees drawn together
Forever entwined.
Coloured bricks
Red, blue, yellow, white
and many more.
Many shapes
Many sizes
No limits
Many surprises.
Build a fire engine,
A house, a school,
A lake, a park, a city, a town.
A space station and spaceships and an alien host.
A castle, a bridge a knight and a ghost!
All this and more build it all
And never ever build up your wall.
Published in A Spring of Dreams
#RebuildTheWorld
You people don’t understand.
It’s tradition.
It’s sport.
It’s in our genes.
Blood.
Jobs are created
By the sport we choose.
By the blood we shed.
Surely that’s enough.
Of course
The same can’t be said
For you
And your cock fights.
The man in the tree
The plank
The turned leg
The joint
The dust and the shavings.
The tree in the man
The setting down of deep roots
The reaching for the skies
The drinking deep of the earth
The steadfastness and the wielding.
Green fingers
Rip open the rusty shell
Slow tendrils with irresistible grasp.
Dealt with by a blade or a chemical wash
They will be back.
In time victory will be theirs.
Shining argent in sunlight or silver sheen in the rain
Letter, rings, lions.
Phoenix or tiny names
Even flying angels and leaping fluid cats.
Bright, alluring but for many
The last thing they will see.
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Motes of dust
So we have been described
Floating in the vastness of time and space
Small, inconsequential.
Dust motes made of dust from ancient dead stars.
Yet.
So far.
Amongst all we see,
the starfields of diamond dust,
the ancient piercing light,
the glowing, magical, wispy nebulae,
the rainbow rings of Saturn,
the storms of Jupiter,
the blinding light of supernova,
the singular dark of black hole,
world after world
galaxy after galaxy.
Nowhere have we found
yet
Anything that compares
to the complexity, the wonder, the intricacy,
the magic
of
the thoughts of you and I
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Slowly shifting canopy
Layer on layer soft light green
Waving like courtesan fans.
Sun winking through.
Seedlings drifting down sunbeams
Dappled brown leafy ground.
Scent of earth.
Rough feel of bark.
Through this, I run!
And the forest’s essence
enters my senses
vitalises my blood!
A quavering wave
of light in the summer clouds
as the sun goes down.
A sad shadow falls
Casting gloom over our dreams:
Sparks dispel the dark!
Check out my author website for more details
Yet another wall
How many before we’re home?
Prevaricating
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Listen to all the anger
Hark at all the fury
Just remember that
You no longer own the jury
Humiliate the whistleblower
Make him out a fool
Wielding propaganda
Like an old blunt tool
Don’t you know we’re cynics now
We can see through all the lies
You will have to do much better
Or suffer the surprise.
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Stars
Magic
Fathers dance
Under dark trees
Dream
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Bright flakes of light in dappled leaves
that float on down
where saplings grow
and settle low
And earthy scents rise in the air
As underfoot
leaves crunch and fold
red-brown and gold
The rusty fence that holds it in
it holds us too
back from that time
when we roamed free
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Silky dress caress
Swishing – lighting my desire
For your loving touch
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Sometimes the things we are due
do not arrive
Sometimes that precious parcel
is lost
Sometimes the blows
are more than we think
we can survive
But we do
It is the ancient sadness
of humanity
Happiness has such
frailty
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Shouting into the hole that is the whole
Nothing back.
Raging against the system that is all
Nothing changed.
Staring at the box with the box.
Nothing gained.
Justifying every move you make
Not explained.
Time to change.
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams