Category: Poetry

THE SCHOOL I WAS SENT TO

Impossible as it seems now, when I was a child and  very poorly, I was sent to
an Open Air School 300 and more miles from where I lived. 
All the little girls, including me, slept in Wards with windows wide open every
night and had a routine which was totally, utterly foreign to me.  I was a Northerner
in the  midst of Southerners and absolutely everything was different.
You were discouraged from crying and it still physically hurts when I cry now.
However, because of that school, I’m here to tell the tale!  I wrote a book about that
year there, KNOCK AND WAIT, which is the second book in my trilogy
PRIVATE-KEEP OUT, KNOCK AND WAIT and ONE WAY ONLY, the book I wrote when
I got back home.   PRIVATE- KEEP OUT is available on PENGUIN Children’s Classics.

  THE SCHOOL I WAS SENT TO

The first time I saw the school I had been sent to,
I thought it was a school for witches,
For the great house leaning against the forest
Was dark as night.
With only its snaggle toothed windows blazing in the moonlight.

Of course, it wasn’t a school for witches.
They only visited.
Swooping in through the open tops of windows
On their broomsticks,
Trying to make out they were the shadows of trees.
Bumping to a stop in the middle of the dormitory,
Where nothing could move them.

Nothing, that is, until Sister Sweet came crackling in,
All fiery with starch and bad temper.
Her purple hands so big, entire cities were built on her palms.
She made them shift.
The only thing I ever had Sister Sweet to thank for,
In the whole year I spent at that school I was sent to.

                                                                     ©  2018 GWEN GRANT

UNLUCKY BLACKBIRD

Sitting on the bus going into town on one of those baking hot mornings
of a very dry Spring, I watched this blackbird foraging around for food.
The bus had stopped almost alongside a battered piece of grass which
had a couple of thin and leafless saplings and many patches of bare earth
in it. This beautiful shining bird seemed intent on digging up the whole
of it in its search for something to eat.
I wished I had a ton of rich top soil to pour over the ground but, just as
the bus started to pull away, the blackbird suddenly ran across the
threadbare earth to a more promising patch under one of the saplings.
I hoped so much it found a good meal. It was so lovely, flashing and
glittering there in the early morning sun.

UNLUCKY BLACKBIRD

Unlucky black bird,
Beak flashing gold
In the sun,
Flinging lean crumbs
Of baked earth
Into the air.

Fruitlessly searching
For a succulent snail
That may be hiding
In there.

No ants.
No fat worms.
They have all gone.

Unlucky blackbird
Goes hungry.
Until it pulls itself together
And moves on.

                   © 2023 Gwen Grant

FUTURE TENSE

     FUTURE TENSE

The old girl lay sleepless in her bed,
Eyes staring through the dark,
Fretting at a future she couldn’t see,
Worrying at the hours and days and weeks
That lay before her.
Sleepless, she sighed again and again
‘If only I knew what the future will bring.’
Until the future, hiding behind the door,
Listening keenly, stepped in.

Picking up two particularly heavy days,
It smacked them round her head.
‘That’s one thing,’ it said.

 Then selecting an especially lovely
String of hours,
Gently laid them round her neck.
‘And that’s another,’ it said.
‘Now, before I go, is there anything else
You want to know?’

 ‘No,’ the old girl whispered, shaking her head,
Turning quick and over in her bed.
‘If it’s alright with you,
I’ll look at the stars instead.’

 ‘Good thinking,’ the future said.

                        © 2017 Gwen Grant

POKER PLAYERS

POKER PLAYERS

Magnolia time,
Each tightly folded and curving bud
Glittering palely in the street lamp’s light.
No-one walking out,
Not this early in the morning.
Only magnolia shadows awake,
Playing tag with rain puddles
Catching the moon.

What a game,
Both players hidden from sight,
Flicking joyful flashes of silver
Into the grey morning,
Into the quivering air.
Hiding their great strength and skill.

Poker players!
Both of them.
Holding winning hands,
Slapping them on night’s waiting table,
Challenging each other in storm and fury,
Until they fall out.
Lose patience.

Let’s hope they play nice tonight.

             © 2023 Gwen Grant

PRIVATE KEEP OUT!  by Gwen Grant
published by Penguin Vintage  Children’s Classics
available in paperback and as an ebook

WINDFALLS

THANK YOU to everyone who has been posting while I’ve been ill.
The Posts have given me a lot of interest and I have greatly
appreciated them. They also encouraged me to get to grips with a new
poem! Thank you again.

I have seen crows attack birds in the garden. They are ferocious and
seem to move around in groups of two or three when this happens. As
fast as I am getting into the garden to stop them attacking, they often
don’t seem all that alarmed by my presence. They do fly away but with
a definite reluctance.

WINDFALLS

Pheasant on the fence,
Setting the cold air on fire
With its coloured glory,
All darkness and burning flame.

The little flashing magpie scoots
Out of its imperious way.
Sober dove takes cover in the leaves
Of the apple tree.

Jealous of this Autumn beauty,
Furious at its greed
As it gobbles windfall apples,
Round and green,
Leaving nothing but a scrap
Of apple peel.

Watch out,
You two,
Those tree-top crows
Are hungry, too.

               ©2023 Gwen Grant