ewee's Book

andscapes

Lof my life
by
Ian Williams



To Ewee
With love

First published in 2018
by Beardsalls
Isle of Wight

Text Copyright © Jill Williams 2018
Illustrations Copyright © Sarah Blackwell 2018

ISBN
Acknowledgements

Copyright © 2018 by Jill Williams
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Introduction
by Jill Williams

My husband Ian passed away in February 2017.
Ian had Parkinsons Disease for the last 17 years
of his life and his once active lifestyle was
curtailed. Having always had a love of books
instilled in him by his father he started writing.
Most days he would write something and over
the years published various Guides to the Isle of
Wight. He also loved poetry and this book is a
collection of the poems that he wrote
over the last ten years or more.

Many of his poems
chronicle his life and are
memories from his
childhood, of people he
met or they reflect the
things he loved such as
wildlife and the outdoors.
He had a great sense of
humour and I have
included in this collection
one or two of his
humorous odes.

Contents

This first section includes those poems inspired by
Ian’s childhood. Ian’s grandfather lived with them
at home like many families in the 50s and he
remembers being sent to the shops for him in his
poem ‘Grandad’. In ‘A Job Well Done’ he recalls
his Mum lighting the fire. Ian’s Dad was Welsh
and they would visit his grandparents in Wales so
in ‘Nonconformism’ he evokes a Welsh village
from those memories.

1. Old
2. Grandad
3. New School
4. The Gramophone
5. A Job Well Done
6. Xmas Dinner
7. Nonconformism

The next section covers characters that Ian met
during his lifetime. Harry was our Brother-in-
law’s Dad who Ian worked with when he first
came to the Island. ‘Jim’ is Jim Wright who has
passed away but many people will know from
Dunroamin Beach where he was a firm fixture on
the stoop of his Beach Hut. Afloat is inspired by
Ian watching Don Sargent setting out in his
fishing boat from Dunroamin.

1. Harry
2. Jim
3. Afloat

Ian had a great love of nature and the following
poems all call to mind the things he loved. In
‘The ambush’ a kestrel has learnt to pick an easy
meal from a barn owl and this was actually
observed on the railway track near Alverstone.

4. Spring
5. Wind
6. Resurrection

7. The Ambush
8. Death of a Meadow

In the following poems Budgetary Tale recalls
when Gordon Brown was Chancellor and it along
with Chrimblestocky is written in the style of
Lewis Carroll’s Jaberwocky whilst ‘The Little
Old Man’ has a rather philosophical slant.

9. If
10.Budgetary Tale
11.The Little Old Man
12.Crimblestocky

Of the last three poems 103 was inspired by a
news item Ian saw concerning a war veteran
attending a Remembrance Service and She wants
by an article on famine in Africa

13.Dialectic
14.103
15.She Wants

parked there in my pram
against the side of our house

pebbledash in tiny hands
waiting for milky mother

I could smell the wall

parked here in my chair
in a corner of the home
cup held in arthritic hands
waiting for the nurse

I can smell it still



grandad sits stiff legged
alone, thoughts of India
spread like the cancer
get me ten fags lad, eyes plead
‘don’t tell’, coin squeezed in my palm

life’s a cigarette
a sing-song with the wireless

reminiscences
a walk up the garden path
your world slowly, quietly, shrinks

you in your corner
upright, in the same old chair

eyes yearning to tell
untold stories of your war
me, too young to care or listen

your face stares at me
stiff collared in the dry heat

‘Sergeant’s Mess’ it says
the brown picture so unlike

my crying grandad

now as I finger
the row of tarnished medals

I would gladly sit
at your feet and let you yarn

of war, India, love, you

bells ring, doors spill
knots of noise

from stuffy rooms
clots of children pulse

like school blood
down corridors
hospital white
bullets of laughter

ricochet
and smells linger of

laboratories
changing rooms
wet socks on radiators

I wait
eyes burn me
eyes that linger
I am marched
down blinding tunnels
of footstep echo
a door opens
in white light silence
bare to animal stare

I am exposed
I hear my name

voices return
monastery mutter mingles

with child smell
desk lid squeak

shoe scuffle
the moment passes

I lose myself
in the noise of learning

a huge gramophone
monopolised a corner
the dim standard lamp
switched on to find a record
us gathered expectantly

dad’s hands lifted up
the heavy whorled walnut lid

placed the large black disc
inside where we could not see

voices crackled in the air

on-light winking green
smiling electrically
it hums as if tuning

for the next performance
to an audience spellbound

she rolls the paper diagonally
long stiff tubes of yesterday’s news

bends them to round nuggets
grate swept, the stones still warm
she carefully places each pale ball

as if it mattered
cuts the bundle of splintered sticks
one by one lays each crisp nick of wood

with splendid precision
takes from the scuttle with tongs

half a dozen cakes of coal
crowns the structure with black gold

she reaches in her apron
for the box of matches she knows is there

delights in the expectation of fire
puts a cold finger hard to the red head

scrapes the gritty side once
the match blisters into flame
she knows exactly where to hold the torch
the paper blackens and curls
blue smoulder jumps to a yellow leaf
she straightens her knees painfully
lays the one saved sheet of newsprint
across the warming mouth
feels the cold air draw about her feet
hears the flames’ rumbling roar

thunder up the chimney

sees the white light’s sudden flare
illuminating membranous columns of news

awaits the satisfying snap and crackle
and spit of fire taking hold
anticipating heat

she bathes in the warm glow of a job well done

sitting room faces, cushion-plump
round as a dinner plate, red
as bursting fruit, shiny faces
basting in their juices
bask in telly flicker

belts eased and buttons opened
bottoms settled in settees

the room swells with fullness
contentment of the after-kill

lion-pride purring

torn wrapping and cracker debris
crunch under the slippered feet
that move softly amongst snores
fetching plates, knives and forks

for the waiting bowl

pub and chapel sit cheek by jowl
happy face beside pious scowl
black as the men they aim to please
propped at the bar or on their knees

the humble chapel figures large
every soul is the chapel’s charge
work that brings your maker near
the mine claims one or two a year

six days a week the pub comes first
there to slake a digger’s thirst
just a pint to stop the drought

more than that, the wives come out

the seventh day in the Lord they trust
and bathe away the week’s coal dust
dressed in best to church they plod
hungry for Sunday roast and God

fire and brimstone rends each soul
the deacon passes round the bowl

service over the women jaw
men file in to the pub next door

pub and chapel side by side
doors of both are open wide

identical in all but name
their congregations are the same

harry
big as a boxer
face chiselled rough
from a block of wood

all jaw
black pudding of a man

ears like whelks
lips cradling

a half smoked rollie
squash nosed

a punch bag face
desperate dan of a man
voice like a swallowed

bag of nails
he could belt out a tune

after a few
ready with a joke

a tale or two
a boom of a man

was harry

harry
could turn the sod
handy with a spade

grew his own
won prizes
handy with his hands
stoning a blade
setting a saw
fighter’s hands
made for a pint jug
clever with a trick

harry
fills the morris minor

with himself
large as life
a ten gallon hat of a man
was harry

jim

an old salt with a shrewd eye
stout as a barrel, heart of oak

seasoned as ship’s timbers
a red wind smacked face
whiskered like a sea lion
his years under the red ensign
kept safe in a sea locker
that only good liquor will open
and let a yarn or two escape

now sitting on the stoop
he’s found his anchorage
a piece of England’s shore
in clapboard and corrugated iron
inside no woman’s tidying touch
just a man’s ordered clutter
a man who’s been below decks
knows the important things

are always kept handy
he sifts the sea’s messy harvest

finding use in things
that most eyes are blind to

lobster, crab and prawn

caught in yesterday’s plastic
predictable as the sea’s rhythm

rides to the wind or tide
his presence like a rock
worn smooth in the ocean’s mill

afloat

a doldrum day
white sky fills everything

with its own image
the air aching to move
the dead weight of sea

still as quicksilver
a canvas waiting for paint

the boat glides
like the measured pass of an iron

unaware of its perfectness
each dipping oar accepted

smoothness pooling
behind each lifting blade

he knows how to row
to draw the varnished wood

against the ocean’s tug
the importance of symmetry

man and boat belong
on the silvery sea

the sharp shine of morning
sparkles like sun zest
on the oily furrow
he shoots no net today

enjoys moving through water
and the evenness of it all

spring

it’s a waiting game.
locked away in earth’s cold heart

living off last year’s sunshine
stored in swollen bulb and tuber, waiting,

waiting, for the unknowable spur
when muscling root and bursting shoot

erupt, every leaf and blade hustling
lush and teeming green

as spring bleats in the thrusting fields
and a buttercupped meadow does unfold

in a profligate display of gold.

in the trees life is loud and lusty
from jealous-guarded perch

comes gaudy lures and song’s sweet enticement

all is boast and swagger
gladiatorial sparring

while on the purpled woodland floor
white-eyed anemones shine

in the dappled light of early may
before the leaves close out the day

wind

it is my eye that sets in motion
lines of waves across the ocean
to break upon some far fetched land
in spindrift whipped by my fair hand
over every land and sea I flow
from every compass point I blow
across the globe I wander free
nothing created can hinder me

rain from far flung seas I bring
and snow and sleet under my wing

I carry dust and desert sands
on my hot breath from distant lands

across the sky I drive the clouds
in billows fair or thunderous shrouds

on a whim I’ll blow a gale
and next day just as surely fail

foolish they who seek to find
the secrets of my fickle mind
it is my way to wayward be
no science can encompass me
by my work shall I be known
the world will listen when I have blown
I am the power you cannot see
I am the wind and the wind is me

resurrection

from but a trickle did i grow
till other trickles joined my flow
and lofty mountains tributes bring
from labyrinthine fount and spring
my narrow, winding course to fill

and make of me a lively rill

i gather speed over rocky ground
sculpting pebbles smooth and round
my foaming waters splash and trip

beneath my surface dippers dip
more waters from the hills i took
to make of me a babbling brook

now i sing with lusty voice
in confidence and health rejoice
when it rains my flow is strong
between straight banks i bowl along
with heady speed i near my dream
i have become a swollen stream

in spate i cannot be ignored
i flow too fast for man to ford

i carry all before my surge
with thunderous fury, then emerge
on fertile plains and there deliver

my nourishing waters as a river

on level ground no gravity
will help me on towards the sea
across the flats my waters slow

to a langorous, turbid flow
i am a heavy-silted flood
once crystal clear, now red as blood

on the shore my course is run
sea and river blend as one

under the ocean’s sun bleached skies
part of me will once more rise
to form a cloud and fall as rain
and start that trickle once again

the ambush

ghostly drifts the hunter by
on slowly beating wings

and dances, lighter than a sigh
as if on puppet strings

worked by some invisible pair
of hands, he hangs upon the air

as silently the owl floats by
not a blade of grass stirred
sharp to sound and keen of eye
he catches sight, drops unheard
and razor talons take away
the life of unsuspecting prey

night too short, the quarry few
and driven by a hungry brood
the owl hunts in daylight too,
and yields the cover of the wood
forsaking rest, dark instinct to obey
kill-intent, makes foray after foray

the owl is watched, his habit learnt
for a wise old kestrel sits

upon the wire. His prize is earnt
by patient study and cunning wits

judging it an easy meal
the owl’s prey he plans to steal

the kestrel waits, his chance to seize
the owl, tired and unsuspecting,
too late the fleeting shadow sees
the kestrel dives and on the wing
snatches the owl’s hard won prey
and claws encumbered flies away

death of a meadow

in faded summer hues the scorched seed heads sway
a soft touching wind barely stirs the heat of day

the shiver of a million spears washes through the lea
the tinkling of the goldfinch comes drifting down to me

many golden blossomings this ancient field has worn
many heavy fruitings have the twisted thorn trees borne
the ragged meadow edges are flushed with poppy red
flecks of white show where the cow parsley has spread

how rich the grasses grow where only hay is mown
how sterile is the landscape when cereals are sown
the work of generations should not be undone now
shame that this sweet meadow is destined for the plough.

when next i saw the field the hedge had been dug out
no longer will may blossom before ‘we cast a clout.’
gone are the gnarled oak posts, the gate i leant upon
where will the kestrel sit now that his perch is gone.
butterflies skip and dance no more and songbirds lament
the coming of the wheat field, the wild flower mead is spent.
the goldfinch no more visits, the seed heads are all gone
so too are all the snails that the thrush would feed upon.
the field is merged together with another one beside

to make it economical to get machines inside.
the plough has done its work the cereals are sown
with fertilizer and pesticides how quickly they have grown.
in blanket uniformity behind hedges trim and neat
instead of many grasses stands a single strain of wheat.



if i was an elephant afraid of a fly
or an albatross too scared to take to the sky

if i was a tiger with no taste for blood
or a hippopotamus and didn’t like mud
if i was a giraffe and afraid of heights
or a nocturnal creature that hated the nights

if i was a buffalo and not a gnu
or a panda fed up with eating bambo

if i was a lion that couldn’t roar
or a pig in a pen and not a wild boar
if i was an otter afraid of the water
or an anteater that wished its nose was shorter
if i was a monkey scared of swinging from trees
or a boa constrictor that’s lost its squeeze
if i was a zebra and couldn’t wear stripes
then i’d be special not a stereotype

budgetary tale

all mouthy were the spinsydocks
and twisted slicky mongst the press
a-flimsy flew the shares and stocks

the balance all a-mess

beware the spinsydock, my son
jaws that fib and words that hide
the brownsy claws do snatch and run

do not the darling bide

he took his footsie sword in hand
and highly rates of interest fought

so stood he by the euro tree
in budgetary thought

as in spendish thought he stood
the spinsydock all spinsly slick
came bluffing through the pulpish flood

the torybanks to kick

one,two,one,two, through and through
his fiscal blade went snicker-snack
cut off the head and from the red
went galumphing into the black

thou hast slain the spinsydock
that harmish did our trade

no more to frown, the bank rate down
the borrowmores be made

all mouthy were the spinsydocks
and twisted slicky mongst the press
now hard and fast the shares and stocks

balance no more a mess