Hi, welcome to my site. Please click on any link above to
read examples of my work.
Writing for me is a pleasure, and whenever the urge grabs
me my keyboard becomes my road to liberation. I can’t give any deeper explanation than that; the root of my desire,
why I feel the need to write, is still a mystery to me in many ways and will probably remain so.
My pleasure, my need to write, is intensified when some kind
soul responds to my work. If my stories and poems touch you in any way then please let me know how. You will help with my
quest in understanding my mistress a little more.
I’m a fan of the Great War Poets – perhaps the
mystery of my favourite poem sums up my own feelings?
A Listening Post
“The sun’s a red ball in the oak
And all
the grass is grey with dew,
Awhile ago a blackbird spoke –
He didn’t know the world’s askew.
And yonder rifleman and I
Wait here behind the misty
trees
To shoot the first man that goes by,
Our rifles ready on our knees.
How could he know that if we fail
The world may lie
in chains for years
And England be a bygone tale
And right be wrong, and laughter tears?
Strange that this bird sits there and sings
While
we must only sit and plan –
Who are so much the higher things –
The murder of our fellow man.
But maybe God will cause to be –
Who brought
forth sweetness from the strong –
Out of our discords harmony
Sweeter than that bird’s song.”
Robert Ernest Vernede 1917
The poet fell, leading his platoon in an attack on Havrincourt
Wood, just two weeks after writing this poem.
G. K. Chesterton, a lifelong friend of Vernede’s, on
hearing news of his death wrote in a letter: “He had a curious intellectual independence. It was so that he passed
from the English country life he loved so much, with its gardening and dreaming, to an ambush and a German gun.”
Vernede, despite having the chance to avoid further
horrors, returned to the front after recovering from wounds. In his poem, is he simply questioning the perceived
superiority of man over beast? Or, is he saying that mankind, in order to have a greater awareness of our world, has a price
to pay for that greater understanding - saying that we don’t get Owt for Nowt?
What price must I pay, for my desire to write?
