The old clock

I live with her now
My sound deep
Bangs every hour
Telling her grab
Your second now
Not when you are gone
Another will wind
Me up and I obey
Just like when
Your father bought
Me in the antique store
And took me from
My birth town London.
I remember when
I first became alive
Vividly wound up
By my eager maker
1819 so I am actually
Two hundred years old
during which time
I have served you
and your family keeping
the hours and half hours.
I know that for a time
I cracked up -
the repair watch man
took away my half time
chime  - sadly for you
and surely for me.
I know I had company
when I was at your father's
he had at least two others
in the dining room
yet you picked me.
I was the simplest
and you always told
everyone why- my sound
on the hour.....Bong
Bong... Bong...bong
Ere your father
I was for four years
quiet in an antique store
and hidden during
the war years in a loft
at the beautiful manor
in the country in Derbyshire
Also there I kept time
in the dining room.
The olde master of the house
had inherited me
fair and square from his mum
who had brought it with her
from Suffolk as her gift
to her new husband.
Back in the eighteen hundreds
I was placed on a gilded
mantelpiece in a sitting room
So much goings on
Between the lords ladies
Their children and grandchildren
They took  me for granted
And their servants wound me
Up as it was their duty
Only once I truly loved
The slender careful hands
Of a young man’s attention
But he died too soon
I heard from the parlor maids’
Gossiping about him
He was popular with her ladyship
So one morning in October
When the hunt was on
He apparently got accidentally
Shot - the rumors that I heard
His lordship had perhaps
Not aimed at the waterfowl
But at this gentle finger servant
Long time two hundred years
As long as I am well kept
And oiled I shall chime
Bong bong bong

Et måltid

Længslen efter at sove
Som gafler i en holder
Omfavnet i en grønforet skuffe
Bliver større dag for dag
Lemmets skæring
I det bløde kød
Er et knivsblads partering
Smertefuld nydelse
Ved skeens spøjt i munden
Af frugtsalatens variation
En fjern drøm som
Nærmer sig langsomt

The Voelva's health

She languidly stepped over stones
leading from her fire-heated hut
to her sister Sophia's home in
the nearness of her neighborhood
in her familiar fine woods
The Voelva Vigga pondered
a pretty much hidden thought
she was having some internal
instant mutterings - murmurs
that her olden bones sputtered
she needed to take necessary care
of herself - her inner innards.
Step by step stone by stone
her feet fecklessly did not obey
her will too well - in short
they rebelled roughly roundaboutly
and she had to forcibly coerce
herself onto the willowy way.
Luckily she had brought her stick
Without any other thought
Then a wander in the woods
When one is wobbly on the feet
Is rarely a feasible feat - avoided
And abandoned at all might
- trodding along her well-worn path.
Seeing that Samhain had come
that it would be a full moon soon
thinking what she Vigga was
going to ask her  serene sister
about her health - what to heed
what to do when the panging pains
got to be to distressingly dolorous
she reached her highborn sister's hut
knocking before entering gently
huddled and almost haglike
Vigga the Voelva whispered her hello.

Her highborn sister Sophia - hastily
beckoned her visiting Voeva beamingly
Come-in and sit down, dear sister
Tell me what brings you here so
hastily and huddling - you are in pain?
No Vigga the Voeva answered - not
truly in torment but just a muddling
moving of my female inner innards
And it should not be like that -
Highborn sister looked at her sibling
smiling with a sadness of knowledge
Alas - albeit you do not have a pain
pounding within you - recognize
reality of the ages - cricks and cracks
here and there will be our lives - lest
we die and are freed from discomfort
It is how you cope congenially with
the whole arduous aging whatsit
We shall quaff an herbal tea and
celebrate ceremoniously that
pain and weird worries will prevail
posthumously but for today the positive
ideological idea of smiling serenely
is all it takes - Sophia poured from the pot
a cup of hot herbal essence to
Vigga the Voelva -  essentially forcing
her low-spirited sister to lighten up
and see that age is what age is
and if she gave in to internal ageism
then she would die dejectedly much
earlier and earnestly than expected.
Sophia - her sister would not let
a weakened voelva get away with it.
So Vigga after tasting the tea sparked
in the chalice that her sister had
handily offered her - she smiled
you placed some strong stuff
in this tea of yours -yellow bark
for fevers and golden dandelion
and a shot of weatherworn whisky
and something that I could not say?
Sophia the sister that Vigga the Voelva
loved like she was herself  smiled
and laughingly voiced with utter mirth.
Well -Vigga - to take the brunt off -
the sadness of your brainwaves -
you will be dancing on your way
to your homely hut with the hearth
and then light your fire once more
thinking that the winter will not
be that harsh and your heart's hot
blood will flow freely once more
when sunny spring returns with rapture
you will capture your inner self
and your warmth will spread its wings
flapping for freedom and felicity. 
With lighter foot steps Vigga Voelva
almost  sped to her hut near the brook -
healed not - but unbroken in spirit.

Brexit limerick

There once was a Brexiter named Boris
He consulted with Hamlet’s Joris
To exit or not
Give it all I got
I will retire to the town of Norwich

Old lady’s lament a la Seuss

Old woman’s woes
From heads to toes
Internal blurries
Birthing flurries
Irony hits big
Not from a wig
Using a Pessary
prevents Pregnancy
Now up another
Descent a bother
Some bladder prop
Tell my body stop

A novel’s birth

Inspired by an article
Novels’ best beginnings
What would mine be?
Describing a crime book
Espousing a life’s turn
A sci-fi or a romance?
Darkness took a darker view
Child’s chilling nightmares
Three thousand year’s tour
Or
Love’s loom wove a single weft
Would this solidify a thought
That waved a thousand ships’
Wondrous goodbye or hello
To my prize œuvre?
Alas not - lack of storytelling
Skills and desire for a craft
So readily applauded
And admired by me.