It must be...

It must be Christmas soon; all the lights are out and switched on. Is there any shop out there that is not having a 'Black Friday' sale. Methinks the frenzy is hiding some very weak sales. Here is a picture of the House of Fraser store in Manchester that I took last week. Very colourful but mid-November - really!

Undone

Comes now the quiet time

In this decay of illumination

In the shrinking days

We flee to our comforts

To fires and hearty repast

But where firelight perishes

Where heat will not reach

To gloomy corners and nooks

Returns there the time of ghosts

That sit within quiet shadows

They brood and murmur regret

To prick late upon conscience

And look you well  

At what you have done

In the dark of a winter's night

When fairness was forsaken

And all they accomplished undone

Winter is Coming

Summery autumn is finally overcome

The eastern winds and cold have won

They take the days and shake the trees

Conceal the birds and kill all the bees

Under skeletons of bare wood we now play

Looking up into foreboding skies of grey 

Kate in Manchester

Some pictures of Kate and William in Manchester last week taken by Mike and others. She looks so different in the top and bottom pictures.

Brexit

The fuel of our difference is spent

The great hearth burns slower today
Settles fast upon its slighted ashes
Sifting its grief to worthless regrets
No pictures flicker within the flames
Save a last burning petition of regret
A fading image of a hopeless reprieve
And so it has no warmth to give now
Therefore we let it go out; let it rest
Reflect upon these cold days of division
But when it is remade anew as of old
In its warmth we will come together again

Sleep

Sleep now the dancing was stopped

There is no more of your laughter
Into the warm summer nights
Friendships end, families grieve
Hate has triumphed for a day
Articulated its malevolence in violence
But love is the much stronger voice
So we will speak our words gently
Lest any more of our heart withers
And hate finds a voice here in us

Shakespeare 400 years on

Four hundred years is too little a time

To understand the man, his life, his rhyme
Nothing now survives of his flowing hand
For all his ability he bequeathed unplanned
For very soon after he met his untimely ends
The first folio was published by two of his friends
It is no random collection by dutiful clerks
For only love could have completed the works
And love is seen in each parchment leaf
For each page was complied in utter grief
400 years slip by but time does not dim
The importance of his words that lie within
And its prominence doth not ever abate
Shakespeare rest quietly in your revered state
And as into the ages you now gently sleep
Supreme master of words you left in our keep
We know little of your life and its ends
But in Heminges and Condell you had friends
For in comedy, tragedy, sonnet and song
They executed perfectly your elegant tongue
And nothing is certain though all scholars guess
In the future your words will persist to impress

Queue

No God has made any of us wretched

Life will always create each of us fair
And only man finds a way to undo it
The spectre of ghostly collaboration talks
But influence should not crow its privilege
For what is this you call unfortunate?
The consequence of our own choices
Partiality was never delivered so visibly
The unveiled threat so easily perceptible
But allies are as allies do
Even when,
We may be put to the back of the queue
Democracy is our meddlesome mistress
It is not yours or Europe's to teach us

Panama Papers

All is for gain in the offshore bazaar

And to all these journalist a hoorah
They've raised the pressure a few bar
Uncovered a very murky brouhaha
Reaching from Washington to Zanzibar
Another huge tax avoiding cash reservoir
Codenamed 'The Papers of Panama'