My Kind Of Place

When I produced a booklet of Jack’s poems to distribute among family and friends before embarking on this Blog I included this poem as the last complete poem. I do not believe it is by Jack although it was in the file containing his own poems. Maybe it is one that he came across somewhere and admired. There are certainly similarities with his own style and subject matter. It appears to be by someone calling themselves Ban-Druidh and the best that I have been able to discover is that this is a Scottish-Gaelic term for a pagan priestess. Clearly this is  somebody’s “nom de plume”.

I have been unable to identify this person and am including the poem now incase anybody out there can throw any light on identifying the author. I apologise if I am infringing any copyright by including the poem here and would love to know more about the poet.

My Kind Of Place

Oh, give to me a coastline
Of Nature’s rugged splendour,
Where towering cliffs and jaggged rocks
Hold back aggressive seas.
A windswept gale and battle place,
A not so well frequented place.
A place where one can dream.

To wander in the cliff top heather
And feel the distant coastline beckon,
The distance lending magic to the scene.
What lies beyond? A sandy cove,
Or perhaps a booming waterhole,
I have to go and see.
A wild and rocky tempting place,
A full-of-life yet empty place,
A place to sit and think.

Sitting in a sheltered cove,
Squeezing sand between my toes,
Looking at small houses huddled close.
Boats pulled up beyond the tide,
Fishing nets hung out to dry,
Lobster pots, fish boxes all around.
Perhaps an old-time smuggler’s place,
A cosy, dozy, cuddle-you place,
A place to live and die.

Not for me a promenade,
A concrete,stone and brick facade,
With a deck-chair littered beach between high tides,
Entertainments by the score
Await the flooding of the shore,
To bring the people thronging through the doors.
A hard and glossy sort of place,
With a crowd induced hypnotic pace,
It’s not for me.

So give to me, I will say once more,
A time and tide washed sculptured shore,
Where sun and sky, rocks and sea
Seem slowly to envelope me.
And for a short and thrilling span
I leave behind men’s pygmy plans
And see as if for the very first time,
With the joy and wonder of a child.
A place so old, yet always new,
A place for me and perhaps for you,
My kind of place.

Ban-Druidh

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Jack The Lad

Jack as a young lad is pictured here on holiday with his mother and sister Ena on the left, and his Aunty Bet (his mother’s sister Elizabeth) with his sister Lucy on the right.

Jack was quite a lad as a youngster!  The small poem below, about an incident related to me by my mother (Ena) when they both attended the local school, comes from my own collection of children’s verse called “Barking At Nothing” which is due to be published in spring 2010 and which will be sold in aid of a children’s charity. (More about this nearer the time.)

Soap

We’ve got no soap at our house.
That was what he said,
But she didn’t get to find that out
Before being called to see the head.

You see, the boy arrived at school
Having stopped on the way to play,
And when they saw his dirty hands
What was a lad to say?

Of course we’ve soap at our house.
His sister told the head,
Landing him in double the trouble.
Oh great, thanks sis, he said.

by Libby (Elizabeth) Leaper

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