The Potters Wheel.

A Poem for National Poetry Day 2020 on October 1st.

The potter sits at his spinning wheel

hands slippery with water and clay.

Thumbs dig deep as his fingers feel

a bowl curling up on the way.

It pleases him to see its form,

with its wafer thin shape at the edge,

it’s everyday life, to him it’s the norm,

a finished and fine featheredge.

A slip of the hand, the work is a ruin

returned to a pottage of clay.

Fear not, he thinks, I know what I’m doing,

there’s plenty more time in the day.

The clay, is it just like a person?

Fragile and easily damaged?

Ruined by one stupid action,

left as a wreck if mismanaged.

But that’s not the end of the story,

like clay, we can all be reformed.

Remoulded, rejiggered more finely

I know, I’m reliably informed.

It says so quite plain in the bible

Jeremiah, in chapter eighteen

When broken and down we are liable

Be made best that we’ve ever been.

©joseph r mason 2020

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At the Potter’s House

18 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel.But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®

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Look to your own future…

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A crystal ball? An amazing tool,

it can be believed by any fool.

Makes up the future, the now and past,

and it can not tell you how long you’ll last.

It can only tell you that now you live,

that you’re here now, that you believe

that there may be a future too.

One day you’ll die, now that bit’s true.

Apart from that, the future’s yours,

You have to make your own encores.

Divining the future is just a lie,

the only truth is, one day you’ll die.

So don’t believe in tarot readings,

crystal balls and new beginnings,

Believe in you, what you’ll achieve,

Not fairy tales you don’t believe.

A crystal ball’s just a piece of glass

On a piece of wood and a ring of brass

It has no power to call its’ own.

No one’s future has it ever shown.

©joseph r mason 2020

In response to Eugenia’s weekly prompt:

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The Sky Below.

This style of poetry is quite avant garde to me and not my usual style, here using single word lines, giving space to the writing in keeping with the theme, centre aligned text as a nod to the shape of the Milky Way. So it is an art form as well as a poem. An installation of prose on paper, rather than separate entities, they are part of a spectrum of communication using words and form.

Photo The Milky Way by Sam Kolder on Pexels.com

Night-time.

New-moon.

Cloudless.

Without wind,

The lake.

Motionless, tranquil, silent.

No fish break the surface.

Dragonflies sleep.

Water-boatmen hide in reeds.

Look deep into the water.

Observe.

Look again.

The Milky Way,

There

Lying on the bed of the lake.

Look up.

It’s there.

The cosmos spread across the sky.

Look down,

there.

Still.

Resting on the lake.

© joseph r mason 2020

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Autumnal tones and winter.

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Joseph’s coat of many colours,

looks pale beside the autumn leaves.

Summers days all clad in green,

so mundane ‘gainst late year eves.

Golden hues from beige to crimson,

crisp and fresh on dew soaked grounds.

Carried on late summer breezes,

blocking byways, forming mounds.

Autumn, fall, what e’er you call it,

its beauty shown at every turn.

It harkens winter’s frosts and snowfall,

when naked trees begin nocturn.

August followed by September,

and October then begins.

With icy hands and frosty bowers,

autumn fruits and huge pumpkins.

So each year comes and each year goes,

as we think back and remember.

That life is just a splendid time,

as autumn leaves September.

©joseph r mason 2020

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The Drunk.

© Reg Smythe, The Daily Mirror and DMG.

“Home sweet home you call it?

I’ll give you home sweet home.

You arrive back here gone midnight

You poisionous little gnome!”

“I’ve had a drink, a couple,

maybe three or more,

I’ve come home to my loving wife

Who’s been waiting by the door.”

“Loving wife you call me?

I’ll give you loving wife!

I’ll wack you with my rolling pin

You epitamy of lowlife!”

“My sweet, my blossom, angel.

No need to be so cross.

Just a few drinks with the boys,

Then back home to the boss.”

“ The boss? The boss? You call me.

I’ll show you who’s the boss!

I’m not just blooming angry,

I’m very, very cross!

You said you’d be in time for tea

And then you’d walk the dog

Instead it’s way past bedtime,

Making me the pedagogue.”

“My little angel of desire,

Why do you treat me so?

You know you love me dearly,

It’s something we both know.”

“To bed with you, to bed I say,

Your love I can’t resist.

You know I love you through and through

Even if your Brahms and Liszt!”

© joseph r mason 2020

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Brown Circles on the Grass

Brown circles on the grass mark the place of landing.

Flat and trodden down where they milled around.

They come at night, stay a while,

then disappear as if they had never been.

Leaving the brown circles of dead grass

and the smell of fuel hanging in the air,

testament to them being here.

They don’t look odd, they look and sound like us,

dress like us, talk like us.

I wonder where they came from.

I wonder where they will be going next.

They’ll be back next summer.

When the fair comes to town.

© joseph r mason 2020

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The true tree of life.

cross dawn dusk landscape

There is a tree that brings you life,

That takes your worries, takes your strife.

A tree that’s known by many names,

Forgives your sin and takes your blames.

The tree that’s in Golgotha set,

That takes away all we regret.

 

And that’s the only tree of life,

The one that sorts your afterlife.

I speak of course of Calvary’s tree

Where someone died for you, for me.

He’d done no wrong to call his own.

And now he sits on heavenly throne.

 

And on this tree, shaped to a cross,

Paid for my shame, my sin and dross.

There Jesus died, my pain endured,

There my sickness and pain were cured.

Give thanks to him, my sin he took.

If you don’t believe me, read the book.

 

©joseph r mason 2020

Revelation 22:14 NIV

Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

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Seasons

Golden trees of many a hue

Crisp cold mornings, skys so blue

Awake, awake oh winters frost

Pretending now that summers lost

The wind is up, to quite a squall

As summer transitions to into fall.

Not over yet, it’s only near

We’re hardly through another year

September comes, October goes

We long so much for winter snows

Soon be Christmas the elves all say

Best prepare old Santa’s sleigh.

Then Christmas comes, and then it’s gone

To the old, old year we say, “so long”

As new year comes and new year goes

It’s then the frost will bite our toes

Then winter changes into spring

We wonder what this summer’ll bring.

©joseph r mason 2020

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An English Dawn.

The owl ceases his haunting hoot,

Fluffs his feathers to sleep,

Locking in the heat,

His day is done.

The dim light of dawn rises over a misty morn,

Stars gently fade to nothing

Returning in the dullness of evening,

Switching on in a sequence known only to their maker.


Passerine birds awake the dawn.

Robins and wrens start the day,

Great tits follow soon,

then the chiffchaff

and the blackcap.

Blackbirds and thrushes follow on.

The orchestra of the morning works to a crescendo of sound.

Then, as the sun pushes its first fingers of light

Into the chill of the morning.


Silence.


Save for the sway of trees,

The rushing of a brook,

The scamper of rabbits.

The snap of a twig underfoot.

Dryads and Hamadryads come out, come to me.

Is it just the russell of leaves?

Or do the really trees sing?

As night meets day.


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