Richard Westcott's poetry

  December’s the month of ends, and beginnings: the old year’s about to be left behind, a new one awaits. Christmas itself is of course a celebration of the arrival of a new life – a particularly special one for many, but then all new life’s nothing short of miraculous. Pause for thought. But where did it come from? What happened before? And where if anywhere does it go to? The story told by Bede which responds to these questions is well-known. We hear that an unknown seventh century nobleman related it to king Edwin of Northumbria, when he was considering whether to convert to Christianity. Illustrating the brevity and transience of life with a before and after existence, it seems to have convinced Edwin of the validity of the new religion.   For me however, the description of the bird’s flight through the brightly lit and noisy hall from darkness, silence and solitude into the same at the far end, the effect is equally powerful, though different. But this is no...

  This is a true story – I mean, it actually happened. By which I mean, a real person told it, much as I'm telling it to you now. But is it a True History in the sense that the story she was telling was true? This is where it becomes difficult.   She herself thought it was true, and –   however absurd if not incredible and so probably untrue as it may sound to us to us now – those who heard it treated it as definitely true.   With dreadful consequences. So, listen now to Bessie Dunlop of Lyne in Ayrshire. What happened as a result follows.   A True History   He helped me on my way as I was lost and it was dusk. He looked an honest older man, grey bearded, in a long grey coat – the sleeves were of the Lombard sort, old fashioned, and he wore a hat – broad brimmed and black, tied down below his chestnut face which creased and cracked around his eyes.  A wand of white he carried.  There is no more that I can tell...

  Some, perhaps many, would say poetry concerns itself (too much?) with sweet and lovely things – like birds and flowers, music and beautiful landscapes, not to mention love itself – with even poignant emotions like grief given a bitter-sweet flavour. But as we all know, life is littered with obstacles, formidable difficulties and frustrations. Not to mention excrement... please read on. Here's a man only half way through an appalling list of challenges, telling us about a particularly foul one. Little wonder then that in these circumstances he'd have been pretty foul-mouthed himself. We know that he had a vile temper, so I'm sure he'd have been an outspoken effer and blinder. Conventionally though, poetry – especially the afore-mentioned Fotherington-tomas stuff – would never ever have included such a vocabulary, even though these are words to be heard all the time, especially when emotions are running high. Which perhaps explains my difficulty wanting to use ...

What an admirable fellow is Jeremy Bentham! The basic principle underpinning his utilitarian ethics was that a ny action is right insofar as it increases happiness, and wrong insofar as it increases pain.  H e spoke up for the abolition of slavery, corporal and capital punishment; for women's rights (including the right to divorce), for wider and better education; for the extension of the suffrage; for animal rights; for the decriminalization of homosexuality – and much more. And likeable too. While serious in his advocacies, this clever and brave man, whose humanitarian reform ideas were heavily criticised, enjoyed a sense of humour, demonstrated for example by the engagingly curious smile on his (admittedly wax work) face. and his name for his cat – The Reverend Sir John Langbourne. But it was the instructions he left for his public dissection, preservation and exhibition in his familiar clothes and chair, along with the request that his auto-icon be occasionally wheeled out t...

  This is my 100 th post! It's interesting to wonder why the number One Hundred enjoys such special status. Is it because it's the first time three digits appear together? Or is it because, with the one and two noughts bringing an awareness of going back to the original, it feels like an entry into a new chapter, time, world even? It's certainly both an end and starting point, suggesting completion and new beginnings at the same time. So here it is – the unique symmetry of ten times ten creating this heavily serious number of One Hundred, the rhyming One Hundred. One hundred. one hundred, one hundred... That one hundred provides the per cent through which we tend to perceive and think about our fractionated world. And so much more... Those chronicled centuries rolling back in time… The tight-knit ranks of a defined unit commanded by the Centurion… The lines that the errant schoolboy was told to write… The occasion for a card from the monarch… The ...

  So here we are now – high summer, entering the second half of the year. I'm more conscious than usual of time passing. Yellow flags flower for such a short time, the cows will move on and even ox-eye daisies last only a while. Yet time is timeless: endless, it's the one thing that will never run out. All the time in the world... 'Natural Time', whatever that may be. Above all, the sun tells the time, giving warmth and growth. The daisy with its yellow disk-florets and conspicuous white rays finds its name from its sun-like appearance, literally the day's eye. And I am watched, even as I watch, while the daisies follow the sun. Natural time All the time in the world while the grass grows I am studied heavily by long-lashed eyes deep in an old wise head.   Black and white jigsaw shapes and hour-glass patches naturally fit together like settled stones in a wall. She shifts her weight   waiting.  Slow side to side swing of tail tells the tim...

    My daughter’s cat has captivated her family. Even I – being more of a dog person (Timmy our Jack Russell hates cats) – found myself admiring his grace and beauty, and all those skills a cat deploys and enjoys.  Thinking about their cat, I realised how many words contain 'cat'; so it was that this poem took shape. Predictably, I then thought I should write a dog poem. I didn’t actually get very far, having identified only a few dog words: after dogma/dogmatic, dogged, lying doggo and Venetian doges I began to run out. So the dog poem had to wait, its tongue hanging out. But having just gone to my (big) dictionary and found a long list of dog words and phrases, ranging from a certain Shakespearian Dogberry through dog collars, dog days and dog-eared to a dog’s dinner, the Dogstar and dogwatch, I now feel like telling Timmy something can be found to be thrown, and he can wag his tail – even chase a cat.    A Concatenation of Catchwords   Where ...

  Love comes in many forms. My little poem this month celebrates a couple of them. I celebrate the manifest love a girl feels for a tiny bird upon her hand. In this moment, she is captivated.  It is as if, for a timeless instance, during which they each illuminate the other. nothing else exists, But another form of love’s in play - a father's love for his daughter. She's grown up now, but here she still is – an innocent girl, my daughter, entranced by a bird. I too am captivated. Perhaps that's what love's all about?   Still Life   A moment it was and a moment still is when colours come live soft life radiates and lightness descends to surprise and delight one who is loving observant and awestruck whose open hands gentle a wonder of nature sensing perfection   warm in the sunshine a golden girl glows blessed by a fledgling just for a moment a moment of stillness before each flies away  

  As it's April, the 1 st being of course All Fools' Day, here's a foolish poem. And why not be foolish, at least occasionally?   Life is too often too serious. Many might suggest Jabberwocky as one of the best known and loved foolish poems. In fact, it's a slaughter poem which shouldn't be funny at all, but what with its crazy story, made-up words, galumphing rhythm and compelling rhymes, the whole poem whiffles merrily along. That the poor old Jabberwock was decapitated and two other fearsome monsters are left rampant, or should I say frumious, and it looks suspiciously as though everything otherwise seems to return to what it was before all this happened – none of these are allowed to spoil the chortlement. The hero – for such he has become – enjoys the warmest of welcomes from a proud father, who declares it to be a frabjous day! Actually, frabjous is where I started.   A friend in our poetry workshop suggested the word as the topic for our next meeting...

  Coming back to an old work place can be startling, especially if it's been abandoned. Abandoned not just by you, but by those who might have followed. Forsaken for good, even if circumstances had made it impossible to continue. It might not help much to remind oneself that part of the reason for all this was that the work was inefficient, clumsy and had become outmoded. Maybe worst of all would be to find amongst the ruins and abandonment an entirely inappropriate new clueless set of incumbents who could never have understood how hard we'd tried? But perhaps after all, that might be consoling. A comforting realisation that all has not been wasted, that new uses have been found for what we've left behind – in short, that life goes on. We hope. The Forecaster   This was where we lived and worked – a weather station way up north – Wrangel Island, to be precise Kolyuchin – north of Chukotka.   We made observations, carefully measured the various meteorolo...

    I find myself posting this poem at the end of January – the 27 th , Holocaust Memorial Day. So much has been said, dwelt upon and shown – absolutely rightly – about this particular eightieth anniversary. I offer here a description of a solitary player of music at that place – music, the most abstract of all the arts. It could be suggested paradoxically that the abstract may not represent the worst way to approach the most real, most grounded of events. I don't know. I do know that February, and life itself, lies ahead, for which I give thanks. Perhaps it's best that no more be said now. Double Sarabande in 9/8 from Bach’s Partita  No. 2 in D minor for Solo Violin   Before he began there was silence. Now as he follows the lines the Sarabande accompanies him.   He proceeds with care placing his feet upon those old sleepers sunken and soaked avoiding the ballast and cinders.   The quavers are harnessed in triplets rising and falling as t...

  For this first month of a New Year, I thought I'd do a first of my own, with a second.  What I'm trying to say is that this time for the first time I'd offer you two poems. I'm happy to say they're both quite short. Actually they are a pair anyway. A pair of chairs. Van Gogh's painting of his own chair is probably better known than that of his (for a while) friend Gaugin's. I've always found that humble little empty chair backing into its corner with the box of onions and simple tiled floor nothing less than poignant.  Gaugin's chair however with its arms is slightly grander: here we have not one but two light sources, a couple of books and what looks like a carpet. But neither chair is upholstered – they're both essentially basic, sharing certain similarities. Seen as a pair, they make suggestions about friendship – about welcome, suitability and preparedness; while at the same time, they both speak of absence – not just temporary, but al...

A recent visit from our grandsons brought startling explosions, destruction, fire and noisy deaths into our normally peaceful domestic setting.  Yet their video game(s) went on merrily enough – somehow no one seemed any the worse for it.  This little picture card is certainly a dramatic image, with its striking colours and  powerful composition, complete with the hero's portrait in the bottom corner. It's one of many that Liebig – a forerunner of Oxo, extracting meat essence – included free with their product, from 1875 to 1940. Les Gloires de l’Aviation Militaire Belge Willy grins, safe in his bubble while all around the clouds explode as if all this were nothing at all to do with him. Improbably a grey balloon deflates in flames – Bien Meilleurs! The sky is full of drama. Thirty-five of them I read – that’s quite a bag – no wonder he is smiling! His biplane banks, the pram wheels spin – he’s off to find another. Reproduction interdite – you must not...

  Henry VIII Painting by Hans Holbein, c. 1536 Oil on wood 28x19 cm. The vain man prides himself inordinately on his appearance, accomplishments and possessions. In this our modern world, vain men strut and crave attention, seeking to gather and reinforce power and influence, no less today than in times past. This very month, one specifically comes to mind, whose characteristic attempts to exploit the above as he tries to establish his own form of monarchy, may remind us of an earlier tyrant. They share behaviours of course, including shrewd political opportunism, a brutal tendency to throw erstwhile helpers to one side, and to treat women (and marriage) ruthlessly – in a word, to bully. But first and foremost, it's that obsession with personal appearance that most strongly links these two.   Look no further feast your eyes on my well-clad breast bejewelled jacket golden pendant chain and collar all interwoven garnets for kingship saphires and other...

  Which beginning of time [the Creation] according to our Chronologie, fell upon the entrance of the night preceding the twenty third day of October in the year of the Julian Calendar, 710 [i.e. B.C. 4004].   The Annals of the World (1658), p.1 Archbishop James Usher 1581-1656   Yes, anything, even time itself must start somewhere, somewhen – a beginning at a point in time is not an easy calculation   when nothing was and something is, with so much yet to come. All of which we now know well – us who had our own beginnings.     Time began on the night before the twenty third day of October four thousand and four years BC. Do not ask what may have occurred   in those earlier blackberry days. October's a month of beginnings and ends. The swallows have flown.  The fieldfares are here. My sums are done.  Now to make a new start. I spent some time – time again! – searching for an appropriate picture to precede this poem...