Odes and Other Forms

28 entries in this archive

High Stepping Boy

This ode was penned after a telephone conversation with our daughter-in-law Gillian (Oxford).

As we spoke on the phone, Matthew saw the opportunity to defeat the child gate and take to the stairs. He was around a year old.

Recently we have been Ethan-minding, now fifteen months.

Over the last few weeks Ethan has mastered the art of climbing stairs, both up and down.

Clever, clever boys!

Click to download PDF Click here to download the PDF.

Fabulous

Ah, shopping! There be danger there, lads! Especially for older lads.

This is a ode, written as an exercise for a Creative Writing class.

What this short poem encapsulates is actually true.

Click to download PDF Click here to download the PDF.

Maid in Scotland

This is an ode, penned to mark a birthday of our Swiss friend Pia.

She was born on a farm in Baar, near Zurich. She is an exceptional lady!

(If you are cast up on a desert island, hope that Pia was on your life-raft!)

Pia and Stef lived in Scotland in the 1970s and have many Scottish friends.

(Stef holds two degrees from Strathclyde University.)

They are frequent visitors and almost every second year we holiday together.

Like us, they especially love our West Coast and our Islands.

This poem refers in particular holiday together, our Hebredian Tour, May, 2008.

Barra was a previously undiscovered jewel.

Primroses -million, upon million, upon million.

And white sand beaches to ourselves, apart from nosy sheep and cavorting cows.

And our own personal Collie Dog Guide, who accompanied us for the whole day!

Never to be forgotten.

Click to download PDF Click here to download the PDF.

My best friend

This is a tale which always brings a lump to my throat.

It is about a man who mistreats his best friend, only to lose him.

(317 words, about 2 minutes, have a box of tissues to hand!)

It is an open prose poem.

I have categorised it both as an Ode, and under Serious.

Click to download PDF Click here to download the PDF.

The Lady Awaiting

This Ode has a checkered history. I shudder to think of the hours that have been spent on it!

Through many iterations it has arrived at the cheery version you may wish to try.

Under these circumstances I am pleased to assign the responsibility for this drivel to my good friend, John B. Moronigal.

However the version you read is but a partial record of what occurred.

Earlier versions include a reference to a sadness that imbued The Lady, who, she revealed, had longed in vain for children and now would never enjoy grandchildren.

But she did look bizarre, standing there on Hyndland Station, busy with homeward bound commuters on a Friday evening, a middle-class lady of mature years, expensively dressed, yet wearing Lemon-Yellow ballet shoes.

My own situation was also odd.

I was hefting a heavy two metre long rug, which, in emergency circumstances, I had been ‘requested’ to collect from the South of Glasgow, by my son Stuart.

This rug was destined for “Laggwood Cottage” on Arran, and at the very moment of my encounter with The Lady Awaiting, Stuart and a friend were hurtling up the M74 from Oxford, heading to our house in Bearsden to collect it.

Normally I would have made this collection by car, but in this ‘last minute emergency’, I was obliged by circumstances to travel with my rug companion by train.

So there we were, side by side on the platform, both drawing odd stares from our fellow travellers, she in “Those Shoes!”, and me with “Aladdin’s Flying Carpet” at my side.

And so, we chatted, shared, and shut out the rest of the World for a few minutes.

Is it not amazing what we reveal to perfect strangers, when we think we are otherwise anonymous?

Click to download PDF Click here to download the PDF.

And Fishes Swam

This piece arose from a ditty told to us by our friend Lena as we swapped stories around the dinner table during our superb sojourn in Bedogno, at “Art Holidays in Italy”, in September 2011.

It is a poem for bath-time, written originally for Mathew and now also for Ethan.

Why not print it out, encapsulate it, and stick it on the bathroom wall with Blue Tack?

Click to download PDF Click here to download the PDF.

The Primark Nightie

This is an poem written in the wake of a car crash.

Our friend Mana was returning home from dropping off her son David.

David had just received his results, winning not one but two prizes from his University.

It was late, nearly midnight.

The other car drove out of a side street and crashed into Mana’s car, wrecking it.

It happened at slow speed and no one was hurt.

Mana phoned her friend Anne.

Anne, on her way to bed, came at once.

Click to download PDF Click here to download the PDF.

Ode to George Ennis

This is a ‘welcome to retirement poem’ for my Choir Buddy at the Kelvin Choir.

For years I thought he could read music proficiently, and then he turned up at a ‘Learn to Read Music’ class I had enrolled for.

But he is ‘my left ear leader’ and I try to follow exactly where he goes. If George slides of piste, I follow him into the deep snow.

Click to download PDF Click here to download the PDF.

  Back to Top