Welcome To Our Website

We are a friendly local poetry group that meets on

the third Sunday of each month to read our own

poetry, listen to others’ poetry and talk about poetry.

Meetings take place on the third Sunday afternoon of

the month starting at 2.00 o'clock and finishing at

approximately 5.15. In December we meet on the

second Sunday.

They are held in the library of Orley

Farm School, South Hill Avenue, Harrow, Middx.


The nearest tube station is South Harrow. There is no

access by car from the South Harrow end of South

Hill Avenue. Entrance to the library is by a door

round to the left of the building.


Fancy yourself as a poet?


Come and listen or read
your own verse. This local

poetry group started in 1992. Visitors £3.00.

For further details and before coming telephone

0208 864 3149.



Below we will be placing some of our latest verse as tasters.

Tuesday 28 September 2010

A Tree

Shoot pushes through earth, thrusts sunwards.
Root burrows into soil seeking water.
Birth of a tree.

Stem firms to trunk, branches.
Leaves appear.
Roots grasp the world with force.
Tree stands strong.

Leaves fall, leaves grow.

Through centuries tree stands, branches spread;
canopy of leaves shades the ground.
Then, year by year, less shade; branches grow bare,
fall without warning. Tree dries, begins to fail.
Rots from within.
Hollows.
Tree dies.

© John Snelling

Wednesday 22 September 2010

Family Home, Lincolnshire

and from the summerhouse, the view
is, first, that unmarked area of grass,
where stood the Air Force quarters of a few
of England's Few, that rings with silent laughs,
our chipping green for practice golf. Beyond �
the orchard's gorgeous blossom, later fruit
for village children and the Anderson,
now apple store. Then, topiary in privet
and in box; my sculptor's hands can see
the shape inside the mass. By Perkins'grave,
a clump of perfect daffodils blow free
of London's politicking stress. 1 have
a cherished weekend refuge where 1 come,
say, "Hello, House. Restore me." 1 am home.


written for a friend

Dorothy Pope

Bad Weather Coming

A swirl of grey sweeps up the sky
The sun too soon renounces day
As human traffic hurries by
Intent on leaving work for play.

The sun too soon renounces day
Denying light and warmth to us
Intent on leaving work for play
Who now must queue to catch a bus.

Denying light and warmth to us
Means colds and flu could soon arrive.
Who now must queue to catch a bus?
The ones least able to survive.

Mean colds and flu could soon arrive
To give us coughs and make us sneeze
The ones least able to survive
Could well expire with gasp or wheeze.

To give us coughs and make us sneeze
The winter's cold and wet conspire
And soon the old with gasp or wheeze
Could enter in the heavenly choir.

The winter's cold and wet conspire
To smite the old, and babes in arms
Could enter in the heavenly choir
Too soon reduced to singing psalms.

They smite the old and babes in arms
As human traffic hurries by.
Too soon reduced to singing psalms
They swirl in grey, sweep up the sky.

(C Sylvia Goodman

Down The Garden Path

Come in! Come in! Before our tea,
I wonder- would you like to see

The garden -though it's past its best!
These squirrels aren't they a pest?
They break the flowers and steal my fruit.
If I Just had a gun I'd shoot
them all. 1 would, I'd kill the lot!
My roses- yes, I know- black spot
and mildew they're a sorry sight
A spray? No sir! It isn't right
to fling these Chemicals about.
I'd far, far, rather do without

the flowers, and certainly its true
my flowers are feeble things, and few.
A glimpse now would you 'like to snatch
of my small vegetable patch?
My Runner beans don't do too well -
my pigeons eat them, beans and shell
My cabbages - the cabbage white
had them in tatters overnight.
Mt lettucesa are full of bugs,
and eaten down by snails and slugs.
I wonder, is it worth the sweat,
for all the produce that I get?
Come this way now, and mind the step.
Oh dear; You�ve overturned the skep!
that step is shaky where you fell
you managed up though, pretty well.
just stung by nettles, nothing broken?
Here, let me soothe it with a docken
Lucky that one is growing near!
Don be upset about that hive
that you knocked down -there's none alive.
This winter past I clean forgot
to feed them, so I the lot.
My goodness me! There's still some more!
Where have they slung you,is it sore?
Come on then now the bees are roused
it's time that we were safely housed.

John Waddell

Esplanade

Secretly gripping the bench, the four sit
holding that final sea view,
straw hats compressing straw hair
fur-lined windcheaters
and a new Tuesday afternoon pink rinse.
Gulls potter close, pretending to peck food
but they are checking
checking flight readiness of each.
The binocular man in cricket shirt
subconsciously eyes the way too,
with side to side all clears
of the esplanade runway.

Their joint aches and pains
convalesce in a breeze,
as the tide sneaks up
suckling on salt
wanting toes for dinner.
Conversation, consists of;
sea colour, sky colour
sun temperature and youth,
and each time childhood crops up
they all giggle
and the seagulls
creep nearer.

Jerry Pike

Musical Ages

When we first met and the radio broke
we’d go to your piano,
and search under the lid of the stool.
The music, written in dots,
I never understood,
but all the words made perfect sense
and we sang those good as gold songs,
wholesome as a white picket fence:
Clementine.
Tiperary
Home on the Range

But soon we were playing thick black vinyl
with jazz, Bach and the blues
on long players we mostly borrowed,
buying rock and roll on forty fives,
entranced by the scratchy pop bubble
and that hit parade you always followed:
54321
Please Please Me
For your Love

Cassettes with flimsy tape took off
but kept snapping:
you were the expert at repairs
spooling with a pencil to find the ends,
joining them up with pink nail varnish
that smelt of pears:
Harvest
Astral Weeks
Blood on the Tracks

The silver CD did for them both,
optical, you said,
nothing to cause friction.
On my own now, more numb than tense,
I dial up a swarm of new tunes
that fly through the air
and make a different sense:
Mercy
Rehab
Poker Face

Oh my darling, oh my darling
It’s a long way to go
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word:

where are you now?

Peter Keeble