Paul Hansford

Paul Hansford Aug 2018

There are journeys from which (for all practical purposes)
it is not possible to arrive anywhere,
except perhaps, after considerable stress,
the place that you started from.
Come with me. It is only
the setting out that is difficult.
Put your hand in mine and we will begin
our journey together. It may be long,
it may be hazardous, but the value of the journey
is not related to its length,
nor to the hazards overcome,
nor to the places we may visit, though they be many.
It lies rather in the fact of having set out
in the hopeless hope of discovering
something at the end of it all.
At least we can try - the value is in the trying.
Put your hand in mine. It is only
the setting out that is difficult.

Paul Hansford Aug 2018

Self-Portrait -- rondeau redoublé

.
This lived-in face has seen the years go by
at such a wild and unforgiving pace.
My powers are weak, though my aims may be high,
and troubles are all bound to leave their trace.

And while I always feel the need to brace
myself against life's storms, I know that I
can never win. Death always plays his ace.
This lived-in face has seen the years go by.

It's little help to know the rules apply
to every member of the human race.
Dark clouds are growing in my evening sky
at such a wild and unforgiving pace.

In this vast universe I have my place,
but can my thoughts outlast me when I die?
or speak to those in other time or space?
My powers are weak, though my aims may be high.

Yet while dark thoughts of gloom may multiply,
to let them win would be a sad disgrace,
though many things may make me want to cry,
and troubles are all bound to leave their trace.

Yes, my mortality I must embrace,
not waste my time in always asking why,
or fearing not to do things just in case."
I'll dry those tears. There's no point to deny
this lived-in face.
.

If you looked up the rules for this form, you wouldn't find them telling you to repeat the first half-line in a way that rhymes with anything, but since my first one, where it came out that way by accident, I do them like this, and it's only a little more difficult.

Paul Hansford Aug 2018

The Painter on the Shore -- sonnet

The setting sun shone on the lapping tide
as pensively I walked along the sand.
Above my head the soaring seabirds cried
their wild, sad cry from some forgotten land.
That golden evening, there among the rocks,
far from the noisy city's roar and rush,
I saw him sitting, on his knee a box
of watercolours, in his hand a brush.

Oh, had I but the skill, the painter's art,
to fix the scene in colours like that man.
I went towards him, stood a step apart,
over his shoulder tried his work to scan.
A masterpiece . . . . . or was it? No such luck!
Just filling in cartoons of Donald Duck.

A true story from a beach in Spain.

Paul Hansford Aug 2018

Sleepless Night -- "last words" sonnet

I cannot sleep tonight, and you know why.
You know how many weary hours I've lain
upon my bed and listened to the rain
lashing the window, and the mournful sigh
the wind makes. You have heard mine in reply.
I know you know the reason for my pain.
I know you know why, over and again,
I've wept out loud. I know you saw me cry
as I remembered carving on that tree
your name and mine. You were the only one
I needed then. You know, just as before,
how much I need you yet, but you have gone.
Only your spirit now still lives in me,
and I can never hope for any more.

A "last words" sonnet uses the last word from each line of a published poem as the last word in the corresponding line of a new one. This one is based on a well-known sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Paul Hansford Aug 2018

Spring -- sonnet/acrostic

S pring always comes, however slow it seems,
A nd on the trees at last from sleeping wood
N ew growth sprouts green where black twigs starkly stood.
D istant the winter now; like far-off dreams
R ecalling snow, white blossom-petals fall
A nd throw confetti down on warming earth.
H ere after months of sleep the signs of birth
A s daffodils ****** up and songbirds call.
N ow the breeze blows more gently on fresh grass,
S un gives its blessing, sky's a softer blue.
F rom greener woods then pipes the bold cuckoo.
O ur thoughts move on to summer. Spring will pass,
R ipe summer turn to fall, and winter, then,
D epend upon it, spring will come again.

Dedicated to my dear wife.

Paul Hansford Aug 2018

Almost a Poem *

By any normally accepted standard
three words are scarcely sufficient
to be considered a poem.
The Japanese, who have a gift for conciseness,
might be sympathetic.
(Haiku, after all,
at seventeen syllables,
are pretty compact.)
But three words! It's not so much concise as,
to put it bluntly, short.
If I say that, when I try to write a poem for you,
"I love you" is all I can think of,
that is no excuse.
And the fact that my meaning is new and unique
(for me and for you)
makes no difference either.
If only there were some way out of my difficulty.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
There, that's nine words.
Will that do?

Written in 1984 and only just re-discovered in the booklet of the competition it was written for.

Paul Hansford Aug 2018

Growing up (sonnet)

"Write fourteen lines on Growing Up, a sonnet,"
the teacher told us. "Don't forget, the rhymes
must make a pattern; I've told you several times.
The subject's easy. You've all got ideas on it."

Who does he think I am? Some second Milton?
Another Shakespeare? An Eliot? A Tennyson?
Compared to theirs, my mind's as dead as venison,
slightly less fresh than over-ripened Stilton.

"A poem's the equivalent in words
of something I once felt," the poet said.
Clues to another's feelings, like the sherds

of ancient pots, or jigsaws in the head.
A few curt words my feelings clearly tell,
one simple sentence: Growing Up is hell.

The subject of this poem was set as homework for my 15-year-old son, Jonathan, but I thought I might do one for myself. It was written in 1984. The poet I mention in verse 4 was T.S. Eliot