People Disappear These Days

That day on the shingle beach, as the warm salty wind blew

The towel into the back of the creek,

I looked away quickly to pull it back and shake the sand from off of it.

Your cup was full of hot tea and the plate with the sandwich,

- one bite taken from it - sat beside the strawberry jam.

I thought you’d gone over that large sand dune,

To catch one last sight of that schooner that was riding high

On the back of the crackling blue waves,

But you weren’t there. 

I asked someone, but they said no one had passed by them,

The police couldn’t find a trace, not of you or of anything

That belonged to you.

They started to think that you had never existed.

People disappear these days and no one notices, nor cares.

bobby stevenson 2013

Home

From where I sit,

I cannot smell the fresh sea air

Nor taste my salt encrusted lips

Or watch the swirling twisted mists

Cut through by masts of sailing ships

And headed for some outer bank to fish

From where I sit,

I cannot hear the choir of Gulls,

Who dart and shoot above my head

And screech a welcome in my ear.

“you’re home, you’re home,” they cry

“Rest well”.

From where I sit,

I cannot see the mountaintops of

Heather strewn across the rocks

Or heavy rain and waterfalls in rivers

Run beneath the bus and neon lights

From where I sit,
I cannot see my little town

- I am not there. 

bobby stevenson 2013

The Price

It is not the burnished gold when exchanged for a king’s ransom

Which holds the highest cost

Nor the glittering coal in shape of diamond that litter

Hills and valley sparkling like planted slivers of souls

Not even love itself can compare in expense and virtue

When stood against this other feast

For in the end, the dearest of all things under heaven is

The price of Freedom, itself.

bobby stevenson 2013

That Old Steam Train Has Left The Station (for D)

That old steam train has left the station for the very last time,
I didn’t even know you were going but I know it’ll be somewhere nice,
May be the sands of Morar or the pier at Mallaig.

That old steam train has left the station with only the driver onboard,
The one who looks like Robert Newton from Treasure Island,
As you toot your whistle, you’ll be filling in another crossword,
I betcha!

That old steam train has left the station for the very last time today,
And we were all the better for having been passengers on it,
Thanks for the ride pal, rest well.



bobby s.

100 word Postcards From The Past (1899)

 

Sailed from England and spent Christmas day on the high seas. Here we are in New York. Tonight we are all going to Times Square to say good riddance to 1899 and to welcome in the glorious 1900. We have all been guessing what the world might be like in the year 2000. Sally says we shall all be living under the sea and James thinks that man will travel to the stars. I reckon that we will be done with all that war nonsense, and everyone will be enjoying a peaceful world. Have a very Happy New Year. Spencer.

bobby stevenson

The Eye Of The Needle

He’s gone now, the old me,

And not with some big great goodbye

But with a whimper,

Somewhere out there in the wilderness.

To write seemed such an innocent idea

To discard the old and move on smiling with a dream

But there was a cost to it all,

And it cost everything,

And it took everything,

And the only parts of me that I can salvage from my yesterdays

Are those things which will fit through the eye of a needle.

bobby stevenson 2013

We Walked A Path Once

We walked a path once,

You and I,

And shared some gentle time while basking in the sun,

We walked a road once,

You and I,

Fighting with the storms that blew upon our way,

We walked a highway once,

You and I,

And dealt with all the loss and hurt that fell before us,

We walked the Earth once,

You and I,

And broke with everything that Heaven threw in our direction,

But now the time has come for the parting of the ways,

And you will take one path and I will hold the other,

And we will walk the Universe,

You and I,

But with other souls as company.

bobby stevenson 2013