Seventy from the 70s (Easy to Understand Poems from Harder to Understand Times)

About this book:

  Back in the 1970s the objects of my desire were boys with long hair, flared trousers and fully-stamped passports to my tender teenage heart. The poems in this collection were written when I was aged thirteen to fifteen years, between 1972 and 1974. This was a time during which, like most teenagers, I felt everything too acutely, too deeply. I still have my original handwritten copies so am able to offer the poems unchanged and unrefined; although I have grown both as a person and a poet, I believe they have a naïve charm. Despite being written by a teenage girl, the subjects are actually quite diverse: it seems only 99% of my waking thoughts were filled with boys! So I hope you enjoy this collection of seventy easy-read poems and that some may even prompt you to recall your own teens, those times of much confusion, exhilaration and wonder.

  ***

  Seventy from the 70s

  Easy to understand poems

  from harder to understand times

  by Julie Stamp

  Copyright 2013 Julie Stamp

  Cover Image & Design © 2013 Gary Stamp

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other

  people. If you would like to share this book with another

  person, please purchase an additional copy for each

  recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase

  it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  About this book

  Front Matter

  Myth & Legend

  Mystic Lady

  Lady Night-Time

  Midnight

  When Moon was Ripe and Round

  The Seasons Will Pass

  Her Picture

  Old Dusty

  Silver Lark

  In My World

  Lonely Seagull

  Ebb Tide, August 9 pm

  Morning in June

  Summer Butterfly

  September

  Watercolour Sky

  The Man

  Snowscene

  Hoping

  If I Could

  Remember

  2.00 pm Thursday 11th April 1974

  A Valentine’s Verse

  The Gift

  Midsummer Strangers

  And yet I only know your name

  Our Song

  You took my dreams away

  Daydreaming

  Friendship

  Seashell Summer

  That Day

  Butterflies For Keeps

  The boy who doesn’t believe in dreams

  Golden Autumn

  Time No More

  Happy Love

  Dear Heart

  Dreaming of You

  Beautiful Things

  Forever Together

  Our night of love, the first time

  Two Stars in the Night

  Night of a Million Stars

  Anything You Ask

  You Are Everything

  You and a year of my life

  Separation

  Sad Love

  Summer Night

  Only We Understand

  Ziggy

  Sweet Pain

  Mummies and Daddies

  Memento

  Don’t

  Stone Love

  The End

  Each and Every Time

  Colours of my Life

  Time to Forget

  Black Moods

  The Hurt

  Behind the Tears

  Star

  Yesterday’s Tomorrow

  Empty Land

  Words and Pictures

  The Record

  Lessons Learned

  Acorns to Oak Trees

  A Strangers’ Smile

  Oh, I do hate to be beside the seaside

  Summer Longing

  It’s Sad

  The Healing

  This Last Time

  Love

  About the poet

  Myth and Legend

  Mystic Lady

  Mystic lady in the moonlight,

  Casting shadows on my heart;

  Skin of ivory, eyes of onyx,

  Smile that makes my senses start.

  Witch of darkness, queen of starlight,

  Hypnotising mind and soul;

  Dressed in black, my devils’ daughter,

  Evil I cannot control.

  Brush my cheek with lips so tender,

  Moment to be gone so soon;

  Mystic lady, dawn is coming,

  Time to fly now, with the moon.

  Lady Night-Time

  She throws her veil of darkness o’er me,

  Making tired my weary eyes,

  Lays her precious dreams before me,

  Sets the scene for midnight skies.

  Lady Night-time steals my troubles,

  Soothes them with her silken touch,

  Bursts my world of dreaming bubbles,

  Takes me in her blissful clutch.

  Silently, she waits for morning,

  Faithful ‘til the sun’s first ray:

  Lady Night-time, day is dawning,

  Time for you to drift away.

  Midnight

  The room is bare;

  There’s no-one there,

  The wind grows cold,

  And night grows old.

  A shadow dies

  Before my eyes,

  As sky grows dim,

  And moon goes in.

  A century past

  Relives at last,

  As history weaves,

  My mind believes –

  A frozen room,

  A crowded tomb,

  Where midnight faces

  Leave no traces

  Of crying souls

  As death-bell tolls

  And spirits fray

  At break of day.

  When Moon was Ripe and Round

  (how moonstones are made)

  She tried to tell him one dark night

  When no moon shone above,

  But he just couldn’t understand

  The reason for her love.

  She tried to let him know the truth,

  But he just laughed and said

  That witches don’t exist today,

  And black magic is dead.

  She tried to warn him of the nights

  When moon is ripe and round,

  When seeds of magic overflow

  And splatter to the ground.

  She tried to push his arms away,

  To kill his ardent love;

  Then, creeping out from cobweb clouds,

  A full moon shone above.

  She tried once more without success,

  The moon had cast its spell;

  He felt a prickling in his neck,

  A fear he could not quell.

  She tried to stop the evil work

  Of full moon on her soul,

  But magic has a strange effect

  That no Witch can control.

  Her eyes became a brilliant green,

  Her grasp became much stronger,

  The fear alive within his mind

  Could stand the pain no longer.

  She’d tried to make him understand

  But all too late, it seemed;

  For where the seeds of murder fell,

  A precious Moonstone gleamed…

  The Seasons Will Pass

  The mist of her tears cling close to he
r heart,

  Each tender thought stabs her with pain;

  For she and her lover must tragically part,

  She never will see him again.

  No more will she hold his hand close to her cheek,

  No longer his tender words hear.

  No sunsets together will these lovers seek,

  No more will he hold her so near.

  The seasons will pass, with each thought in her mind

  Of where her heart longs to be led,

  Breeze dries her eyes as her steps leave behind

  The grave of the one who is dead.

  A year had gone by while her sorrow has grown,

  The pain was just too much to bear;

  Yet, while she had life, in her heart she had known

  That in death she’d be meeting him there.

  Her Picture

  Here she rests upon my wall,

  A picture from the past;

  I lost her to the other world,

  But she’ll forever last.

  Her picture captures all the peace

  That she once made in me;

  Her eyes are soft and shine

  Within her quiet serenity.

  She’s always here for me to love,

  To cherish and behold;

  But portraits only lie, because

  Her once warm smile feels cold.

  Old Dusty

  Old Dusty was a friendly dog,

  I raised him from a pup:

  A dog who always liked to play,

  Who never quite grew up.

  My Dusty loved a lot of things –

  The summertime, the sea -

  The crabs that pinched his button nose,

  The splashy waves, and me.

  Dusty had such big brown eyes

  That filled with sudden woe

  Then shone bright when he got his way,

  The way I’d come to know.

  It happened unexpectedly

  One seaside summer day,

  The sort of day we used to share;

  Old Dusty passed away…

  Now, on the beach I walk alone,

  With just the sea and sky;

  Yet often in the crashing waves

  Comes Dusty’s playful cry.

  Silver Lark

  I saw you once within a dream,

  Then woke, and you were real;

  High in the morning sky I heard

  A song lark’s haunting peal.

  I looked and saw a silver lark

  Against the golden sun:

  It spread its precious gilded wings,

  It’s flight of love begun.

  I held you close against my heart,

  And kissed you deeply true;

  The silver lark was soaring high

  Up in my sky of blue.

  We shared our love all summer long,

  Till summer sun was dying,

  But drifted wordlessly apart;

  The silver lark now crying.

  We parted one September night

  With not one word of goodbye said,

  Heard lonely cry of wounded skylark,

  Silver turning into lead…

  Silver lark lies torn and broken,

  Flew too far, for much too long.

  Its tarnished, haunting call still sounds,

  A silent, sad and silver song.

  In My World

  Lonely Seagull

  Lonely seagull flying high,

  Drifting over sea and sky,

  Floating on the fresh sea breeze,

  Soaring with an agile ease.

  Skimming over salty spray,

  Silhouette in sun’s last ray –

  Bade farewell with dismal cry,

  Lonely seagull flying high.

  Ebb Tide, August 9 pm

  Dusk

  pours its opaque film over the sea,

  shrouding the silver sun

  in a web of pastel pink clouds,

  the last slivers of sunlight

  filtering into shimmering ripples

  aimlessly swimming in the ebb tide.

  Shadows

  lurk beneath and between

  seaweed-clad rocks,

  and slowly slip into inky black rockpools,

  which hold the face of the full moon

  upon dark watery mirrors,

  where un-named creatures

  thrive blindly, below.

  Foam

  froths at the sea’s fraying edges,

  spilling over stretches of soft sand,

  receding with a watery whisper,

  talking to the wind, the stars.

  From the shadows, a crab

  ventures across moonlit sand

  and picks its drunken way

  towards the tide,

  staggering slowly sideways,

  sobered in the cool gunmetal sea

  where waves unfurl,

  and stars have fallen down

  to join the moon.

  Morning in June

  Sun’s first glowing rays

  caress the hilltop,

  shine on the sea,

  chase away dawn.

  Early mist kisses the earth

  bringing new life to the rose

  whose petals overflow with dew,

  nature’s sweet reviver,

  while stillness shrouds the silence.

  Air is clear,

  with the fresh scent of morning

  tingling in the breeze.

  The sky is a vast translucent rainbow,

  pastel blue, fraying

  into soft glowing tones

  of peach, primrose and pink.

  A pure white butterfly rests on a leaf

  and waits

  for the sun to touch her trembling wings,

  welcoming her to the new-born day.

  Summer Butterfly

  She rests upon a blade of grass

  With grace of sweet content,

  And drowns within the burning sun,

  Pure beauty, Nature-sent.

  A summer breeze disturbs her drowse;

  She trembles at its touch,

  But spreads her wings, resumes her place

  In mid-days’ breathless clutch.

  The perfume of a velvet rose

  Invades the crystal air,

  Intoxicating, bringing

  Dizzy peace beyond compare.

  The world stops breathing in the heat,

  And melts in hot July,

  While butterfly awakes, and climbs

  Up through the sapphire sky.

  September

  Under the cruel disguise of winter

  Lies the magic of September.

  Trees will glow copper, amber, bronze,

  In the hazy honey of the afternoon.

  The sun will melt into golden toffee,

  Grass will be bleached softly yellow

  And leaves silently burnished.

  Earth will feel warm from the days’ heat

  As the toasting rays fade into twilight,

  Leaving a sweet, musty scent mingling with light mist.

  Blue shadows will hide in dark corners,

  Safe from the pale, full moon.

  Stars will blister a deep blue sky,

  Crystal clear in the sharp air.

  Dawn will break

  As the sun repeats its lazy course.

  Under sparkles of rain

  And the bare forms of gargoylic trees

  Lies a misty, golden world,

  Waiting for the breath of September

  To give birth to Autumn.

  Watercolour Sky

  Clear sharp blue

  Tapering into the soft rainbow

  of sunset.

  Gold

  glimmering on the horizon,

  spilling a frosting of sundust

  on the hilltop.

  Pale yellow

  shining among wisps of pink clouds,

  muted as the edges fray into a peachy glow.
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  Translucent pale blue

  deepening into azure,

  a clear sharp blue.

  Watercolour sky;

  a painting in my mind.

  The Man

  He sits on a park bench, bottle in hand

  His mind in a stupor, unable to stand,

  His clothes are in rags, he has dirt in his hair;

  He wonders why no-one can spare time to care.

  He giggles at something just he comprehends,

  And thinks that it’s funny that he has no friends.

  At twilight he goes to a derelict house –

  He’s glad of the company of rat or of mouse.

  He lies on a mattress, his head on a sack,

  And thinks, as the night falls, it’s good to be back.

  He rises at noon to drink away day –

  The poor lonely man who has just lost his way.

  Snowscene

  The dark clear sky throws moonshine

  onto freshly-fallen snow,

  winters’ silent shroud

  glistening purple, glowing white

  on rooftop, pavement, tree.

  Stars hang suspended, free

  from the harsh light of day,

  where silhouettes become objects

  and shadows just die.

  Clouds cry,

  shedding intricate snowflakes,

  forging frozen butterfly halos

  in circles of lamp-light

  each one individual, softly bright,

  until it merges into the landscape

  and becomes just a part

  of a part

  of a snowscene.

  Hoping

  If I Could…

  If I could have a shining star,

  A pocketful of sighs,

  I’d throw them to the night

  If I could see love in your eyes.

  If I could make a diamond

  From every grain of sand,

  I’d melt them in the sea

  If I could hold your waiting hand.

  If I could form a butterfly

  From rainbow, pastel clear,