Two Sonnets

A weekend's walk landed on the foreshore hard by Shakespeare's Globe. Sonnets were inevitable...

Held Together How?

The ancient city’s shadow-clouded face

is flecked and etched by autumn’s auburn glaze;

the river slides beneath the darkened days

and ebbs and flows with thickened tidal pace.

 

On foot the foreshore beckons with a glint

of mysteries and mudlarks – see the sand!

Dig here, or here, and hold them in your hand:

a pin, a glass, a pipe, a knife, a flint.

 

What century is this?  In hand or heart?

Look close and see within the very silt

the craziness from which the city’s built:

why does it not all simply fall apart?

 

The streets and bridges give us little clue;

instead we turn to Shakespeare for the glue.

And then, since I've been pestered of late by missing twins and doppelgangers...

On Being the Wrong David

The clocks have changed and now the time is wrong

or else instead it’s me that is not right;

perhaps a different David came along

and swapped me for another in the night.

I hope I am mistaken, though I fear

it may be someone other with these thoughts;

it seems that I (or he) cannot be clear

despite the fact our time is told with quartz.

If he (or me) is truly incorrect

there has to be some scientific test, 

a means by which the error can be checked

and thus decide which one of us is best.

We see we have retained our urge to win!

The rest, we guess, we’ll just take on the chin.