Category: poetry

A Tribute to Mannheim, Germany

A modern city by the river –
The brochure purred enticingly
Omitting to mention
That it was flattened in the war
Then rebuilt as a lego-block town
Cut off from the river
By a ten track railway

Blessed with blue skies and sunshine –
My photos will nod in silent assent
Without ever showing
That my feet were aching
From walking in worn out shoes
Through a maze of dead-ends
To reach the elusive river

Against the backdrop of an elegant bridge –
My pictures will show a windswept smile
But stay mute, deaf and blind
To the jackhammer rattle
Clattering on the icy breeze
From across the busy channel

With a perfect promenade for lovers –
I will recall the cosy, strolling couples
But conveniently forget
That my mind was far away
Wondering what she was doing
And wishing she was here
Or I was there, back home

And yet there is a hidden city that lingers –
The unspoken sights
Of dancing fountains and pansy blooms
The invisible sounds
Of youthful buzz and ancient whispers
These are the unexpected discoveries
Which, once revealed
Turn shadow promises into authentic delights

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

As markets crashed and wild fires spread
Fresh waves of doubt splashed in my head
So seas of promise turned to sands
And snuffed the flame of future plans

Then darkness warmed to fragile day
My scattered ruins left on display
And though rebuilding had begun
It took some time to find the sun

Now as the year draws to a close
The icy water melts and flows
I cut the rope and trust to time
Upon the ocean thirty nine

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

It is loss
(As much as gain)
That binds us

It is pain
(As much as joy)
That joins us

It is suffering
(As much as satisfaction)
That moulds us

It is darkness
(As much as light)
That defines us

It is death
(As much as life)
That tests us

It is regret
(As much as foresight)
That bends us

It is rest
(As much as effort)
That sustains us

It is loss
(As much as love)
That makes us

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

In Memoriam: Margaret Legum

Like a raven in the night
You’ve taken flight
Taken flight
Towards the light

Like a sliver of the moon
You’re gone too soon
Gone too soon
With one last swoon

Like a current in the stream
You’re flowing free
Flowing free
Towards the sea

Like the whisper of a sigh
You’ve bid goodbye
Bid goodbye
With one last why

Like a rainbow in the mist
You’re dearly missed
Dearly missed
Forever missed

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

The journeys we plan
The trips we make
The holidays we remember –
All are vivid fantasies
Conjured from desire
Unattainable utopias
Wished upon a dream
Sun-picked memories
Pocketed for a rainy day

Travel itself is a shoddy garment
Creased with frumpled fatigue
And stained by leaky plans

Travel is a soundtrack of static hiss
For a fleeting moment of silence
Or a passing parade of trumpets

Travel is an ill begotten escape
Which tunnels back on itself
To the familiar prison of our thoughts

And yet a jacket well worn
Gives a certain comfort
And tells a story of its own
The flash of blinding wellbeing
And the flood of sensual bliss
Make the dissonance worthwhile
And ultimately, travel delivers on its promise
Taking us to new, undiscovered worlds
But never the ones we expected

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

A Tribute to Leonardo da Vinci

Born on a Saturday, third hour of night
With Tuscan hills bathed in the star spangled light
Ser Piero’s great pride and Vinci’s great joy
He was Chaterina’s illegitimate boy

At sixteen, he followed the Arno’s swift flow
And joined as apprentice to Verrocchio
To learn to perfect the painter’s high trade
Of capturing light and harnessing shade

He started by painting a tranquil glade scene,
Then the Madonnas and the pose of Benci,
The Magi adored, the penitent Saint –
All brought back to life on his canvass with paint

At thirty he travelled to the city Milano
An envoy in chief for the ruler Lorenzo
He was sent to the court of his patron il Moro
To give him a glimpse through the veil of tomorrow

In a letter, he made his offer prodigious –
From building of weapons to laying of bridges
Even a lyre from a horse-skull and strings –
In his words: “An infinite variety of things”

For seventeen years he stayed in that quarter
Designing new ways to regulate water
While filling his days with Paragone theses
Of legends and myths and fantasy species

At Paradise Feast, the heavens displayed
With magical motion effects that he made;
And a three-tier city was part of his plan,
As was his great wheel of Vetruvius man

He pictured the Virgin on bleak rocky shore
And captured an artist with his music score,
Then Cecelia posing with snow-white ermine,
Before re-enacting the last supper scene

His equine colossus was sculpted from clay
His Platonic drawings on published display
His thoughts and ideas in codexes bound
His paintings commissioned to bless holy ground

From Mantua to Venice, from Florence to Rome
Montefeltro to Paris – all made them his home;
From Leo the Tenth to Louis the First –
They all were enchanted by his great mental thirst

As architect, engineer, artist and sage
Biologist, scientist ahead of his age
Inventor of unbelievable things
An unsurpassed genius, this legend of wings

He towers above the landscape of time
With brilliant ideas and visions sublime
Still no one can fathom the depths of his guile
Or unlock the secret of Mona’s half smile

And even though five hundred years have gone by
He calls us to stretch out our mind-wings and fly
To join in the journey that he once began
And walk in the steps of the Renaissance Man

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

A lifetime lived in just one year
At least that’s how it seems to me
And what began with clouds of fear
Now ends in luminosity
I would not call it chance or fate
I simply call it thirty eight

I travelled into dragon’s lairs
To fairest capes and cactus plains
I visited the land of bears
And markets hid in dusty lanes
I saw creation, small and great
I roamed the globe to thirty eight

In matters of the heart I found
That like a drum with changing beat
I had to find my solid ground
Before I danced with happy feet
I cannot say the road’s been straight
I wound my way to thirty eight

The call of words was ever strong
The poet-scholar dipped his quill
The flow of ink was short and long
The script an act of wisp and will
I say to live is to create
I know it’s true at thirty eight

The dusk of winter brings goodbyes
As I prepare to take my leave
From gilded halls and lofty spires
To conjure up fresh city dreams
I know that it is not too late
I start again at thirty eight

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

The scattered seeds of history
Lie buried in the desert shade
And watered by the crescent moon
Rise up to form a sickle blade

Minarets and sacred domes
Caravans and loving homes
Maiden towers, rising blocks
Tireless cranes and bustling docks

The past now seems a distant shore
The present rides an oil-slick tide
And as the trade winds bluff and blow
The city chugs and churns with pride

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

Tribute to Wendy Cope

I’ve met a poet or two
While tucked under the covers
Or soaking in the tub
With bubble dreams of lovers

And sometimes in the park
I’ve heard them softly giggle
Or fumbling in the dark
I’ve felt their word-worms wriggle

But giddy-gum delight
Watch me do a jiggly jive
Upon this hum-drum night
I met a poet still alive!

Her famous biting wit
With which she’s known to poke
Is wicked when it’s writ
But wickeder when spoke

Some say that she’s besotted
Her words are strung like rope
But whether straight or knotted
You’re bound to like Ms Cope

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

Commemorating Barack Obama’s 2009 Inauguration

This day
Is not just any day
It is a day of days
A day of a lifetime
An epoch making day
At a time that cries out
For new beginnings

This day
Is a watershed day
A day that separates
Yesterday from today
And today from tomorrow
On a mindless march of days
That needed breaking

This day
Is a day to be marked
As something remarkable
A day to be celebrated
As something joyful
A day to be remembered
As something historic

This day
Is a tribute to the past
With its sacrifices of so many
A blessing for the present
Amidst looming clouds of despair
And a vision for the future
Welcomed with an open hand

This day
Is not the struggle’s end
But the journey’s beginning
It is not the death of prejudice
But the life of possibility
It is not the end of nights
But the start of days

This day
Is not so much a forging ahead
As a long overdue catching up
With changes at last
That begin to give life
To time-honoured ideals
And flickering hopes

This day
Is a day of coming together
When power meets responsibility
And rhetoric meets action
It is a day of empowerment
When the voiceless are heard
And the marginal become mainstream

This day
Is a day of reconciliation
When the past is laid to rest
And the future is awakening
It is a day of prodigals
When the lost find their way home
And a nation rejoins the world

Wayne Visser © 2017

Book

Life in Transit: Favourite Travel & Tribute Poems

This creative collection, now in its 2nd edition, brings together travel and tribute poems by Wayne Visser. The anthology pays tribute to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Barack Obama, Antoni Gaudí & Leonardo da Vinci, and reflects on travels ranging from China and South Africa to Ecuador and Russia. Life is lived in the in-between / In transit / Between coming and going / Between staying and moving on / Between here and there / And what we call home / What we call settled or contented / Is merely a resting place / A station for refuelling / A nexus for reconnecting / A junction for changing direction. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.