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Robert
Chapman
A
Featured Poet from Poetry
Now Magazine
Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Robert Chapman and I have been writing poetry for thirty-five years. I first took an interest in poetry around 1967 when, at school, some of us were invited by a teacher to try our hand at writing limericks. Those silly little five-lined rhymes that never seemed to make any sense at all, as what the subject, be it old men from Gloucester or pretty young girls from Bangkok. Needless to say, I took up the challenge. I progressed from writing limericks to (what I term) proper poetry. My very first poem, a tribute to my mother is on this page. Also included is another tribute entitled ‘A Bard Remembered’, a poem I wrote as a letter of thanks but which, sadly became an epitaph to an employer, friend and, as the poem says, a fellow Bard.
I have published (with the support of my employers) four collections of verse, one jointly with another featured poet, Mrs Linda Garner of Prescot, as well as two poetry diaries. Through the sale of these collections and diaries, as well as he generosity of work-mates and friends, I have raised a total of £1164 for British Epilepsy, having suffered from this condition myself from the age of two. The lady in the photograph is Mrs Sue Blake, the Regional Services Manager for British Epilepsy in the North-west, receiving a cheque from me for £310.
I have been married to Joan for twenty-five years and we have two grown up children, Amanda (25) and Craig (21).
I have worked at E. Sutton & Son Ltd (Footwear Manufacturers) for the past thirty-two years.
My mother
Who fed me from her gentle breast
And gently lay me down to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses pres’d?
My mother.
Who was it watched my infant head
Whilst sleeping on my cradle-bed,
And did tears of sweet affection shed?
My mother.
When pain and sickness made me cry
Who was it watched my heavy eye,
And wept for fear that I should die?
Sweet mother.
Who was it taught my lips to pray
And to love God’s holy book each day,
And to walk in wisdom’s pleasant way?
Good mother.
So when I see thee hang they head
’Twill be my turn to watch thy bed,
And the tears of sweet affection shed
Dear mother.
When thou art feeble, old and grey
My healthy arm shall be thy stay,
And I shall soothe thy pain away
My mother.
Come home daddy
Come home to me, Daddy,
For I want to see your face,
You should be here with me and Mum
Not in some other place.
Come home to us, Daddy,
For I want to see your smile,
To see your smile as you look at me;
Please be home in a very short while.
Come home to us, Daddy,
Cos Mum is missing you,
And I am only small you know
And don’t know what to do.
Without you here there’ll be no fun,
Only sorrow and tears,
So Daddy, come on home to us
And put to rest our fears.
Come home to us, Daddy,
For we want to see your face;
You should be home with me and Mum
Not in some other place.
A bard remembered
I write these lines as a Lancashire lad,
With world experience of good and bad,
In memory of a fellow Bard;
A loss to life so very hard.
Fellow bard and fellow true,
These the words I write for you,
On this sad, heart-breaking day;
We’ll speak no more, you are away.
For now, Bard, you are at your rest,
With Byron, Shelley and he best
Of England’s poets, together are
Forever on those plains afar.
The words you wrote were strong and true,
Your stanzas long, sometimes askew;
To compose a poem is an art
The words you wrote came from the heart.
I write these words as a Lancashire lad,
Full of memories, good and bad;
Life does like a river flow
Where it stops no one may know.
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