Half Eight the Hour
Renaissance ~ Second Edition
Second Edition
Image Courtesy Драган Ражнатовић and from his Private Collection and to whom all rights thereto are reserved to him
I have much to thank my friend from long ago, Драган Ражнатовић , his psuedonym. A lesson I learned early on was that social media can attract the wrong types. A common complaint with all social media platforms is when a social media surfer sees a sees a ‘friendship’ they’d like to be part of.
Would you mind if I invited your friend to accept me? No, of course not. … … BIG MISTAKE … we see the error only in hindsight.
Everything seems fine. Gradually one senses erosion. Something’s remiss. I sense not so much benevolence as malignancy afoot!
I steer away from social media hiding behind images that are simply too good to be true.
How is this person so wise?
I presume I’m speaking with people in their thirties-fifties, yet I seem, at times, to be speaking with someone who knows, first hand, my own time-line; one or two might even be further along my time-line than me …in their eighties … how odd. I have an inpleasant sense of retching.
It must be me!
… hence the saying:
anyone can be wise after the event
These are the thoughts evoked by turning the page and finding this draft from 2012.
Composed in 2012, then aired in 2014. Драган then set about finding the image I had described in the mind’s eye. It arrived that same night, and I recall our pleasure.
As for the faceless one … he rode off into the sunset suitably chastened.
Half Eight the Hour
The sky is crimson tonight
With lights along the Mersey
And it is not even yet
Half eight the hour
Is it that time already?
Has summer so swiftly
Turned her back upon us
Were we that hard toward her?
It seems this Olympic year
She played the Olympian with us,
Arriving one beautiful morning,
Staying awhile,
And then departing for good
That same evening!
Or so that’s how her red-headed
Sister Autumn beguiles us!
I wonder what did really happen?
Did they fight?
Did they draw lots at our expense?
And like the gods looking down
Into some ancient universal arena
Play the devil with us?
And now as the half hour approaches
Already we see lights on the ferry
A hint of morning frosts to come
A haze on the window
And casual thoughts
Of winter wardrobes
And heavier footwear to put
ready in the hallway
Written September 4, 2012
Kenneth Thomas Webb
Liverpool
July 6, 2021
All Rights Reserved
United Kingdom - Austria - Germany - Australia - New Zealand - Canada - USA
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2021
One of the Fifteen Founding Members of Leaders Lodge
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
