Alan Clegg 
Poems for All Reasons 
The Musings and Amusings of an Ordinary Guy

The Blacksmith
The blacksmith by his anvil, his hammer in his hand.
He beats a merry rhythm upon the hardened steel.
Tap, tap, it bounces, up and down, a clear shrill note as old as time.
The shoe he forms with an expert eye, as
practiced as his old clay pipe.


The Language of Flowers
A wish: A cry from the heart
A dream: A longing for something good
A care: For something lovely


Gary the Grasshopper
Gary the grasshopper was such a nice guy.
All he wanted to do was to fly and fly.
Around and around, and up and down he goes,
he bangs off the ceiling and hurts his poor nose.

From Ireland to Uganda to South Africa and all in between Poems for all Reasons which reflects The Musings and Amusings of an ordinary guy is really what is says it is, Poems for all Reasons. It is a reflection of the life and the various moods and humours of the author during the many facets of his life. No two poems are from the same theme or genre of experience, from the seriousness of What land is this I gaze upon to the tongue in cheek humour of Gary the Grasshopper the diversity is extreme to say the least.

A propos de l’auteur

Alan Clegg was born in Ireland in 1947. He lived and worked on the family farm until he was in his early forties. He then took a two-year sabbatical from 1989–1991 to work with the Church Missionary Society as a farm manager in Uganda. After two years, he returned home, but he never farmed again.

Upon returning to Ireland, he set up a small picture-framing business, but by this time, Africa was in his heart, and so he returned to Uganda on a regular basis for the next seven or eight years.

In 1999, he was asked to return to Uganda as projects director for Africare–Northern Ireland, the funding agency for Besaniya Children’s Home near Kampala. This organisation also encompassed a rehabilitation unit called Cherub for postoperative disabled children. It was around this time that he met Sara, his wife, who is South African. Upon completion of a further three-year stint in Uganda with Africare, he went to live in Betty’s Bay, South Africa, where he lives at present.

His first poem, written in 1990, took him completely by surprise as he had never written anything prior to that. Due to a hand injury sustained at an early age, he had always resisted writing in long hand and would probably never have written anything had it not been for the typewriter and the computer.

alan@saralan.co.za

Deo Gratias