Through the pain of grief our love displays.
Like fireworks decorate the sky above.,
The happiness we had in former years

The pain leaks out in tears from reddened eyes
Love too big to keep at a remove
Through the pain of grief this love displays.

But after seas are watered with dark tears
We  climb back  up the cliffs without our love,
Without the happiness we had before.

With the grief, ,we feel a  panic fear
As if the saddest loss were not enough
Through the pain of grief our love’s displayed

So we suffer loss in many layers
Unless our partner was a tyrant rough
We  had no happiness  in former years

All who love   inhabit tragic plays
Happiness  interwoven with  due loss
Through the pain of grief  for love we pay

A kindly friend with sympathy may soothe
And yet our minds are swollen, deeply bruised
Through the pain of grief our love displays.
The joy we took for granted every day

The sunset is pale
Coral with grey finger marks~
No bird sang today

Sensitive  souls don’t enter politics
They’re writers, artists, dreamers, parents, nerds
They would not give  assent to  dirty tricks

A pebble thrown feels like a heavy brick.
They grieve when feral cats catch garden birds.
Sensitive  souls will not like politics

They prefer a   real pen to a Bic
They do  not like to use distasteful words
They cannot give  assent to  dirty tricks

They wonder  whether  “Bricks ” are artistic
But often their bewilderment’s unshared
Sensitive  souls won’t enter politics

They’re resistant to being forced to answers quick
Their pleasure is quite easily  perturbed
They cannot give  assent to  dirty tricks

By news about fierce conflict, they’re disturbed
Feel the guilt  of  Crusades and of Wars
Sensitive  souls won’t enter politics
They cannot give  assent to  dirty tricks

The  hope of loving, guns combusted
She thinks  of love, but never acts it
He thinks  of her and then thinks past her

Laid out, her roses  alabaster
She folds her infants in, what tactics
We live to love, but death is faster

She burned his books, his mistress  mastered
The dictionary charred, now brown and spastic
Was that the smoke in which he’d  tossed her?

The  feel of loving surges swifter
The clothes they wore agon, elastic.
Metric, rhyme thus he confused her.

He  feels her still and feels  it juster
To betray , to  make her more didactic
When he’s the one who marred her lustre

Would you say  the dialogue’s defective
Or is it good to add invectives?
The lust of loving makes us  bastards
He longed  for her but lived on  after

Won’t you come back
Through the crack, that silence
Between what is and
What can be said?
It’s so peaceful there
Under the roots of the grass
And the flowers.
Tree roots dig tunnels
They mine, looking for new
Places to  connect
And we see the light in the gap
See people from underneath
See their shoes’ weathered soles
Want to be held
Not seen but touched.
Want to meld.
I imagine we  meet
In this place underneath
Flat like dried bats
Inching our way to the light
Out of the night
Quite out of sight

The many coloured fishing boats at dawn
Floated on the cold and Northern sea
They sailed beneath  the  rising sun, adorned

The empty beach looked grave as if forlorn
Yet soon  the  boats would   decorate it free
Those many coloured fishing boats of dawn

These boats were fishing when I was newborn
And rings were  growing in the   churchyard’s trees
Boats sailed beneath  the  rising sun, adorned

I stood beside the window filled with joy.
The image of the boats made me well pleased.
Those many coloured fishing boats of dawn

From sacred moments  images will  form
To help us with our sorrow  when bereaved
We too shall sail beneath  the  sun divine

Unlike  our gold and  jewels none can steal
Our inner wealth, the hand  that turns the wheel
The many coloured fishing boats at dawn
Sailed beneath  the  rising sun, adorned

Trying to digest life’s strange and awful ploys.
Is it merely chance that brings them here?
Send me my mother and my little box of toys

I only wish I had a stronger voice
And a breastplate to protect me from the spears
Trying to digest life’s strange and awful ploys.

When I was a child, I liked to play with boys
As they tormented me, then I began to fear
Send me back to  mother and my little box of toys

For fifty years I’ve known love and all her joys
I have loved men but now  they look unclear
I hope to digest life’s deranged and awful ploys.

Some call me bold and others call me shy
I  wear a dress   like  my mother used to wear
Send me back to  Mammy and my little box of toys

Today was bad and now I feel  you sneer
I’ll hire a boat and row to Southend Pier
Trying to digest life’s strange and awful joys.
I need my Mammy and my little box of toys

We are little leaves upon the tree
We  never did control our  tiny worlds
The tree of life; what power, what  mystery

With metaphor, it’s easier to see
Life is tender, see each leaf unfurl
We are only leaves upon the tree

Singing in the sun we seem to be
Full of joy until the storm winds swirl
The tree of life; what power, what  mystery

Extinguished   candles   smoke at Tenebrae
We are blown to death however bold
We are little leaves upon the tree

Thus we sacrifice to God uncertainly
Yet as the wars continue, we grow cold
The tree of life; what power, what  mystery

Who has dropped us from the hands that hold?
Who has stolen certainty untold?
We are little leaves upon the tree
The tree of life; what power, what  mystery