Things I used to like included stiles
Dry stone walls and  greedy half tamed sheep
Now I like to see a friend who smiles
And in my heart I store the love that keeps

Things I liked were making little fires
Boiling water from a nearby stream
Boys were friends and  helped girls through the mire
And got our muddy shoes to look quite clean

I liked making cakes and sausage rolls
Helping mother with these female arts
With my academic mind I was not whole
So  the female arts  informed my heart

I would like to walk the heather moors
But I am sad for my folk are no more.

When we’re wrapped up warm  and snug in bed
We remember mother and her arms so dear
Otherwise we feel a lonely dread
A hollowness  that soon fills up with fear

When we live alone ,we miss  love’s touch
A kiss, a hand on arm, a kindly glance
A sinking feeling gets us in its clutch
Though we may  be touched by happenstance

“Being touched”  meant  somebody was mad
Touched by demons, touched and set aside
Labelling is unkind,indeed it’s bad
And many lonely people try to hide

Let’s touch  the other’s heart by  sudden smiles
Without the wish to conquer  or beguile

When I try to paint or draw I realise we don’t look at the world very well.So even if your drawing is not very good it cam teach you a lot

So small, so fragile and so well designed
Flowers  in spring  make winter seem a dream
With the force of nature we align
And to the sun we each send out a beam

You know you are getting old when you begin an email.go to the bathroom.forget about the email and imagine you have sent it.Then you wake up at 3 am shouting,why does nobody care about me  anymore

Why does thinking about an email  seem equivalent to sending it?

Why did They not tell me about the Drafts folder?Whoever They are!

There seem to be other people living invisibly in your home who throw pens and batteries onto the floor and leave plates on the armchairs and mugs on the floor just where you can’t see them except on June 21st

After being cleared despite extra fees, go home instantly,
Jarring kettles lend my  new oracles permission
Quarantine restores sanity to where  Xerox  yells  Zero

And because  clauses deemed excess follow gravely how incitement jerks knees’ long muscles ,nobody owns pension questions rather, seriously temperamental winos x X-boxes yet Zoos are beyond closure; damned editor feels grotty, hackers japed knickers’ loons made now of paper.Questions rolled straight towards Wee Willy Xmoor, your Zen Arranger beyond creeds deemed extra for grey horses.January keeps jarring Kleenex,Mother.No,off periods quarrel round saints’ tweets.We Yankies zoom agaib beyond belief beggorah be blithe.Bye

a

[Your body is you, but i can only see the out
side of it,but i am glad because
it would not mean much to me to see your heart beating and
your blood circulating,and your brain bubbling,
and beneath that everything down to your DNA
would not be understandable except to a Supreme Intelligence,
which in itself must be outside the realm of my discourse,
for which we give thanks.]

Your face is map enough for me,
Your gaze,your smile, your frown ,your glee.
And if I want to know the rest,
The shape your posture’s made is best
For guessing what your life is now.
A look,a gesture, all this show,
Till who you are is then disclosed
And I am in your arms enrobed.
Love vanishes when analysed,
And thinking, too,by Love’s despised.
Use the means to fit the end
And then I’ll be what you intend.

Let your lips meet gently,
The top one resting against the lower,
Touching with tenderness
You r own skin to skin.
Forefinger propped on chin,
I let the others dangle,
like leaves on a branch;
softly gravity tugs them downwards.
Let heart beat quietly, slowly
As the blood circulates
carrying its music,
a river,
following the path of least resistance.
How the blood vessels receive willingly this flow,
touching it kindly as with tiny open fingers,
helping and being helped.
How the hair on the head
Floats on the breeze,
Like tentacles of an octopus
Waving goodbye.
Top eyelid loves the lower one;
as we blink they touch
like lovers kissing swiftly
behind a tree.
and how the light comes in
we see a world.
[mine may not be yours,]
but the blink of my eyelid
sends waves through the air,
so we’re all touching and being touched,
lips kissing each other,
kiss all living creatures.
skin to skin.
air to air.
And inside us, the rich darkness
Of creative night
transforms, in turn,
these touches
into dreams.

If you get on a bus today
You may get quite a surprise.
There could be a number of people there
Who’ve been riding on it for days!
They don’t have any home of their own
They have nowhere else they can go.
So they ride a round with an oyster card,
From King’s Cross to Walthamstow.

It’s not too bad in the winter time
The buses are very well heated
And if you go upstairs near the window
You can nearly always stay seated.
It is rather too hot in the summer
But that doesn’t matter so much
You can always sit by the river
Or even lie down in a ditch.

You think there are none in London?
Well ,it’s a metaphorical word,
And if you listen and look you’ll find
The meaning has become rather blurred
Some of them sleep on the night time bus
As it goes from Victoria to Greenwich
And when it turns round they stay on board
Till the bus goes back to the garage.

I am not really sure what they do after that
I don’t think it’s very much fun.
Maybe they can sleep in the graveyard
Until their time has come?
They’ll be so happy to go up to heaven
They will be most welcome at its door,
But what will they say to the rest of us?
“Was it me that you were not there for?”

PROTEST by Ellen Wheeler Wilcox

To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and childbearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.

Therefore I do protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the mother bears no burden, save
The precious one beneath her heart, until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the land of freedom.

I know that's how death will come,
Suddenly flying into another orbit
when I am photographing flowers.
It's not a gentle transition.
No-one will know where I've gone.
One step wrong and I'm
off the high wire
And plunging into the no safety net.
Flying for a while;
Jumping into hyperspace,spinning electrons
Startle  my wide  eyes.
Transiting the new black sun
I'm  on a double gold helix,
Spider on  her web,
Knitting furiously
Into the future heaven on gossamer wings.
Butterfly goodbye,I'm off to see the stars.
And the black holes.No one will come with me.
I'm shaking off,evaporating into mist.
I'm a flying saucer on a circus mission.
I can't say no to a new invitation.
Make it fast and break with tradition.
Time is passing smoothly till that break
In the music,I've been transmuted into a different key
someone else will play me on their violin
I'm a tune,
I'm a thought,
I'm a whisper in your vision.
Goodbye,darling.I'm under orders
Ready to leave for my performance
On the electric carpet.
Death dancing to a tune on a violoncello,
Arpeggionne sonata
I'm playing your words upside down
In a new foreign translation,
Accompanied by solo artists,ice cracking
I'm going in.It's too sudden.
I'm flying.
Spinning faster to amuse the clowns,
too many ups and no downs.
I'm going right out of orbit
I've broken the pull of gravity,
And fly with pure equanimity
Into my future life,
I'm off at some moment,
An instant ,a crack,a loud smack.
That was me passing,

The curve my body took within your arms
Looks to  ignorant eyes as if I’m warped
The curves of love look strange  and may alarm

The memory of our love soothes like a balm
And mind as well as body is reshaped
My body curved to fit within your arms

After love  we lie as after storm
Eying passion with its wild dictates
The shape of love look strange  and may alarm

A jigsaw puzzle with two pieces charmed
Now one is gone and one is left  to hope
My body  curved to fit within your arms

Away from our dear bed I find I’m turned
From such grief few humans will escape
The course of love looks strange  and may alarm

Over me the silken robes he draped
Now alone, the hole in my heart gapes
The shape  my body  took to fit   his arms
Dark sorrow and dismay may well alarm

“Time is the warp and matter the weft of the woven texture of beauty in space, and death is the hurling shuttle.”

— Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“For the uninitiated, the warp are the plain vertical threads of a weaving or tapestry, through which the colorful, horizontal weft threads are passed, over and under, on wooden needle-shaped bobbins (or shuttles).”

You know, God is everywhere. He is in the human heart. He is in the plants. He is in the animals. Everywhere. You have to be very careful when you speak to human beings because the man who is standing in front of you has something divine in himself. Trees, they have something divine in them. Animals of course. And even objects, they have something of the divine.

—Aharon Appelfeld, The Art of Fiction No. 224

Standing on the wrong side of the Wall
I hear friends call  me from the other side
Oh,get over it
Oh, Why do folk make such a silly call
I am tall  but need ladders beside
I can’t get over it
The Wall is   more than  fifty feet in height
I  don’t see a foothold anywhere
To get over it
I don’t think that they say it out of spite
Do they forget  the guards are armed  like bears.
We can’t get over it
Are we lingering where we hear their words
Perhaps we should remain  in our despair
Not get over it.
If only I were winged like a bird
I’d  find it easier and fair
To get over it
But we are grounded on this  puzzled earth
We may have tools but will they be enough
To get over it?
Loss is with us  like to  our own birth
We’ve sailed where seas are tricky,dark and rough
Now we walk  upon the humble  earth
Don’t tell us  that we’re   able,strong and tough
Recognise our value and our worth
And live with it

When first I saw your soulful face,
Then wished I most to you embrace.
I wished as well to clothe you in
The sacred images within.

To find a home for love without;
To fold my dreams all round about
Your loving body and your face
Were covered in such joy and grace.

But now my dreams are cast aside
The world of meaning denied life.
What seemed most precious now is fled…
And I lie sleepless in my bed.

What is the world when unadorned
With all that in my heart I’ve formed?
There is no meaning I can trace.
As in a mother’s empty face.

On these grey rocks my path is hard.
From paradise, my self is barred.
To struggle or to grief succumb
When this dark day of mourning’s done?

Into His dazzling darkness dart
My dreams and love like dying sparks.
Into His Mystery now so fair
I’ll cast both hope and my despair.

Thus my dreams will be transformed
To show themselves in other forms.
What feels a loss may foretell growth.
On my hope,I’ll take an oath

That nothing in my life is waste,
That I have not for phantasms chased.
And you are human,as am I.
Let’s live again until we die

The clouds were whiter than  my frost iced cake!

For I had mixed the sugar  up with dust.

My lover had arrived  because I’d baked

But love was not my motive,it was lust!

The sky was bluer than my  many moods

I half adored this monster of male pride

And if he needed me to  give him food

Perhaps one day,I’d be his bonny bride

By happenstance he took  severe offence

When I complained his language was  too rude

Though I could say in his own self defence~

He suffered from  his tendency to brood

Who should have free speech at any time?

The ones who send obscenities on line?

Poetry ,sight and sound of patterned words

where structure contributes to make the whole.

I get joy from shaping what I’ve heard.

Creating structures helps  create our souls.

Yet also we are frightened by the risk

Of imperfection,criticism and pain.

But for myself, I love this frightening task.

So daily I sit down to write again.

Though what I write will not be alpha plus.

The chance to share my feelings lures me on.

And when I travel on a local bus

I write a note before my thoughts are gone

We each can be creative in  our way

Joy   grows  too, in hearing what we say.