Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

The flowers scent

A sightless man on the cliff could smell the scents
As his daughter spoke the flowers names
He seemed happy, more than just content
A blind man in the garden sniffed the scents
We drank our tea with joy at careful chant
The sea was dancing, in and out it came
A sightless man near the cliff enjoyed the scents
His daughter told to all the flowers names

The emptiness

Without you, I feel the emptiness
The future seems a gaping void
Without you,I feel the loneliness
Without you, I feel the emptiness
My heart still feel essential homelessness
I ache for my lost life destroyed
Without you, I feel the emptiness
The future seems an endless void

Do try to be more boring

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My photo

1.Wear a dull beige or grey knitted hat and shapeless beige padded jacket
2 Carry a plastic handbag or briefcase.
3 Knit your eyebrows
4.Mutter inaudibly as you walk
5 Sing Joan of Arc and wave your arms like Jennifer Warnes when queuing in Tesco’s.Maybe that’s more insane than boring
6 Ask people at the bus stop if they like Pritti Patel.
7.Keep mentioning Boris Johnson in a puzzled manner as id
8.Tell everyone how ill you feel and ask them what they think of bunion operations.
9.Ask them if someone moves their gadgets round at night while they are asleep
10.If asked to meet for coffee,say you don’t drink if wondering who he is
11 Tell your lover all about Wittgenstein while he is caressing your supine body.
12.Ask your lover to define postmodernism after they kiss you
13.Use cliches like , at this moment in time, getting down to the nitty gritty, whenever possible
14.Don’t keep up to date in which spectacles are in fashion.Say, what ‘s wrong with these.especially if they resemble Dame Edna Everage’s. Or  if you have mended them with Elastoplast or elephant tape
15 Always talk more than anyone you are with or
16  Never talk
17.Ask women why they wear trousers.
18 Ask people how often they wash their jeans
19 Try to convert people to your religion as often as you can
20.Say  you never eat foreign  food while you eat a Chinese take away
21  Cry  when someone else eats the last cream puff
22 Say you never watch sport as you believe wearing shorts is a mortal sin.
23 Ask people if you can borrow  their vibrator as your  hand held blender is broken and you want to make sponge cake
24 Never read a paper or hear the News
25 Ask someone why Moses has descendants while Plato has none.
26 Ask an orthodox Jew why God hates pork.
27,Ask a Catholic if  they are on the pill.
28 Never flirt or even look at people
29 Never  make jokes
30 Never read lists nor funny books

The Saxon cliffs at Hythe

I remember turquoise sea and sky
Burning stubble in the fields longside
Coming down the Saxon cliffs at Hythe

Joy had straightened all that was awry
By the shore we saw the tide was high
Only I remember turquoise sky


Colour makes me glad to be alive
The flowers were open with a spirit blithe
Atop the newer cliffs, a cafe hides

Joy is never found when willpower strives
Just as love’s destroyed when lovers lie
I remember sea turned teal, blue sky


Freed fom our hard work we felt alive
The sea triumphant inward seemed to glide
We came down the Saxon cliffs at Hythe

In my heart these memories survive
Colour,shore, the images abide
I remember turquoise sea surprised
Coming down the Saxon cliffs at Hythe

The lifeboat

We are in this boat together
Sailing across the bay.
Some have an easy voyage,
The wind is blowing their way
I wish I could always be sailing
Across an ocean with you
And never reach the other side
though it may be in view.
I want to see the sunrise
Across the dappled sea.
The ripples of the water
Reveal a new world to me.
One day this boat will reach the shore
Unless destroyed by storm
And I shall have to leave your arms
Where I have been so warm.
So just before we get there
I wanted you to know
That I shall always love you
Wherever you may go.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

The handkerchief pan

In the evening. simmering handkerchiefs
Perfumed the air with odours I can’t tell
Mother scrubbed them, hung them on the line
Then I had to iron them, folded well

Now we have our tissues, we don’t need
Hankies that need scrubbing many times
The oceans  deep are  poisoned  with our  waste
Is the use of tissues a  new crime?

While we did our  homework  after tea
My brother  liked his Wagner at  full blast
Imagine  learning Latin  with that din
Now the time for anger  has  long passed

Bad memories change  by  newly given grace
Evoking hints of  mother and her face

The cake tins

I see the tins I used for Christmas Cakes
The Russian Cheese Cake and the apple tart
Nowadays do younger women bake?

I remember mother making Buns
Hot,uncross, she made cakes with her heart
Her apple suet pudding beat her plum

The kitchen was a room with its own fire
There we ate and cooked and fought,alarmed
Children pinch and nip and even bite

I banged my head upon the table sharp
The corners seemed to hate me,even spurn
I wished I were a dog so I could bark

I fell down the stairs, it was a thrill
It hurt less than the beatings made me smart
Children were deprived of any will

Shall these cake tins from my home depart?
Shall I make a small cake from a chart?
I hold the tin I used for Christmas Cake
Watching TV where new experts bake

Pen and bell

In this so called office,I am trapped
Trying hard to write and to adapt
I have numerous pens in this my cell
Reminding me of school, the longed for bell

Ten past four, we put on winter clothes
I crossed the Park in fog, it wet my nose
Walking down our street I’d see the cat
Sitting on the pavement, Ginger spat

I put the kettle on to make our tea
The coal glowed low and red like elves in glee
The aluminium teapot never broke
The kettle had turned black , the milk was smoked

I had that tiny piece from others free
That was when I learned that I am Me

Where are you from?

I’ve spent so long listening to Leonard Cohen when I’ve been sad,I now have a semi- Canadian accent.


One day I was at the bus stop and noone was around so
I sang “Joan of Arc” which takes 7 minutes
The nest time I met a friend, she said,I didn’t know you could
sing.She was behind her hedge!
I used to listen to the same songs over and over again

https://youtu.be/2zjLBWnZGTU

The war for peace

Like psychotic infants huge with rage
The human race grew rich on war not peace
Until at last the whole world was engaged
World Wars the great Plays on this our stage
Like psychotic infants hot with rage
Their burning breath took books,rich page by page
All imagined horror they increased
Like psychotic infants wild with rage
The human race fooled into War for Peace


No light in the dark after tea

I wanted to go the bathroom
But the Council has closed them all down
What shall we do
When we can’t find a loo
Anywhere in the whole town?

Some people cut back on water
But that makes your urine too strong
Drink diet lemonade
Over which nuns have prayed
Otherwise you may be shunned

The city has no fields and hedges
Where peasants could find some relief
Our bodies and bladders ruled
By this old ship of fools
Unbuild all the cities with streets

I washed my own hair in the kitchen
We had no bathroom,you see
We had out own lavatory
In the back yardery
No light in the dark after tea

I am glad that I have my own bathroom
It’s much better when I menstruate
I can see my own blood
Sometimes in flood
I wish I’d sent that to the Tate

I prefer it green

Bless me ,Father, I have sinned again
Needlessly I caused my lover pain
If he asks for whipping, use a cane
I cannot strike the one I love, be plain
My sin is in my tongue,I call him names
I feel you need to show a bit more shame
Do no others try their love to tame?
Don’t fool with me,I guess you are insane.
If I am, it’s God that is to blame
Don’t you know to say that is a crime?
You mix your legal and your moral zones.
I’ve had enough of this,I’m going home
Will your lover come across to Rome?
No,we live in sin, please change your tone
I am sad for I live all alone
I can only recommend you find a crone
I’d prefer a witch, is this the time?
Any time is right if there’s a line
You mean I have to phone them,I can try
It’s up to you, quit moaning, you’ll be fine
I’d better wash my hands and have a cry
Let it out and sin with no more sighs
Thanks for that,I think you’re very wise
Moreover I do like your gorgeous eyes
This is about the end,I know you spy
I’d love you, if you told me truly why.
Now we are absolved we need a fry
Get the eggs, the bacon’s turning grey
I prefer it green, so go away























Oh, what is left this world, its might?

 I can’t write poems about   the Fall
Plastic window,  curtain calls
Coloured  clothes pegs and the iron
Men with names like Kid and Lion

I can’t write poems  about  my school
Nor   algebraic  rings of fools
I hate to eat from plates at dinner
Am I   on the spectrum, not a sinner?

I cannot write about the Christ
Evoking grief at  sacrifice.
Paedophilia   hid by men
Men whose lies  might come again

Oh, what is left this world, its might?
Seek the grace to see and  fight

No

No,I won’t recover from your loss
People tell me I should not be sad
Everyone must carry their own Cross
So,I won’t recover from your loss
I will pay whatever it will cost
This is partly choice, to love the lost
From my grandad to my husband via my dad
No,I won’t recover from your loss
Oh,people let me sing that I am sad

Of the green

In the birdbath filled by summer rain
I saw the baby wood pigeon again
So safe  the garden,  birds became quite tame
Secret,silent, sweet,no cats, it kept me sane

The bird was washing,splashing all about
With darted glances,so few I could count
Then it  flew up into a large tree
Holly,maple, apple,I could see

Though it’s winter, sunshine makes me dream
Gazing through the window at this scene
Sap is stirring,rising in soft  light
Making these bare branches a new sight

Love came down and lit up  this,my heart
Then the grace of being  made its start

Only

0nly a damp darkness
shows us winter’s here
only that darkness knowst
the shadows of fear
only the pale low sunlight,
cloudy sky
only the daylight comes
where dead leaves lie
only an invisible life
harbinger of spring
so much good hidden
yet time will bring
only the winter sky
only as clouds go by
dead leaves
keep creatures warm
in the winter storm
March will bring new buds,
As small birds will sing

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Now the melancholy’s gone

I feel a kind of numbness on this January day
The darkness came down sudden and I feel it’s here to stay
Shall I make myself some tea and pretend that you are here?
I feel naked like the wood underneath that swish veneer

I’m feeling kinda nothin’ now the melancholy’s gone
Should I be doing summat that’ll give me, like, some fun?
The silence is not threatening, but neither is it good
Did you ever wish yourself , you weren’t made of flesh and blood?

I’m feeling so damned stupid for falling on my back
My shoulder was in agony and there’s whiplash in my neck
The doctor, he injected me, but he said it’s down to luck
He may have missed the mark, he says and I just say,oh heck

Apparently the elderly are not in much demand
I heard a sorta whisper as my head went in the sand
We must keep this hidden or we’ll frighten off the young
They don’t seem to notice but the cat does lick my hand

I didn’t know how old I was till the clock flew off the wall
Isn’t it uncanny what you see before the Fall?

The labels, me and you

Get your label, do not go unmarked
Star of David, tattoos on the arm
Would that Jesus sprang out from the dark
With his eyes compassionate yet stark
Get your label, do not go unmarked
Let some demon burn you in the dark
See the angels haunted ,wanting balm
Get your label, do not go unmarked
Star of David, tattoos on the arm

Hair like golden silk and eyes of blue
Valkyrie do your task without alarm
Noone needs to put a mark on you
Even with your penance overdue
Hair like golden silk and eyes of blue
Can one’s present virtue be assumed?
Making contact, eyes that more than charm
Hair like golden silk and eyes of blue
Valkyrie do your task with wasting charm

How to write more cliches:the railways as referred to by a Minister

Photo by Gabriela Palai on Pexels.com
“Returning these routes to their former glory, and progressing work to reopen even more lines and stations, shows our commitment to levelling up journeys across the country as we build back better from the pandemic.” (Grant Shapps)

Resting in friends’ love

Resting in the love of all my friends
I’m soothed like infants in their padded cots
This love is live and rarely does it end
When people really meet the gods descend
Resting in the love of all my friends
Imagining that sunshine will ills mend
Make us grateful for the good we’ve got
Resting in the love of all our friends
We’re soothed when reading words we had forgot


Love has begun


  • I can’t love you
    without loving the whole world too.
    I can’t open my heart
    unless everyone can be part.Wait for me.
    I’m not afraid.
    Wait for me.
    I may be delayed.I see you in my mind,
    Smiling, sad and kind.
    I can’t love you
    Unless I love the lost too.Give me your hands
    Outstretched across the world.
    We’re all one
    Love has begun