I’m as old as grandad, older than his wife.
In the dark coal mine, he worked all night
I look down , dizzy at my longer life.

I’m Marvel, UHT, Carnation blyth.
While he worked the sun shone, rarely bright
I’m as old as grandad, older than his wife.

I’m packed and sterilised; I’m cut by knife.
I’m meat, corned beef,I’m ham tonight, alright?
I look down, I’m a sandwich made for life.

I’ve lived twice as long as Jesus Christ.
Holy Moses, what a strange insight!
I’m as old as grandad, older than his wife.

In the night, the images arrive.
His dog Lassie, who  rarely used to bark
I look round dizzy , wondering at this life

How I talked with Daddy in the park
How I  went with Grandad for a walk
As old as grandad, older than Dad’s wife.
I  stand up, grateful for my longer life.

Scott Fitzgerald wrote to get some cash.
His wife desired a watch  to cure her woe
He wrote a story at a crazy dash.

He worked away as if by devils lashed
One day only left to   get the dough
Scott Fitzgerald wrote to get some cash.

Out it came out in thunder, bang and smash.
More often, he  had tried to  find the flow
He wrote a story at a  manic dash.

Fast he worked and faster she did crash.
He got the watch but it was just so-so
Scott Fitzgerald wrote to get her cash.

She fell into the pit where demons flash
For  jewels  seemed not   to heal  her broken soul
He wrote a story  manic in its dash

The husband and the wife were well enmeshed
She tried trinkets, drink and measured flesh.
Scott Fitzgerald wrote to get her cash.
He wrote that story  so it came to pass.

,

Inside my mind, I dream of gleaming pearls,
Caterpillars, snails with swirling whorls.
I dream contented, all enwrapped;
With reverie and dream I’m lapped.
The inner seas will comfort me,
While gods open my eyes to see

T

The tulips pushed the primroses away
They took the pot from these innocuous  plants
Nature is not kind in such display
The powerful plants can do just what they want.

However, I admire their flowers of red
The shape is elegant, the colour clear.
And had they been in a much bigger bed
Both flowers would give us pleasure without fear.

And now magnolias pink my eyes adore
Two of them  I see from off the bus.
A visual parable, a story for
The short sweet life of all including us.

We deceive ourselves in order to survive.
But shallowness makes trivial  all our lives

Love too great can drown the one adored.
As if Jove sent  tsunami as a gift
Overwhelming all  her personal choice.

Little offerings gentle and deserved
Will  not frighten  neither be too swift
Love too great can drown the one adored.

Speaking kindly as we find our  voice
Not shouting love, when we ought to desist
Overwhelming other’s personal choice.

At other  times a lover’s been devoured
By that selfishness, we’re not impressed
Love too great can drown the one adored.

God alone can speak in such a voice
By his truth, all other is expressed
Overwhelming, merciful and right

Eros, selfish, sacred, who resists?
Keep your love in bounds, may it be blessed
Love too great can drown the one adored.
Overwhelming all their personal , unique worth

Misunderstanding love, she thought it  came by  force
She pushed the bottle to the baby’s lips
So for her lovers , love became a  vice

Free with  cruel comments, called “advice”
She urged her love with leather coated whips
Misunderstanding love, she thought it  came by force

By her will, she thought to make  love rise
Her victim’s  will was  there for her to clip
So for her victims, love became a  vice

They asked for mercy, pleaded for divorce
Nothing she’d not started got permit
Misunderstanding so, she thought love  could be forced

They ran, they cycled, stole a soldier’s horse.
But still she gasped, grasped nothing of their wit
So for her victims, love had been unwise.

What if Lucian Freud desired her sit?
Would he have made her muse and his culprit?
Misunderstanding love, she thought it  came by  force
So  in her victims walked, but left by hearse.

http://www.drmetablog.com/2009/04/nick-and-the-candlestick.html

I’m lost in worlds of mind and memory
Of people gone and problems that devour
When Nature calls out with her yields, her plea.

My  eye is turned without and what I see
Is food for senses numbed by Men of Power.
I leave  the world of mind and memory

Is anything as  alluring as a  tree
When sun  leaps through transparent leafy tower?
Good Nature holds out  generous, haunting pleas

We make a whole from visions fragmentary.
The truth is richer, fiercer, even rawer
So leave  the worlds of mind and memory

I see  the woods,  once  Tudor  hunting fields,
Where Anne Boleyn’s  young daughter showed her power,
Though motherless by father’s cruel decree.

Rain and sun, oh, watercolour free!
The  celandine haunts with its golden flower
Once lingering at the edge of how, maybe.
Now  Nature draws me in  with earthy plea

Adjoining to our house there was a space
It was about 10 feet wide
The builders of the the terrace of 10 small houses
Must have  miscalculated
Each house could have been one foot wider
We called it The Concrete
That was where I learned to ride a bike
My brother taught me to bowl overarm
I played twosie ball on the wall
A big girl taught me.
In the back street women had washing lines
When the bin men came  they had to bring it in
Mum washed the binmen’s mugs
Coated with thick ash and dirt
She thought it was the only time anyone washed them
She gave them boiling water too, to make tea in a tin can.
On Guy Fawkes day we had a bonfire.
Boys prowled throwing bangers across the road
Nobody called them louts, it was normal [for boys]
Boys were strong and brave
Girls could make cake and scream when they saw spiders
It was sex role division
Tough for nervous boys who didn’t want to kill spiders.
10 feet wide, a house long, The Concrete was our  little world.
Mum said, where’s your brother?
I said, he’s on The Concrete.
So she screeched his name from the doorstep.
Here,get me 8lb sugar on the road.
It’s on offer.
Life is  on offer but do we notice?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ebb-and-flow/201610/the-power-writing-poetry-in-old-age

Photos by Mike Flemming 2017 copyright

Quote:

After some initial resistance and discomfort, they now write relatively freely and openly; they are glad to tell their stories through poems. When I ask them to speak directly to the stars—or the moon or the sky— as Keats does in his poem, ‘Bright Star’, they are excited and adventurous. They have now written poems about music, childhood, roses, seasons, war. They have constructed persona poems and comparison poems and learned to use metaphors and similes. They take pride in both their own creations and those of their fellow poets. They love listening to what well-known poets have written.

And they have connected to the naturally poetic in their deepest selves, writing with increasing confidence about their wide range of personal experiences and emotions, from the very happy to the very sad.

In a recent poem that the workshop composed together, a collaborative poem about the end of WWll, Marie wrote:

‘There was a beautiful magnolia tree on our cobblestone street in the Bronx/ Before the war, my husband and I would spend hours and hours sitting under its magnificent blossoms/ Hours, hours/ So many of the boys from our neighborhood never made it home again/ Under the tree is a plaque for them/ Situated on a mound of grass/ Stars carved next to each of the dead soldiers’ names/ So many stars, too many stars’.

“This workshop is the best thing that has ever happened to me!” Marie announced at our last meeting.

Marie and my special, old age poets are viewing their days with fresh eyes.  They seem to be finding beauty and meaning everywhere—in their memories of the past and in today’s world around them— through the writing of poetry.

As Proust said, the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

3My hope died in my mind while I late read
At night while tears dried on my pallid face.
Did excessive thoughts of  Plath focus my dread?

My mother used to say that her heart bled
But never did we share a warm embrace
A mouse died to Cain’s rue the Bible said.

We mourn the loss of  those weighed down by lead
The  heart has rooms which accidents deface
Did the flight of   Sylvia Plath focus my dread?

My mother and my father shared a bed
I  rocked in cradle wild as outer space
A mouse lived in Dad’s  shoe, that’s why he’s dead.

My mother turned from father’s lost dear head
I  had come between them, blocked the joining place
As Ariel  tempted Plath, she willed her dread

Look again, oh mother, know my face.
Respond to my new being, give me place.
As she puts on her shoe,  she says I’m dead
Did thoughts disowned by  God desire her dread?

By

Worship now my gas-on-glass new hob
To clean and gracious looks my friends aspire
I am so kitsch, so stuck up I’m a snob
Though to be frank, I love an open fire.

Or wait, it’s  ceramic halogen I want
I’ll have to buy a  full set of new pans
Regardless of the  creditors who pant
I need magnetic bases, not tin cans.

How about the old gas cooker cleaned
And ceremonially baptised till it gleams
After all, on gas, I’ve entertained
Till nothing of the meals ever remained

I think I’ll go to cafes for my meals
And after that I’ll take the ones on wheels!

At last, I have discarded rotten fruit.
They say it’s hard, but I must disagree
Why! Old potatoes growing long white roots!

The old wives attempted myself to recruit
They say we spar but I do what suits me
At last, I have discarded all his loot

I rather fancied hunting Dad’s black boot.
They say aha but would you come to see
My cold relations wearing birthday suits!

I found poor Sylvia wrapped in winding sheets
Her Daddy barred her dying in his shoe.
She won the Prize but lost her children sweet

Some women say they  just desire a  brute.
Love is tardy when the wife is blue
If only she’d  turned down his  wedding suite

Love is hard but no worse than the flu
Life on guard is tense   but very now
Oh blast, I have discarded  the wrong lout
His hair was dyed but not right to the roots!

Photos Mike Flemming copyright 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondel_(poem)

Quote

A rondel is a verse form originating in French lyrical poetry of the 14th century. It was later used in the verse of other languages as well, such as English and Romanian. It is a variation of the rondeau consisting of two quatrains followed by a quintet (13 lines total) or a sestet (14 lines total). It is not to be confused with the roundel, a similar verse form with repeating refrain.

The first two lines of the first stanza are refrains, repeating as the last two lines of the second stanza and the third stanza. (Alternately, only the first line is repeated at the end of the final stanza). For instance, if A and B are the refrains, a rondel will have a rhyme scheme of ABba abAB abbaA(B)

The meter is open, but typically has eight syllables.

There are several variations of the rondel, and some inconsistencies. For example, sometimes only the first line of the poem is repeated at the end, or the second refrain may return at the end of the last stanza. Henry Austin Dobson provides the following example of a rondel:

See link for more

The gravity of loss brought me to earth
Beneath the rotting leaves, I lay with worms.
I wondered if I were of any worth

No more to be enchanted by love’s mirth,
I  with unnamed particles was turned.
The weight of loss bears down the heart to earth.

The weight of  love has readied us for birth
The fragments moulded with the love that burns.
I learned we need  not wonder  over  worth

My sorrow brought no guilt nor fear of wrath
I am both  sharp eyed eagle ,twisted worm.
In my little grave, I  loved the earth.

Like the adder, shocked into rebirth.
I from silent underworld had learned
Not to judge my soul nor think of worth.

I shall not  fear the flames of hell that burn.
When blackness is accepted, may one learn?
The weight of loss breaks down the soul to earth
With dusty shredded leaves, we then converse

It is terrible to desire and not possess
It is terrible to possess and not desie.

W B Yeats

What we love in other human
beings is the hoped for satisfaction
.of our desire.We do not love their
desire.If what we loved in them
was their desire, then we should
love them as ourself.

Simone Weil

Quoted in ” Tenebrae” by Geoffrey Hill

The blossom blooms, indifferent to man
It follows its design to reproduce.
And men complain, for men now rarely can;
Must sublimate their power to other use.

And yet we may in reveries of joy
Feel one with nature ,happy and in grace.
This mood can overwhelm the girls and boys
And like all living creatures, they embrace.

If we stray too far from origin
When we are disembodied into minds
We split ourselves to doubles, so to twin
The intellect then lives, the heart is blind.

Our bodies are not devils in their sin
We are our bodies  and should live therein

“Among its many counter-intuitive ideas, quantum theory proposed that energy was not continuous but instead came in discrete packets (quanta) and that light could be described as both a wave and a stream of these quanta.”Extract from article in Guardian.

Energy comes in packets usually known in Britain as biscuits.

When we lose our love we can’t prepare
Our  first defences keep us  from despair
So when your neighbours see your stricken face
They turn and your new image is erased.

Alone in a bleak landscape, we shun change;
No new saucepans or we are  deranged
The world must be preserved, not changed at all
A memento of our love before the Fall.

To  distant lands, we’re sent to serve our time
In that place of edges, borderlines.
When language fails  we talk in metaphors
We symbolise the missing  one who’s died

But after Auschwitz, how can I  complain?
For grief itself is love that has remained.

I’m sorry I can’t answer the phone.I have got earplugs in.
I can’t answer the phone. I  have lost the handset
I can’t take your call as the cat has swallowed my earplug and I need it.If you know how to get them out of a cat please leave a message, otherwise, I am not here in spirit.
I am dying my hair and I dropped the phone into the solution.I have to wait for it to dry.Still, it will match my hair.
I don’t take calls from politicians.
If you are selling Windows, I already have 10.
I have not been in a car accident.I have no car.Goodbye.
I can’t get your call.Please send a hint.

My brief excursion into springtime sun
The pleasure of the leaf buds palest green
This made my cold return and my eyes run.

I thought, while eating cheese, delight had come
But now my nose is leaking  like a drain
My great excursion into springtime sun!

The robin came inside and looked for him!
My spouse who died and caused my heart such pain
This made my cold return; my eyes still run.

I like to sit in silence when I’ m done.
The Rose of Sharon, will she bleed again?
My sad excursion into springtime sun!

The peace perceptible may one day come
But Europe with her conquests rides the slain.
This made my grief return; my wet eyes run.

The  Aryan Norsemen with their fierce disdain
Have conquered half the world and left it stained
And I, their daughter, from  those loins, have come
This makes my pain return  and I’m undone

“I think most artists are fundamentally inconsolable. That’s why they keep doing it.”

Today the sky is misty with grey cloud.
Forsythia’s golden haze brightens my view.
All buds will open while the birds sing loud.

Lately, the small trees to winds did bow.
An attitude religious, as they knew.
Today the sky is misty with grey cloud.

The male beasts fight, with hormones well endowed.
The strongest stag will mate, he beats the queue.
Buds still open gently; birds sing loud.

The seeds will germinate in land well ploughed.
The farmhands’  faces sweat like flowers in dew.
The sky looks dull and dusty with grey cloud.

I wish that men and women were allowed
To leave their work and see the world renewed
See buds open , hear birds sing aloud.

What might be seen by all is seen by few.
The world created every day anew.
Today the sky is misty with full clouds.
Soft buds  open while the birds sing loud

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/leonard-cohen-the-key-songs-and-what-they-mean-1.2864114