Category: death

Coming in my direction

I’m waiting for it to hit me.

It’s far away but it’s coming

It’s a dagger with a sharp point

Thrown by some errand angel

It’s a flat pebble thrown by a fisherman

It’s a stiletto heel broken off someone’s shoe

It’s flying through the air and its destiny is my heart.

When it hits me….. the shock will be unmeasurable.

Don’t go don’t go I can’t believe you’re going to go.

Now they say you’ve gone but it was only in a text message there was no phone call.

Someone far away fired a shot

The bullet’s not found me yet but it’s got all the technology needed to find it’s true destination

So I’m like a dead Man walking

It must have hit me already but I haven’t felt it yet but one day this numbness will wear off

You see I’m dead already but my legs keep moving my hands still floating in the air

Still breathing and then the slow collapse

It was only a few minutes but it seems like hours,.

Then I’ll be with her again

I knew she would die but why did she have to shoot me right at the end like that?

The world itself has cracks across

Infinite the drop between one step and the next.

Is it better not to look down?

We can’t control everything.

There’s a crack,a smack a loud thwack.

It was just me passing

A little peace

One damaged cell can divides  until it kills.

For in the end we pay the rich man’s bills.

The air polluted ravages and maims

Now it’s cruelly late to curse and blame

Oh sister how we played  with our dolls’ prams

In our industrial  town there were no lambs.

No sheep could safely graze in smokey streets.

No lark would rise amazed, the dawn to  greet.

For you my sister breathed in that bad air

We hear  the tread, the  foot steps on the stair.

So patient stil, I wish that you would shout.

From your eye I see one tear fall out.

My single sister I can see your pain

Your lips are dry you cough and cough again.

Your mouth is hurting so you cannot eat.

And on the telephone you barely speak

In the world  some million others groan

Yes we’re fragile merely flesh and bone

Even so the tears run in my sleep.

Into my face these tears will slowly seep.

I didn’t grasp at first that she would die

And leave me here alone to curse and cry

Hold me in your arms my kindly friends.

From your touch a little peace descends

The buttercups are burning in the fields

The buttercups are burning in the fields
The sun is hanging low as if to see
The Ash fall to the earth, the level sealed

 

The grass turns brown ,the barley ripe will kneel.
The hares are  leaping,wait, I watch them  flee.
The buttercups are burning in the fields

 

The Honeysuckle  curves like a red  wheel
Hanging  flowers still humming with brown bees
The ashes to the earth   dark riches yield

 

This fiery  land will flaunt its bright appeal
As from the  trees hang ghosts  of still born leaves
The buttercups are burning in the fields

 

The spiders wait, the rabbits ,raunchy,  reel.
What is this Earth  our eyes, all new, perceive
Where ashes to the earth   dark riches yield?

 

Who are we such dark gold to receive
When humans  trick each other and deceive?
The buttercups are burning in the fields
Their ashes  shall redeem as  richness yields

From the bitter winter of the heart






We  feel the bitter winter of the heart
The icy hand ,the cruel teeth’s sharp bite
When close friends die, when lovers break apart

Terse,cruel words can make our deep self smart
The weak have  little power to make things right
So feel the bitterest winter of their hearts

Humans may like fruit be much too tart
Thus fantasied revenge  can  blind with light
As close friends die or false lovers depart

While we suffer, we seek maps and charts
Which path to  follow,which leads us aright
From  the bitter winter of the heart?

The muscles clench, the ligaments are taut
Faces frown, in mirrors demons  shriek
If close friends die or lovers haste to part

The pain of loss, the tears that agitate
The mental functions,all have gone on strike
Stricken in  the  winter of the heart

Retaliation , bitter, wants to fight.
Yet we have little time to see the Light
We   curse the bitter winter of the heart
Instinct, humbler. finds for us new charts

From the bitter winter of the heart






We  feel the bitter winter of the heart
The icy hand ,the cruel teeth’s sharp bite
When close friends die, when lovers break apart

Terse,cruel words can make our deep self smart
The weak have  little power to make things right
So feel the bitterest winter of their hearts

Humans may like fruit be much too tart
Thus fantasied revenge  can  blind with light
As close friends die or false lovers depart

While we suffer, we seek maps and charts
Which path to  follow,which leads us aright
From  the bitter winter of the heart?

The muscles clench, the ligaments are taut
Faces frown, in mirrors demons  shriek
If close friends die or lovers haste to part

The pain of loss, the tears that agitate
The mental functions,all have gone on strike
Stricken in  the  winter of the heart

Retaliation , bitter, wants to fight.
Yet we have little time to see the Light
We   curse the bitter winter of the heart
Instinct, humbler. finds for us new charts

Loving memories

I look up our small street,
To see if you are coming.
I don’t know what time it is,
But I think I hear you humming.

You sang sweet songs for us,
And you could whistle well.
You wore an old tweed jacket
You loved us,I could tell.

I look out there each day,
But I can’t see your tall, thin shape.
I saved your Woodbine packet,
It made me feel some hope.

What does death’s door mean?
Where has Daddy gone?
When will be the welcome day,
When we hear his songs again?

I’ll sing like him all day,
I’ll dream of him all night.
I hope he won’t be angry,
If his cigarettes won’t light!

He can’t write his own songs now.
He went too far away, too soon.
I’ll write down what I think he sang,
And I’ll invent the tune.

I hear him singing now,
He dwells inside my heart.
And though I still can’t see his face,
I recognise his Art.

The river in the Chilterns

I wish I were in Hertfordshire again

The River Lea a small and sparkling stream.

As I sit here clutching my gel pen

Facing a blank page, oh paper clean

I think about our holidays and walks

Now I barely get across the room.

I miss you for your feelings and the thoughts.

Sitting on the riverbank relaxed

Where has gone my treasure once unsought?

All alone I sit here and reflect

Loving these quiet memories I have brought

Once your love was here but now it’s gone

You float away like water over stones.

To find a  hole, an absence and a dread

When I am happier than I am today
I seem to feel your presence and your gaze
But now I turn to where you sat and read
To find a  hole, an absence and  a dread

A lack  of energy,  a grey fatigue
A feeling that my heart unholy bleeds
Gives me no new  vibrance nor new look
I feel as dead as an old library book

Alas  I woke   one happy day to joy
Then off  it rode like an unstable boy
And when the doom descended then I cursed
For that  brief joy made my dumb dark heart  feel worse

If I could live like butterflies all bright
I should  have  my days of sun and light

Reflections

I knew myself in his face when he lived

But now I have no mirror,I’m alone.

I learned myself reflected in his love.

An actual mirror seems like a dull stone

I was alive when mirrored his eyes

For those who hate us do not give us life.

What’s the answer when when the loved one dies?

Without a husband there can be no wife.

All alone my blood seems not to flow.

The wellspring of my heart is arid,dry.

My hands curl up protective on my heart

I have no tears and so I cannot cry.

Yet I bleed inside from every part.

So where is my reflection, where my grace?

I feel I cannot live without his face.

Contractions

We lose our health we lose our lovers friends

Death comes slow but faster at the end

Now we can’t afford to use the lights

We feebly rage against the coming night.

Once our life expanded as we grew

Every year was filled with actions new.

Marriage job promotion travel fun

We never thought that one day we’d be done.

Who can fight against the dying light?

Once so strong and fierce your heart gave up

Oh my love I miss you in the night..

Filled with sorrow, we must drain the cup.

Aging is like dying everyday

Slowly slowly each life ebbs away

St Margaret’s Bay

St Margaret’s Bay,the lighthouse,the green grass

,The Kentish light,the avenues of glass

See across the Channel where they hide

Drowning migrants rolling on the tide.

Who are they,we say  in cruel tone  ?

Jesus lived in Bethlehem, not Rome

Higher climbs the butterfly in sun .

Disappearing, burnt to Kingdom come

No fixed àddress

Noone saw me,no one met my eyes.

I felt the life inside me wilt and die

Of no value to the human race

If no-one saw them they would not exist

Leonard Cohen”s name was on a list.

I almost burned away in hot distress

The charred remains would have no fixed address.

Like the Jews who wandered for a space,

No eyes no gold ,no teeth, I am a Jew

I have no tongue to speak, nor language too.

In the local park

By the flowerbed Dad and I would talk

In 1952 he still could walk

We spent the afternoon in Willows Park

At least there were some sparrows if not larks.

He wore a jacket made of thinning tweed

He felt cold in summer hence the need

He smoked cheap cigarettes I love their smell

Though they killed you Daddy I know well.

I did not understand that God was frail

I prayed for you but all to no avail.

The Jews in Auschwitz must have prayed at first

Then singing Kaddish stumbled to their deaths

God cannot be judged though humans can

Each Jew was a real person like I am

Wounded by Katherine

Every living person is another world

In its Imagination Europe failed

But could Daddy have been saved for ten more years?

Does even the best neighbour really care?

Few will help us mourn the ones we lost

Their feeble hearts just cannot bear the cost

Am I a saint myself for I am frail

Hiding from the lightning and the hail

Away from home

I’ve been so far away from home

I’ve been so lonely without you

I heard the ghosts here as they moaned

And they made me feel so blue

We drove past bulging linseed  fields

In Suffolk with its bonny views

We stopped to have a meal

I can’t remember how I’ve been  

I see that you have gone

And left  me weeping here bereft

There’s always been someone

Is this another test?

I can’t live without your smile

Without your eyes and tender hands

Come with me for a while

To play like children on the sands.

Oh sands of Dunwich bay

Where the amber used to hide

I don’t know what to say

I’m sailing out on the

spring tide

Never ever coming home again

Strong at the broken places by Katherine copyright 2007
Trees by Katherine Copyright
Blue by Katherine.Digital drawing

I’m going to give you medication now

To keep the sugar in your blood quite low

He fell, the War Memorial was, his doom

Broke his nose, not coming home

His eye bled and his brain

His cheekbone did complain

Oh, he’s never,never, coming home àgain.

In the ambulance they screamed

Whilst his blood congealed

He’s never never coming home àgain

They asked him could he count

Dying,I lament

God don’t mind dementia in the Saints

O cruel sun

The sun appeared but now has left us here

With dull grey sky and trees as cruel as spears

We control our homes as best we can

But. Nature is a Force more strong than Man

Even in our bodies we feel pain

Thus evil is around us like a stain

Why does God all powerful not step in?

When children die,when wars begin again?

When every state has weapons for mass kills

Jesus dies with victims of our Will

We allowed the government our tax

So our evil to the worst is matched

O cruel sun

The sun appeared but now has left us here

With dull grey sky and trees as cruel as spears

We control our homes as best we can

But. Nature is a Force more strong than Man

Even in our bodies we feel pain

Thus evil is around us like a stain

Why does God all powerful not step in?

When children die,when wars begin again?

When every state has weapons for mass kills

Jesus dies with victims of our Will

We allowed the government our tax

So our evil to the worst is matched

Do not die my catheter is dry

I caught the tube for urine on my toe

The catheter is hurting more and more

I want to run away but I can’t walk

Mother take me home, it’s getting dark

I paid my monthly phone bill with a card

I must talk to friends when life is hard

I never thought I’d live to be so old

My chilblains disappeared, it’s not so cold

How I suffered as a little child

My brother was aggressive,he was wild

Recently he died, he got away

I miss him, I forgave him for those days

We both missed Daddy, how can Daddies die?

God is stranger than a mother’s

Sigh

I don’t like God nor calculating Pi

I should have studied music it was Gay

Dancing on the. Altar we decay.

The Holy Spirit’s fled in disarray

The little flowers

Don’t tread on the little flowers

in Katyn Forest

Fed with the blood of 20,000 unarmed men or roughly

Shot to bring àbout Utopia

How can good come out of evil?

How can force bring about love

How can the dead rise again?

God was absent already

Before the Holocaust

Before Stalingrad

Before Dresden

Before we aborted the inconvenient

Before the priest said Mass

Before we bit the Host

Before love waned

Before our eyes faded

We saw nothing until the bomb dropped

And he said, let there be light

Would I were

I wish I were a wild wild goose

And I could fly and seek

Looking for my lost lost love .

With eyes that cannot weep.

What is my life when I love none

And noone loveth me

When all are fled when all are gone

Take me to the sea

I saw the hills I saw the lakes

I saw the mighty ocean

What is beauty what is joy

When my true love is broken

I peck my breast I shed my blood

The pure white goose would die

Take me to the cold. cold earth

Under a cruel white sky

Goose

Disoriented, lost,the wild goose flew

Seeking for its mate which lately died.

As if it never saw ànd never knew

The mourning song of doves is not a lie

So birds and other creatures share our pain

Hoping that the lost will soon return

Yet this is final, none will come again.

Unless we day dream, till we lose our way

Believing our own fantasies, we pay

And so our heart will freeze or it will burn.

Leaking into earth

My boundaries broken, leaks my soul to earth

Disdained by helpers out flies my own worth

My door won’t close,my body is unsafe

Being cleaned by others seems like rape

No time is free for they come when they will

Losing one’s autonomy can kill

To break into the sacred heart brings death

Destroying or debasing with cold wrath

Hard bones

Children learn to walk, they fall and scream

Their little bones are soft and rarely break

Now I am afraid I’ll come to grief

And end my life by making a mistake.

To die by choice is sad for those your friends

To die in error sadder for that end

Unconscious of the motives for your fall

Such anguish for no reason will appal

Don’t lie so still

Ah,brother I don’t want you to lie still

No blood to circulate,no thoughts,no will

No help,no humour.jokes no

sharp true eye

From our old shared pram,to live, to die.

I used to do your homework

late at night

Abstract thought to you was no delight.

You wondered over X and y and z

Preferred the shapes of Nature in your. head.

I shall retain the memories of the good

You who taught me speech and hate and love