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
v
Category: feelings
The art of doing nothing
The art of doing nothing’s hard to learn
To sit and daydream till we get new thoughts
It’s immoral, say the Puritans reformed
Harder to accept the need to mourn
So many ancient losses strip our hearts.
The art of doing nothing’s hard to learn
The feelings that seemed hardest to be borne
We could have looked for maps or sought out charts
It’s immoral to seek help so we’ve been told
Here we weep when our skinned hearts are torn
We fear we may have forfeited love’s balm
The art of doing nothing’s hard to learn
We only know our self when love is born
In another’s eyes we find our calm
Reject the harshness of old Luther’s forms
Fear not death, for there are strong wide arms
God is not a monster who wills harm
The art of doing nothing will prepare
For when we meet one day his welcome stare
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Then I shall upend causality
The image was made by Katherine
When true love’s gone and doom hangs overhead
When life runs like a sewer to the sea
Then shall I take new lovers to my bed.
And with their carnal touch consoled be?
When my love lies and breaks my woman’s heart
. When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path
. Then, shall I my life of evil start
And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?
When true loves lie and wreck all loyalty.
When puzzlement makes all the world seem mad.
Then I shall upend causality
And let myself do deeds which make folk glad.
When puzzlement makes all the world seem mad.
Then I shall upend causality
And let myself do deeds which make folk glad.
For I have love’s own child inside my soul
I shall care for her until she is grown
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Cobblestones and weeds
Image by Mike Flemming.Copyright,
Cracks in pavements,cobbles,gutters,weeds
In the little street we children played
While nature fought back, spreading out wild seeds
Old women reached for grace with rosary beads
When I call.I don’t know what to say
Cracks in pavements,cobbles,gutters,weeds
Neighbours borrowed eggs and helped in need
What was my entire world has shrunk, decayed
Still nature fights back, flinging out wild seeds
The cobbles have been tarmacked till aggrieved
Here we once enjoyed school holidays
Cracks for insects,cobbles,gutters,weeds
Girls played with doll’s prams,boys disagreed
All the world was here, where’s left today?
While nature blackened, blasting out her seeds
Where are mother,father,oh dismay
I am old and they lie in the clay
Cracks in pavements,cobbles,gutters,weeds
Nature acts still, spreads out flying seeds
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Love will need no trick
In my despair I felt that I was stuck
Paralysed by grief and guilt I failed
By the end I had tried every trick
From prayer unthought to deeps of logic black
My life, my engine ,juddered off the rails
I hated God and of “his” Church was sick
Starving and alone I was in shock
The death of one I loved had made me frail
By the end I had tried every trick
I felt Love’s arms around me, death was blocked
I knew this goodness, why else would I wail?
I thought I hated God but Love had struck
Warm and golden light that did me hold
Where are you now when Evil has grown bold?
Kind despair that made me long time sit
By the end I learned Love needs no trick
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Oh, gentle Light
I ‘ll try to get it right for one more time
You did not converse with me in words
You were simply present in your Light
Nowhere did I feel your power and might
You were no eagle, but a strong wild bird
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time.
Who made our language with its subtle rhymes?
The ancient people had their well trained Scribes
You were always there,oh gentle Light
You gave me warmth, you changed my too fixed sight
A comforter , a Spirit, how describe?
I ‘ll try to get it right a final time.
The agony inside me lost its bite
I wanted to go on, to be alive
You do not always show your golden Light
We do not know when we at last arrive
We do not reach this meeting place by strife
I ‘ve tried to get it right this final time
I never saw such Gold until that night
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THE MEMORY LASTS
midsummer days evoke the trancelike past
where children played in joyous, daisied fields
with buttercups so bright the memory lasts
a freedom that our conscious growth will steal.
those stones and leaves and many coloured flowers
were gathered into images that glow
yet later we forget those treasured hours
when for a while we lived in life’s deep flow
we did not look and see,but felt at one
we lived as did the birds high in the trees
now we write , experiencing has gone
we cannot live like flowers filled with bright bees
to lose ourselves in nature is a joy
which to our adult selves we must restore
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The void
The leaves looks black the sun has sunk down low
No chariots of red fire,no winter snow
In between the seasons of our minds
Comes the early Christmas be you kind
The black tents in the desert
Now destroyed
No space for love and peace here is the Void
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A crack, a loud smack
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
v
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Dream like memories
Hollyhocks,delphinium and phlox
Foxgloves,cat mint, nettles,near by docks
The blind man breathed in air full of wild scent
His daughted named the colours now absent
High up on the Kentish cliffs we sat
Capel-le -Ferne I found it on a map
We listened to this girl, we did not speak
Absorbing by our senses,proud and meek
Now I recollect the details very well
In those dream like memories I dwell
Snapdragons growing just beside my chair
I smell the scent as if I were still there
I may be blinded by the tears of loss
But I remember, love, our happiness
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Stitches in my face
On my face you see the surgeon’s scar
You see the holes where stitches were put in.
Above my eye, blue bruises decorate
And yet the work is sacred, is no sin.
The blood hung from my jaw, its skin a bag stitches connected my new face
Jagged stitches joined up my new face
My eyes were black as ink, what have they done?
Where is that fine embroidery, where the lace?
25 injections were my fate.
To let the surgeon do his kindly work.
I’d rather be a postman or a nun
And yet to take the cancer knives must hurt.
Mother,father where are you, I sigh?
Oh brother sister husband, down I lie.
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Love will need no trick
In my despair I felt that I was stuck
Paralysed by grief and guilt I failed
By the end I had tried every trick
From prayer unthought to deeps of logic black
My life, my engine ,juddered off the rails
I hated God and of “his” Church was sick
Starving and alone I was in shock
The death of one I loved had made me frail
By the end I had tried every trick
I felt Love’s arms around me, death was blocked
I knew this goodness, why else would I wail?
I thought I hated God but Love had struck
Warm and golden light that did me hold
Where are you now when Evil has grown bold?
Kind despair that made me long time sit
By the end I learned Love needs no trick
Share this:
A crack, a loud smack
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
v
Share this:
The pillars of the Western Mind have cracked
The end of values, kindness, earned respect
The loss of wisdom,history and truth
The pillars of democracy are cracked.
The centre of the heart,who can protect?
Conspiracy and madness unseat proof
An end of values, kindness, earned respect
Violence is admired though lives are wrecked
The lasting triumph of the folk uncouth
The pillars of the Western Mind have cracked
Their minds unfurnished seem bereft of tact
They tread on others words like horses’ hooves
The end of values, kindness, earned respect
How can such opponents make a pact?
The calculating crucify our youth
The pillars of the Western Mind have cracked
Yet Western Empire builders had no ruth
They tortured those they conquered group by group
On such ground just madmen earn respect
The altars of the Western Mind have cracked
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The gift of sight, fine flowers, blue butterflies
In my hedge of beech mixed into yew
The wrens have nested,now they learn to fly
I felt my heart grow lighter at this view
When the heart is lifted,that’s a clue
That symbols of new life are coming by
From my hedge of beech mixed into yew
Keeping vision clear,look out and bow
What lives now must shrink and one day die
I felt my heart ache taking such a view
With many gifts we humans are endowed
The gift of sight, fine flowers, blue butterflies
By my hedge of beech mixed into yew
The gift of tongues, creation of the new
From sweet Joan Baez to little babies’ cries
I felt my heart swell in my breast anew
Conception, growth,maturity,goodbye
Like the flying star we shall go far
By my hedge of beech mixed into yew
I felt my heart beat stronger than I knew
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The wrens
My front hedge is so thick, wrens made a nest
I saw a small bird flying low and swift
With my garden I feel human, blessed
The bonsai beech has grown till almost dense
It has no trunk, the leaves are tiny gifts
My front hedge is so full, wrens made a nest
My clematis has flowered beyond all sense
When I looked I felt my soft heart lift
In my garden, know that I am blessed
In a deep green wood the eye can rest
Open eyed, a look must not be fast
My front hedge welcomes wrens ,oh,love,a nest!
Deep happiness connects us to what’s best
The dark blue sky, the sunset flaming, brief.
With my garden I feel love, I ‘m blessed
Be alive, don’t dwell on thoughts too sweet
The natural world brings virtue and deceit
My front hedge is so thick, wrens made a nest
These tiny creatures filled with love and zest
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A little peace
One damaged cell 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 still, 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
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Please teach me how to cry
Daddy, how we missed you when you died
I had not been told when I was five
Come back,Daddy,miss your smiling eyes
We were told that we must never cry
When the cancer took your earthly life
Daddy, how you suffered ,then you died
When you wanted company, I tried
I was too articulate to thrive
Come back,Daddy,miss my Daddy’s eyes
By the flower beds, you wanted a guide
You wanted me to talk.I really tried.
Daddy we fell down a black hole, why d’y die?
You slept all alone, the pain arrived
We slept with our mammy, on your side
Come back,Daddy, don’t you miss my eyes?
I always hum like you did though I’m shy
You are singing through me, close and wise
Daddy, we still miss you and your pride
Come back,Daddy, teach me how to cry.
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Dream like memories
Hollyhocks,delphinium and phlox
Foxgloves,cat mint, nettles,near by docks
The blind man breathed in air full of wild scent
His daughted named the colours now absent
High up on the Kentish cliffs we sat
Capel-le -Ferne I found it on a map
We listened to this girl, we did not speak
Absorbing by our senses,proud and meek
Now I recollect the details very well
In those dream like memories I dwell
Snapdragons growing just beside my chair
I smell the scent as if I were still there
I may be blinded by the tears of loss
But I remember, love, our happiness
Share this:
Oh, gentle Light
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time
You did not converse with me in words
You were simply present with your Light
Nowhere did I feel your power and might
You were no eagle, but a little bird
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time.pp
Who made our language with its subtle rhymes?
The ancient people had their well trained Scribes
You were always there,oh gentle Light
You gave me warmth, you changed my too fixed sight
A comforter , a Spirit, how describe?
I ‘ll try to get it right a final time.
The agony inside me lost its bitep
I wanted to go on, to be alive
You do not always show your golden Light
We do not know when we at last arrive
We do not reach this meeting place by strife
I ‘ve tried to get it right this final time
I never saw such Gold until that night
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Now shivering alive
The myriad random movements, words and signs
Inanimate, cold blooded,hot or warm
In mystery make the world, complete, designed
From the stars at night, to needles’ eyes
Every size is present eye to horn
The myriad random movements, words and signs
Yet, not robotic, shivering, alive
Like a human baby when new born
In mystery the world is fresh, designed
So every morning we awake surprised
The dreams we had afflict us like flung stones
The random movements, words and latent signs
Are dreams the truth or can the unknown lie?
Are we subject to their nightly roams?
The mystery is the world makes its designs
As the wild geese land at one in storms
The murmurations of the starlings charm
The myriad random movements, words and signs
In mystery make the world, replete,divine
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Oh, gentle Light
I ‘ll try to get it right for one more time
You did not converse with me in words
You were simply present in your Light
Nowhere did I feel your power and might
You were no eagle, but a little bird
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time.
Who made our language with its subtle rhymes?
The ancient people had their well trained Scribes
You were always there,oh gentle Light
You gave me warmth, you changed my too fixed sight
A comforter , a Spirit, how describe?
I ‘ll try to get it right a final time.
The agony inside me lost its bite
I wanted to go on, to be alive
You do not always show your golden Light
We do not know when we at last arrive
We do not reach this meeting place by strife
I ‘ve tried to get it right this final time
I never saw such Gold until that night
Share this:
Now shivering alive
The myriad random movements, words and signs
Inanimate, cold blooded,hot or warm
In mystery make the world, complete, designed
From the stars at night, to needles’ eyes
Every size is present eye to horn
The myriad random movements, words and signs
Yet, not robotic, shivering, alive
Like a human baby when new born
In mystery the world is fresh, designed
So every morning we awake surprised
The dreams we had afflict us like flung stones
The random movements, words and latent signs
Are dreams the truth or can the unknown lie?
Are we subject to their nightly roams?
The mystery is the world makes its designs
As the wild geese land at one in storms
The murmurations of the starlings charm
The myriad random movements, words and signs
In mystery make the world, replete,divine
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Some shelled shore
Walking to the bus stop from our door
We fell into a subtle harmony
Like little children dawdling on the shore
No haste, no chiding, wanting nothing more
Like swimming in a balmy pale blue sea
Or walking to the bus stop from our door
Who is known and which one is the knower?
What is here and what is yet to be
For little children dawdling on the shore?
Setting aspirations ever lower
No competing, rush nor victory
Just walking to the bus stop from our door
Though human who gave us creative power?
Who has loved and who evoked in me
The feel of dawdling on the sea, the shore?
Who hears the sorrow, plangent , of the sea
Where earth and stars reflect so rhythmically
Walking with you touching nevermore
Oh, that I were with you on some shelled shore
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No defeat
Letting go of all my self defence
As if I might touch all of you at once
I opened up my body to the winds
And covered you by lying skin to skin
In the cradle of my being held
Like an infant needing mother’s aid
I did not move to break the chysallis
Both of us were melting in that space
Whose the hand and whose the mind that work
Metaphors may guide and also hurt
Remorseless is the process that goes on
Until the new forms break this one to one
At last the work is done, the task complete
Dead or living, this is no defeat
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Love will need no trick
In my despair I felt that I was stuck
Paralysed by grief and guilt I failed
By the end I had tried every trick
From prayer unthought to deeps of logic black
My life, my engine ,juddered off the rails
I hated God and of “his” Church was sick
Starving and alone I was in shock
The death of one I loved had made me frail
By the end I had tried every trick
I felt Love’s arms around me, death was blocked
I knew this goodness, why else would I wail?
I thought I hated God but Love had struck
Warm and golden light that did me hold
Where are you now when Evil has grown bold?
Kind despair that made me long time sit
By the end I learned Love needs no trick
Share this:
Bill,Bill,my mother’s dad
Bill.Bill.my mother’s dad
Down the coal mine he did dig
When he was but a young lad
He was never very big
He spoke in the old dialect
He had a dog, a pipe, no cig
Silent,smiling, starving wrecked
He sent kids to a soup kitchen
Learned to read, but knew few facts
Went to London,saw Big Ben
Still angry from the General Strike
Aye,he were a silent man
He walked at night, he had no bike
To the coal mine with his cat
The cat sat waiting till first light
Then they walked, he did head maths
His wife had died, the son was born
When he got home, he had a bath
His father worked in fields of corn
Peasants on the Chesire farms
The pay was poor, were up at dawn
He himself were on good terms
With his neighbours, Irish, torn
He went to Mass,so Latin learned
My mum was th’eldest of those born
She had me,my own dad died
She went mad, she was forlorn
Lost her mother, then she tried
To help her Dad with all her heart
Never wept and never cried
Then she made a different start
Met my dad and married late
So I am here with my own charts
Is it destiny or fate
Why am I down here, d’you ken?
I see you grandad, is it late?
Share this:
Love will need no trick
In my despair I felt that I was stuck
Paralysed by grief and guilt I failed
By the end I had tried every trick
From prayer unthought to deeps of logic black
My life, my engine ,juddered off the rails
I hated God and of “his” Church was sick
Starving and alone I was in shock
The death of one I loved had made me frail
By the end I had tried every trick
I felt Love’s arms around me, death was blocked
I knew this goodness, why else would I wail?
I thought I hated God but Love had struck
Warm and golden light that did me hold
Where are you now when Evil has grown bold?
Kind despair that made me long time sit
By the end I learned Love needs no trick
Share this:
The walking frame and the smile
I saw you struggling with your walking frame
Guessed that you must suffer too much pain
I smiled because you caught my sidewards glance
Then your face too by smiling was enhanced
So often older people are ignored
Lost and lonely hidden at the core
Once this man fought in a major war
I hope by some fine friend he was restored
I saw him disappearing down the road
His posture more erect, his back less bowed
And in my heart I felt the smiling too
Enchanted by the essence , by the cue.
I got on a bus, ignored my phone,
Smiling still I pushed the door key home
Share this:
The walking frame and the smile
I saw you struggling with your walking frame
Guessed that you must suffer too much pain
I smiled because you caught my sidewards glance
Then your face too by smiling was enhanced
So often older people are ignored
Lost and lonely hidden at the core
Once this man fought in a major war
I hope by some fine friend he was restored
I saw him disappearing down the road
His posture more erect, his back less bowed
And in my heart I felt the smiling too
Enchanted by the essence , by the cue.
I got on a bus, ignored my phone,
Smiling still I pushed the door key home
Share this:
Oh, gentle Light
I ‘ll try to get it right for one more time
You did not converse with me in words
You were simply present in your Light
Nowhere did I feel your power and might
You were no eagle, but a little bird
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time.
Who made our language with its subtle rhymes?
The ancient people had their well trained Scribes
You were always there,oh gentle Light
You gave me warmth, you changed my too fixed sight
A comforter , a Spirit, how describe?
I ‘ll try to get it right a final time.
The agony inside me lost its bite
I wanted to go on, to be alive
You do not always show your golden Light
We do not know when we at last arrive
We do not reach this meeting place by strife
I ‘ve tried to get it right this final time
I never saw such Gold until that night
How my heart sings 