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: free verse
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:
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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We call it love
I run my fingers tentatively down your cheek,
asking you a question
with my eyes.
looking at each other,
you touch me too.
This is my skin
my boundary.
Yours is thicker,
like rubber.
I run my fingers down your chin.
what is this little bone?
I like it.
I like your skin
I like your bones.
I like you.
you please me.
you are tasty.
I like your taste,
your skin,your eyelids.
I like your eye here,
and your other eye .
Nice one!
I like the hair on your head.
May I touch your hair?
do you like hair?
Hair makes me laugh.
I have a fondness for laughing.
I love to laugh.
I enjoy laughter
I love your laughter.
If not, smiling is good also.
Or a gleam in the eyes,
showing the inside smile,
the smiling heart.
I like your inside,
Outside
and possibly
your backside.
your upside and your downside.
your side sides.
I snuggle you all around with soft wool.
I knit you into my scarf.
I’ll have to wear you round my neck now!
How unusual
How flexible.
How charming.
How alarming
How creative
How interesting.
What an idea!
what a notion
but you are too big for me to knit
So I’ll just touch your hand
with my fingers.
and you touch my hand
with your fingers.
What good hands we have
with such fingers.
fingers are for touch.
fingers are keen to touch.
I like touch.
what would we do
without fingers?
I like your skin.
skin is good
We love skin
We love.
I want skin to be ours
and yours
is mine
and mine
is yours
where is the edge of the world?
skin has no end
it’s infinity
au naturel.
what order!
what design!
What wonder.
what awe.
where is the world’s skin?
tenderly we touch the world
as the world embraces us.
We call it love.
Love.
We call it love
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We learned definition and precision.
What was so wrong with me asking
About your absence from this world
And trying to grab you back
holding onto your coat tail
Eternity’s long enough already
We don’t need your vapour trails.
Was it a wicked thing to do
As you floated far away
To reach out to touch once more?
I admit I never knew you kept a score
Were you already packing bags
to throw out the door?
I knew it was the real thing
But some folk never do.
You have your expectations
And your tests and rules
But we never learned those
In our lessons at high school.
We learned rigour and icy vision
We learned definition and precision.
But what use are they in loving?
About your absence from this world
And trying to grab you back
holding onto your coat tail
Eternity’s long enough already
We don’t need your vapour trails.
Was it a wicked thing to do
As you floated far away
To reach out to touch once more?
I admit I never knew you kept a score
Were you already packing bags
to throw out the door?
I knew it was the real thing
But some folk never do.
You have your expectations
And your tests and rules
But we never learned those
In our lessons at high school.
We learned rigour and icy vision
We learned definition and precision.
But what use are they in loving?
What use are they in life?
I didn’t know how to travel with no maps
And you were off anyhow.
The orchestra stopped playing
When they saw the gap.
You can’t fly forever
But I am leaving you.
In these circumstances
What does a woman like me do.
You can smile and squeeze your eyes tight
Suck in those cheeks and hide your love.
What’s coming after you ’s an eagle or a crow
Not a dove…it’s black I know
When you toss it all away then
Seems like it’s long past time
and emotion to call it a day.
Come again…..you must be crazy.
Love is clear to me now like the face of a new born daisy
I didn’t know how to travel with no maps
And you were off anyhow.
The orchestra stopped playing
When they saw the gap.
You can’t fly forever
But I am leaving you.
In these circumstances
What does a woman like me do.
You can smile and squeeze your eyes tight
Suck in those cheeks and hide your love.
What’s coming after you ’s an eagle or a crow
Not a dove…it’s black I know
When you toss it all away then
Seems like it’s long past time
and emotion to call it a day.
Come again…..you must be crazy.
Love is clear to me now like the face of a new born daisy
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Touch me again
He went away.Away.
I didn’t know where
where
he had gone
where had he gone?
The call came.:
call came….
Man,white,good health
Has died.
Has died alone
Died alone in an hotel room.
So a stranger would find him.
Man alone;
man alone in hotel room.
there was a man
alone
in his hotel room.
Not wanting to be any trouble.
trouble,no trouble alone
in his hotel room
not his room,you see.
not a shared room…
An hotel room.
Tall man with light brown hair
alone in a small hotel room
with no TV.
We had no smartphones
Smart
Phones
No,don’t tell , not me ,not yet.
Not me.
He was all alone.
He was behind glass
glass walls
windows
a window of glass.
I could never touch him.
I could not touch him.
not touch,no,never,
Man alone.
Solitary man.
Tall man with brown hair.
Beds for love
Beds for leaving.
Don’t you die alone
in that hotel room.
Don’t die
Don’t go
You wanted to be alone,
I thought…
you were
afraid to feel.
Thin skinned and pale like a torn petal from a wild plant.
You were alone again
And you left me all alone;
alone without you.
Now I’m alone
in my hotel room.
my room.
Someone knocks.
I’m dreaming of you
wishing you were near me.
dreaming,wishing,
lonely for you.
He was all alone,they said.
In an hotel room.
His doom
In a lonely bedroom.
Don’t leave me yet.
Yet you were never here
behind your window
I see you
but can’t touch you.
Can’t touch you.
Can’t touch.
Touch me.
Touch me again.
Love me…
You were all alone
alone.
Why did I not break the glass?
Break the glass;
The glass.
Touch me again
Don’t leave me.
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Higher Education
I wanted to buy a light weight jacket.I would like it in Unnatural I told them boldly
We don’t do that colour
Well you do Natural!.Every thesis has an opposite one.So with colours
This is not a University, Mrs Hegel
Why tell me that?
You know toi much logic
I am terribly sorry.I shall try to forget it.Along with Grammar
Spelling Thinking Sanity Argument Maths Literary Criticism Theology Philosophy
Wittgenstein Einstein Hegel
Wow I feel sorry for you.You have so much to forget
That’s a novel way of looking at
Education
And it costs so much too
Is
Share this:
Ersatz raps
Source: K
Oh,I see the wolf listening..he’s so gentle or is he decentral?
Oh,Ah,kerbumplof.
Shrieks,calling for mate
Bang my soul up
In your bedroom
Ker pluf
Thor.War
Storms of lightning
Hail you
AAAAAAhhhhhhhhh
Me,oh,me oh,me stuck here in my groove
Give me electric shocks;the silent treatment.Sulk for me, please,Argentina.
Screech,scream,I felt you watching.
Touch me with a feather
Dust me!
Glug!
I see the wasps round your coat
They hug you and nip your neck
Bong!
Don’t come near me again
Wolves are not
Welcome!
I sigh for mein mutter
She’s a nutter,
utter
Sob
Scream
nightmare
Thud!
You hate me!
Never call again when you’re already here
You are not welcome.
I close my door
on your foot boot
Oh,yes.
Thunder and lightening
Go home now
This is a poem as likely
ill conceived
Eagle flies while I am
Falling down a mountain…
Scree burning.
I never want to see you again,babe.My duck.
Please be a love and leave me.Cheers
That’s ok.I understand you.
Asp,gasp
Per bot fly!
No thud
No dach
sounds whimper.
It’s time for my tea and biscuit
I cooked it twice
but you were
ab ab a aaab aa absent aahaa
sent!
No.No.no
I can’t believe you!
Cut this string and let it all hang out again
Oh,bogger.Go to bed
Now
How
Mein eschreitschzung
.Flightschzung.
Nachtschzung
blung.blung
blot me out
I’m an ink stain.
I like your fingers, so clean and curving
I’ll mark you and give you homework
Och,aye
It’s well come
Crooning mouse traps
See Rockefeller
drop out and
Bring a bag of sylvia plath’s
scrap paper.
did she know?
Did she know?
Did she sweat
Bang?
Thud.My sky fell in onto the millpond
Don’t smoke near me
I’ll get burned
For I hate you
Or just want your hat and an E for
flatness
Droom,droom
Dee
Bag
bug
Ted went to bed
where he spent his honeymoon
with another woman
Not with the second one
Mathilda
It’s finished us all off
Brang.Blong
EschreitchzungFleightschztungHerr Meightschrung
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Her voice
The ice in the eye
Invisible glass
Splinters the vision
Light can harass.
Panic makes feints
Like dancing with skates
She passed out in angst
Traumatic the date
The clutch at the heart
Oxygen, gas
Loosen your grip
The glory, the waste
Ariel,Israel,
Where is the horse?
Where are the olives?
Where is her voice?
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Before we were dead
Before the referendum
Before I rang 999
When I didn’t know how near the end you were
Before Nigel Farage
Jo Cox
The lies of Michael Gove
Before Boris Johnson’s genes left Turkey
Before Leonard Cohen sang,save the last waltz for me
Before I heard Suzanne
Before you haemmoraged the bathroom into wine
Before you consecrated the bread
Before you were dead
Before by a journalist we were led
Before children said,fuck everything
Before Cohen died
Dylan got the Nobel Prize
Before aspirations were merely for another shag and a new denim hat
Before marriage was for licking each others’ groins
What poems fell dead
And the snow fled
Before the hatred of slow reading came and glued itself to our minds
Then we had the hottest September
In December
And the ice cap floated down the globe
Observed by toads
When you were still alive
And the lawn was unmowed
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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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Darkening sky
How the sky tried to turn black but the cloud thinned
Leaving a dull yellow ochre, lightening slowly
To cream
A black cat leaped onto the fence
I think he’s sleeping here
But he never shows me his face
He runs as if a banger has gone off behind him
As if he’s going to take off like an aeroplane
He hides in the dark green shade
The honeysuckle chuckles, wishes to see more
The wrens ignore him from their holly tree
Too prickly for domestic cats
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We call it love
I run my fingers tentatively down your cheek,
asking you a question
with my eyes.
looking at each other,
you touch me too.
This is my skin
my boundary.
Yours is thicker,
like rubber.
I run my fingers down your chin.
what is this little bone?
I like it.
I like your skin
I like your bones.
I like you.
you please me.
you are tasty.
I like your taste,
your skin,your eyelids.
I like your eye here,
and your other eye .
Nice one!
I like the hair on your head.
May I touch your hair?
do you like hair?
Hair makes me laugh.
I have a fondness for laughing.
I love to laugh.
I enjoy laughter
I love your laughter.
If not, smiling is good also.
Or a gleam in the eyes,
showing the inside smile,
the smiling heart.
I like your inside,
Outside
and possibly
your backside.
your upside and your downside.
your side sides.
I snuggle you all around with soft wool.
I knit you into my scarf.
I’ll have to wear you round my neck now!
How unusual
How flexible.
How charming.
How alarming
How creative
How interesting.
What an idea!
what a notion
but you are too big for me to knit
So I’ll just touch your hand
with my fingers.
and you touch my hand
with your fingers.
What good hands we have
with such fingers.
fingers are for touch.
fingers are keen to touch.
I like touch.
what would we do
without fingers?
I like your skin.
skin is good
We love skin
We love.
I want skin to be ours
and yours
is mine
and mine
is yours
where is the edge of the world?
skin has no end
it’s infinity
au naturel.
what order!
what design!
What wonder.
what awe.
where is the world’s skin?
tenderly we touch the world
as the world embraces us.
We call it love.
Love.
We call it love
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Fuzzy numbers
In calculus we find mysterious forms
Minute numbers disappear,return
Zero is not nothing, but a cloud
Of motes that dance in sun or disappear
Fuzzy logic too has mystery
The truth says nothing is mere black or white
Just more or less and these may overlap
Dissolving into clouds upon a map
Numbers have no feelings but make form
I once saw them moving, patterned, in my dreams
Golden letters telling me the way
The truth is often very hard to see
Like those tiny half alive mind dots
Flying through our minds like dust flies in the sun
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Dreams dangle like stringed balloons
Black against light sky
Bright flowers blown ; bare branches now
Reach beseechingly.
Reluctant sun hangs
Sending thin light and pinkness
To clouds sleek as cats
Now paling, blue grey,
I see mauve dying into dark
Night sky edges in
The blackness awaits;
Dreams dangle like stringed balloons
A new born gurgles
How full the holly!
Forsythia large and darker,
Birds shelter wisely
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Polyester fuss
He managed to end the war
With white phosphorus
Rehabilitation
Be a guest for us
The girl was too far out
Infamous
The shells disintegrate
Inside of us
There’s no food
For nine of us
What’s wrong?
A surprise,I guess
No gifts to send
Will the men be home
For next Christmas’s?
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My hair floated so far out
While we were walking by the Oxford Canal
He told me it is illegal
To look through a woman’s bedroom window
I tried to jump off the bus
His restraining hand
Made me fall
I was too shy to say
I wanted a pee
I broke up with him
It was the juice
Of criminal desire
He said he had a car
But I
Had claustrophobia
Otherwise I’d not be here
My hair floated so far out
I fished up
You
My hip bones stuck out
Like two sharp knives
Like the cliffs at West Bay
I was very light
Even had a flame
I did not know I was desirable
Like a semi detached house
But eventually
I got it.
I mean you
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Let your lips meet gently
Photo by Mike Flemming copyright Let your lips meet gently, the top one resting against the lower, touching with tenderness your own skin to skin. Forefinger propped on chin, I let the others dangle, like leaves on a branch; how 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.
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We wounded hide away
If
and if you knew mine
we could guess why our expectations go so wrong
because at that moment what was said seemed right but looked at from a wider perspective
Some words we said were errors
or at least not expressed in a way that communicated what we really meant….
And how painful it is to hurt a beloved person…
Beloved…….I don’t believe you after the cruel you wrote…….
this is the confusion of the human condition…
when fear for a time eclipses the warm sun of love
when everything seems dark and one can only wish to hide away.
…… to protect others from knowing……….
yet the message they get does not say that the intention………
to protect them and it seems like a total rejection…..
I’m not good enough for you……
I don’t want to hurt you.
Don’t hurt me.
Yet the eclipse will end the sun will shine again………
and it gives us compassion for others ……….
We don’t take an eclipse personally…………
but with people………………… it’s hard not to do so……
yet there’s so much we don’t know……… or can’t know
so trust is all we can do….
trust what we once saw………….
and take down the barbed wire we put around our hearts………
let ourselves be touched and touch.
When words are not enough…………
we have a rich silence….
the gaps between the words can say so much.
……to those gifted with understanding
When words refuse to come……..
we can share our silence ………
and keep it empty not full of dread or images of fear
until words begin to flow…
like tears.. welcome after a drought,,,,,,
when our words hide…. we will find them………….
so much is unknown…………….. we can’t know………
and past losses and rejections haunt us………
filling the pregnant space with pain.
Yet words can comfort too…console, c
caress,
make communion possible
….words………….
they are all we have…… we‘ ll make them enough somehow.
…..learn their ways and how to use them to touch gently the other’s heart.
……and show, and share our love
………….not use them as a sword…………..
use them with care….to show care,,,,to show love..
.and regret our faults and failings … but not attacking ourselves cruelly
stop punishing ourselves….~
have mercy on ourselves
Have mercy on others…..
We are all vulnerable
We may miss so much because we are afraid
Wounds can heal,will heal
Have mercy
Accept the pain until we are healed
Then we start again
Accept the pain until we are healed
Then we start again
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When my voice trembles
When words no longer work
wonder
wish
want
When words won’t come
compensate
contrive
When my voice breaks
snaps
sunders
strains
When I want to talk
touch
tenderly
towards
But you are not able
about
abandoned
absent
You are no longer
listening
live
longing
When I need to find a meaning
In the shape
form
structure
But I ‘m stranded
Stuck
Sucked under
Swallowed
Then I reach out to you
I want your touch
tenderness
tranquillity
temerity
Sometimes words don’t seem enough
endless
empty
emotive
ejaculatory
Yet words can console
conjure
quilt
charm
captivate
cover.
Stretch out your hand
across the emptiness
and touch me with your fingers
friendship
faithfulness
forgiveness
frailty
fever
touch my heart with words
and I will hope
expect
await
be grateful
grave
garbed in joy
When words don’t feel enough
When all we want is touch
Or to see
sigh
sob
sing
Words can be shaped
changed
contorted
controlled
challenged
Words are all we have
To make us love
To make us live
To make us alive
To make us sing
To make us stand up
To console,words may be
Enough
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I’m incontinent, you are in Europe
When I found your photograph on the floor
I wrote a poem about it
My sister says, pick up all those photos
Where have they come from?
I say,I don’t know
Maybe I knocked down a folder
I am clumsy
I write two more poems while she feeds me Belgian apple tarts
She tells me how she fell over in a dark field in Germany
Her foot went into a hole
There were no lights
They both fell down so she had hysterics
I only had one glass of wine!
She laughed all the way back to the campsite
And then she fell into laughing so much
I could hear her here in London
So I got hysterics as well
That’s genes for you!
I’m still laughing,
They came here on their bicycles
Not dead yet
That’s their trip before Brexit
You never know whether they will start to kill Britons for messing up the entire Continent
BTW I am incontinent
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I wanted nothing, all was in its place
Gazing at the trees touched me with grace
My eyes receptive ,mind so still and pure
I wanted nothing more, no list, no place
Would I dare enjoy a human face
To see the lines of suffering long endured?
Gazing at the your eyes touched me with grace
All the anxious details steal our space.
We cannot gaze afflicted and allured.
I wanted nothing more, no wish, no place
If we lose ourselves, become engrossed
We gaze with joy ,with colour we’re imbued
Gazing at the trees ,oh green their grace
The dignity of art is unimposed
Majestic in its heart, we take our cue
Then want no more, our wish dissolves, exposed
Lying on the earth so warm. so new
I fertilised, delight in being you.
Gazing at the trees my heart was graced
I wanted nothing, all was in its place
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In the morning
In the morning,I’m
opening slowly, a bud,
a flower,
breathing softly,
In the summer sweetened air.
Cat stretches
Lazily,hot stones
a bed.
Don’t let the day
begin too soon.
Relaxed.
I feel your presence
In the azure sky.
Now midday,I bloom.
And take in all there is
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Needs are simpler then we imagine.
Anxiety is the price of life.
But don’t pay over the top.
Calmness is good at most times.
Dread is a bad friend.
Exploring nature soothes the soul
For what are we but part of it?
Gentle music helps the mind
How ever we do it,
Listening is a kindness to ourselves
Ink is the friend of the writer.
Judgment is another one.
Kindness is essential to the good life.
Lessons are available daily.
Money is necessary but not sufficient for happiness.
Needs are simpler then we imagine.
Oxygen is good for the brain.
Prayer is good for the mind.
Quality is hard to judge quickly.
Rest is often a good idea.
Tension inhibits ideas.
Work should involve play.
X- rated films are optional
Yes…You are a valuable person.
Z is the final letter
And life is an Art
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And we find it,shall we say,satisfactory
I see a haze of hair on your head
like the softness of just opening leaf buds in spring.
The chemo is over,and you wait relieved and letting that
take you for a while before you start to face the next stage.
Will your Spring turn to a warm enchanting Summer
or has the cancer,as they say “spread.”
Just for now,you’re in that lull
so in three weeks time you will not be
arriving for another session of drugs
and days of sickness.I see the light fuzz which reminds me
of how the cat’s fur grew back after her surgery
and she,being unable to reflect or question,
leapt from the fence top onto next door’s kitchen roof;
no thought in her mind of stitches breaking.
How beautifully the patterned fur returned
and the vulnerable skin was covered again.
Oh,to look into those eyes and see you dream
about mice that live behind the shed
and how you sat watching for hours
and how you were alive till the very last moment.
Then , all of a sudden,you were gone.
like the softness of just opening leaf buds in spring.
The chemo is over,and you wait relieved and letting that
take you for a while before you start to face the next stage.
Will your Spring turn to a warm enchanting Summer
or has the cancer,as they say “spread.”
Just for now,you’re in that lull
so in three weeks time you will not be
arriving for another session of drugs
and days of sickness.I see the light fuzz which reminds me
of how the cat’s fur grew back after her surgery
and she,being unable to reflect or question,
leapt from the fence top onto next door’s kitchen roof;
no thought in her mind of stitches breaking.
How beautifully the patterned fur returned
and the vulnerable skin was covered again.
Oh,to look into those eyes and see you dream
about mice that live behind the shed
and how you sat watching for hours
and how you were alive till the very last moment.
Then , all of a sudden,you were gone.
Pray it will not be so for ,the fragile,loving human
now waiting and living,hoping for what you took for granted…
a “normal” life span Or maybe just three quarters of one
would be satisfactory;would be a beneficence
such as trees feel when the sap turns and begins to flow back.
bringing life out of the darkness of earth and soil.
And another Summer comes at the right time
and we find it,shall we say,satisfactory.
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Courtesy is everlasting
since i lost you i have lost
the keys to my heart
the front door key
my phone
and my money
now all i have is a large tube of ibuprofen gel max strength
and some feathers from the tail of a baby wood pigeon
that flew into our house when i left the back door open
maybe i need better boundaries
closed doors
and windows
the wood pigeon was so strong its agitation rocked the front door like a thundergod
like you,it did not realise
there are easier ways to leave
than smashing through glass
leaving shards to pierce my heart
not to mention my feet
become a better leaver
have mercy on those other lovers
for charm wears thin but courtesy is everlasting
like love itself
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I’d be afraid of a nuclear accident in my chest
She thought she’d like to be a poet
Calculating her vocabulary was ironic
She wrote free verse in stanzas three lines long
With a short intermission
She learned innocent and good people
Attract the Evil and that even people who have suffered
Are not less susceptible to wanting power or worship
She learned idolatry is rampant in men of power
“Men” is naturally inclusive
As you will know if you went to Eton
Or even to Mass in 1956
Why would I want Jesus’s soul even if he is God?
I’d be afraid of a nuclear accident in my chest
There’s danger around the sacred,we need to know
Satan did have the best lines
Jesus did not answer the questions
We had no right to ask.
I find it’s useful to work with abstract concepts
Otherwise I might suffer too much
Whatever “too much” is
It could be epsilon or delta, you know what I mean?
Isaac Newton.Mercury.The dentist.
Leibniz’ dots.Whatever
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How the blood vessels receive willingly this flow
Let your lips meet gently,
The top one resting against the lower,
Touching with tenderness
Your 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.
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Inventing logic and drowning under irrational numbers
‘Algebra’ is of Arabic derivation. It comes from title of the justly famous ninth century Arabic mathematical text ‘al-jebr w’almuquabala ‘by Mohammed ibn Musa Al-Khowarizmi of Baghdad and Damascus.
Have you never wondered about algebra
The Greeks are famed for genius in the bath
Inventing logic and drowning under irrational numbers
Was it not Euclid who dominated your adolescence with his theorems
Those isosceles triangles, the very name chosen by the scholars of their age?
Those strange numbers pi and e, the square root of 2 sent them running into conic sections
Straight lines and perfect forms.
Until Descartes with his fine drawn dramas of separation
Took the shape of geometry and rewrote it in abstract algebra
Unthinkable to the ghost of Archimedes with his sling and pendulum
The step into the higher realm left us grieving for our diagrams
And children wondering what the hell is x when it’s at home
‘al-jebr w’almuquabala”
Sacked Constaninople, now Istanbul, libraries looted as ideas ran like electronic rabbits
Up the spine of Europe,like giant fleas on LSD, like the manic humans we are on our dose of screens
Suddenly dimensions could be 4,5, 6… a million who could define a limit?
Potent startled numbers shot out of fireworks, out of atom bombs, like idiot stars
And the Universe exploded into God’s eye; a golden kite; infinite attachments
Set fire to fields and borders as soldiers vainly shot the people they imagined
Were to blame.
If only we didn’t know that there are no limits to our imagination
We could easily have lived and died bored into sanity by those diagrams
Flaunted by teachers, ignorant believers in hard facts
The whole world’s a fantasy, good or bad, algebra is the thrill up your spine
The hammer on your head
The beauty of the pattern multiplying on invisible needles like God’s fairisle shawl
Tossed into the heavens and hanging forever, full of stars and holes
Some black
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s. On the last train,Warsaw to Moscow, [ change Niegoreloje.]
Elena,a baby wrapped in woollen clothes.
On the last train,Warsaw to Moscow,
[ change Niegoreloje.]
1939.Father,mother,brother
You passed through the Arctic Wastes of life.
Still as if travelling on a train
To an impossibly far destination.
As you left the German Army crashed into Poland
Lost,your aunts
Your cousins.
Your culture.
How does God select the damned?
You had your own baby,here in England,
Not lost like all those others.
Your father died by his own hand,
The hand of history;
The fingers twitching,
Not sure where to point.
Then settling into frozen grief
A sculpture only your mother saw.
You saw too,Elena.
You always saw,though you can’t remember;
The long journey,your mother’s breast,
Your father’s silence.
Only the dead know that silence.
Only the dead weep
With the rocks and stones .
And the ice in each eye
Fell like snow down your cheeks
As you held your own infant.
Warsaw to Moscow,
Moscow to Jerusalem.
Always journeying
Looking for what they can never find:
The home they left behind
The presence of the dead
Lying in gaunt heaps
Like rubbish
Your aunts, Elena.
Your cousins.
You never knew them.
But there’s a hole in your mind
Through which the Polish wind forever blows
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This is not it
Impossible to move on because
Between any two numbers
There are infinitely many other numbers.
Time does not consist of equal increments
I saw the car fast moving towards me
And time slowed down, it was ten minutes
Before it hit me.
Elegantly I flew into the air, second by infinitely long second
Down below I saw life on a huge TV Screen
I was no longer there.I saw a Hand turning a wheel
Clockwork TV, I knew it.
I was flying orthogonally to the earth
I had a new perspective.No fear
A calm and endless peace held me.
Gravity interfered.Thin as I was,
I was not infinitesimal
Otherwise, I would never have come back
All I knew is, this is not it.
The tortoise won the race.
How my heart sings 