The sky at dusk, my camisole , love’s grace Blending blue and mauve in skilled embrace God the painter ,God the X unknown Send us light to see where our our love goes
Drop by drop the spirit ebbs away Now the sky is dark in stark blue-grey In the mind the dreams rehearse and scheme Take away the terror and the screams
Hold us in your Hand as we let go Trust the Unknown,trust the inner flow Who but you can show us what we need As we crawl to bed in fraught unease?
Now the air is black I see a star I feel the void yet love dwells even there
My brother kindly set my hair on fire He stole my food from off the plate or floor So for a man I had repessed desire
He took me fishing in a pond close by I loved him very much,indeed adored My brother madly set my hair on fire
We went in disused brick kilns, we were spies. Of his company I never tired Yet for new men I feel not much desire
Now his time has come and soon he’ll die I forgave him everything last year His voice is weak, he thanked me and I cried
I did not plan forgiveness nor to lie “God ” filled me with love , our lives restored Yet for new brothers I feel some desire
Who left Daddy’s matchsticks near my boy? He could not know he would destroy my hair My brother hurt me, set my hair on fire We choose to love until we both expire
He was on his bike and they ran him down He had dared to go outside The law is the law and the law is a clown The punishment can beat down the crime
They thought they’d go out, they were getting bored The police felt the same so they claimed Maybe a fine wth some warning words Ths is the day that they died
One was a singer and one was a fraud Which one was which I don’t know The police came down like the wolf on the fold The eyes were open, still I saw.
Women must bear the young men beget
But what does our society affirm?
The policemen have guns and they owe us a debt
But will they ever,ever learn?
In the Jewish ghettos and Death Camps Did Jews complain they had no holidays? They could not wear bikinis on hot sands Nor did they ask for somewhere they could pray
We can’t go to Spain nor Singapore We must stay near home,oh such dismay I ache so for the poor in tower blocks Where violence and harsh words erupt each day
We can get our food if we have friends We can read or write or even pray Why complain, the poor bear heavier loads Will we be sympathetic on such dreadful days
Our sadly narrow views don’t serve us well When other people in confinement dwell
Oh,mother was it my fault I was born? You conceived me in a country waging war So once for sure you did not sleep alone
I was too thin, the doctor was alarmed My sin of prematurity was scored Oh,mother was it my fault I was born?
Thank you for your milk, your breast, my home In sadness wish you’d loved me or adored Dad once said you did not sleep alone
I could not be an infant, was forlorn While you weaned me in my rage I bawled Oh,mother, why the judgement of love scorned?
I frightened you by reading minds and bones Evoked death sentences while still unborn I’m glad you did not always sleep alone
Why keep knocking on the oven door? Sylvia Plath used gas ,that Nazi porn Oh,mother reason can’t prove I was born But you helped the human race and kept some warm
Daddy where were you when I was sad I bought you Woodbines in the corner shop I carried your boiled egg with salt on plate You lay in bed adorned with wreaths of smoke
Uncle Herbert died when I was five Not many of Dad’s brothers left alive But Bert was old and all his children grown He lay inert, the coffin dark, the stone
I saw yours and Grandad’s too, false oak The Cemetery filled with men and broken jokes So baffled by affection we would seek And for her mother’s grave, we often looked
We too will be broken, wordless earth Worms will do their work. the lungs, the breath
Beware the delivery pass they sell For I ,so foolish, for one fell It says I can order every day But guess what folks, they make me pay I tried to do one this weekend But in 6 days I have sinned I bought 2 loaves just for the ghosts Foetuses, and heavenly hosts Though my babies never grew I have shawls both pink and blue O mother, mother, come here now I need your arm ,these thoughts hurt me My linen closets ready yet I know my babies can’t come back Now I’m old,I’d like to see Their eyes so gentle smile their plea Tantrums, shrieks and other noise I would welcome any voice And one might look like my dear love Why did God take them above? Mysterious are his ends and days How can humans know his ways? The Lord may give, the Lord may take Blessed be his wounded Face For God himself does suffer too His eyes wet diamonds , polished dew
The consumer age is passing with the dead I tried to shop again but Sainsburys have said You can’t shop twice a week or twice a day We will have to learn once more to play
Learn another language,read good books Help another, teach them how to cook Go outside and breathe the purer air Write a poem and then write one with flair
Walk around the street when it is clear Drink from cans filled up with freezing beer Take a photo of a tree you like Never write a letter full of spite
Surely we can gradually adapt If we survive the madness and the traps
I see down in the valley of the Lea Tower blocks and numerous tiny homes Here the Vikings came, oh, savagery The valley is so ugly it alarms
As I look at my books, it’s unfair I feel sad for children who have none Our average reading age grows lower every year I feel angry at our leaders nothing done
During Lockdown where shall children play? Those who have no gardens shut indoors The end point of such suffering is dismay Humiliation grows right in a heart’s deep core
Shame is bitter, wrecks our feeling heart A home for Satan made with thoughtless art
Constant rumination kills the soul I never think and so I am more whole I write the sentence down, just like I speak I find my native tongue lets symbols leak
My mind is like a small holed metal sieve
I hope I shall be kind and willforgive What remains is worthy of a place As for my mistakes, I beg your grace
Some minds are deep,clear streams their thoughts like fish Other minds are tortured ,spin and crash Keep on swimming like the drowning frog He turned the milk to butter as he trod
Do not linger long on cruel thoughts Scruples come from Satan, he’s worth naught
I feel you presence and I almost see The face that was so loving .sadly gone There may be millions but you were my own The anguish and the joy were all for me As we walked the white sands by the sea Picking sea shells, seeing washed white bones I feel you presence and I almost see The face that was familiar,strangely gone
We had a home, we had a nutmeg tree
We grew apples,rosy in the sun
Flavour vanished like the honeycomb
Yet salty flavours linger in the sea I feel you presence but I cannot see The face that was so loving, known by none
The first warm days, the birds sing in their nests So brilliant is the sun it seems new born In the shady green I take my rest
The art of living cannot be a test Nor can it leave a lover all forlorn The first warm days, the birds sing in their nests
When surprised by joy, we regain zest Despite the costs of living and its storms In the shady green let’s take a rest
Before he died, he sat,he gazed out West Even in the rain, light gave him joy The bright, warm days, the birds sing in their nests
I remember Arnside, green and blessed The hills across the bay where we have climbed In the shady green let’s dream and rest
In our childhood there the patterns form Hope to harvest now the rich, ripe corn The clear blue days, the birds keep warm their nest In the shades of Arnside let me rest
“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch
It seemed a good idea at the time.But the timing was wrong.Shakespeare was my boyfriend’s friend.To be honest he was a cat.So to preserve my modesty I slept with the cat and not the boyfriend.Just another natural disaster in every day life.
Still,a cat has eyes unlike a flea which is what I sleep with now;I know only because it bites me in the night!Possibly it was from the cat and became a multitude like my sins .which are mainly of omission.A few are cultivated and the rest grew like weeds.I feel such shame when I think of my life,sleeping with everything but a human being. Intimacy with moths does not contribute to literature or any other human undertaking and yet it saved a man from torment loving a woman with such a strange personality.So that is good.I also wrote a few plays
25 Therefore I say unto you, be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?
26 Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value then they?
27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life?
28 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
If you feel lonely in bed remember there are probably a few insects on you or if not millions of microbes inside you and take comfort from that..If you are lucky you may even have bed bugs.They bite but so do men sometimes.Tf that worries you boil your mattress every week. I said boil,not oil!Do listen,,,We used to boil them in a pan.Oh,no,that was our hankies.Well,boil them and dry them and then make the bed… there’s some wood in the shed.
What animal can comfort a human being standing at the edge of their world looking over a precipice? Just another warm human animal who does not speak but holds with strong arms without denying what we have seen as we fall into the depths of our dreams
We were told when Robert the Bruce was in prison he survived by studying a spider creating its webs,It consoled him.So the spider helped him but was hardly a pet.First it was totally independent and more important,insects don’t have faces.They have eyes but no expression.And they are too small.A cat may feel like a baby…but a fly will not
Which makes me think we love animals and even birds because we can detect a personality or imagine we do…….we can ascribe feelings and love to them.Perhaps we make them into mini human beings?
As insects are so different and smaller generally,as they are cold blooded,they seem too different to become pets.I have been known to address a spider as I help it out of the bath but I can’t distinguish that one from another.With cats,even when they are the same color,we can recognise their eyes,And they are very aware of our feelings…and wish to comfort.
But with insects we can get benefit by see how different they are and studying their lives .Ants are very kind to each other and carry a damaged ant back to the nest,for examplle.So they can provide food for thought..
