Category: poem

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

Night

By Katherine

In the dark the branches disappear

All is mixed up, nothing is now clear

Little creatures wander seeking food

They have no manners yet they’re never rude

The bare branches

In the sun the branches look quite red

Yet in the . winter rain they looked near dead

Hope can spring up like the holy sap

Bring life again and cross the fearsome gap.

With our courage let us walk ahead

Until the sacred river and our bed

Hope of spring

From Pixel

The sun is bright and golden though it’s low

To the dead it cannot life bestow

But seeds are resting in the fertile earth

Waiting for the moment of new

birth

In the near dead time of winter chill

Have faith and hope but also we need will

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

Strange sky

The sky is distant,cold

Neither Fall not Winter

Colour light mauvey yellow

No birds àbout, full silence

hangs like a dead bell

No thoughts,no emotion stir my

mind

This does not flatter

Death hides in the shrubs

Chased out by a cat,it floats

away like a coat someone hung

there for a moment

To snog on the dead leaves

Leaving mistleto weeping in old

jealousy

We will have to kiss

Fishing

Poachers caught the geese from off the Lea

They roasted them for Xmas so we hear

If I asked they might get one for me

Not what we desire for Xmas tea

The same is true for Kentish wine and beer

Unless we all get drunk beneath the tree

We could go fishing in the river Lea

If we had a boat then I could steer

And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

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When true love’s gone and doom hangs over head
When life runs like a river to the sea
Then shall I take new lovers to my bed.
And with their carnal touch consoled be?

When my love lies and break 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 me glad.

For I have love’s own child inside my soul
And I shall tend her till at last she’s whole

No breeze

How sad it is to see dried river beds

The clouds no longer weep my love is dead

The water does not flow, there is no breeze

The leaves have fallen from the summer trees

My novel

Do not read my novels I demand .

I’d like to write my own on Southport Sands.

I have a plot that came in a bad dream

So I have got some good from all my screams.

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

Too much rain

Heavy rain has made the river full

It overflows its banks, goes where be it will

From higher Epping rivulets descend

The great trees shed loose leaves as down trunks bend

The birds are silent,hoping for some sun

The people wander weeping like old men

Tears like melting hailstones wet my face

Round the ancient bridges children race.

Goldenrod

On Sunday we would stroll to old Deane Road

My brother used to speak in. Code

My baby sister in her pram so bold

Now both have died and passed away

I can’t forget the golden rods and Mum’s coat frayed

The cemetery where we used to pray

Now Mum is dead will there be room for me

I prefer to lie beneath my tree

I hope I shall be eaten like the Host

Though I am no Saviour I have done my best

And crave the peace of nature and her rest.

The church bells ring again in harmony

Asking for some peace and charity

I rode on Daddy s shoulders held his ears

He sang and whistled I wished he was still here

Goldenrod

On Sunday we would stroll to old Deane Road

My brother used to speak in.his own code

My baby sister in her pram so bold

Now both have died and passed away

I can’t forget the golden rods and Mum’s coat frayed

The cemetery where we used to pray

Now Mum is dead will there be room for me

I prefer to lie beneath my own

I hope I shall be eaten like the Host

Though I am no Saviour I have done my best

And crave the peace of nature and her rest.

The church bells ring again in harmony

Asking for some peace and charity

I rode on Daddy s shoulders held his ears

He sang and whistled I wished he was still here

By seas blue crystalline

By Katherine

The mind is deeper than a well  and wider than a star
I lose myself in waters deep ,symbolic ,sweet and clear
I rest embraced by this  love and wish for nothing more
I dream I walk in meadows sweet
The daisies in my hair

The heart has reasons and desires as if it were a  mind
If it’s soft as cashmere wool then it will remain  kind
Yet if it’s hard then it may crack and we will split ,divide
I dream I walk by river fleet
With  heart and mind combined

The other self that dwells alone in privacy divine
Needs sacred care and sweet respect and peace from what’s malign
The inner nature of   us all is   given and then transformed
I dream I walk on long white sands
By seas blue, crystaline

When we speak but do not look

When we speak but do not look upon
The person we address, we are undone
We miss the tiny signs, the looks, the lines
We treat them as mere object we define

We treat them like a post of wood or stone
As if we cannot hurt nor cause them shame
We hit them with sharp words or thoughtless rot
And on and on until hate is begot

All want to be acknowleged,seen and heard
But must approach each other with great care
For most of us are thin skinned, nervous beasts
Who fear they are not asked to the great Feast

And in a thousand gestures we declare
We are not speaking merely to thin air

In the frying pan

I wondered how the two of me would be
If the sperm had got inside a different egg
And my egg was penetrated by a bee
Then by sperm whose entry was by bag

I often hum and buzz as I walk out
All unknowing of the neighbours thoughts
Full of concentration and of guilt
Wondering what my other half has bought

One half of me would know no way to change
It’s not like making sponges filled with jam
Unless the universe were rearranged
Then we’d all be in the frying pan

I cannot let this thinking carry on
I can be myself and all is one

Total love

When the Jews came back to their old homes
They buried them alive in pits they dug
The ground was heaving as the Jews died, choked
Murdered by the neighbours like mad dogs

Hard it is to know what creates this
The sadism happens when we least expect
When old neighbours might greet with a kiss
Now they load the living into stacks

Were they so poor they feared that they would starve
What does Total War mean when it’s said?
The Jews’ land into small pieces was carved
Some Jews came back when locals thought them dead

If only they had not created G-d
They would be given perfect ,total love

They told me not to come

They told me not to come to you that day
They said that I was fragile,I should rest
What nonsense when your man’s about to die

They lack imagination,I would pay
If I stayed at home my heart would bust
They told me not to come to you that day

What happens to us when all is awry
My presence should contain you till you left
Not spineless abence when your lover dies

I remember Cleveland Hills and sky
Heather where we lay, embraced and kissed
They told me not to come to you that day

My tears fell like a sheet from helpless eyes
Who undid the warp,undid the weft?
The torture when your man’s about to die

Is our life on earth but a mere test
Followed by God’s kind eternal rest
They told me not to come to you that day
What ignorance when your man that day will die

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

I’m finding Derrida de-structured

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I’m finding Derrida  de-structured

And Levinas‘ face makes me smile

Who would have conjectured

That one day I’d lecture

On  thoughfullness and all its trials?

I  prefer Kierkegaard to Sartre

Who sometimes makes me feel queer.

Who would have expected

That words would be texted

As men smoked cigarettes and drank beer?

Some people like reading Jane Austen

While others juggle with Wittgensein.

Who would have discarded

The notes in the margins?

How sweetly these words recombine

Munch liked to paint people screaming,
his premonitions  were strong
Who else would have expected
The human destruction
Europe brought to the world before long?

Don’t go to bed,whatever ,who says!

Don’t go to bed with an elephant

Don’t go to bed with a frog

Their skin is too cold

When they unfold

In need go to bed with a log.

 

 

Don’t go to bed with a cobra

Don’t go to bed with a worm

You will feel fear

When snakes come near.

You may go to bed but you’ll squirm.

 

 

Don’t go to bed with a tiger

Don’t go to bed with a lamb

You may feel warm

But not very calm

Lovers unite against spam.

 

 

Come to my bed in the morning

Come to my bed in the night.

I am very soft

When I am washed

Let’s snuggle up till we’re right

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THE CAMBRIDGE INTRODUCTION TO SYLVIA PLATH

 There has more been written,probably, about Sylvia Plath than any other poet of the last century.Much of it is  various  attempts at her  biography.The focus was on her actual life and its events.I  had only read “Daddy” and “lady Lazarus” but lately I read more from her collected works and I am now impressed with her poetic gift and her hard work developing it.Perhaps she worked too hard.Who can say?
So I was ready to read some critical evaluation of her writing.This book is excellent if a little short. I found it quite easy to read even though I have no academic training in literature.

There is a summary of her life but the main focus is on each  phase of her writing For someone of  only 30  when she  died she underwent remarkable transitions and growth of her poetic mind.I am also now re ading her prose which I had dismissed.

I recommend this wholeheartedly.There is another volume “The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath”

Here is a poem I like especially the last verse

Nick and the Candlestick

By Sylvia Plath

I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears
The earthen womb
Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs
Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.
Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,
Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish—
Christ! they are panes of ice,
A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking
Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,
Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo
Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean
In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.
Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses,
With soft rugs—
The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,
Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,
You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.
 
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An article about the American poet Elizabeth Bishop.And a poem

http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/article.html?id=663

I love her work

Exchanging Hats

Unfunny uncles who insist
in trying on a lady’s hat,
–oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist

in spite of our embarrassment.
Costume and custom are complex.
The headgear of the other sex
inspires us to experiment.

Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach
with paper plates upon your laps,
keep putting on the yachtsmen’s caps
with exhibitionistic screech,

the visors hanging o’er the ear
so that the golden anchors drag,
–the tides of fashion never lag.
Such caps may not be worn next year.

Or you who don the paper plate
itself, and put some grapes upon it,
or sport the Indian’s feather bonnet,
–perversities may aggravate

the natural madness of the hatter.
And if the opera hats collapse
and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps,
he thinks what might a miter matter?

Unfunny uncle, you who wore a
hat too big, or one too many,
tell us, can’t you, are there any
stars inside your black fedora?

Aunt exemplary and slim,
with avernal eyes, we wonder
what slow changes they see under
their vast, shady, turned-down brim.

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A little poem from another WP blog

I just read this on “How my heart speaks “by Katherine

https://wordscat.wordpress.com/

Just think it could be WormPress or WarmPress.Here are the books recommended by cool.wormpress.com .Meanwhile snails slowly rush in where slugs may  be filled with dread.

Some evenings,the sky turned pink
We were happy,lying in the grass
Watching the sun set.
Arms around each other.
Seemed like eternal life had come
Earlier than forecast.
Those weathermen are always wrong!
They need new training
In that timeless moment
In between two raindrops,
In between two tears.

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I have loved you and I’ve held you.

A beautiful poem

Katherine's avatarHow my heart sings

ImageI have loved you and I’ve held you.

Many years,you have been mine;

If the time has come for parting

Let us embrace for one last time.

You know you have to leave me,

Though you desire a longer stay.

Let me hold you in my arms now

For just tonight and perhaps one day.

Then I’ll watch you travel on,sweet.

We take this last step all alone.

I’ll be here beside you watching.

I shall feel when you are gone.

        May you accept, may you surrender

I’m sure you’ll reach the promised land.

Into this earth my tears will fall, love,

As I recall your tender hands

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Not love nor money

Read this

Katherine's avatarHow my heart sings

Not love nor money should we seek to steal;
Nor for self praise and value be in need
For these things cannot ever truly heal.
And onto a wrong path must often lead.

 

Not to vice nor virtue must our wills be tied;
Yet by free grace we gently may be led
Our will directs attention which denied
May let our pride control our mindless heads.

 

Not good nor bad can track the vane of God
Far from our sightless eyes are his affairs.
Yet Faith and Hope can be a dowsing rod
With Love the force to trace the Spirit bare.

Oh,come down,Spirit,take me as your wife
Fill me with holy grace and with new life.

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