Category: poetry

Our Father

Our Father,Stars in Heaven,
Spell out thy Great Name.
Thy wisdom comes
And Angels’ sums
Add up our human pain.
Thy love is felt,
Though we live in doubt
About the human game.
Give us delay
On bankers pay,
And forgive us our lackluster efforts
As we forgive those who lack  humanity with us,
And guide us into a Demonstration
To make plain to the Nation
The evil done to the Poor,
The Disabled,the Mentally Ill,
And their Carers.
For Thine is the Trial
At the Hour of the Bible Story
We hope but are nervous.Amen

The chosen words invented as we loved

Those little words invented as we loved
Now have no other speaker but myself.
Lost, unique, the man so well beloved,
Those little words called out from our sweet love-
In my own speech, these words no longer live
I cannot use our words, that loving wealth.
The chosen words invented as we loved
Now have no other listener but myself.

Sunlight at Easter

The Easter sun came through the rich stained glass

A little child illuminated  passed.

The shining floor below the roof above

The glowing light a symbol of deep love

At this moment normal time had gone

Absorbed into the mysteries of the sun.

Then the child ran off, a cloud came by

Eternity has passed with just a sigh

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

Wild Geese

Leaves have gone so suddenly
Small birds float on the wind
Like boats astride a choppy sea.
Their swaying soothes my mind.

Wild geese fly past at dusk again,
They head towards the North.
The holly berries glow in sun,
Nature gives joy birth.

I gaze intently at the sky,
The clouds hang dark and low.
If I too were a mere wild goose
I’d know which way to go

But I am left with only words
To find my destination.
Yet words do carry down to us
Wisdom from past generations

We use old words in unique ways.
We structure them to form
A new design not seen before
A new sentence is born

I send my words with love to you
I hope you safely catch them.
Give me answers from your heart
And I’ll do my best to match them.

The burning stubble , earth’s deep fires

  1. Oh,doctor I have a brought a sample
    I hope you will find it ample
    There is no coffee left today
    Drink my sample, then we’ll pray

    If I’ve got a new infection
    Can’t you give me more protection?
    My immune system’s gone on away
    And I have to write a Play

    No Shakespeare am I as yet
    No bookmaker’s taking bets
    But if I write a sonnet new
    What will all the critics do?

    Meantime I get up at night
    Stumble to the bathroom bright
    I don’t know why my pee’s so green
    Now I see it’s aquamarine

    Green the sea at Hythe in Kent
    Down the Saxon cliffs we went
    The burning stubble , earth’s deep fires
    The inner work that purifies

    Steep,steep road in our old car
    Smoke around us where we were
    From the depths my soul cries out
    The cry is answered , do we doubt?

    As we reach the lowness deep
    In our conscious mind we weep
    When we touch the lowest place
    We will feel, angelic grace

    So the symbol of deep fires
    Filled my mind as we drove by
    Glory , for the Burning Bush
    Burned again as stubble’s crushed

Destruction of all our intent
Is itself a sacrament
For it makes an empty space
Where new creation can take place

But a prayer could ascend to its height.

Great Bardfield and Dunmow by meadows  of blue
Linseed and poppies delight
Narrow lanes curving  are leading us to
The Essex  of Constable ‘s sight

At Manningtree swans  jostle near the  stone edge
I recall we have seen them in flight
Like a god might descend  to fulfill an old pledge;
A humbling  and marvellous sight.

In Dedham,  all’s still and wisteria  hangs
From a house with the door painted white.
The church was  quite empty and no bell was rung
But a prayer could ascend to its height.

After the quiet of the village out here
The A12  was revealed as a blight
We crossed it then  turned down a lane that was near
We drove home  in the  cool of the night.

Windmills not turning and churches not used
Yet  a  beauty to charm and delight
No mills  as in Yorkshire,no  hills  to denude.
Long Melford and Eleigh ,oh wait!

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

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

I remember everything

I can see you in our house

In the kitchen, on the stairs

I see you  playing in the street

And on your rocking chair.

I see you in Saint Patrick’s church

Were we went on Saturday

And when you were in hospital

You held your beads and prayed.

You had to use your fingertips

Before I bought the beads

I half wish I had died with you

It hurts inside, I bleed

I have got a photograph

It’s us three girls and Mam

Now you’ve gone away with them

My sister,oh my lamb

My   Mother and my Father 

my sisters and one boy

I remember Christmas Day

Happy with our toys

One by one the people go

Till one is left alone

I remember everything

It’s written in my bones

I never thought I’d be alone

When four if us  were here.

I was called The fragile one

I am drowning in my tears

Oh,my dear sister what can you see ?

She’d never seem rainwater deeper than eyes
Mystery undisguised.
Round the big puddle she ran and ran;
Too much for her dolly’s pan.
By reflections of trees she was hypnotised.
Curiousity’s often so wise
Oh,my dear sister what see you there?
I hope it’s a vision fair.
What are these ships and the tugs and the tide
Where are the sailors who died?
This is an ocean and I’m in my boat
Come sisters dear,let us float.
We’ll never see daddy again, ‘cos he’s here
And down her face travelled one tear.
I see him afar off, he’s meeting the Lord
There’s the archangel with his sharp sword.
We cannot follow,no, we must go back
We each must stay on our own track.
Three little children with long  golden hair
On this road going to where?
Once three small sisters ,but now only two;
Eyes of one green, the other’s blue.
By the park gate by a pool of sea rain
We shall be three again.
One in a pushchair and one gripping tight.
I push my dear sisters into the light.
Keep hold of the handle and never let go
I loved my  sisters so.
Keep hold of my hands as Dad crosses the sea.
Don’t hope for what cannot be.
I told her it’s only a rainwater pool,
Held in God’s hand like a jewel.
But she saw the patterns and she saw the tides
Which all human beings must ride.
For nothing is “only” and nothing is “just”.
All we can live by is trust

Sunlight at Easter

The Easter sun came through the rich stained glass

A little child illuminated  passed.

The shining floor below the roof above

The glowing light a symbol of deep love

At this moment normal time had gone

Absorbed into the mysteries of the sun.

Then the child ran off, a cloud came by

Eternity has passed with just a sigh

From cats to evil

Mary wants to get a letter

This means she’ is feeling better.

Here’s the postman with his sack

Coming up the garden track

she hears the letterbox go bang

The postman seems to talk in slang

Ear ye are pet ain’t got much

Oh dear Mary mind your crutch.

I have no crutch I have a walker

You are just a nosey parker

No I’m from Warsaw,madam dear.

Well you speak English without fear.

Yes I know I’m feeling proud.

In this country it’s allowed.

Yes said. Mary I know that.

If you’re not sure I’ll ask my cat

Emile opened one green eye.

I’m not here to be a spy.

If Eastern Europe is is in trouble

Get the cats out at the double

That’s what Mrs Johnson said

She saw Boris on the bed

She brought her cat a golden collar.

That’s why Boris’s face turned yellow

There are babies and young children

Little faces all a- quivering.0

See they look like Jews tormented

By the Nazis men demented.

But would you have had the courage.

To stand up to the Nazis savage

How long will we support Ukraine?

Let us not ignore their pain

The Russian wolf is riding high

Threatening Europe from the sky.

The Jews and Yiddish have all gone

From Europe to Babylon.

We heard we must show more courage

But who hears the voices savage?

We feel like children in our hearts

Prepare us adults that’s a start.

Survival as a moral wreckage

Comforts Satan sends a message.

You do not want to know the worst.

The human race may be accursed

Marbles

Rolling marbles made of coloured glass  
Skipping rope and learning ancient rhymes
Filling inkwells , polishing the brass
With dip-in pens we  wrote  upon the lines

Licking out the bowl where cakes were mixed
Running wild with brothers  and their  friends
Wonder at those fireworks Daddy fixed
Catherine wheels  rotating, transcendent

Mother  smiling in her   flowery dress
Little rocking chairs  where we placed dolls
Daddy saying,Good night and God Bless
Teddies with no fur left, ask our Paul

Little sisters, brothers’ cricket balls
Hot coal fires where kettles used to boil
Old gas cookers, scabbed knees from our falls
Fuses blowing, making light bulbs   fail

In our bed , we whispered little tales
In the morning  feeling warm and dazed 
Love was  in the air, the baby wailed
Dad  so pleased with Mother’s  happy face

I see the cobblestones  all hot with sun
The Street Party , the Coronation

Oh,my dear sister what can you see ?

She’d never seem rainwater deeper than eyes
Mystery undisguised.
Round the big puddle she ran and ran;
Too much for her dolly’s pan.
By reflections of trees she was hypnotised.
Curiousity’s often so wise
Oh,my dear sister what see you there?
I hope it’s a vision fair.
What are these ships and the tugs and the tide
Where are the sailors who died?
This is an ocean and I’m in my boat
Come sisters dear,let us float.
We’ll never see daddy again, ‘cos he’s here
And down her face travelled one tear.
I see him afar off, he’s meeting the Lord
There’s the archangel with his sharp sword.
We cannot follow,no, we must go back
We each must stay on our own track.
Three little children with long  golden hair
On this road going to where?
Once three small sisters ,but now only two;
Eyes of one green, the other’s blue.
By the park gate by a pool of sea rain
We shall be three again.
One in a pushchair and one gripping tight.
I push my dear sisters into the light.
Keep hold of the handle and never let go
I loved my  sisters so.
Keep hold of my hands as Dad crosses the sea.
Don’t hope for what cannot be.
I told her it’s only a rainwater pool,
Held in God’s hand like a jewel.
But she saw the patterns and she saw the tides
Which all human beings must ride.
For nothing is “only” and nothing is “just”.
All we can live by is trust

From a poem by Francis Thomson

T

Where is the land of Luthany,
Where is the tract of Elenore?
I am bound therefore.

‘Pierce thy heart to find the key

When to the new eyes of thee
All things by immortal power,
Near or far,
Hiddenly
To each other linked are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star;
When thy song is shield and mirror
To the fair snake curled pain,
Where thou dar’st affront her terror
That on her thou may’st attain
Persean Conquest; seek no more,
O seek no more!
Pass the gates of Luthany,
Tread the region Elenore!

Francis Thompson

XXXTags: connection, death, flower, hope, knowledge, learning, life, light, loss, quest, sight, star, 

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

I pushed  my sisters up our quiet street

I remember riding on his back
It was summer; I was only two
He had an old tweed jacket full of smoke
Woodbines, they would probably kill you too

Walking with my sister in her pram
Mam looked as happy as a summer lark
My brothers were pretending to be soldiers
We walked along, right into the deep dark

A few years later Dad was sat there crying
They never told me he was very bad
Eight years old, I pushed the baby
My sister walked while clutching at my side

I was worried Grandad would be angry
Seeing us three coming up the lane
We usually went there only at the weekend
On, on, on, went my brain

Going back home it was the evening
The sun had gone ,time to go to bed
I pushed my little sisters up our street
Auntie told me Daddy was now dead

No more rides on his thin shoulder
No more walking in the flowery park
Only the anguish of our feelings
Only children weeping in the dark

Creation

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

by Mike Flemming copyright

My old blue fountain pen allows
The ink across this page to flow
Like wet paint from an artist’s brush,
And words come in a rush.
Enchanted by the hand that writes .
Bewitched by art,beauty alights
The script is like a music score
Through which we step as through a door,
Imagination’s home.
As,mysteriously, to you, to me,
The spirits of our hearts are tamed ,
By rhythms of pen,of brush, of mind,
They enter vision quite unplanned,
Like moths to flutter softly round
Fire joined heart and hand
The pen slows down,the hand grows still,
And ,just as dreams at daybreak will,
They shrink,they disappear,they’re gone
Like dew dies in hot sun

When I have fears by John Keats

img_20190529_143523https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/when-i-have-fears-by-john-keats

 

When I Have Fears

By John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/when-i-have-fears-by-john-keats

Fiery air

Autumn time in Essex  where we drove
When farmers burned the stubble of the corn
The earth itself was  fiery  like young love
The smokey air rose like a  cloud  new born

The Kentish  landlocked   cliffs  are  wide and steep
The farmers grow  their grain on land beneath
And there too we  have seen the holy fire
The flames  and smoke arrest me with desire

The earth and soil, the  harvest  we find there
Give me joy  both full of wheat or bare
Why did burning stubble   make me glow?
These images affect the heart’s deep core

Now  fires are banned., they damage our pure air
And I   did not like the murder of the hare

Christ came down  as weak as candle light

In a stable with no heat or light
Who will celebrate the birth of God
When we each deny our rage and spite

Psychosis swallows up  the dark of night
The star that shepherds saw  has filled with blood
Above a stable with no heat or light

We live with fear, we  know who has the might
Can our  minds contain both  bad and good
When we each deny our rage and spite?

We fail to know how others suffer fright
That they are persons  too , not understood
 Christ came down  as weak as candle light

We are each a world, there is no fate 
I see the tears  run down the face of God
When we each  engage our rage and  spite

Shall we  lose in darkness  or in  flood?
Asked a  man   bereft of  his  true love
In a stable with no heat or light
Love is born, is  frozen, is denied

 

 

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

Is there sacredness in this world now?

IMG_0276

IMG_0269

We sense the sacred in these peaceful walls
Yet men have died in places that appal
Women too and children then unborn
Fell into cold dark earth in lands forlorn

As our weapons grow, our hearts are hard
The people live in Gaza behind bars
The water all polluted as taps drip
Is this war or is it vengeance fit?

In Britain, it’s the poor who lose the war
As it was when Jesus Mary bore
Yet here are clerics blessing marching bands
A military show for all the land

The genocide in Europe of the Jews
The self destructive actions of the proud
The fields of France filled sick with blood and bone
Who are we to cast judgemental stones?

The War’s not over when the fighting stops
The soldiers and the tortured suffer shock
The widows and the parents all bereaved.
The unborn children hover in unease

We let the prisoners out from camps of death
But who would take them in or take their path?
The injuries will travel down the years
As still we fight and still we live in fear

It’s Europe’s grasp and greed which was the cause
Of death in Gaza, Syria, in long wars
Yet we judge we are more civilised
When we self defend with bitter lies

In my dream, I gave birth to a child

In my dream, I gave birth to a child
The doctor said that he would die quite soon
My feelings overwhelming made me wild

The Nazi doctor threw him on a pile
I lay nearby unmoving as I keened
In my dream,I gave birth to a child

A week passed by,I knew that death beguiled
Frozen lips made no sound, song or tune
My feelings overwhelming made me wild

I had to rise and say my black goodbye.
My baby with the others;horror loomed
In my dream I gave birth to a child

I picked him up , when suddenly he smiled
I held him to my breast, my songs I crooned
My feelings overwhelming drove me wild

I had to carry him, the landscape gloom
A desert grey aand rocky like some moon
In my dream I gave birth to a child

In terror I had walked yet love consoled

Imagine you’re  a spy and see our plight

The sun  enfolds me  in its wealth of  light
Caressing eyes and making  love seem right
Forgot,the  lonely darkness in a trance
When spring begins its equinoxal dance
Forgotten too is  how the frost can bite
And how warm lethargy  turns day to night
As we lie indoors like parasites
Into  lighted windows, I will glance
A minor crime when  brightness   draws my sight
Here’s a drying rack with clothes  mutant
Here’s a sill entirely filled with plants
Imagine you’re  a spy and see our plight
The mirror crackles, full of long-held spite

When I have fears by John Keats

img_20190529_143523https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/when-i-have-fears-by-john-keats

 

When I Have Fears

By John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/when-i-have-fears-by-john-keats

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

Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

A day with my own self, such peaceful hours
The inner seas make music as they roll
And in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

The rain comes down in cold but gentle showers
Desiring  to  give moisture to all souls
A symbol of  the value of quiet hours

In Northern hills we looked for  Durham owls
They hunt by day to keep their bodies whole
While in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

My loved one was a native of those towers
Highcliff Nab and Hasty Bank  called home
My days with him a-wandering there for hours

As he died , deep in my heart I howled
I held his hands, remembered , paid the toll
While in the ground the worms digest  the sour

Lying in the heather  we had roamed 
May God  have mercy on his  homing soul
Now I enjoy   in reverie our hours
Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

 

 

 

Because real knowledge hurts

I don’t want to see reality
But I don’t want to lose your care.
I want to go on being selfish
And having you always there.

I don’t want to feel your feelings.
I am aware that I’ve been very curt.
I want to go on ignoring you,
Because real knowledge will hurt.

The longer I pretend to be ignorant,
The longer I opt not see,
The more I shall hurt my loved ones.
The more unkind and cruel I’ll be.

I don’t want to see reality.
I’m frightened of what I might find.
I need a dear friend to be with me
Whilst I traverse the dark glades of my mind.

I am afraid to discover reality,
But it’s better for us all if we do.
I hope I can get enough courage
To be able to bear what is true.