Category: poetry

Oh,kind despair .. revised

In deep despair I felt that I was stuck
Paralysed by  grief and guilt I failed.

I had no right defence against attack

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

Hungry, weak, alone I was in shock
The death of one I loved   had made me frail

The savage pain of grief turns flesh to brick


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

I’ve  told my story here,, it’s not been sold
Kind despair  that  made me long time  sit

The living heart knows  more than do the wits.

Note sometimes when we are fortunate writing a poem can be a communication with a part of us that we are not normally in touch with consciously. So the line about kind despair was a gift to me because I had not sorted in that way before but in fact it was patience and waiting that brough peace tp my mind and heart.

I think this can happen even if the poem is not a great poem that literary standards but it helps us to get to know the world and our deeper selves. That’s why it’s worth doing it

Dreams ar also away to this kind of learning

If we can remember them

Delight

Enfolded   by your  smile,I saw the  light
As if a hidden world such love revealed
Our spirits touched, our sorrows pushed to flight
In that space, our worries did not bite
The trees were shelter, losses were each healed
In your holy smile,I saw the light
Blessed be, there is a second sight
From heart and soul , the  silver bells shall peal
Where spirits touch ,where sorrows quickly fly
And who but you would see my inner plight
Would know the false from what is right and real
Cradled  in  your  smile,I felt  the light
No army with its metal and its might
Can win the final war , love conquers steel
As spirits touch  as sorrows say goodbye
I know it’s hard to learn what others feel
And not draw back from grief, from loss revealed
Enchanted by your smile ,O golden light
Our spirits touched, our eyes wept their delight

He is alive

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

Making a poem

My old blue fountain pen allows
The ink across the 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 you pass 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 goes still,
And just as dreams at daybreak will,
They shrink,they disappear,they’re gone,
And now this poem is done.

Your sacred smile

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Embraced  entire , your sacred smile held me
Until we  both were one deep in  our souls
As still as a white dove  held tenderly

 

For a little time so warm and free
As if your smile contained  me, made me whole
Embraced and loved , your sacred smile  touched me

As  we  cross together the  dark sea
I wish this sacred love could  always hold
As  gently as a dove ,as tenderly

And if I felt the  brilliant light  touch me
My eyes would weep,my tears would turn to gold
Embraced and loved, oh sacramental  tree

Would that humankind were truly free
That in the darkness, we could find our home
As dies  the  fragile Word on Calvary

We fear  the Tempest and we hear the Storm
The still small voice  will whisper , not perform
Embraced  entire , your  smile   encompassed me
As still as a white dove, as tenderly

Your sacred smile

fritillaria_pontica2016-1

Embraced  entire , your sacred smile held me
Until we  both were one deep in  our souls
As still as a white dove  held tenderly

 

For a little time so warm and free
As if your smile contained  me, made me whole
Embraced and loved , your sacred smile  touched me

As  we  cross together the  dark sea
I wish this sacred love could  always hold
As  gently as a dove ,as tenderly

And if I felt the  brilliant light  touch me
My eyes would weep,my tears would turn to gold
Embraced and loved, oh sacramental  tree

Would that humankind were truly free
That in the darkness, we could find our home
As dies  the  fragile Word on Calvary

We fear  the Tempest and we hear the Storm
The still small voice  will whisper , not perform
Embraced  entire , your  smile   encompassed me
As still as a white dove, as tenderly

Oh,Cumbria

Oh,Cumbria I wish I were with you
Near Ambleside, the stepping stones, the slate
The Langdale Pikes , the valley and the view

The sinking sands, the sprawling sea so blue
The tempting  path across the bay , it’s bait
Oh,Cumbria I wish I were with you

The  thunderstorms, the heavy clouds, the dew
Water is your element, your fate
The Langdale Pikes , the valley and the view

By Buttermere the waterfalls renew
My shoes were pools,my socks a Plathian plaint 
Oh,Cumbria I wish I were with you

I may be human,,I may be astute
My feelings, punctured ,let me lose my state
By Langdale Pikes , huge shadows   stripe the view

The sky is black, the candles  flicker,night
Fear and awe, I kneel  here , faith ignites
Oh,Cumbria I wish I could  see you
The Langdale Pikes , the cliffs,  the distant view

An artist’s canvas stretched, a matricide

Saturday was shopping then a walk
Epping,Ongar,Finchingfield by car
Reading book reviews and chewing stalks
Buttercups and meadows,Henry Moore

Driving back from Chelmsford, cornfields flamed
Smoke and fire and earth, the sun dismayed
Farmers working hard,  a harvest, grain
The sky  through mist a cobalt  blue displayed

Standon with its fords and wandering cows
Little rivers,Essex, flowing down
The Stort joins with the Lea,a gurglimg sound
Water for the Thames  and mossy ground

The earth feels like my body sacrificed
An artist’s canvas stretched , a matricide

 

Their lover wants a burglar to alarm

How sad I think of washing the bed sheets
When my partner  holds me in his arms
Instead of kissing me  he   might well shout

Do I get more pleasure as I sleep
Dreaming of a Bendix  and its charms~
How sad I think of washing the bed sheets

Even grown up men are seen to weep
Their lover wants a burglar to alarm
Instead of kissing her , he  might well shriek

Even when it’s raining cats and sleet
Women  hang their washing  in the yard
How sad I think of washing all the  sheets

When we marry we  don’t know these weights
The world sits on  our backs quite unadorned
Instead of kissing  him,she  might well shriek

Now romance  cannot last, and love  lies lame
Buying houses, babies, what to blame?
Women  are still   fraying mind and  sheets
Instead of kissing lovers ,indiscreet

 

Loneliness, the word’s not strong enough


Posted on May 14, 2017
Loneliness, the word’s not strong enough
For widows and their masculine counterparts.
Ripped in half, that’s more the phrase; like, tough.

No arms left now, that never will rebuff.
No eager lips which whispering love impart
Loneliness, the word’s not strong enough

People say, of course, the going’s rough
The coming’s gone and nothing shall gestate
Ripped in half, that’s more the phrase; like, tough.

Never more to share cartoons and laughs.
Never more to be a chosen mate
Loneliness, the word’s not wrong enough.

Did we know the heart of what we had?
Did we learn the art of love. of fate?
Ripped in half, that’s more the phrase; like, tough.

You have gone and closed now is the gate
In a mad ball, I dance with love and hate
Loneliness, the word’s not strong enough!
Ripped in half, that’s more the phrase; like, tough.

Another mind

From time and place and season I am lost, Disorientated ,missing tracks well worn.

Do not suppose I’m unaware of cost,

Nor label me with epithets of scorn. For usual paths lead to the usual place.

The safest way to live and perhaps to die,

But wandering through the woods I find new space

and in wild grasses with the fox I lie.

Through distant trees, I see a way to go

As narrow as a slit in pale limestone.

I pass in silence as if in deep,deep snow.

My courage rises even as I groan. Remember when we’re lost ,we may then find

Another way,a place,another mind.

The evening sky

Through the window the sky was looting at me gently

tomorrow it will weep again

Why are children killed in the land that Jesus lived in?

The sky is wise- it has to cover everything.

Sometimes the sun shine seems inappropriate.

I hold my book in one hand and I feel my breath slow down

Does the world inside us match the one without?

Now the clouds have rearranged themselves in the wind

Children are cruel too

I wish you were here but there are things I cannot tell you

I can’t tell you that we can get too near to God

But mostly we tread on him as he bleeds

The sun has almost gone and yet it’s very light as if the lights coming from the ground shining upwards

Soon night will fall and this light will be extinguished once again

Gently, gently, the night will come

I won’t forget

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

The orchestra that plays as we go in

The chattering cacophony of cars
Underneath  the silence  of the stars
The echo of lost voices,faces, smiles
To which our little  heart is always loyal

The horns that shriek, the trains  that wreck the track
The vision of the lost who can’t come back
The loaded wagons  and the violin
The orchestra that plays as we go in

The crackling of the ice the skaters skim
The refugees whose clothing is too thin
The  scream of Munch, the horror he foresaw.
The end of Europe in the first World War

The  decorated War Memorials  grim
Reminding us that no-one ever wins

She drowned in mobile phones which could not speak

Drowned by words whose owner could not speak
Disordered  and untimely they came down
Her   mind had lost its  senses, its critiques

She did not wish to see a world so bleak
She  lay  there  like a fox  on bloody ground
Crowded by the  slobbering hounds  she shrieked

I asked  if Su Doku would bring  her peace
She  beat me with a heavy pan  all round
Her   mind had lost its  pity in her grief

I begged her use a hammer,kill or tease
She  cried  out, oh, my wi fi has gone down
She drowned in mobile phones which could not speak

She begged me  to cook dumplings with the  beef
Atora still make suet, it’s renowned,
Her   mind had lost its  legacies, its reach

I  bought a bunch of roses from a clown
The thorns  a  sharp reminder of  her nouns
Spared the  words  this woman could not speak
Our silence  gave me comfort,  yet I weep

Oh, brilliant leaves

Oh, brilliant leaves are now turned duller red.
The first day of  our Brexit winter time.
From the sun  bright  colour had been  bled.

What seemed innate was stolen then instead
As life  is taken when we pass our prime
The  shimmering leaves are now turned brownish red

Oh,sadly  know the leaves  face  sudden  death
Torn from branches where  boys used to climb
All  the   foliage flies  in  one last breath

Mystics hear the still small voice   of God
When all is lost and meaning ‘s but a  line
Those   high leaves  for tramps shall make a bed

 
When we had it,what was it we had?
We hear the Word when we have paid the fine
Once  lovely leaves are now turned dull and dead
For  only sun   expressed  what had been  fed.

Continue reading “Oh, brilliant leaves” →

Small and humble

The clouds are large  like galleons on the sea
The sails are rounded swimming on the blue
The earth seems small and humble company

Some take  fright and into dark they flee
Blinded  by the size,ignored the clue
The clouds are whipped  like  icecream into goo

I see a dream that  hangs high on a  tree
A crow stands on its head, the small birds rue
~The earth seems small ,unreal yet company

God wrote us a  letter,that is key
We staggered to the fire,we burned with glee
The clouds  disguise  the sin of  our envy

The dying god hangs through eternity
Shall he be raised, shall we his promise see?
The earth seems small and humble company

Oh, do not  let us kill the sacred tree
Fragmented it wlll split  the Trinity
The clouds are  beads  upon a rosary
The Cross  beseeches.words are  heresy

 

 

The liturgy of the birds

The force and beauty of the wild North Sea

The coast of Norfolk,sands so white,so free.

The grief that rips the heart out from its cave

Throws it on the sea to ride the waves

The loss of you and love and all it means

With my inner eye I see these  scenes

The snow that fell on Cromer Easter Day

The lifeboat on the pier, the words to say

Ancient churches guard the holy space

And everything is right and in its place.

Eagles do not live here, but the birds

  Sing  from yellow gorse and know the words

What names might small birds  call us as they  watch?

The world is re created in a snatch.

The word gorse rhymes with norse

In 865 Ivan the Boneless a Viking  invaded East Anglia His army wintered in Thetford forest before heading North where they eventually conquered York

The birds singing in the yellow gorse is a reality but it’s also reminder of the history which the birds may remember more than the humans.

Also because the birds are singing for joy and they know the words it is akin to a liturgical offering

It’s not only humans who can praise. The way that the world is at the moment it may be hard for us to do that

Unless you’ve feet

We walk along the Pennine way some years
If farmers let the bulls out,we don’t care
I like stiles and jumping over walls
But then I’m not a man with stuff to haul
I like mountains,I like lakes and boats
I like being tickled as we float
I like sheep that follow me all day
Trying to find the perfect spot to pray
Up near Dent the sheep beg very well
They learn to knit while sitting on a Fell
In the winter Dent is somewhat cold
It feels more frosty to the very old
I’ll never go to Dent or Alston now
Unless the bull is gone and there’s a cow
I’ll never climb up Coniston Old Man
Nor meet Mary,Annie, Dave or Stan
They are in another kinder place
Where one the women made the famous lace
On the River Trent come down the Peak
Do not wear your shoes unless you’ve feet

Joy will return one day

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Some days are sad and blue

And we feel lonely too
Or we cause rifts.

Some days are doldrum days.
Some days are like bad plays.
Not such a gift.

Most days have joyful parts.
Most days we lift our hearts.
They pass all too swift.

Some days love speaks to me.
Some days I feel so free.
I love my craft.

Life is a patterned weave.
Love helps us when we grieve.
Love is a raft.

See how the sun comes back.
See how light fills the gaps..
Some days we laugh.

Weep now and I’ll weep with you.
I have known sorrow too.
Yet sorrow will pass.

Joy is not far away.
Joy will return one day….
With life’s arts and crafts

We walked the Cleveland Hills when love was new

The places I associate with you,
Durham in the deepest, whitest frost
The places that I dream of what we knew

We walked the Cleveland Hills when love was new
Saw icy windows in your parent’s house.
The places I associate with you

Lincoln floodlit, threw me to my knees….
We crossed the Humber in midwinter lost
The places that I dream of, that we knew

Christmas time your mother felt so blue
We walked the sea edge Redcar,Saltburn first .
The places I associate with you

But where’ve you gone and why is there no clue?
I travel in my dreams ,with you impressed.
The places I associate with you,
The spaces where we travelled ,where are you?

Is it worth  his pain to know the truth?

They don’t mention  when you study maths
Consistency,completeness and  their lack
For  with any set of axioms there are gaps
Another world, a place, another map

Discoveries that shocked, past reason’s  grasp
The  man who  crossed the hurdles in his path
Godel   paid for this by going   mad
Is it worth  his pain to know the truth?

 I wonder if  the politics  of fear
Will prove  completely nothing    is  a cure
The axiomatic system of dark arts
Is not enough ,  brings more pain to endure

For maths is simple when compared to life
Where ugly feelings like dark demons writhe

The night train

We’re all going on the night train journey
Full of strange and  lovely sights
We’re all going on the night train journey
So we have   the brightest lights

We’re all going on the night train journey
We  don’t pay for our own seats
We’re all going on the night train journey
We’re companions discreet

We’re all going on the night train journey
When we die, is this the route?
We’re all going on the night train journey
Wear pyjamas not  a suit

We’re all going on the night train journey
Might we find our mom and dad?
We’re all going on the night train journey
All the living, and  the dead

We’re all going on the night train journey
Circulating like our blood
We’re all going on the night train journey
Joan of Arc  needs Noah’s Flood

We’re all going on the night train journey
Who  creates us,  makes our form?
We’re all going on the night train journey
Heal us ,we are people,torn

 

 

 

Who sieves earth?

When we think of God, we see an eye
Watching us like some abhorrent spy
What of his touch, his hearing, his   small voice?
What his  taste conveys and  how employed

Larger  than the total of  sand grains
That  form all  ocean shores  by  moon arranged
Smaller than  the eyes of ladybirds
And insects humble without   spoken words

What is size  compared to tangled roots?
What is loud compared to army boots?
What the colour, what the perfect form
To ripple through my eyes with no alarm

What do you here, what  vision do you flee?
Who  sieves earth and whose the face you see?

The liturgy of the birds

The force and beauty of the wild North Sea

The coast of Norfolk where we loved to be

The grief that rips the heart out from its cave

Throws it on the sea to ride the waves

The loss of you and love and all it means

With my inner eye I see these  scenes

The snow that fell on Cromer Easter Day

The lifeboat on the pier, the words to say

Ancient churches guard the holy space

And everything is right and in its place.

Eagles do not live here, but the birds

  Sing  from yellow gorse and know the words

What names might small birds  call us as they  watch?

The world is re created in a snatch.

The word gorse rhymes with norse

In 865 Ivan the Boneless a Viking  invaded East Anglia His army wintered in Thetford forest before heading North where they eventually conquered York

The birds singing in the yellow gorse is a reality but it’s also reminder of the history which the birds may remember more than the humans.

Also because the birds are singing for joy and they know the words it is akin to a liturgical offering

It’s not only humans who can praise. The way that the world is at the moment it may be hard for us to do that

Delight

Enfolded   by your  smile,I saw the  light
As if a hidden world such love revealed
Our spirits touched, our sorrows pushed to flight
In that space, our worries did not bite
The trees were shelter, losses were each healed
In your holy smile,I saw the light
Blessed be, there is a second sight
From heart and soul , the  silver bells shall peal
Where spirits touch ,where sorrows quickly fly
And who but you would see my inner plight
Would know the false from what is right and real
Cradled  in  your  smile,I felt  the light
No army with its metal and its might
Can win the final war , love conquers steel
As spirits touch  as sorrows say goodbye
I know it’s hard to learn what others feel
And not draw back from grief, from loss revealed
Enchanted by your smile ,O golden light
Our spirits touched, our eyes wept their delight

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

 

 

Europe is corrupt

Beyond  the image, man dwells now abject
We treated fellow creatures worse than worms
We do not talk of genocide, such tact.

What we can’t yet know, in us reacts
Europe is in trauma,I’m informed
Beyond imagination dwell  those acts

God   is  outside language,  he’s no fact
We can’t digest  the meaningless unformed
We do not dwell on genocide, such tact.

 

The  gypsies innocent were cruelly wracked
The men  who loved another man were burned
Beyond  the image, man dwells now abject

 

The s ghosts of Auschwitz  weep as Europe  coughs.
The past’s an old compartment in the train
We do not feel that genocide, what  lack

 

Oh, to wind the film back till we learn
Killing, torture, gassing,  we must mourn
Beyond  the image man dwells now abject
Enlightenment , ambivalent ,  has cracked

Is it worth  his pain to know the truth?

They don’t mention  when you study maths
Consistency,completeness and  their lack
For  with any set of axioms there are gaps
Another world, a place, another map

Discoveries that shocked, past reason’s  grasp
The  man who  crossed the hurdles in his path
Godel   paid for this by going   mad
Is it worth  his pain to know the truth?

 I wonder if  the politics  of fear
Will prove  completely nothing    is  a cure
The axiomatic system of dark arts
Is not enough ,  brings more pain to endure

For maths is simple when compared to life
Where ugly feelings like dark demons writhe

It’s good to look outside

The grieving one who never looks outside.

Suffers like a prisoner in a cell Yet they have some freedom to decide

To grieve, yet view our holy world as well.

To turn the eyes back to the lost and dead.

Is what we all may do in painful times But to this natural world, we must be wed;

And under suffering, draw a heavy line.

From despair, we rise to be renewed;

To see our friends and make our hearts feel glad. And look behind us with a gentler view

See the joys mixed with the loss we’ve had.

In the sea of grief, we’ll swim not drown,

And cast away lead weights which pull us down.

Crushed my mind

Drowning in the seas of grief again

A sudden fever crushed my anxious mind

Can I learn to float, to  bear the pain?

How come the world is bad, am I to blame?

Now my friends are cruel who were once kind

Drowning in the sea of grief again

She who injured me cannot be named.

Nothing seems to help but passing time.

Can I learn to float amidst the pain?

I must be perfect so I can’t complain.

Nothing seems to help but nursery rhymes

Drowning in the sea of grief again.

Is there not a God to grief contain

Now I know why faces old are lined

Who knows how to float through seas of pain?

I thought I had seen much but I am blind 

The scholars mind lacks common sense to bind

Drowning in the sea of grief again

Teach me how to float through all this pain