Category: poetry

The first step

Attracted by the window and the light
I walked towards it, those were my  first steps
The memory of an act  creates insight

Oh,mother I can leave you,I can fight
Now I move and noone can me stop
Desirous of the window and the light

Implicit in the action is the flight
Growing is not smooth, it is abrupt
The memory of an act  creates insight

Yet somewhere other, there is greater might
That one day caused me angst, that made me trip
Humbled by the window and the light

After every day, there comes a night
Abjection is the cup that each must sip
The repeating of an act  creates insight

Children are  not injured when they slip
When they rise, they quickly can forget
Attracted by the window and the sight
We all must stand and walk but  in curved lines

 

 

· Daddy’s coming home

At three o’clock, we ran across the park
Then up the Wigan Road, we children roamed
Past the houses and along the fields
Looking for our daddy coming home
Looking for our daddy coming home.

I was only  two or three  at most
We passed our church and saw the Pope in Rome
We climbed a fence and walked by fields of wheat
Looking for our daddy coming home
Looking for our daddy coming home.

From the distance came a tall thin man
A ladder on his shoulder, hair well combed
A bucket full of paints and all his tools
Look, Paul, is that daddy coming home?
Bernard, I think daddy’s coming home!

A look of shock, a smile, a cry, my loves!
He rushed towards us, happy and transformed
What about your mammy does she know?
Yes, yes, yes it’s daddy coming home
Yes, yes, yes, it’s daddy coming home.

Oh,Mammy had no idea   of  it at all
She thought we were just playing by the wall
Children were much bolder and more free
 But Daddy  went to Heaven after that
Mam was   so depressed   she killed the cat

 

Happy in the golden fields  of joy
Happy with no money  with few toys
 Daddy never walked that road  for long
I missed him so I  cut   off my own tongue

She loved her adverb more than me

P1000324

My wife has left me for an adverb.
I don’t know which one it is!
Is it slowly,quickly, nearly?
Life should not be like a quiz.

She told me that she “nearly” loved me,
When “dearly” was what I had hoped.
Life is full of lost illusions…
How do deserted people cope?

I think I should have kept it secret,
For now I sit and sadly grieve.
Do you think my wife is cruel?
What a strange excuse to leave!

Would she leave me for a pronoun?
Would she leave for a full stop?
Would I leave you for a quote mark?
Would I fall into a dot?

Come back,darling for I love you.
I have learned I must take care.
I will go for grammar lessons.
I am sure I can learn flair!

We can write a poem together,
You can choose the topic,dear.
I will hold my pen and write for
They say true love drives out fear.

Did I fear her? Did I love her?
Was she worthy of my heart?
Did she dislike my hairy nostrils?
Was that why we had to part?

Come back Mary,come back Mavis.
Come back Sunny, come back Sue
Without my wife I feel quite lonely.
What is a poor man to do?

I admit I was unfaithful.
God made men to procreate.
Yet I loved my wife the best…
And how I loved her homemade cake

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.

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

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

That village Street

Standon church, the village and the ford

How the eye will wander as it stares

Lazy cows stand idly by the gate

How deep silence holds and melts our cares.

The heavy load of work, the children’s gaze.

The weight of coppers spoils the father’s clothes

The cake stand gleams, sadistically exposed

The cat sleeps on,while BarclaysBank is closed

We left the car beside the butcher’s shop

Climbed up to the church his mother moaned

She  enjoyed the view  down this long Street.

Despite the aching of her twisted toes.

Now they’re gone and I stand here alone

I see your face, your eyes,your smiling bones

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  there 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

From the bitter winter of the heart






We  feel the bitter winter of the heart
The icy hand ,the cruel teeth’s sharp bite
When close friends die, when lovers break apart

Terse,cruel words can make our deep self smart
The weak have  little power to make things right
So feel the bitterest winter of their hearts

Humans may like fruit be much too tart
Thus fantasied revenge  can  blind with light
As close friends die or false lovers depart

While we suffer, we seek maps and charts
Which path to  follow,which leads us aright
From  the bitter winter of the heart?

The muscles clench, the ligaments are taut
Faces frown, in mirrors demons  shriek
If close friends die or lovers haste to part

The pain of loss, the tears that agitate
The mental functions,all have gone on strike
Stricken in  the  winter of the heart

Retaliation , bitter, wants to fight.
Yet we have little time to see the Light
We   curse the bitter winter of the heart
Instinct, humbler. finds for us new charts

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

The face I loved to contemplate

The face I loved to contemplate is gone

The image dwells no longer in my mind

I once was sad to see it when I woke

Now I’m even sadder by mind blind

All perceptions fade if not renewed

The ones we loved the most still disappear

Perhaps when we’re asleep then they return

We are passive though our love’s sincere

As I grow old, I lose their shape and form

Yes I see the smile before he died.

I helped him to the river and the boat

Now he Is no longer by my side

Such loss includes the images as well.

Into cold dark earth his body fell

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

Now I am  old and I have realised

pteroceras-semiteretifolium

Once I  cared for people who were old
Who wet themselves and  felt the winter cold
I gave them baths and washed their backs  and fronts
Helped them to get dressed and  zip their pants

I made them pots of tea and gave them cake
I gave them dinner  on a china plate
I listened to their stories of the past
An unknown world of war and  terrors vast

And if they cried I’d wipe away their tears
Talk to them  till sorrow disappeared
I’d   do the washing up and  clean the knives
The women missed their being someone’s wife

Now I am  old and I  have realised
I really had no feel for what it’s like.

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  there 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

The black cat’s run

The sky is stark, the air is cool and still
The black cat’s run, the birds unfold all day
I sit down here and with my totty pray
Ye cast o’ foolish thoughts, you raped my will
. We’ve each enraged the bureaucratic mill.
Oh frigid purse, I never meant to pay!
The sky ‘s a-spark, the air is warm and shrill
The saturnine demoted knelled their way
With this feathered pounce, my sample quill,
I cite the cheque and date it for next May.
Oh, tit for cat, the tiger’s bed ‘s astray.
Yer life is settled by a harlot’s will
The sky ‘s a shark, the air is sharper still.

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

 

A pool of light

photo1049_001

Their eyes drew me,
And their eyes draw me again
Into a pool of winter light
Golden from the low sun.
I swim in it
Like a hawk flows on the wind
Over the depths,
Of life.
Contained by a white china cup,
I’m your reflection now
Drowning in the slanting sunlight
Like a stone in a lake.
Falling deeper until I find
the creative mud
with which I mingle
no longer a stone
but a soft flowing stream of sensations
which meets with joy
the earth’s depths and presence.
And something new will grow

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Into a little crack  a seed may fall

Hiding in between two garden shrubs
A little fruiting tree has grown unseen
Now it’s filled with blossom humbly borne
That decorates the patient garden green

I see it with delight from up above
The window gives me visions ,maps of space
I see the blackbirds, hear them sing at dusk
Now all nature finds its proper place

Into a little crack a seed may fall
A tree grows up and breaks grey paving stones
Thus are the mighty broken,scattered, scorned
All they leave are heaps of whitened bone

The humble may be raised without request
The proud are filled with hatred of the rest

When true love’s gone

Asarum-Jade-Dragon-1

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  lovers lie 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 my love lies and wrecked all loyalty.
When puzzlement makes all the world seem mad.
Then I shall upend causality
And let myself do deeds which make me glad.

I have the fruits of love within my heart.

Sorrow will not tear me into parts

When after death I lie deep in the earth

O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat
When after death I lie in deep in the earth
My bosom,hands and eyes  become your meat

You have no sun as you enjoy your feast
And none is  chosen as we were at birth
O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat

All of us are equal in defeat
None are high or low , what are we worth?
My brain,my hands,my eyes  become worms’ meat

In the soil, we rest  in comfort sweet
Let us all be blessed,God  make no curse
You made the happy worms who   will  us  eat

O  remember the deep  ash from Auschwitz’ heat
The little children killed without Kaddish
Those  hearts ,those hands, those eyes   no worm   could eat

,
Why should we  be satisfied by wish
When  people burn or starve  beside our dish
O Godly worm that of  my flesh might eat
Let my very self  become your meat

Theatre forms the soul

When the fruit has rotted on the stalk
Bruised and broken like the poor in need
When leaders meet but rarely truly talk
When children caught in cross fire lie and bleed

Don’t we see God’s Kingdom is a joke
Ones hundred million lj bodies broke
They lost once and love dies in ktheir gore

Utopia, evolution, grandiose plans
Sacrifice yourself for those to come
We saw the little children hand in hand
Ground mines blow them up, they could not run

One thing’s clear, God’s here or not at all
The future’s fiction, yet I hear its callt

rvr

Weaving

The world is woven in such different ways
Struts the vertical, the flat below
Oh God who weaves me shall by me be praised

Oh, shall the mystic reach be what she craves
When all the strings release and she falls low
The world is woven in its different ways

Timed by ritual Lady Lazarus rose
And all the eyes that gazed were burning slow
Yes, God who weaves me shall by me be praised

There is a hollow only Ariel knows
As horse and rider as one being flow
The world is sensed in wholly different ways

The body ,home of mind, will run astray
Oh, what seams of evidence forego
Fallen God who unacknowledged knows

Beneath the sea of green the undertow,
Spirits sidle deep like melting snow
The world is woven in such different ways
That God who weaves me shall by me be praised

Let deep green swallow me.

Oh,sweet my heart,let nature dissolve me.
In her greens I am allowed to be.
While in the city politicians cry
And from my lips I hear a solemn sigh.
Oh,foolish world that foolish men are free.

What torment that we need society
And cannot dwell like birds in winter trees.
Or like the spider weaving webs defy.
Release my heart,let nature dissolve me.

The rich are common in momentous fee.
Unlike the insects and the fuzzy bee.
For all of us, our end is ever nigh
Enchanted as the dove that homewards flies.
Be comfortless in notoriety
Oh,cease my heart,let deep green swallow me.

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

 

Into a little crack  a seed may fall

Hiding in between two  garden shrubs
A little  fruiting tree has grown unseen
Now it’s filled with blossom humbly borne
That decorates the patient garden green

I see it with delight from up above
The window gives me visions ,maps of space
I see the blackbirds, hear them sing at dusk
Now all nature finds its proper place

Into a little crack  a seed may fall
A tree grows up and cracks the paving stones
Thus are the mighty broken,scattered, scorned
All they leave are  heaps of whitened bone

The humble may be raised  without request
The proud  are filled with hatred of the rest

From the bitter winter of the heart






We  feel the bitter winter of the heart
The icy hand ,the cruel teeth’s sharp bite
When close friends die, when lovers break apart

Terse,cruel words can make our deep self smart
The weak have  little power to make things right
So feel the bitterest winter of their hearts

Humans may like fruit be much too tart
Thus fantasied revenge  can  blind with light
As close friends die or false lovers depart

While we suffer, we seek maps and charts
Which path to  follow,which leads us aright
From  the bitter winter of the heart?

The muscles clench, the ligaments are taut
Faces frown, in mirrors demons  shriek
If close friends die or lovers haste to part

The pain of loss, the tears that agitate
The mental functions,all have gone on strike
Stricken in  the  winter of the heart

Retaliation , bitter, wants to fight.
Yet we have little time to see the Light
We   curse the bitter winter of the heart
Instinct, humbler. finds for us new charts

No words existed in its welcome hold

Struggling in the black of sinking sands
As I heard of when a little child
I gave up hope and let myself descend

My garments as a mourner I did rend
Death itself was shown me and beguiled
Struggling in the black of sinking sand

Far away from loved ones ,with no friend
The suffering of the past seemed almost mild
I gave up hope and let myself descend

I felt from every heaven I had been banned
With demons  of the Nazis  in exile
Struggling in the black of sinking sand

I am not inclined to make demands
Yet then  a mystic light caressed my soul
I  had lost my hope and feared  the end

This  golden light  enwrapped me like a stole
No words existed in its welcome hold
Struggling in the black of sinking sands
I was lifted out by  unknown hands

 

I did not lift my head

Drawn towards the tunnel deep and dark

if I entered then my life was done 

My voice was mute my choices few and stark

I looked for help but no help  had then come 

Paralysed by grief and fear I stayed

The time went by and I sat still and dumb

I did not lift my head nor say a prayer.

Until I learned a golden light had  come

I was wrapped in love and comfort warm.

No words were spoken yet I seem to hear

I felt absorbed in love and held in calm.

Turn back to Life he said for I am near.

He changed my heart because it had turned black

Love had entered through  a little crack

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

Choose not death

The crushing grief when someone chooses death
When life had shown much promise and much hope
Turns the ones who loved to find new paths

Some may sin, encouraged by cruel wrath
Against the one who chose the wicked rope
The shock of grief at such too early death

Others freeze and cannot take a breath
Scarcely moving as their mind elopes
Making then impossible their path

The mountains of deep grief I could not pass
Until a warm gold light caressed my0 heart
The wounds of grief , the sacrifice, the Mass

Do not dwell in darkness and distress
Follow me he murmured while we start
I will help you find a different path

The golden light had brought for me a chart
The sea of life had ripples ,brilliant sparks
The suffering and the grief from such a death
Turned the one who loved onto this path.

When my mind is still confused by sleep

When my mind is still confused by sleep
I’m so relaxed ,I’m full of hopeful dreams
The sudden shocks of memory make me weep
The feelings of my love are strong and deep
But when with strangers I must be discreet
Avoid the talk of men and wily schemes
When my mind is still confused by sleep
I living my world of joyful dreams

For some invite me to a dating site
And some avoid me, dreading I may weeo

ear my glowing eyes so clear and bright
Still visible without electric light
They think I’ll pull their man with all my might
So now I try to look wild and unkempt
Lest some invite me to a dating site,
And some reject me fearing I will tempt.