Category: poetry

Now I’ve lost the kettle,it’s alive

I said I’d make a cup of tea at 5
Now I’ve lost the kettle,it’s alive
It must have little feet which I can’t see
When I come here the kettle seems to flee

I feel like  ginger biscuits , angel cakes
Alas my mother wanted me to bake
We mad shortbread, almond  drops  so sweet
They made the men go mad and that’s a feat

Eat  roast beef on Sunday  with these sprouts
Add potatoes then be hit by doubt
Scruples make me ill and I shall die
Wondering if I really killed that fly

We’ll end the world by global trade and flights
Use the petrol well, it may ignite
Why not stay at home and write a poem
Sitting in the garden while bats roam

 After reading sonnets I have vowed
To read a special poem a day outloud
Sylvia Plath  made her  late poems for this
Writing well,  her agony, her bliss

So we reach the end of life on earth
Those who find the ruins won’t feel  much mirth
We died because expansion can’t go on
The balloon explodes, the clever science,  the don

 

Someone other takes charge of our boat

The kindness of  our neighbours helps us cope
With life, with death,with many shades between
When we despair and  can’t imagine hope

When the sailor takes us in his boat
When he rows us on a  night-blank sea
The kindness of  our neighbours helps us cope

The world  seems  made to hurt, and then frustrate
The mind confuses   dreams , reality
When we despair and  dare not even hope

 Love is built  as we restrain our hate
Sailing well   a new country we see
The kindness of  our friends helps us  to  cope

Persistence in the virtues   gives us scope
Start again, the angel said to me
When I despaired and  lost my  threads of hope

In our mind love’s buried and unseen
Yet we can raise the dead with energy
The kindness of  our  frriends helps us cope
When we are lost and  mapless is our hope.

Virtue rendered void

Envy poison, friend of vicious hate
We know Cain for he still lives within
Society is built on hellish states

If not so, how can we lay love waste
When time is short, why cut it down with sin?
Envy, poison, friend of vicious hate

Do not  hide it, saying  this is “fate”
Through brilliant Sylvia,Ted  asked spirits in
Marriage too is built on awful states

Only with her death, did he relate
One had to go to let the other win
Envy, poison, friend of vicious hate

We suffer when we  think  that we need fame
All paper one day ends up in a bin
Society  too is built on loveless states

Comparison and judgment are  no game
Virtue rendered void, our hearts are lame
Envy, poison, friend of vicious hate
Can society be built on other states?

 

Lying on a trolley, feeling Zen

Cycling in the dark  one Friday night 
Down St Giles, deserted without lights
On my way to  rehearse with my church  choir
I never got through  Oxford, struck by liars

A car was coming at enormous speed
Is this to be my end, that tourist’s dream?
Time slowed down,I  went up very slow
This world  a film,a construct, down below

I fell as slowly as I’d risen  up
Till I landed on my head,my jacket ripped
Yes, you really do see stars,I told myself
Not a metaphor, the shocking truth

Then I was inside the film again
Lying on a trolley, feeling Zen

The Catherine wheel, the longing, the desire

Oh, my brother, I have said goodbye
Once my little playmate, you must die
Your voice is very weak as there you rest
I wish that life were not a  cruel test

I told you  of the see saw and the swings
I will not argue, this is what life brings
Remembered  fireworks and the  blazing fire
The Catherine wheel, the longing, the desire

How can a boy so strong soon turn to dust?
Where has gone the liveliness, the lust?
Weak but uncomplaining you lie there
On my face I feel a film of tears

You’ll never die, you’ll live on in my mind
I forgive your acts,  for you were  blind

The wrens

My front hedge is so thick, wrens made a nest
I saw a small bird flying low and swift
With my garden I feel human, blessed

The bonsai beech has grown till almost dense
It has no trunk, the leaves are tiny  gifts
My front hedge is so full, wrens made a nest

My clematis has flowered beyond  all sense
When I looked  I felt my soft heart lift
In my garden, know that I am blessed

In a deep green  wood the eye can rest
Open eyed, a look  must not be fast
My front hedge welcomes wrens ,oh,love,a nest!

Deep happiness connects us  to what’s best
The dark blue sky, the sunset flaming,  brief.
With my garden I feel love, I ‘m blessed

 Be alive, don’t dwell on thoughts too sweet
The natural world   brings virtue  and deceit
My front hedge is so thick, wrens made a nest
These tiny  creatures filled with  love and zest

 

 

 

 

Closing Time

A husband died at half past two
What has that to do with you?
The  past is like a candle  blown
The heart a grave beneath a stone
Grief is very close to fear
Shaking legs  and frozen tears
It’s closing time

The  poppy fields , the linseed blue
The cottage where I loved with you
Noone else will know  it all
The Suffolk Rose, the paint all worn
The rented car, the yellow corn
The cottage windows seemed to yawn
Closing time

But I dream and I see you
Smiling widely as  you do
Ask me where the car keys are
Ask me if I’ll take you where?
Whitby,Staithes. all understood
All gone now,god sweated blood
Closing time

 

In the end, our roots are what remain

Uunstable winds and clouds that veer and swerve
The sun appears and vanishes again
Trees  adapt  to nature, life’s a  verb

The birds have sung but no-one here  has heard
Their mates and nestlings in their home have lain
Evading winds and clouds that veer and swerve

From this chaos, what can humans learn?
Life can swiftly change and cause us pain
Yet trees  swing round,  clouds swim life is verb

Virtue,honour,love have no rewards
Evil men have faces quite unstained
Despite the winds and clouds that veer and swerve

Gazing at the storm clouds,long I stared
In the end, our roots are what remain
We must  adapt  to nature, life’s verb

All desires,all wishes will be slain
We lose ourselves in evil  then are shamed
Uunstable winds and clouds that veer and swerve
Life flows like the  stormy Thames unnerved

 

 

Feel the  loving sun  and kiss the bees

I wish that I could be inside a tree
To put my entire body in its form
To feel the sun and wind and hear the bees

I’d like my hands to dance as   flexibly
As birds move  through  the air, as rises dawn
I wish that I could feel myself a tree

I’d love my  garden sweetly, ardently.
I’d love each single  daisy on the lawn
I’d feel the sun and wind and hear the bees

But would a holly want to  be just me?
Oh, poor tree that walks about  forlorn
I wish that I could turn into a tree.

Perhaps a cat that sat upon my knee
Would mioaw inside my  home by   dust deformed
She would love the sun and wind and hear the bees

When I change,I’ll keep you all informed
You may hear me singing in  the Storms
I wish that I could dwell within a tree
Feel the  loving sun  and kiss the bees

 

My hair floated so far out

While we were walking  by the Oxford Canal
He told me it is illegal
To look through a woman’s bedroom window

I tried to jump off the bus
His restraining hand
Made me fall

I was too shy to say
I wanted a pee
I broke up with him
It was  the juice
Of criminal desire

He said he had a car
But I
Had claustrophobia
Otherwise I’d not be here 

My hair floated so far out
I fished up
You

My hip bones stuck out
Like two sharp knives
Like the cliffs at West Bay
I was very light
Even had a flame

I did not know I was desirable
Like a semi detached house
But eventually
I got it.
I mean you

 

 

In green thoughts I dwell.

Small rain in summer
Pools on large green leaves,
Makes all birds dumber
Silently they weave.
Wrens fly to and fro
Nesting near the house.
They know where to go
With nestlings and spouse.
Simple life of green
Hiding in lush leaves.
A space to be unseen
Humans only grieve.
Where is our safe space?
Where can we live well?
As anguish veils the face
In green thoughts I dwell.

It seemed a good idea at the time

 I studied numbers,sequences and rhymes
Connections,patterns in between the lines
It seemed a good idea at the time

 Unfortunately,  with study, we use mime
We see   beneath the surface to the crimes
I studied numbers,sequences and rhymes

Whenever  I was found, I  took the  blame
 The clock gave  more than twenty thousand chimes
Life seemed a good idea all the time

Humiliation, sadism,torture,fame
We share the blasphemy  that God will smile
Life seemed a good idea at the time

How the world is full  of rebuffs yet  beguiles
Enough,I’ll give it one more finite trial
I studied numbers,sequences and lies
I joined the Secret Service,I’m a spy

I apologise for loving you too much 

photo0426

I miss the cat and the newspaper

I apologise for loving you too much 
We never learned to balance the see-saw
In modern times the lovers should go Dutch

Two lonely   lovers with  a single crutch
Each one having many curious flaws
I apologise for loving you too much

What ever did I do to merit touch?
Then I was too careless with the salt
In modern times the lovers should go Dutch

We should measure what we speak at lunch
Then we weigh the sentences that spilt
I apologise for loving you too much

Maths and stats are useful in the lurch
Equality of signs and numbers,bills
In modern times the lovers should go Dutch

,

Let the mouth be silent, keep quite still
Love is rarely used when writing Wills
I apologise for loving you so much 
In modern times  we lovers cannot touch

 

 

Touching them and keeping them at peace

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
The photo is by Mike Flemming 2020
Thank you,Mike

 

We can cast our body like a cloak
Around the loved one when they cannot speak
Hold them like an infant  when at  rest
Sleeping softly on a mother’s breast

Touching them and keeping them at peace
Until they  can accept death and its release
They seem to concentrate  on unknown tasks
Till their minds are happy and they pass

They come first but afterwards   we  fall
Into  an abyss where  we just crawl
Seeing shapes and visions, feeling sore
Aching for the one we  see no more

A paradox , we  give  and nothing  gain
The suffering of the heart, the searing pains

The pain of our own Cross

I see a friend who follows my old path
The downward slope, the tunnel through the dark
Helping partners ease their way through death

The hesitance, the disbelief, the wrath
The sharpness  like a knife that cuts  our heart
I see a friend who follows my old path

So many lovely friends, ny husband said
Just before he lost  the vital spark
Helping  him  to   float  from out his bed

I did not realise that he was dead
Until his pallor faded, blood departs
I see a friend who follows  on this path

We miss them where they used to lie in bed
We miss them  taking photos of the park
We help  them ease their way to  their good death

We need love  to help us with this work
Who will  help the carer when they hurt?
I see a friend who follows my old path
We each bear the pain of our own Cross

 

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?

Words benign

The gap between experience and words-
Should any person be reduced to signs?
A hint, a sigh, a flight, a  little bird

Who ought express  in lines what has  occurred ?
            Does the  bloodied heart  weep words benign-
The gap between experience and words

A line distinct, a line that is too blurred
What impact can this have on a design?
Which  hint,  which sight,  which  flight, will kill the bird?

The sentence  well constructed has its flair
Yet  to the  void   much feeling   is consigned
That gulf between experience and words

Who tore  apart the meaning  we  hoped shared?
So now to nothingness we are resigned
No hint, no sigh,  no flight, no  little bird

With   whose filters  may  we be refined?
Who shelters souls that others have declined?
The gap between experience and words-
A hint, a sigh, a flight, the   shining bird

 

 

Passing through

 

 

 

Tomorrow I shall eat a big icecream
Brought to me by courier  when I choose
If I cannot get one I shall scream
Rather pointless, how about more booze?

I shall drink  more tea and read a book
I read Ted Hughes letters late at night
I finished Sylvia’s journals, I was hooked
Brilliant, sad, pathetic, what outsight

I read her letters,  how she worked  too hard
Even as a tiny  child she strove
How she longed for greatness and rewards
Starting on the tapestry, don’t go!

Harder still and harder,masochist
Will and nature cannot co-exist
Flowers open  when the bees swing past
Birds build nests but  never build too fast

We need to be in tune with our own world
Harmonise  our breathing with the waves
See the  little leaves as they uncurl
Forget   advice,  enjoy life  till the grave

Any moment is epiphany
Jesus  passes by  but we are blind
Though now and then we catch a  burning tree
When we are in rhythm  with  the Mind

Up the waves run on the   risen shore
Bringing  wild  signs from  the ocean floor
Grit and pearls  and love we won’t ignore
Wise the whale  and wise the open door

 

Welcomed by God’s eye

Dwell  inside your heart and breathe  just so
From there your spirit body  can outflow
Spread this round your loved one like a shawl
No need to  make a sound for  love will call

Two are one  like lovers in their bed
But now one has to leave , love cuts the thread
In  full silence ,  welcomed by God’s eye
They concentrate on  this  before they die

In  your  gracious  warmth they’re  feeling safe
As a child is in a mother’s gaze
Time  no longer matters. we’re elsewhere
Walking humbly ,softly i  to God’s stare

At last the work is done and   they are  free
Who can understand such mystery?

Grace may come as small as  grains of sand

Material wealth can come in many ways
Inheritance, good luck, good work and pay
But with  the spirit, will power cannot win
Only those who’re humble,admit sin

Pain and grief , companions  of our life
Married to the losses as a wife
Grace may come as small as  grains of sand
Or like the wren that hovers near our hands

In imagination  breathe  as then
Slow, protective, patient and human
See in your mind’s eye the perfect wood
The trees  sing out as sun  warms sap, their blood

We can  research the wealth in figures, charts
Envy  not  the rich who have no heart

 

 

The affections of the heart

Listen with your ears and with your skin
Feel the other gently in your mind
Felt sensations show where to begin

The senses are  connected, interlinked
In subtle ways we do not understand
Listen with your ears and with your skin

In conversation  neither one can win
We keep a balance as on deck inclined
Felt sensations show where to begin

The evidence  is subtle  even  thin
On the sea of life we leave dry land
The boat is  tossed about like mortal sin

Neglect not now the affections of the heart
Love can be ignored or never taught
Listen with your ears and with your skin
Sensations, feelings ,hearing, vision

 

 

Cultivate our Gardens

After all the fighting, the enemies bad words
Brexit is forgotten; people.  friends to keep
They   get prescriptions,  offer all they have
This  the time that Love  lit up our street

They pay for others’ parcels, they’re discreet
They fill an old man’s freezer with new meals
They encourage our own  nurses working on
They  acknowledge this world is  both   good and real

I can’t  go out, my hair is   like sea fronds
My trousers are too big, will they fall down?
My eyes are brimming,full of happy tears
My teeth are broken but I cannot frown

Will this love and kindness last for  long?
We’ll cultivate  our  Gardens, work as one

 

Trust the Unknown,trust the inner flow

The sky at dusk, my camisole , love’s grace
Blending blue and mauve in  skilled embrace
God the painter ,God the X unknown
Send  us light to see where our  our love goes

Drop by drop the spirit ebbs away
Now the sky is dark in stark blue-grey
In the mind the dreams  rehearse and scheme
Take away the terror and the screams

Hold us in your Hand as we let go
Trust the Unknown,trust the inner flow
Who but you can show us  what we need
As we crawl to bed  in   fraught unease?

Now the air is black I see a star
I feel the void  yet love dwells even there

I forgave him everything last year

My brother kindly set my hair on fire
He stole my food  from off the plate   or floor
So for a man I  had repessed desire

He took me fishing in a pond close by
I loved him very much,indeed adored
My brother madly set my hair on fire

We went in  disused brick kilns, we were spies.
Of his company  I never  tired
Yet for  new men I feel not much desire

Now his time has come and soon he’ll die
I forgave him everything last year
His voice is weak, he thanked me  and I cried

I did not plan forgiveness  nor to lie
“God ” filled  me with love ,  our lives restored
Yet for new brothers I   feel  some  desire

Who left Daddy’s matchsticks near my boy?
He could  not know he would destroy my hair
My brother hurt me, set my hair on fire
We choose to love until we  both expire

 

 

 

 

Throw your money into a black hole

The sky is yellow ochre tinged with grey
The sun is gone and we felt stark dismay
We can’t meet friends in person any more
Only shout as we stand by the door

I think the source of Covid  is just cash
Money laundered less, the notes unwashed
The coins are black as coal in devil’s  claws
Don’t leave  the tip that kills , nor money gnaw

I used to suck a shilling while I worked
I  tapped my  fingers  where it would not hurt
But now the sight of pounds makes   me feel sick
Never use old notes nor lovers lick 

Throw your money into a black hole
You may starve but this will save your soul

The eyes were open still, I saw.

He was on his bike and they ran him down
He had dared to go outside
The  law is  the law and  the law is a clown
The punishment  can  beat down the crime

They thought they’d go out, they were getting bored
The police felt the same  so they  claimed
Maybe a fine wth some warning words
Ths is the day that they died

One was a singer and one was a fraud
 Which one was which I don’t know
The police came down like the wolf on the fold
The eyes were  open, still I saw.

Women must  bear the young   men beget
But what does  our society  affirm?
The policemen   have guns and   they owe us a debt
But  will they ever,ever learn?

Boris Johnson raised  up from the dead

The Tower of Babel fell down in the night
The people spoke but noone could reply
We  cried out but noone listened then
Nor did we salvage much  from wrecked Big Ben

Boris Johnson raised  up from the dead
His pleasures once , pre- flu,  lay in the bed
He spread his seed about  so it’s no boast
To  bear his child nor feed him Sunday roast

He will lead the country out of sin
His  brilliant way:  to  stop  us logging in
No more one click books  or   toys for sex
No more screws and curtain rails to fix.

Ah now enjoy the peace  of empty space
Yet we  grieve for lack of an embrace

They could not wear bikinis on hot sands

In the Jewish ghettos and Death Camps
Did Jews complain they  had no holidays?
They could not wear bikinis on  hot sands
Nor did they ask for somewhere they could pray

We can’t go to Spain  nor Singapore
We must stay  near home,oh  such dismay
I ache so for the poor in tower  blocks
Where violence and harsh words  erupt each day

We can get our food if we have friends
We can read  or write or even pray
Why  complain, the poor  bear heavier loads
Will we be sympathetic on such dreadful days

Our sadly narrow views  don’t serve us well
When other people  in  confinement dwell

The words tell what we did

The symbols, signs, the words are not the world
Yet scholars confuse laymen with their terms
“How to love your children” is advice
Hiding in the  syntax  is no life

I knew Latin grammar and her forms
I dwelled inside ellipses,I was torn
I could not live two lives so I chose  rules
Then I  found success like many fools

Grammar and   its logic   cracked my mind
I stole the key,I  left the door behind
I found the prizes on my shelf arrayed
The golden prayer book  shredded  and decayed

The simple may  be better  fit to live
Those words were darts, yet love can’t but forgive

 

 

Evoked  death sentences  while still unborn

Oh,mother was it my fault I was born?
You conceived me in a country waging war
So once for sure you did not sleep alone

I was too thin, the doctor was alarmed
My sin of prematurity was scored
Oh,mother was it my fault I was born?

Thank you for your milk, your breast, my home
In sadness wish you’d loved me or adored
Dad  once said  you did not sleep alone

I could not be an infant, was forlorn
While  you weaned me  in my rage I bawled
Oh,mother, why the judgement  of love scorned?

I frightened  you by   reading  minds  and bones
Evoked  death sentences  while still unborn
I’m glad you did not  always sleep alone

Why keep knocking  on the oven door?
Sylvia Plath  used gas ,that Nazi porn
Oh,mother  reason  can’t  prove I was born
But you helped  the human race   and kept some warm