Category: poetry

We  do not want to hear their their poignant calls

Everything is whirling round my mind,
The lack of government ,  the words unkind
That the poor are  short of food and  clothes
We deny it, everybody knows

Sudden gusts of wind  mock  these old trees
Does the  lure of nature  disappear
When  the butterflies have gone away
Yet the stinging wasps are here to stay?

Once tortured  now abandoned refugees
Can’t make phone calls,  have no mental ease
We make our own defences into walls
We  do not want to hear their their poignant calls

Oh,Lord God take the beam from out my eye
I want to know the  worst before I die

 

S

 

 

Stitch the world together

Heal your own neurosis ,let go shame
Why should you  be less because you ache?
Stitch yourself together without blame

Have you got the problem with no name?
Have you made a billion weird mistakes?
Love your own neurosis without shame

Be  with other people when you can
Listen to them talking,  you may shake
Stitch yourself together without blame

We all get wet when wandering in the rain
Dry another person for love’s sake
Live your with neurosis without shame

Do not worry that your soul is stained
Keep the pieces when your own heart breaks
Bring yourselves together without blame

It is not Xmas yet but make a cake
Share good news,accept what is now fate
Own your own neurosis, let go shame
Stitch  the world together, that’s our aim

All shall be well

At first I craved to stay on in our house
A place familiar, comforting as love
Our bed the centre, loss and grief held close
The feel of wool, the blankets and the rugs

My  clothes had travelled while  for him I cared
So many I felt anxious, dispossessed
They in chaos, heaped on my arm chairs
Were a testament of my  distress

Books were scattered like small petals lost
Flowers of blood and bone  did not resist
Everwhere my pens and paper tossed
His pyjamas, ties,his books  had wanderlust

Once familiar, now a haunted  house
Everywhere I see the gaps he left
As my senses  on these places pounce
I unravel slowly from the warp and weft

The  narrow bed, the silence and the stair
The waking,sleeping, dreaming, am I here?
Should I run  or confront sweet despair?
Grief and loss bring on the panic fear.

I wait, unknowing that is what I do
There is no end,but  torture, oh damned pain
Until the mind has finished its review
Sketched its maps, made ready what remains

So at this inflection point I dwell.
Listening to the  silence, all is well

 

You’re on the edge of my view

When anyone comes here, when anyone phones 
I wonder if it is you
When shadows are moving, when nightfall appears
I  cry ‘cos I’m still feeling blue
And in the soft morning,I see your dear face
Dream thoughts mixed into my view
People say I must not  cry, tears should not enter my eye
I shall  pretend that it’s dew
I still cannot paint or draw, wondering what I saw
You’re on the edge of my view
But when I turn my head around, there’s nothing but birds passing by
How can I love someone new?

Life,the art that needs our hearts

When must we be cautious, when let go?
Who knows how to choose the better  part
When to use our will and when to flow
When to plant  the seed and watch it grow
When  ought we be cautious, when let go?
When to bend  as wilder winds can blow
How to live,the art that needs our hearts
When  may we be cautious, when let go?
Who knows how to guess the better  part?

Who loved the  words, who loved the entire song

The eyes that gazed on me with love profound
The hand the touched me with caresses  true
The one who made me happy on earth’s ground
Who loved the  words, who loved the entire song
Who loved me with rare  subtlety of mind
Whose love was strong, whose being was most kind
And thus with all his qualities imbued
The eyes that gazed,  delighted  I was found
The hand, the touch,  the giving , taking   true

There is something sinister unread

I found a strange man sleeping in my bed
He had the static creepiness I dread
Still alive but seeming to be dead

is this a dream that dwells inside my head
I should have dreams  of Errol Flynn instead
Look where that damn garden path has led

Oh,God, the cat has come back to be fed
He eats frogs before they are quite dead
The Sermon on the Mount  is still unread

There was noone in my marriage bed
There is something sinister unread

 

Our mood affects the colour of the sky

The park sloped  to a river  behind  trees
 The other side was a large burial ground
Where my father’s body lay, bereaved

In the flowered park we sat and grieved
We heard the thwack of   tennis balls resound
The park sloped  to a river  behind trees

Children can’t imagine mother’s pleased
When her  strong support lies underground
As my father’s body lay, bereaved

Children  torment others , poisoned bees
Sensing sweet fragility inside
The park sloped   down to hide  behind  tall trees

 Now my mother lies where I ‘ve  dripped tears
As if I hope a flowering shrub   will shade
And father’s body lies with mother’s, pleased

Memories may well alter .don’t deny
Our mood affects the colour of the sky
The park sloped  to a river. grave the trees
I once hoped that  my dead could be retrieved

 

Gathering  up the treasures  from the sands

We do not hunt for thoughts,we let them come
Gathering  up the treasures  from the sands
The sea shores of the world in dark,in sun
Where children play  till all the day is  done
The mystery of the deep, of whales and men
We do not hunt for thoughts,we let them come
Sailing in from distant foreign lands
We do not hunt for thoughts,we let them come
Gathering  up the treasures  till the end

Will love last us?

 

DandelionClocksThe art of friendship,is it hard to master?
The interest and  the courtesy and care
Learning  skills together   makes love faster

Best avoid  name calling, like  you bastard!
Testing to destruction, do not dare
The art of friendship,is it hard to master?

If you have a friend then you must ask her
if you treat her lovingly and fair
Learning  skills together  brings love faster

In view of lockdown, you will not now pat her
Nor with a gimlet eye  be keen to stare
The art of friendship,is it hard to master?

Be still, my friend, we are put off by chatter
But do not fret about the clothes you wear
Sewing darning,  mending holes love’s better

There’s love around and much more going  spare
Hope the fabric’s tough and will not wear
The art of friendship,is it hard to master?
Learning  skills together love  will last us

,

Fuzzy numbers

In calculus we find mysterious forms
Minute numbers disappear,return
Zero is not nothing, but a cloud
Of motes that dance in sun or disappear
Fuzzy logic too has mystery
The truth says nothing is mere black or white
Just more or less and these may overlap
Dissolving into clouds upon a map
Numbers have no feelings but make form
I once saw them moving, patterned, in my dreams
Golden letters telling me the way
The truth is often very hard to see
Like those tiny half alive mind dots
Flying through our minds like dust flies in the sun

Take your love and in your arms enfold

Did anyone believe blind rage expressed
Could benefit the agent without harm?
Did anyone read Freud and then digest?

Feelings need the heat of blacksmith’s fires
Held inside until they find their form
An image worthy of our right desire

As well as rage, we should mistrust love too
Be backward in expression till more’s known
Or risk an avalanche of cruelty.

Take care of others, they are not our fools
From sacred meetings all mankind has grown
We misuse folk to test our worth and tools

Holding in the inner fires our wish
The blackness of the heart can turn to gold
No contradiction hides such sacredness

Take your love and in your arms enfold.
The future of the world is growing cold
We liked to have the choice for rage and death
Until we found the charred remains of bliss

Ready to begin

What is not a sin may be a crime
Tie me up and burn me,I’m malign
Don’t they say this is the best of times
With tablets. smartphones, free verse with  few lines
Though in the end you have you make your name
There is no need to hang it on a sign
What is never done may be a sin
Let me out.I’m ready to begin

Fortune favours the brave

Why fortune favours courage I don’t know
But if we’re too afraid, we do not see
We hate  so much that fateful heavy blow
Cringing, shrinking, with half closed eye
As if our vision’s blocked by heavy snow
We are  more brave when others share our view
Fortune favours courage, yet be slow
Fear  makes sight a tunnel, sadly true

Waiting

Why is it so hard for us to wait?
Why be tense and make ourselves feel ill?
Why not use the time to meditate?

Do all human beings feel this way?
Think of Jews in cattletrucks,crammed, still
Why is it so hard for us to wait?

We  feel our own pain and we fear mistakes
As we live we’re ground by many mills
Could one use the time to meditate?

Life is short and tension lays it waste
I see tiny wren upon the sill
Must  it so hard for me to wait?

In mind madness, I can’t see your face
I lose all feeling; body, heart are chilled
Should I waste the time , not meditate?

If a jug is empty it is full
Full of air and happy to be dull
Why is it so hard for us to wait?
Why not  keep quite still, is my fate?

 

 

 

Am I wrong?

I thought I’d write another villanelle
I like  repeated lines as in a song
The music seems to permeate my cells
Inside my entire being music dwells
Would I write another villanelle?
A triolet is shorter, love is long
Musing, I decided villanelle.
I like  repeated lines but am I wrong?

The change is come

The tender glance, the heart, the love displayed
Where will I find a home  now you are gone
Where in the abyss is such a place?
Where the eyes which will contain my gaze?
The voice that spoke to me can’t be replaced
At this turning point , the change will come
The tender glance, the heart, the love displayed
Where will I find a home,my love is gone?

He is no more

The heart that touched my heart I feel no more
Alone in this great space. I feel afraid
Like a conductor who has lost the Score
The soul that touched my soul I feel no more
As other orders  that soul did obey
The heart that touched my heart I feel no more
Alone in the abyss. I feel afraid

Test your own eyes

I nearly died of laughter when he went out for a drive
Simply,purely, only to test his   bleary eyes
He put his toddler in the back, just to be quite sure
He would not be orphaned if his father crashed the car

To make  it even safer he took his good wife too
Even though she felt quite weak after having flu
They went to Barnard Castle, not just round the  block
The river Tees is very fine,  the Castle on a rock

It was all or nothing;was it murder,suicide
Taking all your loved ones on a really dodgey ride?
The Unconscious has impulses of which we do not know
Like sending cripples out to buy their own food in the snow

What can we deduce from this, is he Head of State
Ascending up to heaven,  does he want to  emigrate?

Carnation, orchid, daffodil and rose

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How softly sweetly,gently flowers pose
Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.
Their complex petals form a  living shield
Yet bees with much striped force shall make them yield

Appearances,both natural and contrived,
Mixed with the wiles of human nature thrive.

As, knowing not, we pluck the apple rare
And bite its flesh,with teeth we have to bare

.We too deceive the innocent who pass
Not seeing watchers hid behind the glass.
The windows break,the deep earth quakes;
Seized is the maiden ,  he her virtue takes.

Beneath the surface, force and fierceness thrive.
What fearsome, burning God enjoys our lives?

Copyright © Katherine

The anniversary

On this June day, he went away,
That was some years ago
Each dawn was like torture,
The  anguish. the slaughter
No connection  with anyone  near
He gave a  last smile,I  did not cry,
My heart took the weight of the blow

The time goes so slowly,
We can’t control it
Stunned by the sorrow,the flow
How will you manage, he whispered,
We’re married.
Will you be able to steer?
I could not think past it,
His death  would be drastic
My aim was to help him let go

Yet time also races,
We must not waste it
We’re here for a short time, who knows?
One day runs to the next day
My heart aches so  violently
 I  hold it here gently
Why oh love why aren’t you here?

I called after three weeks
I can’t go on like this
Won’t you come back,why’d ye go?
I had no answer, the demons entranced me
They tightened me up with their gears
Like the rack and the  flaying
Skin torn and  bleeding
Yet we’re not meant to let feeling show

 

I  wish there were no numbers and no dates

I  wish there were no numbers and no dates
I forget them all , yet memory is like   glue
With counting, with remembrance, with  lost mate

There’s  our sorrow and its seas to navigate
The waves rise up and drop, so old so new
I  wish there were no numbers and no dates

Why are modern  hearts so separate?
The seas of knowledge, all are one in  truth
With counting, with remembrance, with   no trace

Oh,universe, why do you have such space
With patterns in the stars, that might us soothe?
If there were no numbers and no dates

Why are we  self labelled as a race?
Slowly, surely we will  dig up truths
With anguish, with remembrance, oh, lost face

When will grace remake a soul so bruised
  Struggling with  the time scale, still bemused
I  wish there were no numbers and no dates
Nor counting, nor remembrance,  nor lost face

 

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