Category: poetry

No gowns for NHS staff

If you are ill the nurses have no gowns
The doctors  neither, nor a dressing gown
Don’t let them borrow yours ,all’s upside  down
We can’t have naked people in the town

The government  will   rue this nudity
When Boris Johnson flies into a tree
We’ll see his valorous organ on TV
Whatever can the matter really be?

Why can’t the textile trade make us  nighties
On the NHS most stuff is free
The towel laid across your aching knee
My BT Hub is dying can’t they see?

Oh, I feel shame I live in Sodom here
Gomarrah can’t be far behind,don’t leer

Ain’t no police

The geese no longer fly past at sundown
They’re eaten by the “immigrants”  folks say
Who also kill and murder every day
The English are so perfect  in my town

That man is not an alien though he’s brown
He was born in Bradford  near the mills
His parents worked there till it made them ill
And now he is a graduate with a gown

My ancestors came to fight and to invade
They killed the  men and made the women wives
What chance that some  few English might survive
Are they now on benefits or aid?

The nesting swans have killed or maimed the geese
In their natural world ain’t no police

Their grace

After hail and storms I see the snails
On the rubber doormat and the stones 
Encrusted shells the blind might read as braille

The shell made to protect is very frail
I trod on several, cracks like breaking bones
After heavy rain I see the snails

The lion  whose   fire and strength will   never fail
The sea creatures so large , they look like drones
Compare them to the perfect broken snail

In  the Bible  read  the warning tales
Temptation,,murder, envy, honeycombs
God our Lord a lion or a snail?

Come to that, how can God be a male?
How can God approve the gold of Rome?
She  is a perfect   sacred sweet shelled snail

On the beach are empty shells, washed foam
Abandoned. they survive their use as homes
After  storm and tempest ,here are snails
Encrusted shells their decor and their grace

What we most fear

Hepatica-okesabayashi-2020 (1)

Written by: Katherine 

How like a monster is my fear of pain
Expanding to fill all my heart and mind
Swelling like a  giant sponge in the rain,
This fear begets  new  feelings more unkind.

For humans being chased by lions fierce,
Fear gives us the strength to  dash away.
But when by inner turmoil we are pierced
We cannot run  yet need  not be its prey.

Most strange,we need to do   what we most fear;
Walk towards the pain with curious calm.
As else we may be maddened like King Lear
With no Cordelia to bring us balm.

To  feel in proper ratio to our   pain.
We need perception,grace and all their gains.

Henne

Hennetwistle  has a railway stop
The name is Viking  now it’s usually spelled
Entwistle, where reservoirs fill up
Manchester wants  water , here it’s held

Too Thirlmere is an artificial lake
For tea in Manchester, those thirsty folk
How much more d’ye think that they will take?
Hamlets drowned, dull cypress trees that cloak

I once passed through Darwen on a train
On the way to Ilkley  with my aunt
No memory of bliss with me remains
Except the  flowers  so wild, their ghosts  still haunt

Yet nowhere else gives me the feel of home
This landscape is my body and my soul

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

Let your lips meet gently

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Photo by Mike Flemming copyright



Let your lips meet gently,
the top one resting against the lower,
touching with tenderness
your own skin to skin.

Forefinger propped on chin,
I let the others dangle,
like leaves on a branch;
how softly gravity tugs them downwards.

Let heart beat quietly,slowly
as the blood circulates
carrying its music,
a river,
following the path of least resistance.

How the blood vessels receive willingly this flow,
touching it kindly as with tiny open fingers,
helping and being helped.

How the hair on the head
floats
on the breeze,
like tentacles of an octopus
waving goodbye.

Top eyelid loves the lower one;
as we blink they touch
like lovers kissing swiftly
behind a tree.

and how the light comes in
we see a world.
[mine may not be yours,]
but the blink of my eyelid
sends waves through the air,
so we’re all touching and being touched,
lips kissing each other,
kiss all living creatures.

skin to skin.
air to air.

And inside us,the rich darkness
of creative night
transforms,in turn,
these touches
into dreams.

Whatever suits your heart

Am I an  idolator  today
For to St Jude I have been known to pray
Patron of the Hopeless, the Outcast
I call on him to find my shopping list

I call on him when I have lost my phone
And long to hear my  husband’s mobile groans
If this ignites distress I am to blame
The fires of love are what keep women sane

I call on him while  homesick though at  home
Without my love  the house feels empty, lone
 Does God  detest me when I pray for aid?
For these years, with suffering I have paid

Say or sing whatever suits your heart
We never  gain the end if we don’t start

The earth beyond

If we  never moved we would sink down
Slowly, all unnoticed. without  noise
Into the earth  our ready  burial ground

The birds are nesting, hear  untutored songs
No pandemic there to halt their voice
Those who    dislike movement  have no tongue

Life is given to all ,though  we do wrong
Is it  our inheritance or  choice?
All  end in holy earth, sweet underground

No need  in the grave for wedding gowns
Linen cloths  suffice when we are raised
Those who   never move, at worms   will frown

See the   trawlers sink and many drown
God’s own finger has each life erased
Gone to watery  wastes,  their  fishing ground

Here are buried foetuses and clowns
Men  hanged  dead as  traitors,  Kings , the drowned
If we  never move that is a flaw
But we are moved by love  and its own law

 

 

Wandering

I walked,I stumbled where I’d never been
No friend nor ally  guided me  nor could
In the  mesmerising  sharp pain of my grief

Wandering like an outcast ,  never queen
Reason was  no aid in that dead wood
I wandered  through the shadows of my  dreams

I felt the ground beneath me swirl and seethe
As if to kill me too or spill my blood
In the desolate place  of  darkness deep 

Rosemary,remembrance, flowering wreaths
Inside the heart  will mercy  come to flood?
I wandered  where to love would be obscene

But in the arctic wastes , surprised by  god
In late winter trees will start bud
I wandered  on until my heart revived
From that place of peril came new life

 

God, at last

Human sacrifice had disappeared
Would God bring it back to  strike with fear
The hearts of children washed in Jesus’ blood
His heart so sacred died, does that sound good?

Why stress the Cross, the  crown of thorns, the fear
As if God is a sadist,  cold yet nuclear
Who  might wish to   propagate this myth?
In Eden  dwell to hear the snakes that hiss

Jesus, kind and brave,  had no cruel wish
To feed a crowd he conjured loaves and fish
He  walked on water,  perhaps he loved to tease
No Caesar he,  his stories were decrees. 

And in the night, he wept  but never cursed
God, at last, knew humans at their worst

The whisper

I walk in sadness as fish swim the sea
I can’t  rememeber  how life felt before
The foetus  and the feel of gravity

Death  will come with ,without decree
The other world   a room with a   closed door
I walk in sadness as fish swim  the sea

The pain, the blood, the whisper and the grief
Could any woman wish for any more?
The foetus lost, the ropes of gravity

What  is human dies without a plea
Ah, the garments in the baby store
I walk as sad as fish flow with sea

From such  anguish,  we may wish to flee
Unless beneath our  feet there’s solid floor
To hold the foetus wrapped in love. oh, thief!

Life may cackle like a randy whore
You can’t buy babies in the liquor store
I walk in sadness as fish fill the sea
The foetus  drowned, the  urgent grave, now you.

 

 

The poor can’t take this lockdown for too long

The poor can’t take this lockdown for too long
They have no back gardens, no birdsong
Their  bed rooms shared, or they have none at all
No privacy, no silence, it appalls

I hear them talked about in cruel ways
“They go into McDonalds every day”
Would you  cook your meals in red wine bathed
If you had   only got  a  microwave?

They  can’t keep warm in winter  in their homes
McDonald’s is a luxury  they earn
Clean and neat  with heating and hot drinks
They sit and look at me , like I’m the Sphinx

The   average reading age in Britain’s only nine
They can’t read Boris’ letter, that’s malign

Who commands these viruses like flu?

 Who commands these viruses  like flu?
Consternation makes our hearts feel blue
Do we have a lifeboat or an Ark?
The situation does feel rather stark

Who  decided we could work while sick?
Our energy depleted , brains feel think
Decisions  so important  need clear minds
Not one both  unravelling and blind

We  travel  round the globe, a virus ride
Our garments are as louche as fratricide
We snap some photos of the Golden Dome
Then jump on a plane and turn to Rome

Why not stay in Britain  or in France?
The piper plays but  only demons dance

Uncertainty,unease, a maverick flu?

The government  may need one maverick
In addition, we may need a  leader  new
Too many , they  try  out ingenious tricks

In Great Britain there are many eccentrics
Inventing light bulbs, rifles and beef stew
The government  should have one maverick

Did we invent that much used  red clay brick?
Did we shoot  down  birds and peasants too?
Daft M Ps  who try  out  madmen’s tricks

If you’re wearing boots,let noone lick
Cov19 may  kill them, just like flu
The government  should have one  maverick

Everyone agreed that we are sick
Post-modern  theories  stick around like glue
To our M Ps  they are a  subtle threat

Some days I feel well,I think you do
Uncertainty,unease, a maverick flu?
The government  may need one maverick
Too many , they  wear out the new Chief’s Whip

 

Ignite

If Boris Johnson  frequently told lies
This is very common  nowadays
No-one sane would be at all surprised

If  Boris Johnson could not breath ,so died 
Everyone for his soul might now pray
Though Boris Johnson  told some  dreadful lies

Even Peter , Jesus thrice denied
This was human, of such fears we’re prey
No-one sane would be at all surprised

If Boris was with women, he  was wry
But not enough to  stage one in his  play
Oh,Boris Johnson you should not have lied

   Oh Boris  has more children than his bride 
   Now he wants another though he’s grey   
   No-one sane admits they are surprised

I dreamed  of him last night,  he was so gay
To my surprise he charmed me  with love play
If Boris Johnson   lost his head and died
The  people would be frightened and ignite

 

 

 

 

In deep water, luminous as fog

If I should live again, I’d be a frog
For tadpoles ,insubstantial, cause no fright
Yet they change but not into a log

They change their being, leap up from the bog,
As bread is changed by holy, priestly rites,
If I should live again, I’d be a frog

In deep water, luminous as fog,
The frogs live on the edge of human sight
Yes they croak but not till we’re in bed

As lovers lie down naked on their rug
They tempt the frog, the adder, the termite
Then they rage upon the death of God

As the wheel turns, see, it drips with blood
The human race is ground up, we’re a blight
Yes, someone, somewhere, once did something good

Oh dark, oh grey, oh where is the new light?
Seems like the frogs, the Lord leapt out of sight
If I should live again, I’d be your god
I’d save the world by turning us to frogs

As the river  must submit to sea

The broad sands  of old Redcar bright and bare
Dark ochre with  a touch of  lighter tones
Easter time we walked  to Saltburn pier

Cold  but happy  with my love right there
Hand in hand, I felt his very bones
The broad sands  of old Redcar  town were  bare

They say the perfect love casts out all fear
As if  a person’s found their rightful home
Easter time we wandered to  the pier

Loved and known, who has not shed a tear?
Teesmouth is as wide as  winter storm
The broad sands  of old Redcar  town still  bare

As the river  must submit  to sea
So  loving does much more than keep us warm
Joyous days we walked to Saltburn pier

 

The river rushing downhill like a hare
Made  next a valley  fertile   in its charm
The broadening  river mouth ate sand like air

How  we laughed, like children arm in arm
Smiling at the sky and tickling palms
From the  sands  of  Redcar,  rapt we stared
Saw North Sea   and gazed  at Saltburn pier

Green flowers

 The  bowling green, the clack of ball on ball 
Across the grass as perfect as  the dawn
We sit down on a bench,new painted too
Lumpy paint  but good enough to do

Round the edge, the dahlias  bloomed  like suns
No irony was meant nor overcome.
Goldenrod, geranium were bold
The earth was   hot and rich in summer’s hold

Past virgin rhodedendrons , children  played
Swings and see-saws, all somewhat decayed
Painted with the same paint as the bench
I saw my father fall, I felt the wrench

Where shall we sit, my sweetheart, by the lawn?
I have lost your face. my heart lies torn

A jellied eel is rarely served today

Smoke your fish in grandad’s polished pipe
Unless by accident you caught a pike
Foxes  tails are not a brush for hair
Without a tail, a fox will need repair

Herrings  caught in Whitby harbour glare
They may be dead but that is their affair
A jellied eel is rarely served today
If you eat one piece then  do not say

Bacon. ham and sausages despair
Moses said to eat them was unfair
Can we  reverse the  process we have used
And make some pigs, if only to amuse

Did smoking food  conceal the smell of death
The pig is  gone, it’s not holding its breath
Smoking pipes did not keep men alive
Some smoke in their grave. as I have spied

In the end  it’s  burial  or fire
The ashes of  the dead   are not for hire

Senseless we will suffer, we are sick

We believe  just what we want and then we find
All unaware, unconsciously, within
The evidence we need to close our minds

We might as well be deaf and if not, blind
Perception lies, conception is then thin
We believe  just what we want which  we  then find

We justify our actions, are unkind
Cast    first stones as if we never sin
With evidence invented by closed minds

By the blood of others our own soul is stained
Starving children  grovel in waste tips
Affectless we look, we cast off blame

The widespread wars, the  rage, the napalm aimed
The slaves who make our clothes, who feel the whip
Are evidence  we  choose to close our minds

The punishment for blindness will  now stick
Our souls and minds degraded by one click
We believe  what suits us and then we  surely find
The evidence we need to shut our minds

 

 

 

Wild statistics

Shall we die of flu or suicide?
Or shall we live  as sanguine as  sweet joy
Who  by wild statistic is deprived?

Which man shall now look out in wild surmise
Perception  is  not truth,does  that annoy?
Shall we die of flu or suicide?

What will shops sell now when noone  buys
Do not   yet despair when  self employed
Such  daft statistics   make old people cry

Think about the sadness of a bride
A cancelled wedding, her good day destroyed
Would she die  if anger  brewed inside?

I ate ten bars of chocolate  in my rage
That was all the food I could afford
When  by strange statistics I was caged

Write sweet songs and do not folk ignore
Then   turn  again to love, that aged  whore
Shall we die of flu or suicide?
Who  by damned statistic is deprived?

 

 

 

 

The kettle too sat on the fire, I played and then I dreamed

I remember mother’s beauty and her coal stained and cracked hands
Each  little line was etched in black,   like a map to other lands
She always wore an apron that  she made from an old dress
How I loved my mother,I did I must confess.

I remember mother’s beauty and the row of nappy pins
She always wore them like a brooch,  while we kids made a din
The baby had her rusks and milk, she had a little pot
She slept inside a cradle then she moved into a cot

I remember  most Mum’s  cooking, the apple dumplings steamed
The kettle too sat on the fire , I played and   then I dreamed
She had a tin of buttons, she  was ace at making clothes
She knitted like an acrobat  to forget her many woes

Her daddy was a miner till he had a heart attack
He came home   black and dusty, then he filled his old tin bath
When he retired he got a dog,  he loved her very well
He called  her Lassie for her name, she was  beautiful , my belle

Her daddy came to see us after our own daddy died
He help my mother with odd jobs, then we  all ate cake and cried

Where does logic go to in the night?

Where  do dreams  go while we are awake?
Where does logic go to in the night?
Why does laughter make our body shake?

Why do  men like eating home made cake?
Why  do little children want to bite?
Where  do dreams go while we are awake?

Why is Windermere not Winderlake?
Why do we have wars and want to fight?
Why does laughter make our body shake?

Why do people not read William Blake?
Why is it so rare to have insight
Where  do dreams go while we are awake?

Why do we so often feel like fakes?
Why do people like to see the Light
Why does laughter make our body shake?

Oh, to see an eagle high in flight
Oh, to see  a friend   and love the sight
Where  do dreams  go while we are awake?
Why does laughter make our body shake?

 

Contorted faces wincing as they pass

Excited by the epidemic ruse
The front page item of the evening news
People rush together to convey
What they   do not know  or cannot say

Contorted faces wincing as they pass
No funeral. no wedding and no Mass
Lost inside the nightmare of the head
Imagination captured  and well fed

Will Cremation kill the bug widespread?
Can we know the judgement of the dead?
People die in accidents and cars
Flying through the air and seeing stars

Are we bored by ordinary life?
No wars, no murders, just the death of wives

 

In the  sighing woodland ,birds go by

Acer-palmatum-2020

In the wanton woodland ,birds flash by
Busy with their mates and with their nests
Caught a glimpse  there in my cornered eye

I walk held up by silence  undefied
Life is plain when  we don’t send the texts
In the gentle woodland ,birds flash by

I call out softly with a plaintive cry
No bird will understand  my strange request
Caught in movement  from my cornered eye

The sun showed through the highest branches  sly
Lit the birds up as it wandered West
In the mossy woodland ,birds arise

Nature’s  not in lockdown as we are
They find their food, the insects and the rest.
The many coloured berries  gleam like stars

We do not see the murders and the feasts
The magpies eating  nestlings we detest
In the  shadowed woodland ,birds flash by
I see this from the corner of my eye

God  is murdered daily, we perceive

How precious is the life that we will lose
The joy of senses open  like new leaves
The  holy sun, the air,  our attitudes

Our boundary, our skin  protects, is bruised
By those who  claim to love but soon deceive
How precious is the life that we will lose

The mind  and body open  for new views
Are vulnerable, yet glad, as they receive
The  holy sun, the air,  our attitudes

And Jesus came to Earth, a holy Jew
God  is murdered daily, we perceive
How precious is the life that we will lose

We are   torn apart, love, hate ,confused
Yet every  moment, God   is re-conceived
In  holy sun, in air,  in gratitude

First we love  our neighbour , then believe
The web of  holy actions, who can weave?
How precious is the life that we will lose
The  holy sun, the air, its magnitude

Words or sin

The paradox  of praise is that we’re judged
Yet how can judgement place us on a dot
The eye is wet, the dropped tear is a smudge
A line in-finite,  dense with its own spots

Whether beauty of the body-mind
Or depth of thought,  now hanged by awe
Where many alien eyes look out unkind
And noone knows what we each saw

How can we be ranked on things long passed
Yet  not forget the lessons  we took in?
We sat  matric in school while Jews were gassed
With children  backward, queers and gypsy kin

We learned to  read the maps we  now live in,
Forget the world is more than words and sin

Ecstasy can’t last,can’t be pursued

Maybe Meghan  knew we’d have a storm
A hurricane of doubt,  the leaders scorned
She’s back in Canada, I wish I were
Seeing Leonard Cohen every where

A thousand kisses deep may be too much
Especially  for those who’re unrehearsed
The tower of song is just a maisonette
Joan of Arc burns as she pirouettes

Suzanne  bore his children then she left
She fell out of  love, he was bereft
Poets need their time alone to muse
Ecstasy can’t last,can’t be  pursued

We still lose  the space to enjoy dreams
While up above our leader stands and screams

Terror and rage

 

A force far deeper than our anger
Elemental as a storm
Annihilating all before it
Terror makes our rage perform.

This force saying self is threatened
Runs to rise and to protect,
Most murderous when we’re most alarmed
Rage the enemy detects
.
Over-riding other feelings
Deprives us of the power to think
Like a nuclear tsunami
Disconnecting human links.

Reddened vision,focused,narrow;
Eyes locked onto enemy’s
All the wider context losing,
Wipes out our good memories

Like a mother tiger fighting,
And the cornered eagle’s force;
We will destroy what we think other
Without bitter,pained remorse.

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Nature made such to protect us;
Yet our perception can be wrong
. Once the flood of feeling takes us
All reflections seems too long

Later, if we see our victims,
Will we know that we have erred?
For hate deceives ourselves and others
When our inmost terror’s bared.

How can we step back and ponder,
See life from a wider view?
How can we become less blinded,
So we see our world anew?

Succumb not to final despond
Succumb not black despair
Always there are those who see.
Always there are those that care.

Tempered by reflective wisdom
Rage can change when understood.
When we find another being
Who  helps hold our frightful flood

Fragility is measured by the glass

As fragile as the sacred crystal glass
Which  broken was smashed up like any cup
Till its particles invaded us at Mass

Uncontained,  how will this  moment pass?
Suffering  breaks us down, what helps us up?
Hearts as fragile as  a crystal glass

Do not climb the cliff  in love’s mad  rush
Height  endangers, vertigo, a drop
Whose particles invade us at the Mass?

Feeling like the flower tramped underfoot
Never to be raised,  true life has stopped
When fragility is measured by the glass

Did Jesus know that physics  would  forecast
That he could be alive mixed in, not mocked
His particles  shall dance with ours at Mass

When we die, the shop is out of stock
There is no other I in any book
As fragile as the ancient crystal glass
Whose particles  fly solo in the Mass