Category: poetry

· 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

Cobblestones and weeds

 

 

DandelionClocks
Image by Mike Flemming.Copyright,

Cracks in pavements,cobbles,gutters,weeds
In the little street  we  children played
While nature fought back, spreading out  wild seeds

Old women reached for grace with rosary beads
When I call.I don’t know what to say
Cracks in pavements,cobbles,gutters,weeds

Neighbours borrowed eggs and helped in need
What was my entire world has shrunk, decayed
Still nature fights back,  flinging out wild seeds

The cobbles have been tarmacked till aggrieved
Here we once enjoyed school holidays
Cracks  for insects,cobbles,gutters,weeds

Girls played  with doll’s prams,boys disagreed
All the world was here, where’s left today?
While nature  blackened, blasting out her seeds

Where are mother,father,oh dismay
I am old and they lie in the clay
Cracks in pavements,cobbles,gutters,weeds
Nature acts still, spreads out flying seeds

 

 

Without your love, I’m nobody I know.

Without your love, I’m nobody I know.
Our conjoined self, dismembered, broke apart
Give me courage on the journey slow

In good times , we may lose our self in flow
To be self-conscious makes shame rule my heart
Without your love, I’m nobody I know.

Do we have no self when partners die?
Bewildered, can I find the way to start
Give me courage on the journey slow

Where is my best path to discover
The way to mend a self, holed by grief’s darts?
Without your gaze, I’m nobody I know

Like a ship strikes rocks deep down below
I risk getting hit without some charts
Give me courage on the journey slow

Will I know myself when new betrothed
To mirrors unfamiliar to me old?
Without your love, I’m nobody I know.
Give me courage in the darkness gross.

Underground

On a whim I went to Downing Street
They charged me fifty pounds for both my feet
Then  no-one anwered when  I rang the bell
I looked in through a hole, the penny fell

I claim I saw the tide was coming in
Riding high with whales, oh they were thin
What next , a  golden galaxy implodes
Stars shoot out like sparks  from other worlds

Jonah rode a whale to London Town
Still  in shock, he   did not hear a sound
All tongues will  dry until we see the flames
The burning bush, the prophecy, the Name

For  Sophocles I  spent a million  pounds
My credit card’s still bouncing underground

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

Anne Lamott’s writing tips

rosaalchemyst2019https://writingcooperative.com/anne-lamotts-top-13-writing-tips-7577eb5d5c24

 

8. Writing is fueled by hard work rather than innate talent.

“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts…For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.” -Anne Lamott

Lamott’s line about “shitty first drafts” has gotten a lot of airtime in the writing community. Many writers seem to use it as a rallying cry.

To me, this quote is a great reminder of the fact that authorship is not a land of “haves” and “have-nots.” The world population has not been divided into capable writers and hopeless wannabes.

If even the best writers in the world struggle to write beautiful prose, we know that writing is a learned craft — one in which we can all improve over time.

We earn the blessing of the Muse by putting in writing time — not by being born with a golden ink pen in our hand.

Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

A day with my own self, such peaceful hours
The inner seas make music as they roll
And in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

The rain comes down in cold but gentle showers
Desiring  to  give moisture to all souls
A symbol of  the value of quiet hours

In Northern hills we looked for  Durham owls
They hunt by day to keep their bodies whole
While in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

My loved one was a native of those towers
Highcliff Nab and Hasty Bank  called home
My days with him a-wandering there for hours

As he died , deep in my heart I howled
I held his hands, remembered , paid the toll
While in the ground the worms digest  the sour

Lying in the heather  we had roamed 
May God  have mercy on his  homing soul
Now I enjoy   in reverie our hours
Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

 

 

 

Oh, gentle Light

I ‘ll try to get it right for one more time
You did not converse with me in words
You were simply present in your Light

Nowhere did I feel your power and might
You were no eagle, but a strong wild bird
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time.

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 bite
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

THE MEMORY LASTS

midsummer days evoke the trancelike past
where children played in joyous, daisied fields
with buttercups so bright the memory lasts
a freedom that our conscious growth will steal.

those stones and leaves and many coloured flowers
were gathered into images that glow
yet later we forget those treasured hours
when for a while we lived in life’s deep flow

we did not look and see,but felt at one
we lived as did the birds high in the trees
now we write , experiencing has gone
we cannot live like flowers filled with bright bees

to lose ourselves in nature is a joy
which to our adult selves we must restore

Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

A day with my own self, such peaceful hours
The inner seas make music as they roll
And in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

The rain comes down in cold but gentle showers
Desiring  to  give moisture to all souls
A symbol of  the value of quiet hours

In Northern hills we looked for  Durham owls
They hunt by day to keep their bodies whole
While in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

My loved one was a native of those towers
Highcliff Nab and Hasty Bank  called home
My days with him a-wandering there for hours

As he died , deep in my heart I howled
I held his hands, remembered , paid the toll
While in the ground the worms digest  the sour

Lying in the heather  we had roamed 
May God  have mercy on his  homing soul
Now I enjoy   in reverie our hours
Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

 

 

 

The northern hills

I wish I were in Arkengarth again

The fierceness of the sheep, the ancient dale.

I want to be with you and it will  rain

I want the pale gold sun, I want the gales.

The earthen privy with  its own two seats

The herbs and flowers growing all around.

The music in the pub, its⁰ Northern beat

It’s good to set the feet on Northern ground.

We went across the Pennines in the car.

The Western side is fiercer in its threat

Here we are in Kendal with its stone

Where’s Penrith with Ullswater beside?

I’d like to sail by steamer waterborne

I’d like to see  Helvellyn, but not stride

Here I am in London in the sun What is ending here up there began.

Before my husband died he kept wanting to see the sea or the northern hills and could not be comforted.

He had a very peaceful ending despite that lack

Anne Lamott’s writing tips

rosaalchemyst2019https://writingcooperative.com/anne-lamotts-top-13-writing-tips-7577eb5d5c24

 

8. Writing is fueled by hard work rather than innate talent.

“I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts…For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.” -Anne Lamott

Lamott’s line about “shitty first drafts” has gotten a lot of airtime in the writing community. Many writers seem to use it as a rallying cry.

To me, this quote is a great reminder of the fact that authorship is not a land of “haves” and “have-nots.” The world population has not been divided into capable writers and hopeless wannabes.

If even the best writers in the world struggle to write beautiful prose, we know that writing is a learned craft — one in which we can all improve over time.

We earn the blessing of the Muse by putting in writing time — not by being born with a golden ink pen in our hand.

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

Peace

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When wanderings take my restless mind

To places peace can never find,

When imaginations linked to fear

Push tranquillity away.

To my green garden I must go

And let my mind and thoughts go slow.

I look up at maples in the breeze,

See sunlight dappled through red leaves.

I see the apples hanging down

And blackbirds peck them on the ground.

I see the hawthorn berries ripe

Upon the hedge in gold sunlight.

And then my soul is brought to earth

Peacefulness is given birth

I feel at one with nature green,

And all that is just now unseen

So back to everyday routines

Without “what for?” and “might have beens”

All is well and shall be so

Wherever we may chance to go.

A white petal

May Sunday again;
Hailstones rush sideways,
striking the windows
with small fierce blows.
In the gaps between
two white butterflies zig zag
like motorized wild flowers;
One colour,two forms. I see now
two aspects of Nature:
hard,destructive,stern;
frail and delicate.
Both are coloured the same white.
Hard to tell sometimes which we are seeing
But we can all distinguish between a gentle touch
and a bitter blow.
As the day dips into night my heart falls too.
In these dreams I look for the lost
in the snowy steppes and the ices of the heart.
A white petal falls.
Cherry trees bloom again

Russia in love.

Dream like memories

Hollyhocks,delphinium and phlox
Foxgloves,cat mint, nettles,near by docks
The blind man breathed in air full of wild scent
His daughted named the colours now absent

High up on the Kentish cliffs we sat
Capel-le -Ferne I found it on a map
We listened to this girl, we did not speak
Absorbing by our senses,proud and meek

Now I recollect the details very well
In those dream like memories I dwell
Snapdragons growing just beside my chair
I smell the scent as if I were still there

I may be blinded by the tears of loss
But I remember, love, our happiness

Marbles

Rolling marbles made of coloured glass  
Skipping rope and learning ancient rhymes
Filling inkwells , polishing the brass
With dip-in pens we  wrote  upon the lines

Licking out the bowl where cakes were mixed
Running wild with brothers  and their  friends
Wonder at those fireworks Daddy fixed
Catherine wheels  rotating, transcendent

Mother  smiling in her   flowery dress
Little rocking chairs  where we placed dolls
Daddy saying,Good night and God Bless
Teddies with no fur left, ask our Paul

Little sisters, brothers’ cricket balls
Hot coal fires where kettles used to boil
Old gas cookers, scabbed knees from our falls
Fuses blowing, making light bulbs   fail

In our bed , we whispered little tales
In the morning  feeling warm and dazed 
Love was  in the air, the baby wailed
Dad  so pleased with Mother’s  happy face

I see the cobblestones  all hot with sun
The Street Party , the Coronation

Love will need no trick

In my despair I felt that I was stuck
Paralysed by  grief and guilt I failed
By the end I had tried every trick

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

Starving  and alone I was in shock
The death of one I loved   had made me frail
By the end I had tried every trick


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
Where are you now when Evil has grown bold?
Kind despair  that  made me long time sit
By the end I learned Love needs no trick

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

Wild Geese

Leaves have gone so suddenly
Small birds float on the wind
Like boats astride a choppy sea.
Their swaying soothes my mind.

Wild geese fly past at dusk again,
They head towards the North.
The holly berries glow in sun,
Nature gives joy birth.

I gaze intently at the sky,
The clouds hang dark and low.
If I too were a mere wild goose
I’d know which way to go

But I am left with only words
To find my destination.
Yet words do carry down to us
Wisdom from past generations

We use old words in unique ways.
We structure them to form
A new design not seen before
A new sentence is born

I send my words with love to you
I hope you safely catch them.
Give me answers from your heart
And I’ll do my best to match them.

Our Father

Our Father,Stars in Heaven,
Spell out thy Great Name.
Thy wisdom comes
And Angels’ sums
Add up our human pain.
Thy love is felt,
Though we live in doubt
About the human game.
Give us delay
On bankers pay,
And forgive us our lackluster efforts
As we forgive those who lack real involvement with us,
And guide us into a Demonstration
To make plain to the Nation
The evil done to the Poor,
The Disabled,the Mentally Ill,
And their Carers.
For Thine is the Trial
At the Hour of the Bible Story
We hope but are nervous.Amen

The pillars of the Western Mind have cracked

The end of values, kindness, earned respect
The loss of wisdom,history and truth
The pillars of democracy are cracked.

The centre of the heart,who can protect?
Conspiracy and madness unseat proof
An end of values, kindness, earned respect

Violence is admired though lives are wrecked
The lasting triumph of the folk uncouth
The pillars of the Western Mind have cracked

Their minds unfurnished seem bereft of tact
They tread on others words like horses’ hooves
The end of values, kindness, earned respect

How can such opponents make a pact?
The calculating crucify our youth
The pillars of the Western Mind have cracked


Yet Western Empire builders had no ruth
They tortured those they conquered group by group
On such ground just madmen earn respect
The altars of the Western Mind have cracked

The gift of sight, fine flowers, blue butterflies

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In my hedge of beech mixed into yew
The wrens have nested,now they learn to fly
I felt my heart grow lighter at this view

When the heart is lifted,that’s a clue
That symbols of new life are coming by
From my hedge of beech mixed into yew

Keeping vision clear,look out and bow
What lives now  must shrink and one day die
I felt my heart ache taking  such a view

With many gifts  we humans are endowed
The gift of sight, fine flowers,  blue butterflies
By my hedge of beech mixed into yew

The gift of tongues, creation of the new
From  sweet Joan Baez to little babies’ cries
I felt my heart swell in my breast anew

Conception, growth,maturity,goodbye
Like the flying star we  shall go far
By my hedge of beech mixed into yew
I felt my heart  beat stronger than I knew

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

A day with my own self, such peaceful hours
The inner seas make music as they roll
And in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

The rain comes down in cold but gentle showers
Desiring  to  give moisture to all souls
A symbol of  the value of quiet hours

In Northern hills we looked for  Durham owls
They hunt by day to keep their bodies whole
While in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

My loved one was a native of those towers
Highcliff Nab and Hasty Bank  called home
My days with him a-wandering there for hours

As he died , deep in my heart I howled
I held his hands, remembered , paid the toll
While in the ground the worms digest  the sour

Lying in the heather  we had roamed 
May God  have mercy on his  homing soul
Now I enjoy   in reverie our hours
Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

 

 

 

A little peace

One damaged cell  divides  until it kills.

For in the end we pay the rich man’s bills.

The air polluted ravages and maims

Now it’s cruelly late to curse and blame

Oh sister how we played  with our dolls’ prams

In our industrial  town there were no lambs.

No sheep could safely graze in smokey streets.

No lark would rise amazed, the dawn to  greet.

For you my sister breathed in that bad air

We hear  the tread, the  foot steps on the stair.

So patient still, I wish that you would shout.

From your eye I see one tear fall out.

My single sister I can see your pain

Your lips are dry you cough and cough again.

Your mouth is hurting so you cannot eat.

And on the telephone you barely speak

In the world  some million others groan

Yes we’re fragile, merely flesh and bone

Even so the tears run in my sleep.

Into my face these tears will slowly seep.

I didn’t grasp at first that she would die

And leave me here alone to curse and cry

Hold me in your arms my kindly friends.

From your touch a little peace descends

A favorite poem:As Kingfishers catch fire by G.M.Hopkins

By  Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Source: Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985)

Please teach me how to cry

Daddy, how we missed you when you died
I had not been told when I was five
Come back,Daddy,miss your smiling eyes

We were told that we must never  cry
When the cancer took your earthly life
Daddy, how  you suffered ,then you died

When you wanted company, I tried
I was too articulate to thrive
Come back,Daddy,miss my  Daddy’s  eyes

By the  flower  beds,  you wanted a guide
You wanted me to talk.I  really tried.
Daddy we  fell down a black hole, why d’y die?

You slept all alone, the pain arrived
We slept with our mammy, on your side
Come back,Daddy, don’t you miss my eyes?

I  always hum like you did though I’m shy
You are singing through me, close  and wise
Daddy, we still  miss you and your pride
Come back,Daddy, teach me how  to cry.

 

 

 

Dream like memories

Hollyhocks,delphinium and phlox
Foxgloves,cat mint, nettles,near by docks
The blind man breathed in air full of wild scent
His daughted named the colours now absent

High up on the Kentish cliffs we sat
Capel-le -Ferne I found it on a map
We listened to this girl, we did not speak
Absorbing by our senses,proud and meek

Now I recollect the details very well
In those dream like memories I dwell
Snapdragons growing just beside my chair
I smell the scent as if I were still there

I may be blinded by the tears of loss
But I remember, love, our happiness

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