Category: poetry

Not by   immigrants from Pakistan

How we met is   not at all bizarre
Someone stole my bike.I had no car
I walked along the street and then met you
You had just come back from Timbuctoo

We never  found the bike. it had  a curse
But fortune favours courage and  good work
The joy was tempered by the  wrath of Mam
Not by   immigrants from Pakistan

Later on we  owned a  cheapo car
We went to Suffolk on some kind of dare
The houses painted pink ,soft white and green
By Framlingham which once housed Tudor Queen

We  soon learned   to love the South Folks lands
Yet deep inside ,the North  grips heart with  hand

A little death  to let the earth revive

A stillness falls across the garden trees
A little death  to let the earth revive
Stand silent here  and feel the gentle breeze

Yet some icy hands will sting like bees
To test our spirit, show we are alive
As stillness falls across the garden trees

Later in mid winter trees half freeze
Frost will hang like silver chains devised
Stand silent here  and feel the sharper breeze

As the year is ending  don’t retrieve
The bad ideas, the feelings  cruel  archived
As stillness falls across red maple trees

The sun so low  it blinds  us to our needs
We waste our time of peace with pointed jibes
Stand silent here  and feel the colder breeze

Winter rituals enrich starving lives
So cruel the cold,   yet frost with beauty chides
A stillness falls across the garden trees
Stand silent  fall and winter ,feel the breeze

 

 

They’ve offered me a job dry cleaning Hell

Hypothermia made me write so well
The pen froze to my hand and would not leave
They’ve offered me a job dry cleaning Hell

Just in case my head should start to swell
I made myself a hat from dried brown leaves
Hypothermia made me write real well

The government is  giving us free bells
So they will ring whenever we’re deceived
They’ve offered me a job dry cleaning Hell

Hell is very fiery but with gel
I can get it  clean   from all disease
Hypothermia made me write,oh very well

I tell a lie, the cold invades my cells
I can’t clean  yet a bottle in a breeze
They’ve offered me a job dry cleaning Hell

My husband is asthmatic, he can wheeze
He has  inhalers as his lungs will tease
Hypothermia made me write so well
They’ve offered me a  column, what the hell

 

 

 

 

The fishes swimming in your head

We humans seem concerned  that we must die
Yet complain we cannot sleep with shuttered eyes
Stay awake and let  the mind roam free
Invent new recipes, enjoy some tea

Feel the peace of darkness and  the bed
Tell off  fishes swimming in your head
Get up and clean the kitchen  of its grease
Check your records if you have a lease

Knit a mohair hat for winter time
Wash a scarf and hang it on the line
Change  the  printer ink  before it dries
Volunteer to work for M I 5

Unwillingly  admit we can’t control
The night and day,  the journey and its goal

The mind’s intentions, its mutating schemes

The entrance  opens to world of dreams
Impossible to   find out by our will
The mind’s intentions and its hidden schemes

Enlightened by  the    feel of  fey sunbeams
Knowing it is  stronger to sit still
The entrance  opens to the  deck of dreams

The eye grows wider. our vision   limpid leans
Until our  reverie has   got its fill 
The mind’s intentions and its wandering schemes

Warnings come in nightmares, how to heed?
The pain grows stronger like a workman’s drill
The pathway   leads to far more fearsome dreams

Are we  puppets strangling on our leads?
Who ‘s the master, who  must pay the bill,
Receive the mind’s intentions and its schemes?

High and low  let interact  and  tell
How we shall find our way  and what   to kill
The entrance  opens to world of dreams
The mind’s intentions, its mutating schemes

I’d like to die with flowers in a field 1

I’d like to die while  lying in   sweet fields
Surrender to the sun and poppy seeds
Dissolve  myself and to the hot sun yield

For we are nature and we nature feel
In dandelions,  in daisies, stunned by weeds
I’d like to die while  lying in a field

What is life if mystic love’s not real?
There is much more than action and its deeds
Let us  melt as to the sun  we yield

Take this piece and let our love be sealed
For binding love and honour  is a need
I’d like to die with  flowers in a field

Let us keep in  rhythm and not congeal
Who shall   make  life dance and  who shall lead?
Let us  melt and to the hot sun yield

Is our purpose  done and shall it breed?
Let no-one  cling to love and  die of greed
I’d like to die while  lying in a field
Dissolve  to mist and to the hot sun yield

 

 

We cannot read unless we can descend

Poetic rhythm is natural like the waves
That come and go on beaches , wet the  sand
The sea is always moving  as is love

The unconscious is a language dark engraved
We cannot read unless we can descend
To rhythms as natural  as   the  rippling waves

Rich and strange   so different from above
What we find is  not what we intend
The sea is always moving  as is love

What’s   in authentic nature  that should save
As colours interact, by brush  to  blend?
Poetic rhythm is natural like the waves

Yet ,in a poem, what  part of us  can bathe
The mind , the heart, the soul, the writing hand
The sea is always moving  as is love

The  golden seas, the oceans can command
The ships that sail, the   whale, the hidden ends
Poetic rhythm is natural like the waves
The inner sea is  moving , tender love

 

 

 

The way the body curves with silent grace

The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile
The way the body curves with silent grace
By non-verbal means we are beguiled

The movement of the eyes, the lips, make calls
That  beg our bodies  for a  joint embrace
The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile

We don’t know what we do, we’re reconciled
Without a trick or plan, without a trace
By non-verbal means we are beguiled

We’ve counted all the points but  are they real?
Like  fractal geometry  our  love  is space
The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile

Stillnesss come, eternity is poised
All know the dance embodied does not lie
The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile
By  the gaze and glances we are beguiled

 

The candlelight of winter brings its glow

The candlelight of winter brings its glow
More joyful than the summer sun up high
When days are dense with dark,  dim paths with snow

How good it is to reach the heart of home
To  heat the oven for a lover’s pie
The candlelight of winter brings its glow

In summer time  in heather we lay  down
I did not know which kiss was yours or mine
Our days were deep with  hearts  alight with love

On Winter Hill there was no  sight  nor  sound
Except the bleats, the sheep. the lambs  new cry
The candlelight of winter brings its glow

We had a crib lit  blue with cardboard round
The figures knelt by Jesus, mystic signs
The days were dense with dark., the paths with snow

The happy years of infancy benign
When mother smiled, when father  was alive
The candlelight of winter brings its glow
When days are dense with dark ,a the paths with snow

 

I felt as rigid as a metal door

 

Fill  those blessed mugs  with water hot
Throw waste paper into that blue bin
Pick up all the rubbish you have dropped
For being so untidy is a sin

When  daddy died I put my toys away
Into boxes on the wardrobe  floor
I never played with  any toy again
I felt as rigid as a  metal door

I could not eat my dinner,I grew thin
I never spoke for woe had struck my throat
I read  the  tea leaves left inside  my mug
I  never wore my woollen winter coat

Now I am untidy and I write
I did not get  so silent  out of spite

We won’t know if Hitler’s come back

Why  do you watch the news, mother
It always makes you get so sad
You wake up  feeling  in the pink
Then all your spirits sink
Don’t you know you can drive yourself mad?

I saw you in the Hat shop this morning
You were trying on velvet  and fur
I think maroon is too dark for you
Try coral , eyes will spark for you
Then you won’t get mal de mere!

Yet if we don’t read a news precis
We won’t know if Hitler’s come back
So choose very wisely
Even precisely
Then act if it makes you feel black.

What do we need to  know daily
About the PM and his friends
Use your own judgement
About the repugnant
We hope to avoid a dead end

On google earth you look so far away

O
Like the street where I grew up and  fondly played
You are fading into mist and memory
On Google Earth it looks so far away

I’d like to go, but it’s too far for one day
And gone is my extended  family
From the street where I grew up and joyous played

The  Convent School was sold,not on E bay!
I hated   how they used to torment me
On Google Earth it looks so far away

Now a Mosque stands on the hill to point the way
We Christians lost our faith. God’s territory
Bare the street where we knelt down  at night  to pray

My life felt like enacting a mad play
I angered nuns  with violent modesty
On their Earth I felt so far away

The water soft made better tasting tea
The    rivers ran,the moors  grew bilberries
Oh,dear land where I grew up and  fondly played
On Google Earth you look  too far away

 

 

 

Your face is map enough for me

Your face is map enough for me ,

Your gaze, your smile, your frown, your glee.

And if I want to know the rest

The shape your posture‘s made is best

For showing what your life is now.

A look,a gesture all this show.

Till who you are is then disclosed

And I am in your arms enrobed.

Love vanishes when analysed,

And thinking too

by  Love’s despised’

Choose the means to fit the end

And then I’ll  be what you  intend

Where are the boats.the anchor chains?

We stopped outside the gates of the small park
A pool had grown from  heavy  Pennine  rain
A danger to the old  when nights are dark

I leaned on the  old push-chair ,aching heart
My other sister ran around blocked drains
We stayed outside the gates of the small park

She asked, is this the sea, or just a  part?
I said, where are the boats.the anchor chains?
A danger to the old  when nights are dark

She saw a vision  coming from her  heart
She saw Dad cross the ocean leaving wains
I looked  right through the gates of that small park

Oh,Daddy, do not leave us all forlorn
We heard an angel sounding the ram’s horn
We wept  quite near the gates of the small park
The  pool  showed our reflections, they were stark

 

Our own point of view

Why do  some people find it easy to stick to their own point of view whereas others are like chameleons who change to fit in with whoever they are with?I don’t know the full answer.It may depend on their background and in some countries women have to be subservient to men.Some people are just being diplomatic and some are wishing to avoid an argument to find our unique viewpoint and not go along with the crowd.i am not advocating breaking the law by doing/saying offensive things for pleasure.I believe  sometimes I have been lazy and not given thought to a topic and so I agree with another person whom I respect but really that is wrong.Since each of us is unique I believe we need to express our point of  view the best things about artists is that they  look or hear   at the world differently and help us to see the validity of different ways of seeing or listening

 

 

.But when a new artist or composer appears people often believe they are mad at first.This is what happened to Igor Stravinsky at the first performance of some of his music.Yet compared to composers who followed he was quite similar to  those  preceded him.Mahler wrote this music  a  year before the Stravinsky was composed and it is very different

 

 

 

And words come in a rush.

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.

             Enchanting   through 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 hand and heart.

The pen slows down,the hand grows still,
And just as dreams at daybreak will
They shrink,they disappear,they’re gone,
I nearly caught that one!

I thought  I’d write the end before I start

I thought  I’d write the end before I start
The intimations come from my own heart
And also from the words   of loving friends
Who help me on my journey to the end

Our minds grow  from the words of loving friends
Or from their letters if we are apart
They travel with us till we reach the end

Friendships can go wrong, let’s make amends
A word, a look, they  let the process start
Our minds grow  from the words of loving friends

I feel it is  danger to pretend
For then we are at risk of breaking hearts
They cannot travel with us to the end

At  times fine grace and joy  may each descend
Never try to make a map or chart
Our minds grow  from the words of loving friends

Do not end your life with loud lament
Every cell is of  the whole a part
We are one despite the  great torment

 

 

In the road, we played our ancient games

The summer heat made cobblestones like stoves
The Coronation happened, I know now
We played with melted tar, industrial bairns.

My mother’s hands were black and much beloved
The coal and coke had tattooed her, we sa
The summer heat made cobbles hot as stoves.

In the road, we played our ancient games
The older children passed the knowledge down
We played with melted tar, industrial wains.

The bully boys were cruel , did not heed love
A little boy had tried to be a clown
In summer heat, they beat him on the stones.

We were  quiet they flaunted power again;
But in our hearts, we knew we’d let him down
We threw warn melted tar, industrial wains

And in our fantasy, he was alone.
No-one knew who threw the vicious stone
The summer heat made cobbles feel like flames
We played with melted tar, Christ  died again

When my voice trembles  

 

When words no longer work

wonder

wish

want

When words won’t come

compensate

contrive

When my voice breaks

snaps

sunders

strains

When I want to talk

touch

tenderly

towards

But you are not able

about

abandoned

absent

You are no longer

listening

live

longing

When I need to find a meaning

In the shape

form

structure

But I ‘m stranded

Stuck

Sucked under

Swallowed

Then I reach out to you

I want your touch

tenderness

tranquillity

temerity

Sometimes words don’t seem enough

endless

empty

emotive

ejaculatory

Yet words can console

conjure

quilt

charm

captivate

cover.

Stretch out your hand

across the emptiness

and touch me with your fingers

friendship

faithfulness

forgiveness

frailty

fever

touch my heart with words

and I will hope

expect

await

be grateful

grave

garbed in joy

When words don’t feel enough

When all we want is touch

Or to see

sigh

sob

sing

Words can be shaped

changed

contorted

controlled

challenged

Words are all we have

To make us love

To make us live

To make us alive

To make us sing

To make us stand up

To console,words may be

Enough

Cat eats curry

I left a pan  of curry on the stove
Hot as  ash combined with burning coal
Yet when I  went back in  a cat stood  there
Eating this strong curry  with no care.

It must have had  thick skin inside its mouth
Before I looked ,it ran out of the house
To think it  gobbled up our supper  so
Leaving me  with nothing  but a glow

So then I made a chilli  beef and beans
My heart  ached as I listened to  puss scream
Can cats learn  that pans are out of bounds?
I’d hate to hear again its anguished sounds

Be  sure to close  the kitchen door  or else
You will suffer torment  from cats’ yells

The holiness of slow

The thinner branches wave  like fragile grass
Bewildered by the wind so strong and cold
Like prisoners suffering from a cruel lash

The cat walks by ,the  little hedgehogs pass
So in my winter coat I could be bold
The thinner branches wave  like fragile grass

If only winter travelled very fast
But time is needed for the seeds  to grow
As humble as a  snail on its own path

We humans  too need silence without rush
We must earn the holiness of slow
While thinner  trees  still wave  like fragile grass

In the soil, the worms  pursue their tasks
Eternities of beetles move below
Humble as the  snails on  their own path

Why we’re here  this day we cannot know
Our souls soak in the  silent world below
The thinner branches wave  like fragile grass
We’re not gods. we suffer  from the lash

 

 

My sweet fate


The roses by your gate
Revealed my sweet fate:
That I would love you in summertime,
That my poetry would always rhyme,
That a dream of petals falling from above
Would drench us both with sunshine’s golden love;
That we would fall into deep grassy meadows
Full of daisies,lie on our backs.Swallows
Darting across the sky would see
Our shapes intertwined with bright buttercups.
Who knows when love will erupt
And carry us on its flowing waters
To places unreachable in summer saunters?
Into the eye of love itself

Be silent  hearing  love’s new mysteries

Trying to solve old problems  bothers me
When I’m feeling weak or undermined
As if I could rewrite my history

The past is never dead, but leave it be
Or with  present troubles it combines
Trying to solve old problems  upsets me

In  the  trees  I find tranquility
As  they  give up so let our human minds
We cannot rewrite all our history

Restrain temptation  , drop hostility
Use the fire of anger to refine
The soul and heart and  problems none can see

The Holy One  remembers all we’ve been
Aids the poor as   to them we are blind
Be silent  hearing  love’s  new mysteries

Then having  no real truth  to   cleanse our mind
We  hope  and long for patient, thoughtful  times
Trying to solve old problems  wastes our lives
Time gives new perspectives, we   revive

Just had to play

While the priest annointed him with oils
I played in the gutter all alone
I hoped to find the marbles we had lost
Or from the melted tar to pluck a stone

The summer was so hot the cobbles baked
Looking like a row of fresh made loaves
There were no fishes in the millstreams rush
Nor a place where bread and Saviour rose

I found a florin in the cobbled street
I found two marbles lying near a grid
I found a daisy squashed in a wide crack
I saw a spider hanged in its own web

To summarise ,my father went away
The Queen was crowned and we just had to play

The  feeling is the space between the lines

The spaces in between the words make time
To and fro like waves on the  sea shore
The  feeling is the space between the lines
Why  is there  desire for  many rhymes?
The spaces in between the words mark time
The up and down like music well designed
The abyss may open  when we  can’t endure
The spaces in between the words    become malign
Our lives are  tossed up on a  darkening shore

Once we were two persons in one skin

Once we were two persons in one skin
I held you till your dying was quite done
I felt your loss  like panic deep within

I knew that death would conquer all and win
Now the  blackness took you, death had won
Once we were two persons in one skin

I saw its shadow cunningly get in
I had not known in what form it would come
I felt your loss  like panic from within

They took you to a clinic with a gym
Ignored the signs your dying  had begun
Once we were two persons in one home

I saw the  deadly blackness of your skin
Oxygen and sugar almost gone
I felt your loss  like panic from within

There was no doctor,drip nor  oxygen
You fell onto my  bosom,  all alone
Once we were two persons in one skin

The nurse asked me to help  you to lie down
Then to put some sugar on your tongue
I felt your loss  like panic from within

The paramedics ran in  like mad clowns
You were dead or dying, was I wrong?
Once we were two persons in one skin

They brought you back to life, to die again
They took you  off to A and E , how long?
I felt your loss  like panic from within

Then they phoned, he will not make it home
I sat by him and helped him with my songs
Once we were two persons in one skin

Then catheters and drips,   allover care
He  smiled at me and then he soon was gone
I felt  his loss  like panic deep within

Across the mighty river, pay his fines
I  felt  alone for I was left  behind
Once we were two persons in one skin

All I do is write my little rhymes
To get me  off the river bank alive
I feel  his loss  like  terror deep within

 

In the mud  my mind and body writhe
Can’t I  follow  him  by a deep dive?
Yet I am no master of my soul
The shape of death can’t  make me give control
I stand aloof and will not give  my life
Even though I was a  loving wife
Yet I cannot climb the cliff like edge
The river taunts me as I find a ledge
Why can no-one help me to climb back
From the mud and   from the  hellish rack?
They say I must not weep, it makes them sad
Now my grief  has got me labelled “bad”
Once we were two persons in one skin
I feel his loss ,a  torture deep within

 

 

 

 

The photograph again

Looking at your photograph again
How did I get here when we were there?
You look relaxed  and  happy  in that frame

I was on the pier  with camera aimed
Dressed in my  old  frock   to   sunlight bared
I’m looking at your photograph again

We crossed a common, flowers hid by the lane
We lay on white cliff top in sun drowned air
You look relaxed  and  happy  in that frame

How did I get here, I  feel I’m maimed?
Each moment is the whole when love ‘s at play
I’m looking at your photograph again

I just keep walking,bearing truth   and pain
If I stop I’ll drown in watery drains
You look relaxed  and  happy  in that frame

I know I will meet Jesus  when it’s time
Even though I don’t believe those claims
Looking at your photograph again
You look relaxed  and  happy, that is fame!

 

 

Would you be perfect ,agonised unspared?

Would you  be the Chosen of  the Lord
With eyes that see, with ears that hear  the Word
Burdened by  the Tablets ,in great Awe

Would you   ache to feel the Roman sword
To wear a crown of thorns on your head bared
Would you be the Chosen of  the Lord?

Would you like to hear Kind David’s chord
To write the Psalms  which  only grief can bear
To  hear God’s wish  from  Burning Bushes awed?

Would you  persevere   when hunted, scared
No praise for  good,  and tortured, unprepared
Would you be the Chosen of  the Lord?

Would you be perfect ,agonised  unspared
When God has hidden  in a  fox’s lair
Yet may whisper to  the ones with ears?

Would you like to  cleanse the world with tears
To  walk  condemned to death    and no-one cared
Would you be the chosen of  the Lord
To sense his message,  bless us with its awe?

 

 

 

How can it be morning without you?

How can it be morning without you
There is  a hollow  place inside the house 
Vacated  and now filled with nothing new
For who can take the place of a loved spouse?

How can a day begin without your smile
Without your scent like honey from the hills?
What toy or person can a wife beguile:
Would alcohol or  bottles of strange pills?

I feel the pain  in my arthritic joints
I did not know folk lived  like this for years
Who can now my aching  back annoint
Or wipe away the hanging sheet of tears

How can it be  the world  is short of you?
You cannot be replaced by someone new