Category: poetry

I am no longer

I heard your voice outside the glass front door
I  felt no shock nor worry  nor surprise.
But there a man, whose image is a blur,
Handed me a box with friendly cry.

What part of me still waits for your return?
Why don’t I know you’re gone and shan’t come home?
What  knowledge must my  puzzled heart still learn?
Why do I get an urge to search and roam?

If we are conversations ,as I read,
Then our  exchange has ended with your death;
And so I  am not she with whom you laid.
Nor she with whom you shared a common breath.

When deprived of  hearing your response.
I   am no longer she whom I was once.

 

If this be love,then let me dwell alone.

 
If this be love,then let me feel your hate.
If you be true then let me hear your lies.
To save my heart,your message came too late.
And now my need is for the   kind and wise.
If this be marriage,let me have divorce.
If this be holy,hasten I to hell.
For love comes in its time without such force.
And of its message who are we to tell?
If this be love,then let me dwell alone.
If this be love, I’ll be forever chaste.
Your love was like a blow that broke my bones
A love that leaves in mouths a bitter taste
.
You do not love yourself and so not me.
Far away from you. I wish to be.

Love, tiny like a grain of sand

Already it’s the last day of the month.

That is  when I  think of you
Walking by the river,the path green
With moss and small grass blades.
Is that your shadow across the window?
I still expect you though you’re long gone.
Damply trudging through the meadow,
Hand in hand we never noticed the cold,
Though my fingers were painful with chilblains.
I don’t see you any more,nor the chilblains.
Would I walk on knives for you
Like the girl in the fairytale,No.
But almost anything else.
Sand runs through my fingers,
I’m a human timer,though not for eggs,
But for love,my time is running out.
Though even in a moment one can receive love
In the smile of a stranger.
Why should love not be short
Like a grass blade?
Or tiny like a grain of sand?
Dante only saw Beatrice once,
But it sustained his life for ever.
That’s worth dwelling on.

Leave a little space for grace

When you speak,leave a little space.
And I’ll leave a little space before I respond.
A space where my mind can gather in her nets
to see what your sentences draw up.

The inner seas call out.
They ebb and flow
Tossing treasures onto the shore,like
Sea shells where once your ancestors dwelt.

Sometimes it’s good to walk that shore line
with an empty mind.
The vast space of the sky and ocean
can be freeing.

Space for dreamers’ boats to sail.
to unknown and alluring places.
Is the wind fair?
It seems partly chance
and partly readiness.

When you speak to me,
I’ll wait a moment;
Then, in that space, my words will rise
to engage and mingle with yours.
Something new is born.-
Our creation.

Leave a little space,
A little space between us.
Space is the place for grace,
for the spirit to enter us.

Leave a little space for the unknown, the unborn,the waiting.
We must spare a little space for creation
In between our minds.
The in-between is where life start

Blown away

 ???????????????If I go I won’t tell you.

I’ll just disappear one day.

Like when a cigarette ,which seemed so long,

suddenly has become smaller

and you never noticed it

because you were talking

about the meaning of life

while life was somewhere else

blown away with your smoke

into the sky

and then dispersed

never quite visible again

but still floating on the breeze

hoping to be caught

in a butterfly net

but unable to communicate

except by flying.

If I go it will not be today

but it will be an ordinary day

no one will realise

that it’s that day

that the bird flies

from her nest

to go to a new place

only seeing the deserted nest

he realises,

my bird has flown

Related articles

Real Presence

When we absent ourselves from presence in this life
When we dwell more on pictures in our minds
It neither matters if  we wish for strife
Or whether they fill needs of better kind.

We know that wish fulfilment comes in dreams
And also in our fantasies by day
When anxious worry fills our mind with schemes
Guilt and shame impede us from our play.
Creative thought requires the loss of self,
And needs our empty soil to plant its gifts
So throw out selfish fancies for this wealth
We’ll et ourselves  go slow so mind can shift
To waste our days in suffering or false pleasure
Will lose for us this vital, priceless treasure

What God endowed the owl with such excess

The owl can see with wide and narrow view
Focuses  both poets and artists knew.
The broad sweep on the canvas makes a place
Where details and designs can have their space.

What God endowed the owl with such excess;
When all her progeny enjoy such   bliss?
 I think,  where is the snake with frightening hiss?
What startling accident  created this?

Eagles,hawks and owls must kill to eat.
No blandishments nor kindness make them sweet.
What God could make an Eden this deceit;
Where lambs are snatched up while their mothers bleat

So God himself destroys to fill his leisure;
Such fearsome revelations show his measure

A state which cuts off love and grace.

A hermit fell in love with my face
Can a problem  like this be embraced?
He looked at  my eyes
Till he was advised
Staring too much causes rage.

The real problem is hermits need space
They prefer distance to an embrace.
So they live in a dream
A  fantasised   scene.
A state which cuts off  love and grace.

Like an animal  once subject to abuse
They wander on the edge as they muse
We must look at them slantwise
Not argue when they fantasise
Run away when they blow their own fuse.

 

A hermit

4344191_f1024

Though once I  enjoyed company and talk,
I ‘ve become a hermit  as I age.
I value stillness,silence as I walk.
And news of politicians makes  me rage.

Familiar friends are welcome at my door
Cats  may sit upon my  generous  lap
Spiders may make webs from drapes to door.
Letters from the distant fill the gap.

I  hate to argue when  we have no facts
But shouts and yells are there  to  force my will
I even fear that some will  grab an axe
And with their violence render me quite still.

For force is now the medium of the day
Conversation dies  when  friendships fray.

 

Stronger than night

Ice cream pink grey sky
Soon night will fall on the trees
Flattening with shades

The artist describes
A language is  renewed
We can each  hear it.

Immense the  shrubs seem
Infinitely many leaves
Close like shut eyelids

The wren is silent
Now the scent of damp  darkness
Is stronger than night.

They point to a hole

Sunset’s a dread shock.
The piano is frightened
Into jarring scales

Black or dark grey lines
Zero or infinity
Are all one to me.

They point to a hole,
Deeper singularity.
Everything’s broken.

Piano attacks
Drained away the coral sky
Now all black  or white.

Why play the black notes?
He’s hurting me  again,oh.
Will we live  truly?

A  pink cloud  chuckles
Till the night whale comes  once more.
Prophets  shall look out.

Wailing trees darken
Birds asleep are ignorant
Rest in peace.Amen

Like music,goodness flows to its own beat.

Practise now the presence of the good.
For always good is there, though life is dark.
Acknowledging we live  here where we should
Our attitude enlivened by love’s spark

Behind bright pageants and the   idols  gold
Quiet and modest is eternal grace
And with patience let this good enfold
Ourselves and those  who dwell in this earth’s space.

Unnoticed by the rich and envious court
Like  a stream  love  flows  in channels sweet;
Known to artist and to waiting poets
Like music,goodness flows  to its own beat.

Let us not  deceive ourselves with light
Darkness contains gifts unknown to sight.

 

 

A space to be unseen

Small rain in  summer
Pools on large green leaves,
Makes all birds dumber
Silently they weave.

Wrens fly to and fro
Nesting near the house.
They know where to go
With nestlings and spouse.

Simple life of green
Hiding in  lush leaves.
A space to be unseen
Humans only grieve.

Where is our safe space,
Where can we  live well?
As anguish veils the face
In green thoughts I dwell.

  A tale of married life

 abstract cat
By Katherine
Stan and Mary went in town
To buy Stan a new dressing gown.
But he wanted a woollen one
In our March that is not on.
The shops are full of summer clothes
But Stan’s not warm enough for those.
Mary likes to look around
But see how old Stan frowns

.So Mary says,I’ll go online
I’m sure I’ll find some fully lined
Made of wool and acrylic…
Them you can make your pick.

Thank you,Mary,you are kind
despite that brilliant,wandering mind.
I am the best dressed man intown
And soon I’ll have my gown.

Would you like cafe au lait?
I have my pension,I shall pay.
Very nice,dear Mary said…
I’d like a piece of bread.

Won’t you have a slice of cake?
I know it’s not quite what I make.
No,just plain bread,sweet Mary said
She then turned very red.

Mary,you look very hot
Is it healthy in this spot.
The central heating is too high…
She gave a weary sigh.

They drank their coffee and made jokes
About old folk who never spoke…
They bought some fresh fish for Emile..
They alway shop with zeal.
..
When they got home.Stan dialled Dave
Who told him he was very brave
and not to stand near a bus door…
Or he’d fall on the floor.
.
Oh,how i’d like to lie down there
With my mistress Annie fair.
but Mary is at home today
So i’ll just have to pray.

If you’re in pain and can’t have sex,
They say that prayer is second best
Morphine is so hard to get…
and it makes me feel sick.

So tomorrow Mary works
Stan and Annie have their perks
Dave calls round to bath the cat…
How obscene is that?

If you would like your cat washed
Or if your shopping has got squashed
Just dial 99999
The service is divine!

What is free verse?

 

 

1yqum52oyl9ai_lhttp://literarydevices.net/free-verse/

 

Example #4

Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
of a sort of emotional anemia.

And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive…..
will commit that indiscretion.

(The Garden by Ezra Pound)

The Romantic poets

william-blake-2457413b.jpg

William Blake

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-romantics

 

Keats was one of the best Romantic poets.He died at age 25 which is humbling.This poem is one many of us learned in school.

 

poet John Keats

Ode to autumn – Poem by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cell.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats

 

 

No sight is like the rising of the sun

No sight is like the rising of sun
When promises of dreams seem  clear and still
My heart,though sore,can fancy  love has come
Without hard times and exercise of will.

No morning is without new dawn of hope
When all our conflicts shall be put aside.
Imagination is  far flung in scope,
Never  noting dreams may fraughtly lie.

No love is like my long lost love for you
Once known,once felt,it settles in the heart.
Yet I do believe love can be found anew
But only when the lost  love  can depart.

So bother me no more with reveried bliss.
Go leave me with my  life,though all’s amiss.

Words

nuneham_2016-4-800x600.jpg

1.
Words are like beads on a chain

Alone they can’t take any strain.

But joined up in gold

A sentence can mold

A prayer is repeated again.

2

Words often  cluster  groups

Waiting for writers to stoop..

Then instead of one word

A sentence is heard,

Some call this poetry soup.

3.

Professors do not create words,

Which from the unconscious are lured

They only critique

What you and I speak.

After conversing and writing,that’s third.

Is not a guerrilla war

Wind still moves branches
Decorating the  sunset
Fuzzy spaces gleam

But darkness softly
Blankets the weigelia.
The wrens  nest there snug

Oh, that small  wild dog
I had to take in again.
She keeps wandering.

Dogs smelly and  rough;
Short coats like mini  wild pigs
Why do they like me?

The  mock orange blooms
Truly a secret garden
I hide in the heat.

Down there is a seat
I bought it for my husband
It’s called a  love seat.

I hope this rough dog
Won’t try to sit there by me
I don’t love her.

I made a mistake
I can’t tell  cow from  bull
I blame that convent.

We averted eyes
We averted minds and hearts
We were  like Nazis.

We must perceive first
Then we might start to think  well,
Or thoughts are bullets.

Conversation
Is not a guerrilla war.
It makes us human.

First see a person;
See their face and recognise
The unspoken claims.

I see lighted eyes
Fine lips that jut out slightly
Ready to  drink words.

He might listen too
He that has ears to hear
Will reap  a harvest

 

 

 

 

Ariel

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell

I will taste divine

Make my heart into a cottage pie.
Already it is minced and lies estranged
My   enemies insult me with their lies
And my last will and testament is made.

An onion and a carrot chopped up fine,
Saute  with these my heart till  all are gold
With herbs and spices I will taste divine
A mashed potato will a rooftop mould.

Do not forget my blood to use as sauce
Though now it’s cold, with garlic  make it boil.
For what is gravy but the blood of  choice
With  sliced  onion  fried in olive oil?

O foes and devils eat me and you’ll be
Transformed into  myself, your enemy.

But what use are they in loving

What was so wrong about asking

About your absence from this world
And trying to grab you back
holding onto your coat tail
Eternity’s long enough already
We don’t need your vapour trails.
Was it a wicked thing to do
As you floated so far away
To reach out to touch you once more
I admit I never knew you kept score.
When I beat you at chess so long ago
Were you already packing bags
to throw out the door?
I knew it was the real thing
But some men never do.
You have your expectations
And your tests and rules
But we never learned those
In our higher math schools.
We learned rigour and icy vision
We learned definition and precision.
But what use are they in loving
I didn’t know how to steer starless
You were off anyhow.
The orchestra stoped playing
When they saw the gap.
You can’t fly forever
But I do be leaving you.
In the circumstances
What else does a woman like me do.
You can smile and squeeze your eyes tight
Suck in those cheeks and hide your love.
What’s coming after you’s an eagle or a crow
Not a dove…it’s black I know
When you toss it all away then
Seems like it’s long past time
and emotion to call it a day.
Come again…..you must be crazy
Love is clear to me  now like the face of a new born daisy

Delivered

From American life in poetry
“The greeting card companies are still making money, though the inventive online “cards” are gaining ground. Here’s a poem about pen and ink greeting cards, by Cynthia Ventresca, who lives in Delaware.”

Delivered

She lived there for years in a
small space in a high rise that saw
her winter years dawn. When the past
became larger than her present,
she would call and thank us for cards
we gave her when we were small;
for Christmas, Mother’s Day, her birthday,
our devotion scrawled amidst depictions
of crooked hearts and lopsided lilies.

She would write out new ones,
and we found them everywhere—unsent;
in perfect cursive she wished us joy,
chains of x’s and o’s circling her signature.
And when her time alone was over,
the space emptied of all but sunshine, dust,
and a cross nailed above her door,
those cards held for us a bitter peace;
they had finally been delivered.

Wild geraniums

Stepping through the door
I am assailed by perfume
Wild geraniums.

I ease these flowers
Out of  the    patio bed
For they cover sage.

They cover flowers-
Blue geranium and saxifrage
Rosemary  sprawls now

Lavender’s nearby.
Now  inside  I hear singing.
Bird by the windows.

A robin came in,
Looking for my old man
I said,he’s not here.

Embodying soul
Sacramental  life in scents
Flowers are themselves.

How I’d like to lie
In the poppy-filled meadows
With my beloved.

Or splash through the ford
Near the open air display
Work of Henry Moore.

The topology
Of his sculptures moves my heart
Vast,holy, peaceful.

Massive like  unto God
They transform the soul and body
Into one being.

Then we are all one
With the sloping green meadows
And the wind bent trees.

Most of all,I know
Wildflowers are God’s darlings.
How he dwells in them.

Low,modest beauties
On the verge of the main road
See ,even here, smiles.

To lose one’s own self
To become a wild-flower
Grace will sanctify.

First, grow an ego
Then lose it in these green woods
Unselfconscious Eve.

 

We acknowledge

As we come nearer,
I feel your warmth.
Warmth draws me in
I see you here.
We touch each other tenderly.
Your  hand
on my face,
on my skin,
acknowledges my being.
At this boundary of my world and yours,
we touch.
I feel that peaceful breath,
the spirit,the wholeness of the flesh.
Touching gently,
we acknowledge the Otherness
the holiness of life itself,
in the form of the Beloved.

The cooing doves

The cooing of doves
In this humid heat of June
Reminds me of days with you.

The M25
Makes a circle round London
Beyond that are fields.

In a green valley
Near the home of Henry Moore
The river murmured.

We drove through a ford
With your mother and father
That still thrills me.

But  not one of you
Can share that memory now
Dad went  the first

How he loved the shed
In Henry Moore’s  big garden
Full of shells and rocks

The shed’s clear window
Showed a sheep track up a hill
Green,now far away.

Little miracles
In his last stay in our home
National Garden Day.

He made me chuckle
As he wandered down ginnels
While Mother went,Tch.

We used to lose him
But usually he turned up
Until the last time.

They went to London
Then ate in Swan and Edgars
Stories to take home.

You were like he was
Funny,kind and wandering
Off the beaten track.

I knew I’d lose you.
But that made no difference
To my  sorrowing.

Now I recall you
To save these sweet memories
And to answer me.

How will you cry out?
Would you send a ringed dove
To coo from my tree?

 

 

 

 

Beware the man

No woman ever can be what he dreams

Nor can such give comfort on the road.

Yet every night he plots and thinks and schemes.

And rarely does he ever go abroad.

No food he eats will satisfy his tongue.

The best wine is as naught to mother’s milk.

He grumbles and will not admit to wrong.

I ‘ve known more men than him of this same ilk.

No bed can be the right one for his sleep.

No sheets and pillows suit his wary skin.

He often has made gentle maidens weep

Crying out they’are fat or boney thin.’

Beware the man who never can adapt

For in own lone wishes he is trapped

And changed history

How could a culture
Built on Nero’s ruined Rome
Be kind to strangers?

How could Yeshua
Be rehomed in the Vatican
And remain unchanged?

Yeshua’s people?
Shall these bones live ,shall they die?
It is cast,They’re gone.

A butterfly’s wing
Suffered a small detachment
And changed history.

 

As honeysuckle on the walls

They lay down in awe and fear,
Of what their love was bringing near.
They gazed into each other’s eyes
And so did rhapsodise.

They lay down to gaze into
the eyes and soul and heart so true.
They gazed until,when overcome,
They were united into one.

Their souls and bodies were conjoined,
And thus their hearts were well entwined;
As honeysuckle on the walls,
In joy’s sweet arbours does grow tall.

Their loving lips and eyes and hands
Gave pause to time’s soft flowing sands;
And while they touched and gazed so long,
The birds sang out in glorious songs.

The eyes are mirrors to the soul,
and love will make us grow more whole.
Gaze lovingly on humankind..
And hold care in your mind.