Category: poetry

Cherry tree branches

Cracks in the pavement
Look like rivers approaching
an estuary.

Natural beauty,
the shapes and forms wandering,
sanctifies the road.

Cherry trees branches,
A wide canopy of leaves,
Blossom blows away

Sung geometry,
held still and made eternal,
Catches at my throat.

The fortunes of us all

No words of mine can potently display
the anguish and the joy that touch our lives;
yet all our ghostly forebears went this way
where words may pierce our hearts like sharpened knives.

No sentient being willingly at first
Accepts the pain that true perception brings.
Yet we must not take hearts to be a curse;
we need not flee from knowledge,though it stings.

Each day demands our thoughtfulness and love
from which all better action justly comes
each day the grace we have is just enough
as through the meta narratives we roam

For life' s but a true story we invent,
with passion and with purified intent

We turn to darkness

When tensions in our minds then harm our souls
And into stranger's  ears   we  pour our woes..
When grief and sorrow  shudder through our   walls.
And whether all is lost we cannot know

When  what is in  or out we cannot tell
When fantasy and dream become confused.
When  spears of agony  are  felt to maim each cell.
When sensibility is utterly bemused.
.
He in  whom  we  trusted  wills us fail
For what  he said was love was mere  desire.
Now pain and disappointment make us frail;
With torment know   this  lover was a liar.

Then, having lost all other means  to live,
We turn to darkness where our consolation is.

The quiet wood

As I walk slowly through the quiet wood
I feel the need to kneel and say a prayer.
The sacredness of trees is  understood
For symbol and its meaning  coalesce   here

 The canopy on high is bathed in sun
and birdsong is so lovely to  my ears.
The noise of city traffic I now shun
And natural meditation calms my fears.

 The trees were bare and elegant last week
Today the leaves have opened sweet and green
I hope no thunderstorm will wreak
Its havoc on the new world  I have seen.



For nothing on this earth will last for long
So  commemorate  each Spring  with a new song

I stole her sturdy wings

The sun is shining brightly
Shall I sit by the pool?
No,I always live my  life by
Rigid personal rules.

Last week’s unruly weather
Let rain fell down in spools
I might have had the heating on;
Oh,those rigid personal rules.

Wear a dress from Mayday
Wear  coats when winter’s cool
Only wash your hair on weekends
That’s a personal rigid rule

But,Ma ,my hair is oily
The girls all point in school.
Don’t be such a  cry baby
Don’t  be such a fool.

Ma,I’ve done my homework
I’m top of all my year!
Can I have an hour alone?
She thwacked me on the ear.

I was her little puppet
And she controlled my strings
Till I caught my Guardian angel
And I stole her sturdy wings.

Well,Ma died  half my life away
But  she is now a ghoul
Watching me so patiently
With her chart of rigid rules.

She didn’t leave me no money
She didn’t leave me no jewels.
She just left me a message
All my rules are  yours.

I cried ,Holy Moses
She is worse than God
She made rules for everything
From  love to  boiling cod.

Don’t bath when you’ve your period
Don’t let your brothers see
You are now a woman
But  you’re still under me

I think I’ll leave those rules behind
And if it makes me fear
God will send a devil round,
I’ll hit  him with this spear.

Flexible  our bodies
Flexible our minds
We must climb the mountain
And leave those rules behind.

Following personal rules
Can make us feel secure
But  our vocation calls to us
And cares not if we’re   pure.

Steal  and purloin all you need
From books and people too.
Follow your own calling
While you share our human zoo.

And share your learning freely
Give as well as take
Oh,my Lord ,I see some men
Carrying a stake.

They are going to burn my body
But they can’t touch my  soul
Wrap me well in flax,  my dear.
In heaven ,I’ll be whole

 

ON FALLING DOWN A FULL STOP AT THE END OF A SENTENCE

If you can’t acknowledge your hatred or rage if you deny it exists, even to yourself then it may cause havoc in your life.This does not mean letting it rip either.It is very painful to hate someone you love.This is the dilemma of the infant and of all of us in life.Perception and its possibilities and flaws are of the utmost importance to me ideas wide and narrow focus in seeing .They came to my notice in the book “A Life of One’s Own” by Joanna Field [Marion Blackett-Milner] and in her later book “On not being able to Paint”

Wonderful books, still available.

This poem is an attempt to describe of the problems of only using the narrow focus in life

2011-09-02 12.40.21-3

Blind sight scattered my wits

Like whitened bones

Across the deserts of my mind.

I descended into blackness.

Love shrank into the tame cat

By the fire,unacknowledged hate

Grew to fill the room.

I stared too much,

A full stop grew gigantic

Crowded out

All the words in the sentence

I saw nothing but this dot

Now a gigantic black hole

Into which I was dragged.

An energy coming from within my own head

Sucked me into the black hole.

That place was the wrong sort of darkness.

Within that full stop,

Love Fundamental became invisible.

Disappeared into the dark.

I dragged my eyes away

And saw the moon appear , so eerie,

It shone,grey silver.

If I had opened my eyes wider

I would not now lament

What I destroyed in the wormhole

Of the black dot that drew my eye

Into a tunnel of darkness

It blinded me to the light

Did not let me read the sentences

Beside the full stop.

An error of focus left hate

Unacknowledged, unmitigated unredeemed,

Kept from love or goodness.

Afraid to spoil my love with hate,

The fear of hate became

That which spoiled all else

By freezing Love itself

We rush towards death

Patience is a virtue despised
As we see gazing into folk’s eyes
So we rush towards death
in its phantom   address
Then we make out we’re feeling surprised.

Where is it the place of our dreams?
In our coffin, noone will  scheme..
See a blade of grass grow
In a crack where seeds blow
And  life in miniutiae teems

 

Overwhelmed by the rocks in our path
Patience is pushed out by wrath
Yet in a rock climb
We concentrate all the time
Patience will save us from death.

And if diagnosed with a fate
Which will soon remove our fair estate
We may sink into blackness
And feel we are trackless
For what we lose there is never rebate

Yet others with just months  left here
Live intensely  and with far less deep fear
Fair hair on an arm
Eyes’singular charm
The unique,the concrete,they revere.

The World Is Too Much with Us by WmWordsworth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photo0510

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. –Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn

Enchantment

How white and blue together recollect us
to the summer sky and the imagined swallows
darting in exquisite geometry
under the great domed space of the heavens,
like the Basilica in Constantinople
containing and giving space.
And how I held you for a moment that was infinite
and then you were gone like an angel fearing enchantment
into some finite boundaried world

The globe may look quite bent

 This is a very old poem.I find it interesting to look at them now
Geo ti guarda
Geo ti guarda (Photo credit: silgeo)

I’ll draw a graph of Mother Earth
I’ll need a lot of paper.
It won’t be easy,I know that,
But Geo’s my alma mater.

Geo came to our maths class.
We had to find her metre.
If we did then we could write
A poem with which to greet her.

With ologies and eulogies,
The earth is deep in waste.
Give me some green graph charts
I’ll do some cut and paste.

I’ll rearrange the entire globe,
Without a deal of fuss.
If anybody notices
They won’t know it was us!

I’ll put all the mountains in the world
Into one continent.
And if I am that way inclined
The globe will look quite bent.

I’ll put the lions and tigers too
Into Parliament.
Let them eat not cake but men
And don’t charge them a rent.

I’ll paste all the seas that I  can find
Onto my washing line.
With less water around the world
The weather should be fine.

Oh Geo was a darling child,
So promising and bright.
Mixed up with the graphs and charts
I hope she’ll see the light.

I’ll put all  stars into a box
We have far too many.
Yet only one sun and one moon,
So,would you pickle  any?

Geo return,I love you so.
I’ll give up cut and paste to show.
That you are all I’ll ever know,
and i do love you so

She ain’t won no prizes yet

           There was a letter in Writing magazine,
As it happens it ‘s an issue I’ve already seen.
One,asked if it is true that poetry with rhymes
Is not the fashion in our times.

I know that being sad is no disgrace

The bell rang on the ancient church at noon.

A sparrow flitted to  the Tudor wall.

Was this the knell  which brought down  damned gloom?

 

Perhaps there is no meaning here at all.

I read my unknown thoughts projected out,

And  in my rage, desire the walls to fall.

 

Like you, I am too  often stuck in doubt.

Betrayed by old ideal and vanished wish.

So what is in, confuses that without.

 

Oh,pain, oh ,mind, oh agony, oh flesh.

I shall not cling to life and wait for grace.

I am, myself, a fish in net of mesh.

 

Was this my  destiny, my rightful place;

Alone besieged by sorrows on all sides?

I  err for  being sad is no disgrace.

 

So ,to my hopes, I’ll cling like drowning beast.

Until my invitation to the feast.

Death and loss and grief

When death and loss and grief fill up my heart
And behind an icy wall I am entrapped
Where should my work of holy healing start
Where is the hidden place where loss is mapped?
As on the earth I walk amongst the trees
And on the grass I lay my sleeping head
I make my friends from stinging wasps and bees
Who comfort me on this my own deathbed.
Yet do not sun and moon still shine as bright?
Do not men and women tender lie.
Does not this small glowworm give me light?
Do not courting tom cats saunter by?
With wider vision spreading from my eyes
I see more clearly where my comfort lies

Lest we should forget

Though the sky glows gold
There’s something cold about it
A hint of silver.

Before midsummer
A hint of autumnal dark
Lest we should forget.

Now a wind blows up
The sky is deep pink-blue mauve
And the leaves are dark

A threat or warning.
Don’t miss those important days
When life slips away

Now the sun has gone
A moment before night falls
I send all my love.

But   out in Warsaw
The last train for Moscow leaves
Ghetto life begins

Time is a circle
Elena will not die yet
In the promised land

 

I am filled with May

I thought that there were no good  rhymes for ebb
And so I could no sonnet write today.
But  then I thought of Adam’s stolen rib,
And how the Lord enjoys a  little play.

I thought there were no rhymes at all for flood
My competence was at its lowest ebb.
But then we saw  old trees ,astonished, bud
And I wrote this upon the world wide web.

I thought no word could ever rhyme with neap
And so I fell into a writer’s dock
The sight made all the singing blackbirds weep
And hence I raised my head from off the block.

I thought I’d write  no poetry today
But  now I have and I am filled with May.

The One You Stop is You by Michael Rosen

We met me in a shelter
waiting for a bus.
We said we didn’t like me
I was afraid of us.

We stood in my way,
to stop me getting on the bus,
but the driver would only drive
if I was on the bus.
So we all got on
as I was one of us.

A poem by Elizabeth 1st with “ebb” in it

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44219

For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects’ faith doth ebb,
Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web

 

 

Dancing

We were dancing to a tune,a tune I’d heard before.
We were spinning  close together across the polished floor
But as I moved towards you,you moved the other way
And I knew then,you  were hearing  differerent music play.
I made my mistakes,yet I thought you understood
Realisation comes down on me in a dreadful flood.
You’re just a stranger who seemed to know the dance
And I thought you loved me, but that was merely chance.
I’m so foolish, so foolish I give my heart away
I make  my errors then,of course,I have to pay.
Why don’t I learn more ? Why do I repeat
The dance I am dancing, which leads  me to defeat?
Oh,I’ll still keep on dancing for dancing is my life;
And like Andersen’s mermaid I walk always on  knives.
So foolish, so foolish my artless loving heart
I dance though I know this dance will tear my soul apart

This was the day that they took you away

 
They took,took you away,away.
They took you away
And nevermore will I see you.

The blonde with the artificial smile
Said it’d be just for a while
But I saw the black shape behind her
As she came through our door
And never more will I see you.
Nevermore be near you.

Why did she not see,
Why did she not look
Why no appointment but a raid on our home.

They made you go to a gym
When your valves were leaking
You could not eat,you could not speak
But you had no choice
And said,next week we’ll come to your house
To fit a few grab rails
I thought I was going crazy.

They tried to keep you out of the hospital
But you died in A and E
After 3 days of the gym and walking
So officially you were not in hospital
That maybe was the idea.
And we  never had that quiet cup of tea
Never had anything together again
And  late one evening,you could not speak properly
But you were worried about how I’d get home
And what I would eat.
So I said I’d take a cab
Because I can’t walk very far
Especially seeing what I saw…..

They said I was too anxious 48 hours before you died
That I should go home  and watch TV
And soon you’d be there with me
But now I am thinking,
How soon will I be THERE with you?
No-one not even the cat came today.
But I saw some moths in a rug!
And that is good because wildness is normal
Cleanliness and neatness are only gained with effort.#

Today I have moved your chair
And the table where I put my little laptop
I played a video of me singing so I could go into the kitchen
And you would think I was sitting by you again.
I read a poem I wrote for you even though I don’t  like the way I read
But a smile came on your face when you heard it
Your eyes were shut but you were listening

 

Oh, each day, is always that day for someone,some where.
We all lose and we all grieve for love is risky
But not to love is a curse.
So today is that day for me
And for women and men in  this world
Whose love is dying.
It’s our  good fortune to have given love
And received love.
But oh,today is the day that they took  you away
And I can  never,ever say
What I wanted to tell you as we drank tea
That you were the the best one for me
And I remember climbing cliffs and jumping over stiles
~Walking the Pennine Way,
Wish we were there today
Oh, please,can’t you stay?
Come back for one day…..

All the wider context losing,

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

Blocking out our 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.

Nature made such to protect us;

Yet  our  perception can be wrong.

Once the flood of feeling takes us

All reflections seems too long

The journey

Look ,stranger on this island now.

The leaping light  leaps yet.
Standing silent is hard what

with all the mobiles
And the traffic.
Something is making me sway
But it’s not the sound of the sea,
It may be the distant sound of bombs.
I may vomit.
Here at the edge of a field
Lie people killed so some other people
Can have a better future.
The chalk wall is collapsing into the foam
Not to mention the odd earthquake which

Wrecks the East.
Nuclear.

My heart quakes because I love you,
And I’m afraid you prefer the computer.
And all this comes into my mind when I stare
Across the horizon.There’s something wrong.
We are standing on the edge of an English meadow
In spring.But in some sense such a meadow
No longer exists.

Look stranger on this island now.
Delight is stll possible,
Is it probable?
The foam at the edge of the waves
Leaves a white curve on the sand,
I walk through and remember you,
Even though I lost you.
You were tall with green eyes,
And you died of computer news overdose.
I miss you so much ,and the world in your eyes
I want you to tell me, where are you?
Here and there,we remember similar stories
Of heroes returning from far away battles
But the battles are here
And the heroes have departed.
I remember Odysseus and his journey.
But like the green meadow
We have no soul for that,
We’re on the edge
And waiting.

Creation

Uniform colour
No cerulean blue here
This sky is dull grey.

The leaves look less bright
No gold light to shine through them
When will summer come?

The bonsai beech tree
Is now part of the front edge
Tiny leaves waving

For we have a breeze
Birds fly intently,surely
To their nest of young

Concentratedly
Nothing else is important
But creation

 

 

Smaller joys and pleasures are not sought

P1000322

How like a prison is my once loved home

Since now I linger here in fevered chills.

No more may I be free to walk and roam

Nor climb the mountains and the hills.

The television irks me  and annoys

I cannot bear the sound of human voice.

My  lost intelligence is not deployed

I err in thinking I  have little choice.

And so it is myself whom I destroy.

What path to take when feeling lost and ill,

When lying in  my bed I cannot rest.

What act would give me strength and  better will?

What  purpose has this illness and its test?

The road to hell is paved with too much thought

So smaller joys and pleasures are not sought

Division

Division
In the sky,half dark,half light.
Will we get more rain?

How the mind fills up
With prediction and fear
Gone is trust in God.

Yet deep down we know
All shall be well;be it so.
Who can interpret?

Now we have no souls
Yes,we are social  constructs.
Am I still myself?

Yet why throw away
The wisdom of the ages?
We know what soul means.

And we  trust in God
More than we trust our leaders.
Who are wrecked by power.

We need to worship
Not gold,not  brand new  kitchens,
Something beyond us.

God predates our words
So he speaks in burning bush
Or in a fierce light.

The bush is not so hot
Compared to a new shopping Mall
The intercom’s  bust.

He can’t get through now
We have erected idols
Worship our plastic.

 

 

Most strange ,we need to do what we most fear;

IMG_0007

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.

Now we must live them

I made a  cheese flan
Both burned  black and undercooked
It was edible

I guess my knack left
Along with my dear husband.
All’s been cremated!

That’s why I can’t eat.
I see Auchwitz and Dachau.
Christianity.

These ring the death knell.
That Pope was  no kind of star
Mechanical  thought

Christianity
Now has come to its ending
Crucified itself.

Resurrection
Will not do us any good.
We must start over.

But crawling on  earth.
Kafka made the images
Now  we must live them

To help me

He was with me then
As I searched for a new place
In which I could live

But he does not speak
He is my companion
He wants to help me

I don’t believe yet
That he won’t come home ever.
But I just pretend

When I am with folk
They tell me I am stronger.
Oh,comparisons!

Yeah,I need no-one
No words of comfort or love
I must be a stone.

My stoicism
A wonder to the  heavens
My dead face fakes   peace.

 

She heard his crying

Palpitations
Made waves sing in his ears
Sea shells soft murmurs

This song so silent
Passed through walls and fences
She heard his crying

Outside the prison
She stood in her long rough coat
She trembled and shook

And he felt her there
Her vibrations moved him
That was how they danced

Gales in May

Despite the season, we have gales and  rain,
When May  blossom and buttercups each bloom
I feel regret for Spring is on the wane
The summer’s short and autumn comes too soon.

Expectations block our  outer view.
We miss  brief moments when the sun breaks through
And makes the whole world glorious anew.
With laughter, leaves and flowers our souls imbue.

Let’s look again, with  eye blind to desire.
A shady day has still a pleasant feel
The air is scented and senses   still are fired.
Thus, from the darkness ,let’s a pleasure steal

The grass is green and flowers assert  allure
Even in the gale ,we find our cure