Category: poetry

Of loving flesh

What angst you did inflict upon my soul
What grief gave you  mine eyes to weep afresh.
What  ire do you reserve  to take its toll;
What everlasting loss of loving  flesh?

What sorrow did you wish to save for me
What worthless thoughts did you intend to grow
What ends and means then wished you to see
What  un-contained shudders did you  sow?

Who you are has no interest to me.
Whom you pray for  makes a mock of God.
When you  feel ,then from it you shall flee.
And will he rule you then  with his own rod?

Do not think you’ve made an end of me.
Eternity and time my friends will be

 

The alphabet

Anxiety is the price of life.
But don’t pay over the top.

Calmness is good at most times.
Dread is a bad friend.

Exploring nature soothes the soul
For what are we but part of it?

Gentle music helps the mind
How ever we do it,
Listening is a kindness to ourself.

Ink is the friend of the writer.
Judgment is another one.

Kindness is essential to the good life.
Lessons are available daily.

Money is necessary but not sufficient for happiness.
Needs are simpler then we imagine.

Oxygen is good for the brain.
Prayer is good for the mind.

Quality is hard to judge quickly.
Rest is often a good idea.

Tension inhibits ideas.
Work should involve play.

X- rated films are optional
Yes…You are a valuable person.

Z is the final letter
And life is an Art

Winter poem..

trees in gloq_n

Trees swaying in the wind
Leaves
blow
down.

Birds flying through the sky
look
for
lorn
.
Winter edges ever nearer.
Frost and fog will soon appear.
Cats sleep cosy by the fire
I clean the mud off my bike tyres.

Trees swaying to and fro
sig
nal
love,
.
Birds flowing on air currents.
You’re my dove

A lover of the vapid is my friend

A lover of the vapid is my friend
So rapidly to boredom we  can wend.
Yet should  love like this  be brought to sudden end
Or clung to as we struggle through the bends?

Is the choosing  of insipid  acts
Genetic, to be treated with mere tact?
Or if it’s learned, then how should I react
To give him aid to  learn  that which he lacks?

And who am I to judge that he  should change?
For vapidity’s subjective  in its range.
And criticism if ept may then derange,
To lunacy his mind  be rearranged.

Personal  judgements   should not issue   fast,
As  the pains we cause may for an era last

No bounds

She accidentally strayed

into his terrortery;
He panicked and felt his heart
beating louder
as if trying to burst its way out.
His face turned whiter;
she backed away
knowing intuitively,
it was for the best;
for terror knows no bounds.
And no boundaries create
Terror.

On  Lucian Freud

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/28_chart.html
The language your forefathers spoke

Dwells in your images.
Faces bleed with feeling.
Bodies rise out like rocks.
Your self-portrait sings
Me,myself.I am.
When God spoke from the burning bush,
You took the flame and ran

The words will come to those who that desire.

Winnowed was the produce of my heart

And fortune favoured me upon that day.
For what remained was worthy of respect
And helped me rise above the fumes and fray.

The consciousness of good was well received
My soul and heart were like soaked bread in wine.
Although I did not doubt the creative word
To gain this mark of honour  made it mine.

As being so prolific is a feat,
And  work well done is cherished and admired
Then I shall rest and  let my mind roam free
Replenishing again my inner fires.

The labourer is worthy of his hire.
The words will come to those who that desire.

Shall I my life of evil start

When true love’s gone and doom hangs over head
When life runs like a river to the sea
Then shall I take new lovers to my bed?
And with their carnal touch consoled be?

When my love lies,so breaks my tender heart.
When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path.
Then, shall I my life of evil start?
And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

When true love lies and wrecks all loyalty.
When puzzlement makes all my world seem mad.
Then I shall upend causality
And let myself do deeds which make me glad.

For I have love’s sweet child inside my soul
And I shall tend her till at last she’s whole

To the depths of our own minds

The trees’ roots wind beneath the grass.
Grass so perfect,neatly mown.
In roots entangled,serpents mass
Beneath the fruit trees which now groan.

Another,darker world beneath,
Where the roots  stark homes  do give
To tiny creatures which there seethe,
Where all our darkest shadows live.

From here a serpent  malice took
From our neglect  what we hate.
We see the surface , do  not look
At what lies deeper ,till too late.

 

And so we live, both deaf and blind
To the depths of our own minds

How to count infinity by hand

The uncanny is a space which I avoid
I do not wish to meet with spirits  vile.
Though with some men ,it’s true that I have toyed.
I  dropped them all and sane was I the while.

Yet when I met your eyes so dark  and strange
A force more strong than my own pulled me in.
A   premonition that my life would surely change,
Before I knew your double,your dark twin.

In dreams and  in my nightmares he will come
To capture me and take me  to his land.
I do not know what choice to make of man
Nor how to count infinity by hand

The double is an augury of death
Yet in this space uncanny is a path

 

Lady love

I love the long ,lean lingering look of her
Legs like twin silver birch trunks
delicately balancing her elegant,exotic body.
Her blue eyed humorous gaze rests on me.
How her inner being vibrates in subtle motion
like an unmowed meadow of poppies does
in a summer wind.
Her smile is the sun on a lawn of pure white daisies
her own self a tall stemmed flower
opening slowly to the sun
revealing her deep,deep cente

The sea within

Study in blue

Love shines from your eyes
and makes your face
so beautiful.
Your smile has a rare beauty
Like a foreign flower
transported into a bare garden.
Though it's winter now,
it's summer in my heart
as I lose myself
in the colour
of the sea within you

The children’s eyes,the ball,the game, the tree

Gold stone from Cotswold quarries, men brought
And built into a way of life for those who bought
Their lives so cheaply.And did not see
The children’s eyes,the ball,the game, the tree
Of life that grew in small backyards and gave
All to those who lithely climbed into its arms,
Why should this not be you?
O Eden, I see that you are nearer now,
In lowly homes where love is free
Than in the temple ,grove and softset brow
Of those who worship God,in churches built of gold
Now  this is simple to behold
When sun is setting, and escapes the ashes
Thrown up and floating in the watches
Of the days of voters’ eyes cast up to skies
And wondering, fearful, what will come
When all the secret deals are done.
So take the gold of Life and let it fall
Into your children’s growing souls,
And let this Cotswold town and spires
Melt into sunset’s glowing orange fires.

Sunlight

Shapely tulips catch my eye
Red as cherries
Winter berries
Spring will never lie.
Willow buds as green as glass
Happiness
Happiness
Memories that never pass
Sunlight slants across the wall
such loved colour
my eyes follow
Delight  in light is all
Mauve and grey the evening sky.
Sun descends
Day must end
One last goose flies by 

 

Love and hate

 Love and hate all humans know

Through  these pains we humans go.
Yet love enlightens and discloses
Thoughts as sweet as summer roses.
Take me back to Northern hills
Where my fraught soul with honey’s filled.
All I want is to be there,
With you ,my love,now grown so dear.
Oh,love is kind and love is rare.
We’ll not discover better fare.
Feed me with such love again,
And I shall be a most blessed one.

The sweetness of the fruit of love

I have a piece of  apple wood
I have my whittling knife.
I want to make a gift for you,
The best gift of your life.
Apple wood is sweet and sound
The tree grew here by me.
I chose the best part I could find
For the virtue of the tree.

 

 

Apple wood is a rare gift
We must make something whole,
For if you touch my apple wood
You can feel its soul.

 

The sweetness of the fruit of love
Is there within the wood.
So all who touch the apple here
Will be moved to good.

 

What knowledge did the tree conceal
That Eden was destroyed?
Was this a good metaphor?
Should it have been employed?

 

Sweet apples fall at random now
As autumn time has come.
And many Newton’s, all unknown,
Shall learn from every one.

Down below is as above

Her eyes were sidereal last night
So we didn’t use the electric light
They shone like stars in golden love
Down below is as above..

Paradox is joy to me.
I love life’s ambiguity.
Love is always mixed with hate.
Ambivalent is our state.

 

Is there a name for this destruction

Wakening up,remembering.

The rain falls onto the windows like a weeping angel’s tears
Thinking all the time,it was a bargain they wanted
.. not this…….not this… no,no
Is there a name for this destruction
which destroys also those who commit such acts?
A haunted Europe;Britain
the interfering empire,grasping at the world’s wealth,
have made a patchwork out of Eden
Here where man began to be civilised
where we learned to make an aleph bet
and to write on scrolls
where God spoke from the fire
Why is it here that the hate is so strong?
What did we steal from these Arabs
when we bought their oil and made them wealthy
Materially,only; they had the wealth of knowledge and learning;
they who invented the abstractions of mathematics?
How have they become who they are?
And from those learned Jews when we plundered their religion
their Book and their G-d.
Their mystical traditions and learning;
scattered them like dust across the diaspora.
Our rulers and others thieved like starving beggars
and sat watching as they struggled
How can religion be used with such cruelty?
The hate they should feel for the West
is transferred to their neighbours.
The wet eyed and heart weary,the strained and tearless too,
those whose hearts are heavy with
the pain of unsheddable tears
They turn again to the mountain
the steep climb continues
Tears water the path and the cold earth
As we look into the heart of darkness
Hoping for a sign,
Or at least to be ready for a sign….
Those who have eyes to see,let them see

But he said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.

In this chant and benediction

 

Signs and symbols guide the route.
Love gives the soul her appetite.
Though the night is black and starless,
The inner guide is never careless.
The notes are struck,the tune is played,
Plain melodies are overlaid.
In this chant and benediction,
Healing comes for desolation.

Though the passage way is narrow,
This pathway is the one to follow.
Struggling through the mud and mire,
We see in darkness tongues of fire.
The sacred centre of our life
Is never found without some strife.
Just then the dark and light combine,
To create a symbol for our mind.s

A lost embrace

A stifled cry,
A leaking eye
A tenseness in the muscle tone
A look aghast, a muffled groan
A posture altered
Hands that falter
Mind uncertain
Heart a-lurching
Sharp neuralgia in the face
A litttle trace
A lost embrace
No one  reflects my face to me
I’ m not a person now, you see
The overlapping on our maps
The understanding sharing grasps.
I keep emotions all within
For my existence is a sin.
In this way, I squeeze up tight
As if to space I have no right.
A look can kill
Destroy the will
Turn to stone and mute the groan
I’ll be a statue and admired
My marriage licence has expired

By a leaf

I am a gleaming aubergine
in an oval dish
My purple skin is polished
Like BBC English.

I await my fate for I am ripe
My seeds fulfil my wish
Soon,soon the knife will cut me up
As corn in fields is threshed.

I’d rather lie in Egypt’s soil
By birds and insects bit
But here I am in England
Where irony is wit.

After cutting comes the salt
As in a bowl I sit
For I am moist like lady’s parts
As poets have much writ.

Moussaka is my destiny
And as you bite and chew
I shall  be  what Jesus was
And give my grace to you

I am fried in olive oil
To give me flavour ripe.
Dried in cloth and placed in pot
Atop the meat I ride.

 

My colour  brings all eyes to me
As I lie in a heap.
Some like carrot heads so bright
Royal purple is my state.

So better than a lamb I am
For a sacrifice.
I am proud and gleam  like gold
As Caesar-like I’m knifed.

 

My seeds through sewers deep shall pass
And somewhere come to grief.
I shall grow again and be
Portrayed by a leaf.

A Jackson Pollock of the page.

For these words to land on.
Lying like a mixed up puzzle,
I pushed them with my fingers.
Until I made a verse from them
Which suits wild drunken singers.
A Jackson Pollock of the page.
Post modern verbal mistress
As Picasso haunts Greek labyrinths
With post modern art’s distresses.

Leaning down I see your face.

English: Wayland Smithy in Autumn Taken in a l...

English: Wayland Smithy in Autumn Taken in a late Autumn. A carpet of leaves making the ancient monument glow (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After summer’s sultry flowers,
We get autumn showers.

Winds that blow.
Leaves that glow.
Nature’s wealth is ours.

Harvest grain and harvest corn.
All our food from earth is born.

Warmth of sun-
Ripeness come-
Fruits and nuts adorn.

Trees are turning red and gold
In the glancing sun.

Leaning down I see your face.
Autumn love has come.

Re

Sometimes Love

London in autumn
London in autumn
Abstract blue
Joy in life

 Sometimes sun  shines in September

Sometimes sky is brilliant blue

Sometimes sun shines in September,

Sometimes I remember you.

Sometimes love comes in September,

Sometimes there’s this final chance.

Sometimes love comes, so remember

Such affairs are happenstance.

Sometimes love comes down in sunshine.

Sometimes love comes down in rain

Sometimes love comes in September.

Sometimes love pains us again.

Beware the man

No woman ever can be what he dreams

Nor can she give him 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’re fat or boney thin.’

Beware the man who never can adapt

For in own lone wishes he is trapped

In the family

 

Oh,yes,I do lovely handwriting

Just like my dad.
It runs in the family
And I like chip sandwiches with butter
It runs in the family.
No,I can’t do cryptic crosswords.
Or enigmatic looks.
It runs in the family.
I read too many clever books
Instead of earning money.
It just runs in the family.
Yes,we are all music freaks.
We listen to Schubert and Schoenberg all night.
It runs in the family.
We are all impolite.
But we can’t help it cos
It runs in the family.
Yes,we all use four letter words,
It’s a free country,besides,
It runs in the family!
And no we can’t write poetry,you see
Writing doesn’t run in my family.
But,we all practice monogamy,
So far,though, unsuccessfully,because
Adultery runs in the family.
Which puts a slightly different complexion on the phrase
“It runs in the family”
But, alas,all of my ancestors are dead.
It runs in the family!

Our love and courage will not fail.

The life boat crew are safely home
They’ve brought the shipwrecked sailors too.
The storm has passed,the wind has dropped
The sea is swaying softly now.

Wrapped in soft night clothes,their offspring
Are all in world of dream still lost.
Their fathers’ safely home this time.
They save wrecked ships despite the cost.

Will any lifeboat crew be there
To help less blessed ones from despair,
And lives, too many ,spent in care
No fathers and no mothers near?

The sea we certainly must fear,
But more we fear the acts of those
Who try to buy our minds and wills,
for votes in the election booths.

Oh hush my baby,go to sleep,
It is your mammy’s job to weep.
I wish I knew just what to do
To empower the lives of wains like you.

Sleep well ,sleep well,my little child.
The sun will rise,the air is mild.
We’ll trust that when we all set sail
Our love and courage will not fail.

Oh,hush my sweet one,I am near.
The world’s too big for bairns to bear.
We’ll do much better this time round.
We’ll not let this boat run aground.

*NB Wain and bairn mean infant /child /baby used in certain parts of the British Isles mainly northern

A mere mirage

My  new-found hope may be a mere mirage;
Illusion of no help in my despair.
Yet imagination   stirs up needed courage
And helps the mind and heart in their repair.

I’ll dwell not in the mind’s relentless thoughts;
I’ll use my eyes and ears and skin
Then i that trap, I  never shall  be caught.
I’ll see  and hear to moderate this din.

In wider focus all will take their place
I’ll focus less on  this  wound I bear late
And see  both good and bad in every space.
So not dismiss the world and all its states.

Changing  vision show   us  truer measures.
Perception valued brings to us much treasure.

 

 

 

Ariel by Sylvia Plath

  SYLVIA PLATH
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.
God’s lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees!—The furrow
Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,
Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks—
Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else
Hauls me through air—
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.
White
Godiva, I unpeel—
Dead hands, dead stringencies.
And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child’s cry
Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,
The dew that flies
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red
Eye, the cauldron of morning.

What’s true

Winter,I’ve been inside
Dreaming, healing,grieving
Now I see my plants
The almost white cyclamen and one red flower
Sage and rosemary
Japanese maples snug in their tubs
No sign of leaves
I read  blackbirds sing more
Than is strictly necessary
I’m not surprised.
It disproves monetary  economics
And   spending cuts.
We should build  cathedrals,,spires and marble halls.
Give expression to the wonder we feel.
Winter,I feel cold.
When people destroy what can we do?
I’m the Sleeping Beauty waking.
I can’t believe what’s true.

Because real knowledge hurts

I don’t want to see reality
But I don’t want to lose your care.
I want to go on being selfish
And having you always there.

I don’t want to feel your feelings.
I am aware that I’ve been very curt.
I want to go on ignoring you,
Because real knowledge will hurt.

The longer I pretend to be ignorant,
The longer I opt not see,
The more I shall hurt my loved ones.
The more unkind and cruel I’ll be.

I don’t want to see reality.
I’m frightened of what I might find.
I need a dear friend to be with me
Whilst I traverse the dark glades of my mind.

I am afraid to discover reality,
But it’s better for us all if we do.
I hope I can get enough courage
To be able to bear what is true.