Category: poetry

No form,no freedom

There is form and therefore there is free verse.

Without form there is no freedom.

Without craft,there is no Art.

Without self forgetting there is no  new creation.

“Trying” is always a mistake.

Without silence there is no speech..

Without song,there is no silence.

Words float like water

 

Words float like water in a stream,
Reflected gently by sunbeams.
This stream flows swiftly to my heart
And through these words your love is caught.

The space inside my heart is clear,
Your love will find its right home here.
Your words are treasures in my night,
And in the dark, they glow with light.

Oh,let me read your notes of bliss,
And seal them with a loving kiss.
I hope this stream will always go
Where living waters softly flow.

For love is kind, and love is true.
Connections form from me to you.
And love creates an open heart,
From which all other feelings start.

Yet love is free, and does not bind.
Love is glad,and not unkind.
So if my love displeases you,
Then you can find a lover new.

I have life inside my heart
Which will sustain me if we part.
I shall wish you happiness…
And know my grief will one day pass.

But for today,let’s laugh and play.
Let’s make love inside the hay.
It’s summer and we like the heat.
Let’s celebrate with kisses sweet.

The flower

The butterfly is like a flower
which moves its station every hour.
Oh,happy is he on the wing.
The vision makes me quick to sing.
The flower is open in the sun,
And to its heart, true love shall come.
The bees shall feast and fly replete
With nectar they are now full sweet.
I sing of colour and of love;
Blessings that rain down from above.
I wish to be a flower too.
Ah,that the bee could but be you.

Copyright

No handkerchief shall I boil e’er again

When tasks and labour wear us into shreds
And burning sun does shrivel up the skin
Shall we like lovers leap into our beds
And see how rapidly we can now sin?

When vests and Y fronts decorate the halls
when trousers seem to multiply at speed
With thermal undies ready for a ball
And bras converse with panties as they breed.

Then shall I throw the whole lot in the trash.
As sorting and disposing invokes wrath.
We’ll wear nothing but watercolour wash
Until in winter we all sneeze and cough,

No handkerchief shall I boil e’er again
To signify my fresh revolt from men.

Life is what we know

When soft winds blow and air strokes our bare skin.
When days are long like melodies of youth,
when light wakes up the soul from out her sin
Then shall we know when this sweet life is truth?

When flowers droop and leaves are dried and brown;
When water’s short and all  the ground’s forlorn
Then do not meet disaster with a frown,
For out of heartfelt sorrow new life’s born.

When winter’s here and all is quiet and still
And nothing seems to move or grow or speak
Then we shall learn the limits of our will
When through the soil the first green shoots will break.

For seasons change and actors come and go.
Yet through such changes, life is what we know..

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 brings us 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.

 

 

Imprisoned spirits

How like a prison   is my cubicle;

A prison,a trap, a cell,a place of fear.

For humans,this  is truth indubitable;

We need to roam ,to see,to smell,to hear.

 

Yet in the bureaucrat realm , we must observe,

The rules laid down by  generations gone.

And from their ancient code we cannot swerve.

Even if by rules we are undone.

 

Did Euclid discover how grave was a bath?

Did Moses fear  to see the burning bush?

Did Einstein follow someone’s else’s path?

Did Socrates  give voice to utter trash?

 

Imprisoned spirits are to revolution called.

Lest by lioness they should be mauled.

 

 

 

Your face

I wear my heart displayed upon my face.
Attentive readers find their meaning there..
Where feelings thought too deep to be embraced
Can shine demurely where they do not scare.

As Freud observed, we're never quite disguised
Betrayal is our body's real motif
The message comes conspicuous from the eyes..
Bright sparkles  or the tears of blackest grief.

The answer to a question seemly leaps
So Yes or No is visibly revealed.
The blush that spreads so fast across the cheeks
Both bold and shy unable to conceal.

Your face tells me you lied when Love you wrote.
Yet let us part with song, thus write our poems.

I desire to live

I feel soft ghostly hands around my throat
That want to pull me to the darkest deep
My husband cannot leave or be remote
He wishes me to join him in his sleep.
I shall resist for I desire to live
Though sightless are my hours without his face.
I have no more  to friends that I can give,
Now he has taken from me his kind embrace.
As lonely as a swan without its mate.
As tired as swallows after they migrate.
I must accept my unconsoled fate,
Yet not believe this be a constant state.
From my loss, I shall recover when
The birds return and warm sun shines again

It rankles within

We try to forget those who harm

With words which cause us alarm..

For it rankles within,

May even cause sin.

Like a snake which may bite or may charm.

 

A festering wound must be cleaned

The poison is otherwise a fiend.

The cut may give pain,

But while pus remains

Septicaemia  lurks unredeemed.

 

And as with the body,the soul

Poison will spoil thus the whole.

We must loosen our hold;

Our resentments unfold.

To  perceive all, we must become bold

 

 

 

.

 

 

Though winter reigns across the land

 Winter may reign across the land

DSCN0026
And frost and snow abound.
But I smelled the roses’ scent so sweet
When  you were  then around

I loved my love in summertime
Yet loving was easier then.
But when that winter cold smote us,
I loved my love again.

The deepest snow,the heaviest frost
Did not keep me away.
Come summer sky or winter fogs
I’d love you every day.

The sweetest flower that ever bloomed
Was not as sweet as you.
You were my garden of delights
I loved you through and through.

When spring arrives we see the buds
Of flowers that will  soon bloom,
I know sweet love  opened us,
Like flowers in   warm sun.

Pre-dead

I went to the doctor, he said I’d pre-flu.
I said “My dear doctor what shall I do?”
Next time I went, he said “It’s pre- shock.”
And then I had pre measles,pre mumps and pre-pox
I ran to the doctor,he said ” You’re pre-well”
I said “Are you sure it’s not just a pre-quel?”
Next time I turned up,he’d gone out for a walk
It’s hard for a doctor who wants to pre-talk.
I went to the optician, who said I’m pre-blind
I thanked him for being so intensely unkind.
I went back to the doctor,and these words I said
“I’m pre -blind, pre-deaf,pre-ill and pre-dead!

We can get to know the strangers

Through one person,
We can  get to know the strangers,
The loved,the lost the lone;
And touch them with our hearts;
Or we can turn away.

We,like the trees,grow from one soil,
From one earth,
Warmed by a shared sun.
To that earth we all return.
Now,through my touch on the keys,
I send you this,my love.

In the deep waters I must trust

When seven years come round again
My self is liquified,
My skin becomes a holding shell
For my old self has died.
As I dissolve I feel great fear
And yet I trust my soul.
So in the sea I lose my form,
And with the waves I roll.
I am at one with all the world,
And yet I am nothing.
My inner waters rise and fall
What will the high tide bring?
After my drowning I shall rise
And I shall be renewed.
I must submit to that strange Life
With which I am imbued.
I am not mistress of myself,
I am this moment’s flower.
In the deep waters I must trust
To take me to the shore.
O hang my arms with grasses green
And dissolve me in your sea.
Thus when the time comes for rebirth
Regenerated I shall be.

I love the shade of you

I love the color purple.
I love all shades of blue

But most of all,my dearest,

I love the shade of you.

I love the color circle.

I love to paint the dew.

But first of all,before I start…

I’m studying your hue.

I love to see the sunlight

Gleam across the trees;

I love the green,I love the shade

But it’s you I want to see.

Your loss went through me like a knife.

I found the message on your door,
You don’t love me any more.
Once you said “Oh,je t’adore”
Confusin’ ,musin’ losin’.
Why leave your message on display?
It’s been pinned up there all day.
I feel it’s such a cruel way.
Posin’,.musin’,.choosin’.
Can’t you tell me face to face,
Are you so short of human grace?
A brief letter would show more taste.
Deludin,broodin,floosin’.
Let me learn a lesson here.
I will not live my life in fear.
I’ll just shift into high gear
Illusion,fusion,musin’.
Once I thought that you loved me.
You announced it on the BBC.
Was it just publicity?
Amazin’,fazin’,crazin’.
Everybody has one life,
Sometimes filled with woe and strife.
Your loss went through me like a knife.
But,thank God I’m not your wife!
Musin’,choosin”,loosin,boozin

The tide turns and life alters..

Have you ever had a dream,
That you were all alone?
Have you lived with someone handsome,
With a heart like a cold stone?

Have you drowned in deep,cold rivers,
And been lost in shadowed caves?
Have you lived with too much fusion,
Till you drowned in ghostly waves?

The waves run down the sea shore,
Then up they come once more.
The tide turns and life alters..
Deep on that ocean floor

.
You were so beautiful and silent,
Like a sword without its sheath.
I should have let you take me,
The way you took away my breath

Terracotta dishes

I ‘ve had to buy some smaller dishes

The old ones are too big for  only me

I weep as in the bowl I  gently wash

The ones we used  to use when we had tea.

 

Here’s a terracotta  Spanish pan.

We  filled to entertain our friends.

Y0ur dish of onions and lamb;

Tomatoes added to the blend.

 

Here’s a souffle dish  for  six  or eight .

Cheese or lemon,  you enjoyed them both.

And here are all the dinner plates.

Too separate from these, I’m   feeling loth.

 

I don’t know if I’ll cook for friends again

They’ve not cooked for me just lately.

Are they afraid I’ll steal their man?

They  state their reasons so politely.

 

In the guide for widows I was told

Prepare to lose some friends and then some more.

I don’t want their men so  mild yet bold

I’ve closed   the windows and   I’ve locked the doors

 

I feel they compliment me as they think

I’m so  alluring  I can pull again.

But I have  had enough of  loveless links.

I don’t want any  cast off ,needy  men.

 

I dry the pyrex and the copper.

I dry the lids and  muse on  colours

What shall I have for my supper?

What  healthy diet shall I follow?

 

I just want to be with you one hour.

A   cup of Earl Grey of tea, a chance to talk.

But I accept that will be nevermore,

Like my hand in yours on our  long walks

 

I didn’t know that you were dying

The doctors are afraid of saying.

I wish you were  in my arms, just lying.

I’ve tired of churches and of praying.

 

I felt that tendon in your  gentle hand

You turned  around and smiled so brightly.

Then the curtains of  your death descend.

You slipped away so  soft, so quietly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In each flower

 
Walking on this quiet path

I see trees leaning their patterned branches into the wind.

I see old walls;

Gravestones lined up against one wall.

I see a sparrow

and some greenish lichen where the wall protrudes.

How good this silence sounds

To my inner ear.

Like Hopkin’s silence

Elected,now exalted…

Sing to me

And  I will hear you.

Speak to me and I will praise you.

In each lineament of this world

We see you.

In each flower and leaf

Your name is written.

Since she whom I loved

I love this.I wanted to have it at the funeral but my sister said it was too sombre.But I feel better when I listen to it.You can get all of these sonnets set to music by Benjamin Britten.They are called the Holy Sonnets.I believe he wrote them after his wife died.

No Man Is An Island – Poem by John Donne

https://youtu.be/AUmbXVqQbKM

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

John Donne

The promised land

Joy sings now in golden light;
Yet after day comes deep,dark night.
New moon will rise by these grey trees.
This is where I want to be.

I want the day;I want the night.
I want the dark;I want the light.
I want to see and to be seen,
And not to lose myself in dreams.

The sun has set,grey clouds turn black,
The day just gone will not come back.
I’ll rest in thoughtful reverie
Until the reaper’s scythe takes me.

And then I’ll drop and mix with dust,
till worms and beetles sate their lust.
I fall into ten thousand motes,
And dance,in sunlight,music’s notes.

No more striving;no more ambition,
No more fighting;no competition,
Every particle’s the same
Without even its special name.

And, side by side, we all are one,
The lusts of life have been and gone.
We dwell with dirt and grain and sand
At last we’ve reached the Promised Land

How can we learn to live with love, not fear

 I try to feel through dark and distant space
To where you dwell in a so called “heavenly” place.
And you are far from those of us, who care.
Our hearts are dulled with loving thoughts not shared.
Your absence has so distanced us in grief.
We can neither share our loss, nor gain relief.I stare into the star filled sky at night
And see a space almost devoid of light.
I feel into the edges of my soul
I sense,somewhere, a partially dismembered whole.
Would new technology be able to aid my view,
As I search everywhere for some tiny trace of you?

How can someone vanish suddenly in the night,
And never,from then on, be in my sight?
I wish that I’d been there when you went off.
Then I could have expressed,in touch, my sweetest love.
Shall I never hear again your gleaming tenor voice
Enchanting me once more with your intriguing choice?
Shall I not even find the laces from your shoes,
Floating gently back to earth through these elm trees?

I see more flocks of gracious geese flash by.
Are those your fingers tracing lines across the sky?
Do you too see these geese from up above?
But you’re on the other side, too far away from love.
And even with the very new best technology
There’s no way back now,so you won’t ever be
With us again,Goodbye,Goodbye Goodbye
I’ll turn away my tear filled green- blue eyes
And look at all that’s near,as I’m still here.

I know now you’re too far away ,too far away, too far away ,my dear.
I know now that you’re too far away,my dear.
How can we learn to live with love, not fear,
As we go on ,now, down these coming years?
So sad that you’re not near,not here,not here,my dear.
Shall I sometimes,in the night. pretend, you’re there,
And that heaven is not really so agonizingly too far?
As we slide down the escape chute of the years,
Like children clutching at our teddy bears.

And how does love die?

It takes a long time for a tree to die.

Though its trunk be almost severed with the axe

There was plenty of sap above

Then the leaves began to wither

and fall though it was spring time…
It takes a long time,to forget.
Not to remember
How to live.
First the tree stops growing.
It pauses,as if waiting for a message.
Then,as I said, the leaves turn brown.
It all takes time.Time to stop waiting
The leaves drop,then the smaller branches shrivel.
Humans also find that when ill, the hair may stop growing
And the finger nails.
We sacrifice the less important pieces of ourselves.
Even the most.
The small branches shrivel and dry out.
…Yet the tree still looks alive
.Then gradually we notice it’s drying out;
its branches are parched and soon the trunk dries too.
It may split in places and insects make their home there.
It takes a long time before the trunk dies.
From the top down it dies.
The sap is too limited in quantity
To climb the trunk..
..So the sap stays near the ground
.Eventually the whole tree seems dead
Yet in the roots there is still subterranean life.
The tree has died and is now brown and leaning a little sideways
No longer magnificent in display.
Time is all it needed
After the sharp cut.
..And sometimes the roots are strong enough
To begin to send up new shoots
Another tree may grow.
.I have seen that.
People ,of course ,die more quickly.
We have no roots.
And what of love,how does love die?
Like a tree,
like a tree,
 Like a tree
Like a tree.

Thorns

 

 

Grass and daisies have no   spikes nor thorns
So we can run barefoot across the  lawns.

 

Why do roses hurt  our hands, forlorn,

When sheep don’t hurt the shepherd as they’re shorn?

We could cut down the roses in our rage.

Their   own aggression might bring down their death.

Yet, beauty in their form does love engage.

So we ignore their useless,painful wrath.

Recklessly we love a spiky friend.

Enchanted by their learning or their face

But wounds unneeded bring this to an end.

Patience thins, we sever  this embrace.

 

Roses have a beauty that beguiles.

Shall we  then endure their thorns and wiles?

Sadness and silence

The cause of sadness also shows its end;
That we let go the loved one and remain.
Such comfort,aid and love we have from friends
Helps us bear the heart’s most dangerous pain.

 

But if our friends  fear their own  hidden  grief.
If sorrow is never let to touch their heart;
Then friendship’s stolen by a nervous thief;
As wishing to retain our self,we part.

 

The friends who sit in silent company
Who look for no reward yet love us true
Who show,  quite clear, desireless empathy;
They are friends who warmth and  hope imbue.

 

Patient silence may do more than  words
The utterance of the heart is not absurd.

 

 

Love

I see your face reflect the moon.

You smile enchants my  heart.
I hear you sing our favourite tune ..
As we stroll in the dark.
I’ve never known such happiness.
As I feel when I’m with you.
And when our lips join in a kiss
I love you through and through.
Let’s live for now and not dwell on
The problems we must face
I feel that you and I are one,
When joined in love’s embrace.
Our time is now,the moment’s here,
Let’s put aside all fear.

Sacramental trees

tree in sun

 Maybe you didn’t know

When you touched me so.

Maybe you never knew

What your words would do.

I float across that space

Where lovers once embraced

And thus you bring torment

To me to  whom  love you sent.

When I close my eyes

My daytime face then dies.

I look across dark seas

To sacramental trees.

My dreams are full of loss.

Is night or day the worse?

When we return  next  here

Will  love outstrip our  fear?

I gaze upon your face,

Forbidden  to embrace.

My arms ache deep inside,

As if in agony tied.

Torn apart by  grief

Love is now a thief.

Where has God’s face gone

As brightly shines the sun?

The pains of life  are sharp,

Cutting through the heart

But still we turn towards love,

With all the  strength we have.

Trusting in the dark

And emptiness beside

I step into the  void

Love can’t be denied

The cyclamen now flower again

The cyclamen now flower again

Today I dwell alone with them

Their shapely leaves,you did not see

Yet even so,they do please me.

 

Some are white and some are red

As if on blood the white had fed.

The waxy texture colour takes

So perfectly that my heart breaks.

 

The little rosemary and sage

 

Struggle with the winter’s rage.

Yet I think they will survive

For, on this March day, they’re alive.

 

My heart in pieces  and forlorn,

I await the flowers’ charms.

The heat of sun shall give me joy

I am no more your mistress coy.

 

Like the birds, I’ll find a mate

For my soul to generate.

Grace and love will combat hate

True perception tolerates.

 

Lost amiability

 

I am able I am assembled
I aim able.To kill Abel.
I blame Abel,I.
Am I emblematic
Of blame?
Abel,am I to blame?
At home,I am
Unable to tell.
A lamb is an emblem.
I am unable to help Abel.
Help me ,Abel,are you able?
My name is unable to be,
I mean I am unnameable.
I am Abel,I am an object
Of fraternal hate.
Love was unable
to be,to embrace. Enmity and time
Beat me.Killed me.
Dead.
They aim to disable,
A lamb dies.Call him
Abel.
I am bereft, for hate
Was able
To destroy amiability.

I aimed hate at my brother, Abel.
Hate will be unable in the
End to win.

I miss you, Abel.
My brother.
I miserable,Abel.
I am unable ,Abel,
To live,to love.
Abel,I bad.
No balm,no love,
I unable.
I un…
Un,undone.
Oh, Abel.
I bereaved myself,
Unable,
blind.
I lost,ability,
Love.
I live not.Yet
Not able
To die.
Unabled
Undone.
Done for