Category: poetry

Synthetic tears

Synthetic tears  don’t benefit the sad,

Whose world is  trembling  after  recent loss.

Real tears may stop many going mad.

Though for the onlookers there is a cost.

 

Yet do not stand by helplessly confused.

Tears and grief are calls for loving arms.

If friendship’s real, we cannot be bemused.

Though in our hearts we may feel strange alarm.

 

 

Fear of grief is worse than grief itself.

Ruminating on our horrors harms

Feeling to the heart of what is here

Softens pain and  so will be a balm.

 

Fear,obsession,inward looking eye,

May cause us to desire  only to die.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I knitted Mobius strips whilst intertwined.

This poem is unsure whether it is humorous or very serious
He loved my  beauty, not my wandering mind.
In fact ,he preferred me to be almost mute
I knitted Mobius strips whilst intertwined.
And listened to his voice as to a flute.
I soon grew tired of hearing his   crazed  views
I found a man who liked to hear me speak.
Until I mentioned I owned  ten green shoes.
Bottles yes,but shoes made me a freak
Then I found a man who never spoke.
He listened with a kind,inviting smile.
I would have liked to test him with a joke.
But feared I might then harm his utter guile.
Formidable the quest to  match one’s soul.
I need a body too to make me whole.

Synopsis:the sonnet

Synopsis is a word derived from Greek.

Synthetic  has a similar undertow.

And as we modern English people speak,

The thoughts of ancient humans unknown show

Long dead are our ancestors of course,

Though each cell of our body has their genes.

And when the  scholar rises to discourse,

Hebraic,Greek or Latin gleams.

Education’s task is acquisition:

Vocabulary and  its written forms.

We don’t learn much from watching television.

Passivity may cause  our  minds real harm

What we say    is deeper then we know.

Words each have their special undertow

I write a line then sit up

As I reflect,I am caressing one hand with the other

The way I might  apply hand lotion.

Or my lover might.

My elbows are on the arms of this old chair.

When I am puzzled ,I place

 the palm of my right hand

Over the back of the left and pull ot to and fro

As if to ease out a thought

Ask for a gift.

Or pull it out of this pen-holding  hand by magic.

I write a line then sit up straight.

My lips are pursed;

I look up as if asking God to help

But I’m looking inwards

Where a dream image may float by

My left foot taps on the carpet

Calling the dead to return.

Now I’m  kneading my hands,anxious.

Am I uncertain?

I can’t say what I want.

I  intertwine my fingers,pull on them both ways

While looking out of the window

The sap is rising  in the shrubs

and though no leaves  open

The branches and twigs have more colour

Than last year .

But you were here last year

I bite my lip and narrow my eyes;

Who am I fighting?

Now my hands stretch and relax;

I smile.

The mind lives in the body.

Where?

The mind is the body.

How?

I frown in confusion and slight anger

At him for going.

It’s coffee time.

The door bell rings.

I stand up.

I love the shade of you

I love the shade of 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.

It looks and speaks just as a sonnet would

This poem is written in the sonnet form,
And yet I have my doubts about its shape
Though nearly to that structure it conforms
There may be holes where nightmare faces gape.

It looks and speaks just as a sonnet would
And talks of metaphysical concerns.
Do we conclude, as poets and readers should,
That in our schizoid age we cannot learn?

For humans may be decked in clothes of wolves;
And lambs be dressed with lions’ fearsome furs..
Thus sense is tricked and problems are unsolved.
Landscapes etched, yet details seem quite blurred.

It looks like one,it feels like one,it speaks;
Yet from these words, does human feeling leak?

All the wider context losing

576813_10200195473502969_1766090931_nA force far deeper than our anger

Elemental as a storm

Annihilating all before it

Terror brings enraged alarm

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

Depriving of the 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 the good memories.

 Like a mother tiger fighting,

Or the cornered eagle’s force;

We  destroy what we think other,

 Without bitter,pained remorse.

Nature made this to protect us;

Yet our perception can be wrong.

Once the flood of feeling takes us

All reflection seems too long.

I wish I could lie down and die,right here on this floor

 When I saw you waiting in that cafe
I knew you would be mine.
You were handsome, smiling,funny
 You were  impetuously designed.
You looked like men I’d only dreamed about
in all those years before.
I’m so broke up,so broke up;
You don’t love me anymore.
I saw you on the station
As I came from out the train.
You wore an old green parka
To protect you from the rain.
I wanted to be one with you,
to make a Love entire
 But all we did was create pain
Too bad  to be endured
You walked away so quickly,
I could not see you long.
I wished I had a big guitar
To draw you back with song.
I looked at where you disappeared;
What love has loss revealed?
I wish I could just lay down on this floor
And keep my face concealed.
 Railway stations sadden me,
for I know we’ll never meet .
I won’t cry more ,
for tears are running  to my feet.
I walk fast looking straight ahead
past that entrance gate,
I pretend that you have missed your train,
work was running I count from one and one
to a thousand and many more
But I know for sure it’s much too late;
You have closed that heavy door.
You are hiding in a dungeon
You are covered with white steel
But I know you had a heart and you must surely feel.
I lost all my illusions,
And then I lost some more.
I wish I could lay down and die,
Right here on this floor.

What do you think of Nothing?

I gave  full Marx to all  in the philosophy exam.

Then as I was Lenin on the window it opened

and I performed three spiralling French style Revolutions

in front of the entire campus before landing on the lawn.

A miracle…I suffered no injuries though my copy of Kierkegaard

was Trembling in my pocket.

If only Kafka had been there to watch..….

unless he was the black beetle I fell on?

I hope not as he has suffered so much already.

It made Sartre famous.. and look at his women.

Nothing in a skirt ever escaped HIM.

It’s strange to think Simone de Beauvoir never wore jeans

… or indeed trousers of any type.And tights?

Do clothes affect one’s self image?

No doubt Lacan would know all about mirrors

…..if he cared to speak more plainly than before…..

but Lewis Carroll knew more and mewed more

…he loved cats.He was my Mioaw and how!

But would the cat come back if a man called for it?

I’m sure they were tried by the Inquisition…

They were familiar with witches.

It’s a Looking Glass life here.

So it’s the full Montaigne diaries for you

and ten glasses of Spanish brandy for me.

Full Quarks or half sizes sold here cheap

.Apply within .No plastic or quantum cards accepted.

Please do not bask in the sunshine

as a revolution is imminent.

I saw Trotsky on the bus

I myself never read Hegel as such,

being very backward in German

but I did know about the thesis and antithesis.

What would the Euripidean Union have thought of that

or of the Gorgons being revealed again ?

It’s enough to turn us all to stone at once….

it’s the eyes,you see.

Well,I can’t keep Lenin on this Window any longer.

Bring down the curtain as fast as you can

or he will climb out and it will all begin once more

……remember I had the last waltz with you,babe.

I’ll never forget the Siege  when you laid   waste my heart.

I

The shivering menace that we felt but could not see.

Where is the artist who could unfold
The world like Graham Greene,the good ,the bad
The sinful priest who saves a woman’s soul.
The dead, the lost,the starving and the mad?

The shivering menace that we felt but could not see.
Osama bin Laden shot while we sipped Earl Grey tea.
No judge,no court,no jury,no tribunal.
No face,no body,death but not a funeral.
I see the ends of chaos theory, and the forms,
Butterflies’ wings shake gently, creating  storms.
I see orbits of planets changed to squares.
They seem to hint at something not yet here.
In forests of the Congo, secret agents hide,
Where Joseph Conrad thought his hero lost his mind.
The snakes of Eden curl around the trees.
Who can know what strange Satanic God they see?
The Impressionist artists painted flowers full of light,
Where are their shadows,where is now their night?
My impressions. dotted webs with complex geometry,
A world of email,text and  unwinding economies.

Rhyme fun

Quantal rhymes with fundamental;

Mental rhymes with  the word central;

Central rhymes with Oriental;

Orientals  eat  green lentils.

 

This is not a course in logic.

Logic  rhymes with hypnagogic.

Magic oddly rhymes with tragic.

And it nearly rhymes with budget

 

 

Dodge it,  fudge it,fidget,lodge it,

Nudge it,bridge it.edge it,pledge it,

Wedge it,allege it,midget,grudge it.

Splodge it splurge it, whinge it,hedge it.

 

Another place,another mind

 

From time and place and season I am lost,

Disorientated ,missing tracks well worn.

Do not suppose I’m unaware of cost,

Nor label me with epithets of scorn.

For usual paths lead to the usual place.

The safest way to live and perhaps to die,

But wandering through the woods I find new space

and in wild grasses with the fox I lie.

Through distant trees, I see a way to go

As narrow as a slit in  pale limestone.

I pass in silence as if in deep,deep snow.

My courage rises even as I groan.

Remember when we’re lost ,we may then find

Another way,a place,another mind.

Dialect and grief

Between my child self and my adult  lies

A chasm composed of dialect and grief.

Banned from   speaking of my father’s death

Then later of  my natural tongue bereaved.

 

Fished from my poor street,  beloved ones;

Encouraged to become a bureaucrat

Broad accent  mocked   and scorned by  holy nuns.

Confusion in my heart, made sadly  furious   brat.

 

When I returned  to streets of happy play

No longer did I fit my former place.

And I had not got  feel of what to say;

No cliche, proverb or even  a bare phrase.

 

By speaking in the tongue of the elite

My head had separated  from my feet

What value

What value  is there in a widow’s  hours?

Her love’s gone, now she’s restless in her grief.

Does she from  life’s insanity now  cower?

Or welcome madness as a kindly thief?

 

She sits forlorn and gazes at the trees

From summer ripe to winter bare of leaf.

But no-one  knows  quite what  it is she sees:

Not surfaces but  skeletons beneath.

 

 

Unthinkable,  immeasurable sorrow deep

Uncontainable the cataract released.

Destroying  the tranquillity of sleep.

Suffering which  mere death cannot  make cease.

 

No, elimination of both holy life and   death.

Return of  all that is  to nothingness.

Give me acid or I’ll drop

 

Hemoglobin,hemoglobin, hemoglobin you are mine

I  am lost and gone for ever, smoke my grass and drink my wine.

Give me acid, folic acid, give me acid  don’t delay

I’m anaemic, don’t believe it, just you ask my doctor gay.

I have iron,I have iron; iron itself is not enough

Give me kale and brussels sprouts, serve me in the horse’s trough

My red blood cells, my red blood cells ,are too big to do their  work

Give me liver with no quiver;hurry now ,I’ll run amok

Give me citrus, give me acid, give me fortified real bread.

You get the picture? Hear my lecture, blimey .what the devil said

The bridge swayed

Stepping onto that fragile bridge
Which swayed in the breeze,
Stepping onto that fragile bridge
Was a difficult moment
Though I could see you far away.
As we traveled,sometimes we walked,
Sometimes we walked too fast,
Or without paying due attention
To the winds that blew across the water.
Sometimes I felt afraid I would fall
As the bridge swayed too much over
The dark sea.Or you might fall or turn back.
Sometimes we stopped walking and stood waiting
As if some portent would appear
To tell us what to do.
Still, we continued, with trust growing
After each difficulty…
All at once, you were near me,
And I recognized your face..
That light in your eyes
And your hands holding the ropes..
So we stood there,over the churning waters,
And all I wanted to  do was to smile.
I wanted to smile.And I’m still smiling
Despite all the strains and trials…
And I see you are smiling too.

Greek word humor

Democracy, theocracy

How d’y’  spell  bureaucracy?

Demonstrate, remonstrate.

How ‘s your curiosity?

 

Epidemics,academics.

I write all  with these cheap  bics.

Pan-demics and pot-demics

Greek is funnier than the flicks.

Pancreatic  or dramatic;

If it fits  then I will click it.

Panoramic, photographic

Radios , all full of static.

Melodramatic,Can we crack it?

If  cathartic , we’ll all knick it.

Palindromic,testimonic,

If we write it let, them pick it

 

 

 

Take such gold and use it well

M2172256 [1024x768].JPG

This photo is by Mike Flemming .Copyright

 

One part of writing is to guess
which tool will suit your hand the best.
Know which  image  brings out joy,
as you new sentences employ.
Writing brings up treasures deep,
as do dreams whilst we’re asleep.
Take such gold and use it well
Ring out purely like a bell.
Wisdom comes from sharing views;
One viewpoint, our vision skews.

 

Note:William Blake :single vision

 

 

The Song of the Earthworm

They tell me that trees are a wonderful sight
They have leaves hanging on them all day and all night.
They tell me the golden sun shines in the sky
It’s said to be so much brighter so high.
I’d like to hear birdsong and thunder and hail.
At all these pursuits worms are likely to fail.
We only make holes in the soil as we move
And we know almost nothing about feelings and love.
We don’t know why we’re here or what purpose we serve
And our earthen workplace is also our grave.
.

From American life in poetry

Here’s a poem of loss by Jo McDougall, from her collected poems, In the Home of the Famous Dead, from The University of Arkansas Press. Like many deeply moving poems, it doesn’t tell us everything; it tells us just enough. Ms. McDougall lives and writes in Little Rock.

This Morning

As I drove into town
the driver in front of me
runs a stop sign.
A pedestrian pulls down his cap.
A man comes out of his house
to sweep the steps.
Ordinariness
bright as raspberries.
I turn on the radio.
Somebody tells me
the day is sunny and warm.
A woman laughs
and my daughter steps out of the radio.
Grief spreads in my throat like strep.
I had forgotten, I was happy, I maybe
was humming “You Are My Lucky Star,”
a song I may have invented.
Sometimes a red geranium, a dog,
a stone
will carry me away.
But not for long.
Some memory or another of her
catches up with me and stands
like an old nun behind a desk,
ruler in hand.

The lifeboat

We are in this boat together

 Sailing across the bay.
Some have an easy voyage,
The wind is blowing their way.
I wish I could always be sailing
Across a wide ocean with you
And never reach the other side
though it may be in view.
I want to see the sunrise
Across the dappled sea.
The ripples of the water
Reveal a new world to me.
One day this boat will reach the shore
Unless destroyed by storm
And I shall have to leave your arms
Where I have been so warm.
So just before we get there
I want to let you  know
That I shall always love you
Wherever you may go.

Bareness

Photo0781
See, now,
Patterns of bare branches against winter sky.
Hard on the outside to protect the channels
through which new life is already beginning to rise in sap.
Admire these branches as they withstand winter cold.
They do not know and do their work regardless of  love, hate, admiration, envy,malice or utter indifference.
They are a symbol of our task to continue living with trust and hope
despite all the alternatives we are offered daily by the press and media.
Keep living the true life.
The still, small voice speaks  again if we are listening.
If we have some silence.
If we want nothing

Old tree

I ‘ve found looking at the apple tree very moving.
Until we came here I had never seen one.
Now it’s getting old; all its companions have gone
See how beautifully, how graciously
it accepts the light
and how it’s twisted over the years
following the sun.
See its shadow on the fence.
How trees beguile our hearts.
I began this post as prose
but then I  neer could resist singing

The tree is alive

Trees
What ceremonious geometry
Could describe the sympathy of the parts to the whole?
What self can contain the feelings engendered by
the response of the heart of the tree. and my heart,
to the space and light offered
and how the clouds float away on the wind
as I stand, hand on my throat, gazing,
and the new moon points me out to the sky.

What joy is there in this moment of dancing?
We see only the stillness
but know while we are turned away
a young girl and an old woman murmur together
as one passes the movement to the other.
Caught in the camera, in a moment of rest,
the tree obeys the law of gravity
before levity arises at the moment we turn away
and the dance goes on and the tree is alive with movement

Save

When I pressed the button
To save my latest words,
“Save rage as” came on the screen
And my mind went blurred.Save my rage  for later
Save it from distress
Save my rage as powder
Put it in a keg.

Save my rage for humans
Save my rage for God.
Save rage as important.
Is saving rage so odd?

Save rage for a scapegoat.
Don’t show it where it’s right.
Why not hurt a scapegoat
Who will go in the night?

Save my rage for praying
Save my rage for God.
Save my rage for lovers
Who like milk go bad.

Save as rage for holy ones
who boast their worship proud.
Save as rage for followers
Who talk of God so loud.

Save a rage for victims
Save as rage for poor.
Save as rage for children
Who live without a door.

Save as rage for rulers
Save as rage for fools
Save as rage for women
Save as rage at Cruel

When words

When words are the only way we can connect
communicate,

When words are our only link,

light

When words go wrong

Wring

our hearts

What are we to use to mend

minister?

What are we to write

right

wrong?

When the written is all,

alone,

When we can’t find the words

Wary

What are we to do?

Dictate

Dream

Deny

Depict

When words wound

wander

retaliate

writhe

Where are we now?

numb

null

naught

How can we make it up

Invent

In verse

Intent

lament

loss

love

linger

loiter

lie

link

last

least

locate.

Where is the wound?

Wreck.

Reckoning

Resolve

Resolute.

Redress

Where is our new map?

Meaning

Moaning

Making

Making it up

Inventing love

Re-creation

Return

Remember to forget.

Wrestle

Redeem.

Resolve.

No Retaliation.

No redirection

No harboring ill.

No bad will.

When words have gone awry,

Yet words are all we have.

When words don’t create a form

Yet direction is what we need.

When words no longer live

last

lost

We wait

Rest

Rescue

Retrieve

Remember

Love

lies underneath

lasts

longs

laments

lasts

and lasts.

Love lasts

till words connect

console

correct

catch you

cradle you

caress you

Conjugate you

Put you in a sentence

syntax

spell

magic

magnetic

mine

made new

murmured in your ear

mentioned

in my letters

write

rites

make right.

make us write

goodness.

Let it all be

Light.

Let me take your hand.

I give you my word.

I give you everything

Patterns of life

How lightly you touch me
Skin soft yet firm
Divides yet unites
Paradoxically elegant solution
to these lyrical questions.
How lightly you touch me,
Yet I feel your strength so much.
In turn I touch you.
Life is a pattern of mutual grace;
we are all touched
By the light and the darkness.
Forgive us,O God,
For forgetting your face.
Sun piercing through red maple leaves
Patterns the flagstone path.
Hear how the blackbirds call.
As we wander.Perhaps paradise is not for humans;
Though in the end,every living moment
Is paradise on this warm skin of our world,
as it spins again in the void:
And He said:
Let there be Light.
And there was ligh

Saturday evening

 

 

gentleman's rowLast night I went to a Poetry Reading for a Charity here and was very impressed with the poems written by the member of the  local poets group.Unfortunately, being in the South of England the people were not that friendly to a newcomer.I  didn’t see anyone I knew.But, at least I went to it.I look forward to going to their regular meetings.I forgot my husband was not here when I crossed the road because I  had left the lights on.Still, it would have been a shock if he was.I miss him so much.