Your angel was near you today
I saw her but I couldn’t say.
You were tied up in a network of thought
On that smartphone you have just bought.
An angel was by you today
But your mind was too far away.
You didn’t even glance ay this sight
Your eyes were entranced by screen light,
If we could abandon our cybernetic romance,
If we weren’t all so deeply entranced,
If we could all look up even once
Our angels might teach us to dance
The wind is gently swishing round
And now the soft-breathed breeze has found
Some old leaves resting on the ground
And piled them up into a mound
Against our red brick wall.
The sun is shining here today.
I hope its light is here to stay
I want the summer now, always.
Azalea blooms to bless my way
No more frost at all.
But yet the wind has gathered force
The weather shows us no remorse
We must submit to Nature’s course,
Yet listen for that still, small voice.
For God, it is, who calls.
I used to love my mother
but then I got too old.
She didn’t want to feed me
Because I felt the cold.
My feet and hands were purple
which she told me was wrong.
I couldn’t change the colour
so had to change my tongue.
I used to love my father
Until he went away.
They said he’s with the angels
and small girls ought to pray.
And then I loved the cat we had
And all four kittens too…
Until my mother got fed up
and sent them to the zoo.
I said I am disheartened
Life is far too hard…
or else I’m hypersensitive
and must become a bard.
I loved a Spanish waiter.
A young man from Peru.
I loved a lot of others–
No more than ninety two.
That is just an estimate
An average, a norm.
It’s what I told the doctor
When he filled out a form
He said to me,You err,my dear
And I mistook his speech
I thought he meant he loved me.
But he just meant to teach.
What he meant was quantity
is not what we desire..
One man is sufficient
Unless he is a liar.
And in the darkness of the bed
What matters is their smell.
Some men smell like honey..
much more I cannot tell
for though these men pursued me
I had such poor eyesight
I didn’t see them properly
especially at night..
I was more keen on Wittgenstein.
and whether I am real..
Maybe I’ve gone crackers
And don’t know I’m surreal
I don’t want any lovers now
for love brought so much pain
I’d rather be a jellied eel
than fall in love again.
But friendliness and welcome
Are what we humans need…
And cats and dogs and willow trees
Which don’t make our hearts bleed.
One man is sufficient
And necessary too..
Without my own sweet husband
whatever would I do?
He listens with his heart and soul
And he is never harsh…
He likes to hear me singing
Across of Southwold Marsh.
He likes to take the ferry boat
Across the River Blythe.
But now I hope the ferryman
will not yet arrive..
We have to cross that river
We have to let life go…
We have to be untied and freed.
We think,but do we know?
In the silvery moonlight,
Time gets her own way
In the darkness of the night
Time will have her say.
Time has come and gone again
And so the hand descends
So I bid you fond farewell,
We have reached the end.
Oh,wrap me up dear mother
in my winding cloth
Take me in your ancient arms
for I have had enough.
I’ve loved and loved and loved again.
I’ve puzzled and I’ve pained
but all I want’s a writing tool
To write down words again
I didn’t know I’d love you
With both my heart and mind
Every love is different
Each is a special kind
I didn’t know I’d miss you
In quite the way I do.
For we can’t feel emotion
Before its time is due.
And are you missing me now
Despite angelic hosts?
They may care for you ,dear
But I think I cared the most.
Yet all human lovers
Must part and go their ways.
Some may die and fall to dust
Some may go astray.
I didn’t know I’d love you
And hurt invade my heart.
I didn’t know that you’d love me.
But we would have to part.
From mother and her bosom
From father and his strength
We lose and gain throughout our life
Whatever is its length.
I didn’t know I’d miss you
With all my loving heart.
But . as we’re made of fragile flesh.
Humans must sadly part.
If you had been a sadist
If you had been unkind.
I would not now be grieving
And half losing my mind.
So maybe I should be grateful
For being found and known.
I wish you were still sitting here.
And I were not alone.
When we feel so lonely
No-one else will do.
It’s not that I am just lonely.
I’m lonely, just for you.
In the wet and stony
Pathways we must go
We must keep on walking;
Be patient when we’re slow.
The inner force is working
To make new maps for me.
Wherever they shall guide my steps,
With you I’ll long to be.
When love’s betrayed and doom hangs overhead,
When blood drains from my veins into the sea.
Then shall I take new lovers to my bed;
And with their carnal touch consoled be?
When lovers lie and break 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 lovers lie and wreck all loyalty.
When puzzlement makes all my world seem mad.
Then I shall upend causality
And choose good deeds despite the tempting bad.
,
For spreading evil is a bitter choice.
Though deep in woe, I still own my own voice.
Trapped in cultivated ways ,we may forget
That usefulness can also be a trap.
Am I the one who never makes a bet?
Am I the one who always has the map?
We are no automata, we are flesh.
And even older brains can be rewired
Maybe we need to clear our boring cache
And light a few more glowing mental fires.
Reluctance seems to cage us with our fear.
Though ,despite our wishes, we all age and die.
Time goes and the end will soon be here
But it is never too late just to try.
It is myself to whom I speak in sonnet form
Anxiety is fierce until we learn.
http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/accismusterm.htm
What do these strange, new words mean?
And why have they evaded being seen?
Accismus is a lie
Give it a try
I desire no reward but esteem
I don’t know what to think of my find
It’s a grief to us fragile of mind
We think we know all
Then we suffer our fall.
Still it’s good to be bad from behind.
I thought I could die now in peace
As on words I’d enjoyed a great feast
But like the end of line
Is so hard to define
Infinity seems so near when it’s least.
In between any two words you choose
Another word can be found and bemuse.
Transcendent their state
They may yet irritate
But without a little space they confuse.
Some folk declare they need space
Avoid saying they hate their love’s face
But words have no choice
As they speak with our voice
And when used well they queerly debase.
When words no longer work
wonder
wish
want
When words won’t come
compensate
contrive
When my voice breaks
snaps
sunders
strains
When I want to talk
touch
tenderly
towards
But you are not able
about
abandoned
absent
You are no longer
listening
live
longing
When I need to find a meaning
In the shape
form
structure
But I ‘m stranded
Stuck
Sucked under
Swallowed
Then I reach out to you
I want your touch
tenderness
tranquillity
temerity
Sometimes words don’t seem enough
endless
empty
emotive
ejaculatory
Yet words can console
conjure
quilt
charm
captivate
cover.
Stretch out your hand
across the emptiness
and touch me with your fingers
friendship
faithfulness
forgiveness
frailty
fever
touch my heart with words
and I will hope
expect
await
be grateful
grave
garbed in joy
When words don’t feel enough
When all we want is touch
Or to see
sigh
sob
sing
Words can be shaped
changed
contorted
controlled
challenged
Words are all we have
To make us love
To make us live
To make us alive
To make us sing
To make us stand up
To console,words may be
Enough
The aching heart,now a cliche
Conveys what I desire to say
A painful void.an emptiness
My heart beats with this stern duress.
A gentle touch or glancc may be
Tactful as a mother’s knee.
A child held close but stifled not
Will soon outgrow their baby’s cot.
Held visions of a mother’s face
In our mind shall give us grace.
And father seem a sturdy tree
Enabling mother just to be.
O touch me with your tender hand
Whilst I cross through this dangerous land
Touch me softly,touch me long
Whilst I write for you these songs.
Each in turn shall take and give
So in constancy we live.
Faithful,tender,tactful .true
All that’s old is now made new
A young girl gave him birth.
His words remind us of our worth,
Gave hope of heavenly mirth.
He brought the gifts of love-
To cure our bad eyesight.
But we don’t want to see,
We love our flaws unknowing,
Even as we’re sorrow sowing
We rage when someone points them out,
We’d rather stay in dark and doubt
Than have our weakness showing
But when we seek advice
From someone wise and true,
They tell us that our hearts will be
Healed when we can bear to see
The mirror’s total view,
The looking glass is truth
It’s painfully acquired.
But, oddly ,when we face the glass,
A transformation comes to pass,
And our souls change from black to gold,
As Alchemists foretold
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
Flowers by virtue of design
Appeal to both the heart and mind.
First perceive and then dwell on
Beauty,truth and hence reason.
In this chant and benediction,
Healing comes for desolation.
Though the passage way is narrow,
This road is the one to follow.
Struggling through the mud and mire,
We see,in darkness, tongues of fire.
The sacred center of our life
Is rarely found without some strife.
Just then, the dark and light combine,
To create an image for the mind.
Pulled there by some force like gravity.
I was gazing with a sharp but narrow focus
into what I thought was the real.
But the precision of my gaze
left out the surroundings, the other doors and rooms
that I might have inhabited.
As he came to me and opened his arms with no rancour,,
so my eyes opened wider,I took in the new wide vision
and left my crouched and aching position
no longer attached like a magnet to your force,
He was there with his sea eyes.
He knew the human condition
And how to inhabit a conversation.
Of course he’s had his wounds but never failed to feel
for himself and others.
In the night he goes through in his mind’s eye the faces
of his friends;
holding them ,like he’d once held fragile rose buds
when we were married,
and asked silently for grace.
The keyhole no longer seemed important
I suppose narrowing the focus can keep out knowledge of pain..
But the pain is atill there;
I have always loved the word “Acknowledge.”
And now I use it. I acknowledge this pain
His eyes were piercing like a bird of prey;
Though often soft and tender was his gaze.
Do hawks and men share instincts still today?
How usual are these fierce and frightening ways?
Affection was his strongest , human gift.
Discernment and evaluation graced,
As perceptions he was long prepared to sift
Made their fine,patrician patterns on his face
To gossip or waste time in fruitless talk,
He did no more than would a wildebeeste
He spoke as if each word was wisdom stalked
With carefulness, yet joy, at this life’s feast.
The lines of pain accepted and outgrown
Make our faces to the gods be known
Langdale Pikes from Ambleside Tourist Board
Living life in all its fierceness,
Birth and death and joy and pain
We struggle on our unknown journey,
Sometimes lost and found again.
We are indeed like lambs to slaughter
Death will be our final goal.
But while we live,let us live bravely.
Let us not destroy our souls.
Climbing in the hills and moorlands
In the heather, children play.
The sun half blinds me with its light
Yes still I see my own true way.
I received a call to climb.
These hills are my essential home.
My vocation is to dwell here
While in the silence, my mind roam.
Noise in cities is destructive.
Though nature’s fierce,she’s also true.
Struggling on life’s rock filled slopes
offer up my words to you
Extract:
There is one thing that cannot happen online, which does happen in a bookshop – I think you call it serendipity – which is a human being doesn’t necessarily know what it wants so it’s not as easy as just saying, “well I’m only interested in roses so I’m going to the rose section and then I’m going to buy a book on climbing roses” because the human mind wanders all over the place and serendipity happens in a bookshop in a way that it can’t happen anywhere else.
I’ll give you an example, the other day I was in a very nice bookshop and for no reason at all – because I’m not interested in this subject – I was looking at the military history section and I happened to see a book on Napoleon’s Greatest Victories, next to it there was something about Nelson’s naval strategy and in between the two, I had no interest in either of them, in between the two unbelievably was a book on the history of the music hall – an illustrated history of the music hall – and because John Major is a dear man and he had just published a book on the history of the music hall because his father was in the music hall, I bought him this book and he didn’t have it and he was thrilled with it, I was thrilled to give it to him and there you are.
That’s serendipity, which can only happen in a bookshop because people don’t know what they necessarily want it’s just going to happen; that’s one of the things about being a human being, isn’t it
read more
Maurice Saatchi talks about his wife Josephine Hart
This is a very beautiful sad story.I only just found out the Saatchis are Jewish and were born in Iraq.Like nearly all the Jews there they had to flee…and they’d been there 2,000 years .I knew one myself who was an economist in a university I worked in
Josephine Hart did a lot to encourage enjoyment of poetry and she also wrote novels.The Saatchis are famous for their advertising agency….
the light within, the sun inside my heart
is seen by those who meet my glowing eye.
my soul as well is smiling with delight,
as from my lips is never heard a sigh.
enlightened by the sight of child at play
enwrapped in dreams ,thus making real his world
without a word, he shows me how to say
i love and hold him close and play and twirl
some guiding sense will indicate enough
for thrills can turn to panics in his mind
so out he runs when this play’s too rough
and mother’s lap will give him succour kind.
the child is parent to humanity;
and each one needs their spacious world of play
A dark barn,last roses on the side,stems
made a pattern like golden wire.
Homemade cakes and jam…
Bags of red potatoes,
Shining onions,each large enough to make a tart
Garlic and apples..
A smiling woman..
Pay in cash…
Then through a low door
Into the cafe
Views over the fields to the high Ridgeway
where cars are silhouetted against the sky
like ants on fallen tree trunk.
Now we drink coffee and chat…
So good to get out after a month of colds….
Snatch each chance of light and sun.
In the car, we do a circuit
High then down the long hill
Back to the familiar town
seen in a new light.
Gazing out I see some sparrows
What a little life,but so precious
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.
Their eyes drew me,
And their eyes draw me again
Into a pool of winter light
Golden from the low sun.
I swim in it
Like a hawk flows on the wind
Over the depths,
Of life.
Contained by a white china cup,
I’m your reflection now
Drowning in the slanting sunlight
Like a stone in a lake.
Falling deeper until I find
the creative mud
with which I mingle
no longer a stone
but a soft flowing stream of sensations
which meets with joy
the earth’s depths and presence.
And something new will grow
Thank you for your words and letters
Thank you for the joy you give.
Thank you for your laughs and humor.
Thank you the gift of love
Thank you for imagination.
Thank you for your unique view.
Thank you for your craft and labour
Thank you for just being you.
Thank you,thank you thank you,thank .
These are words that we all say.
Thank you,thank you,thank you thank.
May love and joy be yours this day
Photo by Mike Flemming.Copyright“All shall be well,and all manner of things shall be well”
St Julian of Norwich
Trust the unknown force that grew you,
From the joining of two cells.
Act of love, of self giving,
Thus to grow a newer self.
Trust the dark,the unseen aspects
Of the life we all do live.
Trust that there is wisdom elsewhere,
To your emptiness to give.
Wait in patience for the time
When inspiration comes at last
Trust in darkness,silence,lowness.
Opposition forms the cross.
Pain is bearable in lowness,
Like the worm in earth I dwell.
When I look I see the sunriseAnd I trust all shall be well.
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 lovers lie and break my woman’s 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 loves lie and wreck all loyalty;
When puzzlement makes all the world seem mad;
Then I shall upend causality
And let myself do deeds which make men glad.
For I have love’s own child inside my soul
And I shall tend her till at last she’s grown
Dissenters are crucial at times,
As changelessness often becalms.
Are we indifferent today
As with tablets we play
Mimesis is good for it rhymes.
But like ants to their genetics submit,
We often let the weak take the hit.
A dissident in power
Is a paradox in flower.
Meanwhile, the thoughtful brows knit.
Conformity is silently despised
But we do it so why the surprise?
Change must come slowly
To both the high and the lowly
Confusion may bring our demise.
Dissidents in the Soviet domains
Were courageous as they wrote from their chains.
The poetry pain pellucid,
None could confuse it.
Indifference is what ever remains.
midsummer days evoke the trancelike past
where children played in joyous, daisied fields
with buttercups so bright the memory lasts
a freedom that our conscious growth will steal.
those stones and leaves and many coloured flowers
were gathered into images that glow
yet later we forget those treasured hours
when for a while we lived in life’s deep flow
we did not look and see,but felt at one
we lived as did the birds high in the trees
now we may write yet experiencing has gone
we look but have no blessed desire to see
to lose ourselves in nature is a joy
which to our adult selves we must restore
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 road 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 the mind
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 blind now are my hours without his face. I have no more I hope to give Since he withdrew 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 I'll not accept this be a constant state. From my loss I shall recover when The birds return and summer comes again
Doctors are technicians today
Their eloquent hands never pray
They just use new machines
And ancient vaccines
To lessen our will to decay.
But preserving our souls is too hard
As rituals and rites have been barred.
So we pretend we have none,
And it’s true they have gone
To the underground where there’s no guard.
Eloquence is no guarantee
But it suits us when making a plea.
The inarticulate beseech
As with eyes they out reach
A minimum wage and some glee,
Do vstrechi.
I can’t see you.
How my heart speaks 