Category: poetry

But then we learn

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More about accismus:the limericks

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 my voice trembles  

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

In our mind shall give us grace.

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

 

As Alchemists foretold

God’s son was born  on earth.

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,

Bear painfulness of light.

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

I sing of colour and of love

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

Signs and symbols

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 center of our life
Is rarely found without some strife.
Just then, the dark and light combine,
To create an image for the mind.

The keyhole

Sometimes I had my eye too close to the keyhole

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 words were wisdom stalked

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

 

I offer up my words to you

 

langdale-pikes-guided-walk1-665x362

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
winter-hill-51f940440f2e0

Maurice Saatchi talks about his  late wife Josephine Hart

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 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….

maurice saatchi_1 (1)

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The child is parent to humanity

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

 

 

The last time

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

Accidentally strayed

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.

Daddy

In the deepest depth of soul
When I am left alone,
An image rises up,
A picture carved in stone.
I see the red brick house,
Its windows like two eyes.
The door is left ajar
Nearby a white cat lies.
I see the children play
Their marbles stand in line.
I see their fathers come
But I never see mine.
What evil did I do
To drive him into night?
I am too small to ask,
And do not have the right.
Oh,will he come again,
Like Jesus will they say?
I want to see him now
And never to go away.
I stand always aside,
And watch and look and learn.
I cannot be a part,
Much as my sad heart yearns.
Oh,I long to have him back.
I long to see his face.
No-one else can ever fill
This painful empty spac

The creative mud

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

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Thank you for just being you.

 

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

Trust the unknown force that grew you

Troides_helena-1

 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 sunrise

And I trust all shall be well.

Love ends and begins

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

Is a paradox in flower

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The memory lasts

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

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 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

Blind now are my hours

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

 

Technicians

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,

 

 

 

 

When he went away

When he went away, He said,

Lehitraot,mama.

Do vstrechi.

He died but I’m still here

Yes,in my heart I feel his love.

But why did I live,

And he did  not?

Auf wiedersehen

Lehitraot.

Yes,darling,I’ll see you later,

When the sky turns black and all the stars blaze bright

I’ll see you shining in the night.

I’ll see you in my dreams alas.

Do vstrechi.

But why you and not me too?

Araka

I can’t understand.

Lehitraot,beloved.

A plus tard

Somewhere in this world,you fell

But no-one,not even God, can tell.

God was absent then or in some other place

He’s gone again

 They said He’s died too

Do vstrechi.

My breasts ache and my heart and soul;

My breasts were made to make you whole.

To feed,  to love and to console.

A plus tard

And now they ache with grief as my tears fall.

A bientot

My body trembles in the night,

As dreams may bring my lost ones to my sight.

A plus  tard

I’d walk across the roughest bleak terrain

If l I could find my loves and hold your hands again.

Do vstrechi.

The bell rings on the ancient clock

Time goes on ,it doesn’t stop.

Araka

I wish the hands of time could be reversed,

And I was not living with this curse.

People forget that I once had a son.

They think my grieving has been done.

Araka.

But grief and loss and pain will never end

Until the curtain of my death descends

Auf wiedersehen.

Meanwhil I look at flowers and birds and trees,

But it’s really you my deepening insight sees.

Lehitraot.

 The inscape of my heart is shown to few;

An artist of the lost would know this view.

I know I want to see just you.

Do vstrechi.

But for me there is no Auf wiedersehen.

Never again will you say

What you said that day

Lehitraot,

Mama. Papa

A plus tard

Tot ziens.

See you later

See you soon.

See you.

You the beloved one.

I can’t see you.

Word Maps

This was written whilst I was thinking a great deal about maps which are  mental concepts,though they may be depicted in atlases or in other ways depending on what they describe.A word is a map We need to feel reality through our senses.This is a problem with modern technology too It’s easy to read or write all day on your computer ,but not a goo d thing if you don’t have sensuous experience too.See,hear,sing,dance,touch,taste …take a chance,enjoy romance,dance.Glance,

 

POEM

A map’s a guide to find a world

Knitted by angels,plain or pearled,

And though you need a map as guide,

Keep your own eyes open wide.

I spent a year caught in a map

Until I found a big enough gap

I crawled out through this exit slit,

So here I am,like some half wit

Words can act like heroin,

You live so high ,where I have been.

But onto earth I gladly fall.

The air the sun the rain is all.

My senses are my lovers long-

My ears,my eyes,my skin my tongue.

The winds caress my naked flesh,

To dwell on earth is all I wish.

I’ll live with mice and birds and plants,

I’ll share my food with miscreants

I’ll keep my words inside a tin,

And only, now and then,go in.

I’ll live with cats and spiders three.

And like a wild flower grow quite free.

I’ ll give my words to those who hear,

And eventually I’ll disappear

Earth to earth then ash to ash

When soaked with rain I shall disperse.

My atoms wing like butterflies,

And to the Flower I’ll fly,disguised

The future is fiction

Exhilarate is derived from the tongue

Of the Romans to whom Latin belonged.

What a sad notion

That most are not taught it

It helps English acquisition along

 

However, the highest value today

Is whether  a subject will pay.

Toddlers learn  coding,

As computers are loading.

And learn not  at all from their play.

 

Yet  play is vital for   satisfaction

To the sensuous world we    interact in

And  tots learn how to talk

Without much  conscious thought.

So we can learn if the  future is fiction.

 

 

 

Each day I fall to pieces

Each day I fall into pieces;
Sometimes just one or two..
I gaze  upon them gently;
Wonder what to do.Whilst I’m fast asleep
My dreamer guide will come;
And in a few short hours
I will again be one.

Sometimes  dreams are frightening
Sometimes beautiful.
Sometimes they  are warm with  love;
Sometimes  I dream of Hull.

If whilst I am  still awake,
I have acknowledged hate
The dreams  that night seem full of joy.
And then I meditate.

When we feel our badness
And open our soul up.
Along may come some angel
With a loving cup.

When we feel superior
And others are despised
We get dreams  of torment
Till we become more wise.

Dreams are our souls’ language.
Symbols convey the real.
We enact these dramas
To show us how to feel.

Inside us there is wisdom.
Inside us there is joy.
But we  need humility
To show us where to go.

 

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Note:I dream of Hull because Philip Larkin ,the poet,lived there and also I have crossed the Humber on a ferry in midwinter

My immune system’s distracted

I am afflicted by a malady  once more

So, with   King Alfred, I lounge on the floor.

My immune system’s distracted;

My kidneys uncorrected

I never heard such complaining before .

 

Alfred has gone home for his tea

But no-one is here to feed me

My appetite is gone

And empty my pan

How can  such misfortune be?

 

Bereavement is  a  truly great trauma

One might say, it’s a personal tsunami

i  could commit suttee

and burn  my own bootie.

But my religion says it  don’t allow me

 

Yet who wants me  at this stage ,do you think?

I ponder whilst opening the Quink.

Alfred’s my lone lover

Men never bother

.A tear fills my eye and I blink.

 

Shall I  merchandise    myself in   Soulmates?

Will  men flinch when  they come to my gate

As I hobble to the door

Saying,Wittgenstein,more?

Is the  Tractatus , as a  poem ,out of date?

 

i can just see the Guardian blind dates

Pairing me with a man called by fate

To rate me out of ten,

After stealing my pen

And posting my photo on “Late”

 

Or for political correctness a female

Denim dungarees are   on  sale

I’ll look lovely in those

from my hammer to my toes.

I just hope the  Great Judge gives me bail.

 

 

Perhaps I can become a third sex

A phallus grafted onto my vest.

So I will suit either/ or

Who may love and adore

My eyes which appear singularly  blesssed

 

Now I have to confess being re-covered

Would suit me quite well as ‘i have suffered

Pain from my skin

Exceptionally thin

I wonder  if one can also be re-mothered?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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