A map's a guide to find the world Knitted by angels,plain or pearled. Yet 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
Category: poetry
Missing
I ‘m missing him like we miss that lost tooth till the gum heals.
I ‘ve been in the dentist’s chair
Had the anaesthetic but still felt the tug and force.
And the dentist yelled,look at this,
I got it all out in one
You see,the root was very twisted and tangled
I told him,take it away.
I’m missing my other because his absence makes a hole
like that bloody hollow in your jaw but in the soul.
Came home alone from the clinic
Felt that soul hole.The first time
when he wasn’t here.
God doesn’t do anaesthesia, just burns the bush
I’m missing him because he needed me so much
Now nobody needs me nor notices if I am here except Alfred
Or if I fall over in the garden,will I die and rot down to the earth before
my neighbour recalls he’s not seen me for three weeks.Or maybe five.
I miss J the way you’d miss your flesh
if someone shot you with a rifle and made a tunnel through your body;
took out a lump which would hurtle away and fall to earth.
I’m missing his honey smell.
the knowledge,the feeling he had of me.
The hole in my space is almost tangible
in this room.
I wake up and wonder what he’d like to eat today.
But the dead don’t eat at our tables do they?
I remember I am alone at the table and I can eat whatever I like.
Oh,love,why did you down so fast?When you were the one,solid I leaned on.You were my man and you are gone
We don’t know ourselves
Oh how I long,I long to meet with you
Beside the lilac filled with honey dew.
I’d hold you gently in my arms and say
You are me and I’m in love today.
Where is the wickedness in l oving all our self?
Even in the night and when it’s done with stealth?
I dream, I speak and understand myself
Enriched forever with this new and precious wealth
And then I’ll love my neighbour if he’s very kind
And if he has a free and open mind.
For if we love ourselves we are relaxed
And so we need to make no cold attacks.
was in fragments lying on the ground
Until these bits a passing angel found
I was put into a kiln to bake
Thus now I am a brick or maybe a sponge-cake.
Let’s enjoy our humour as we come and go
And as the laughter starts yet tears may flow.
For I was you and you were me not long ago
Accept our losses as we onward flow…
The river runs,the clouds blow by
The heavens open yet my mouth is dry.
Don’t ask a question that begins with why.
Remember just we live and then we die.
Oh,send me roses and your orchids wild
I have loved flowers since I was a child
So when I die, let them die too
First covering me in scent and fragrant dew.
To mystery and darkness we are sent at last
As nightfall comes and our day has passed.
To dreams of heaven and the long ago
When Eden was on earth and gentle winds did blow
A sentence is heard,
WORDS ARE LIKE BEADS ON A CHAIN
1.
Words are like beads on a chain
Alone they can’t take any strain.
But joined up in gold
A sentence can mold
A prayer is repeated again.
2
Words cluster in larger groups
Waiting for writers to stoop..
Then instead of one word
A sentence is heard,
Some call this poetry soup.
3.
Professors do not create words,
which from the unconscious are lured
They only critique
What you and I speak.
After conversing and writing,that’s third.
In this the world of war
I’m afraid to read what’s happening
My spirit cries and wails
We can’t go on to war,
Might they read the News in braille?
I am tired of talk of foreigners
Aren’t we passengers inone boat
So why not work with our love and hope
To keep our sacred world afloat.?
We shout out prayers and litanies;
We fast and we abstain;
But God is looking down his periscope
And he says the Way is plain.
I saw the soldiers ready with their weapons cocked
For millennia and aeons
For men must prove their potency
Again,again,again.
Now the women have to fight as well
And we wear big plugs inside our ears
We restrict our gaze without the need for scarves
And we deny our fears.
Let them read the News in Babylon
Let them collapse in Jericho
Let the walls be ever built anew
To make old animosities re-grow.
Shout the News in Cyber space
Type it on your blog
What worth is this old human race
In this unholy bog?
I once held my hands out to you
Across seas and oceans wide
I sang and told my stories
But your fighting won’t subside.
My hand is getting weary now
I cannot hold it out much more.
I never felt the warmth of you
Saw an image of closed doors…
So,go shout it in Jerusalem
We have so many Wailing Walls
Go shout it out in Syria
Where was man before the Fall?
The lions lived on weetabix
And the tigers leaves of grass.
The zebras got their stripes re-done
But all that men surpass.
When I was a puking baby
They atom bombed Japan
Already, Europe’s Jews were gone.
Who was it walked the Walk of Man?
Read with doubt and look for hidden clues;- Then one day you may find The Real News.
A little knowledge cannot cause us harm
So on that base with certainty we build
For learning has a wonder and a charm
As with new words our avid mind is filled
Poetry and songs can give us voice
For others who with us share this strange earth
To dwell in silence is a thoughtful choice
Yet sharing may lead on to creative birth.
The news is filled with death and with wrong deeds
Our hearts lurch as we read cruel sentences
Our minds spin with a ghastly , whirling speed
Unable to accept these pretences
Read with doubt and look for hidden clues;
Then one day you may find out The News.
Love must be so pliant
Be an Other lover,today
- It seems we all have a touch of narcissism
- As well as paranoia
- And grief.
that other people are our equals
in this existence game;
that they each have a mind and world of their own.
But now I think of this,
Isn’t it wonderful that there are all these worlds
And that I’m not the centre of the universe.
And if God cares for a sparrow
I like Him.
Though what He is
Is not expressible in our language.
How dull life would be
If I were the only real person in it
And if I wanted every one to admire me
And think well of me.
And how sweet it is to love an other,
Eye to eye,
Skin to warm skin.
and how the sun was so red at daybreak
and the bare twigs gleamed in its light.
and how precisely you are different from me
Yet I can understand you, at least in part.
We are all absolutely important
And yet paradoxically unimportant.
And how sweet it can be to lose oneself
to become entranced by creation,
Or by a loved one;
By being with children.
Worlds and worlds unfold.
All we need is respect.
Be an other lover,today
.
Values
There is a sense that permeates our souls
That places value on the good of all.
Humankind is viewed then as a whole.
Blame not allocated to a Fall.
Shall we believe that God can sulk for aeons
That he will torment creatures for their sin?
Such theories are dilemmas to our brains
And put us in a race we cannot win.
Should Eve and Adam still be here on earth
If on that plum they had not sucked and bit?
It makes our lives seem to have little worth
To take this as a given in Holy Writ.
For life’s for adults, not for girls and boys.
Do “Christian” theories take the place of toys?
Is it stronger to be cruel
hunted to hunter,no surprise
see themselves in victims’ eyes
want to heal, they want a cure
inflict suffering,can’t endure.
build new walls, recreate the past
cannot wait,must do it fast
relive history in the now
can’t escape,don’t know the how.
evil passes like a gift
race is offered to the swift
why do humans live like fools?
is it stronger to be cruel?
soon we too must be away
life is over in a day
but while we live let us perceive
we have selves and they deceive
A fallen tree


The rain fell and the clouds hung overhead
As I walked on the moors to meet my man.
If only we had found a heather bed.
We’d would have done what men and women can.
The sun was absent anf the trees all bowed down
The wettest winter for a hundred years…
Yet full of love ,my face displayed no frown…
My heart was full,and absent any fears.
The moon too was watching as I ran
Her silver crescent pierced the clouds with joy.
I could not wait to meet my loving man.
And with his hands and face I longed to toy.
But when I reached the spot where he would be,
Nothing waited but a fallen tree.
In summertime I love to meditate



How sweet to sit among these luscious trees
Protected from the sun’s too powerful heat
To hear the distant humming of the bees
And for our loving eyes to swiftly meet.
In summertime I love to meditate
to count the breaths as I receive the world
To be united with all beings in this state
The flags of joy are light and soon unfurled
These summer days are long and filled with light
Though storms may come and fill the sky with rage
Small birds then gather for a sudden flight
As I write sentences across this page.
For every season has its light and shade
And for such states we humans are well made
Why do poppies cover the battlefields so politely
the silence from which all song arises;
we have to be breathing slow
and gently
We have to be breathing right to feel it,
the tenderness in which we are held by nature.
We have to be breathing quiet
and soft
and to be looking receptively,
No desire for objects
We have to be breathing right to recall it
the music we heard when there was silence.
We have to be being breathed
by the world
We have to be part of the whole..
and so,we forget it as we are pounded
with the noise of radios and traffic
and people talking loudly on cell phones
walking by the green fields and river
past the secret heron
and the coots nest
past the daisies
When I am dying I shall think,
Why was I not breathing right?
Why was I scarcely breathing?
Why did I forget those moments?
Why did I not live more deeply?
Why did i not sing more sweetly?
Why did I nor love more dearly?
Why did i not listen more carefully?
Why did I not sing more sweetly?
why did I not see more completely?
Why don’t we talk more gently?
Why don’t we look more intently?
Why were the poppies growing so wildly?
Why were the battlefields growing nightly?
Why did we murder men so lightly?
Why did we not love more rightly?
Why are the poppies covering the soil so politely?
When did the young soldiers leave so frightfully?
Why are we not here more quietly?
In the land that dreams dwell in
In the land which dreams dwell in where love and joy and life begin; how swiftly the deep rivers flow from those lost lands of long ago. I wander through wild poppy fields Underfoot the dark earth yields…. I see the flowering fruit trees start Their blossoms gather round my heart… I hear the sparrows sing with joy And bees their busy wings employ. In those lost lands I saw your face And now I long for your embrace. Are you real,am I deceived? From this earth we all must leave. Earth to earth and ash to ash Glory,pride and boasting pass. Leave me now,my dearest one Soon I too will be called on. Nothing lasts but truth is real Keep the truth and your ideals.. Earth to earth, we rest in clay We must give all self away Softly on this earth I roam Seeking still my love and home, for until the very end Love and kindnss may descend. Soft as wings of butterflies Tears well up and wet my eyes. My heart has melted into yours Thus we grow and die like flowers
Bikini
Air on the skin feels so good
I’d tear off my clothes if I could
But as I am old
I am not very bold
My bikini has now got a hood
A non-funny limerick
I remember we had a cold war
My mother never spoke for a year
And father was dead
At least,that’s what they said…
Maybe the truth was too stark to bare
Wednesday limericks
I once fell in love with a Scot.
He made love every hour on the dot.
When I asked for time off
He stifled his wrath.
And began to drink tea from my pot
I said,in England we drink tea from mugs.
And we keep our milk in a milk jug.
We take sugar too
If we feel super -blue.
Then we go,glug,glug,glug,glug.
Gentlemen like blondes it is said
Though I prefer jam on my bread.
Men, I adore.
Need I say more?
But now my old man is quite dead.
What makes a poem a poem?
When I was writing this,I could feel myself as a bird up in the sky looking down at the earth,the hills and the lakes.And I still feel that now.However in my opinion it is not a real poem unless other people also feel something of that when they read it.I find it’s so easy to think you have written something good because you feel so good during or after the writing.But that does not mean it is good,objectively.I might feel good mixing up eggs, flour,sugar and butter but if I don’t know how to bake it will probably not become a cake however good the making feels.I know it’s not exactly the same but I hope you can grasp the point.I suppose it might be true of love as well…Feelings alone are insufficient.
Here is a useful website
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/telling-a-good-poem-from-a-bad-one/
THE LARK
Freed from her trap
Bird soared into air,and hovered
And floated, resting;
And flew higher, singing as she flew,
And higher again,
Till there was only her song,
Left in the silence,
Trembling.
Up on the wide,stump topped hill,
I felt the lark inside my heart
And heard her singing.
And flying up with her,
I saw gold sun and silver moon,
Moors of heather ,and sheep grazing
Green hills,
And shimmering lakes,
Clouds ,sun and sky in watery mirrors.
And sang ,and dipped,and dropped,
And curled
Up the blue
Bright heaven, and rested
On the wind.
All that day
I was a lark singing.
I shall always have a vision of
A bird
That flew upwards,
Rejoicing and free
Into a deep blue sky, and high
And higher
Beyond high
Into a place, beyond eye even,
But music still sending.
I wish I were back on that heathery moor,
With the nibbling sheep and the bees sweetly humming,
Hearing again
The poignant song
Of the skylark,
A prisoner,freed by a magician,
From her trap,
So happy to be free,
So wonderful to see.
Do it again,
For me,
Seen with love
They lay down in awe and fear,
Of what their love was bringing near. They gazed into each other’s eyes And so did rhapsodise. They lay down to gaze into the eyes and soul and heart so true. They gazed until,when overcome, They were united into one. Their souls and bodies were conjoined, And thus their hearts were well entwined; As honeysuckle on the walls, In joy’s sweet arbours does grow tall. Their loving lips and eyes and hands Gave pause to time’s soft flowing sands; And while they touched and gazed so long, The birds sang out in glorious songs. The eyes are mirrors to the soul, and love will make us grow more whole. Gaze lovingly on humankind.. And hold care in your mind
All constraints torment me with the blues.
An open office split by folding walls,
The cries of co-workers,unmusical,
Upon my pained ears unsweetly fall.
I hear them mutter,cough;I hear them fart,
These sounds soothe not my isolated soul
For though I hear them, well we are apart.
I see no face nor gesture to console.
And should perchance I need to take a piss
I’m loth as I’ve adapted to my bonds.
An ensuite lavatory would be true bliss;
And save me frightening ducks on yonder pond.
Yet if not this jail, which jail would I choose?
All constraints torment me with the blues.
And if you want to make sweet love ,don’t go where we have gone
Death and loss and grief
It’s called love
I run my fingers tentatively
down your cheek,
asking you a question
with my eyes.
looking at each other,
you touch me too.
This is my skin
my boundary.
Yours is thicker,
like rubber.
I run my fingers down your chin.
what is this little bone?
I like it.
I like your skin
I like your bones.
I like you.
you please me.
you are tasty.
I like your taste,
your skin,your eyelids.
I like your eye here,
and your other eye too.
Nice one!
I like this hair on your head.
May I touch your hair?
do you like hair?
hair makes me laugh.
I have a fondness for laughing.
I love to laugh.
I enjoy laughter
I love your laughter.
If not, smiling is good also.
Or a gleam in the eyes,
showing the inside smile,
the smiling heart.
I like your inside,
Outside
and possibly
your backside.
your upside and downside.
your side sides.
I snuggle you all around with soft wool.
I knit you into my scarf.
I’ll have to wear you round my neck now!
How unusual
How flexible.
How charming.
How alarming
How creative
How interesting.
What an idea!
what a notion
but you are too big for me to knit
So I’ll just touch your hand
with my fingers.
and you touch my hand
with your fingers.
What good hands we have
with such fingers.
fingers are for touch.
fingers are keen to touch.
I like touch.
what would we do
without fingers?
I like your skin.
skin is good
We love skin
We love.
We.
I want skin to be ours
and yours
is mine
and mine
is yours
where is the edge of the world?
skin has no end
it’s infinity
au naturel.
what order!
what design!
What wonder.
what awe.
where is the world’s skin?
tenderly we touch the world
as the world embraces us.
It’s called love.
Love
Power or love
One’s motivation may be either love or power.
In truth, it’s there and plain for all to see.
They first admire and plead a lengthy hour
About how sweet one’s offerings would be.
When persuaded that they are open and sincere
One sends them poems like the poems they praised.
Yet their minds are altered ,and in fear
They shows repulsion where they fondly gazed.
To double bind another human soul
To knot barbed wire around their only mind
This action seems not from a human whole
But from a being split and thence unkind
Believe not those who are too quick to praise
Conceal yourself from charmers and their gaze
How like a bird’s nest is my unmade bed
-
Photo courtesy of Mike Flemming,Copyright 2015
How like a bird’s nest is my unmade bed
As twigs and feathers from my feet did fall.
I ought to take my shoes off, but instead
I leave them on or hurl them at the wall.As for a lady’s nightgown I do lack,
And wear old vests my dear husband once loved.
For ladies’ garments often have no back.
And fit too tightly, like a rubber glove.For pain and torment some will undergo,
To gain attention from a handsome man .
Yet love is like a fearsome heavy blow
Survive it like an act of God unplanned.So take life lightly though you are enchained
As it is short and everything remains
A sound poem
Cherries
-
If we see ripe cherries
Hanging from a branch
We’ll pick the fruit and eat them
It is our last chanceWhen our end is nearing
We must live far more
Like the dust motes dancing
In the sun,in joy.See the clouds all blowing…
Where is it they go?
Like the leaves and flowers
Like the rivers flow.See the face beloved
Known,not understood.
See the human mystery
Feel how love can flood.See the smoke blow upwards
See the children gaze
Innocence and beauty
New born every day.The first time our eyes were open
We saw a human face.
The last time we close them
Let us then embrace.Though the day is ending
Do not cut it short.
Live each moment till the last
In love as we were taught
Belated
-
Did You Know?
Long ago, there was a verb belate, which meant “to make late.” From the beginning, belate tended to mostly turn up in the form of its past participle belated. Eventually, belate itself fell out of use, leaving behind belated as an adjective that preserved the original notion of delay. As you may have guessed, belate and its descendant belated derive from the adjective late; belate was formed by simply combining the prefix be- (“to cause to be”) with late. Belated was also once used in the sense “overtaken by night,” as in “belated travelers seeking lodging for the night.” This sense was in fact the first meaning of the adjective but it too fell out of use.
Yet by some grace
Not love nor money should we seek to steal;
Nor for self praise and honor be in need
For these things cannot ever truly heal.
And onto a wrong path may often lead.
Not to vice nor virtue must our wills be tied;
Yet by some grace we gently may be led
Our will directs attention which denied
May let our pride control our thoughtless head.
Not good nor bad can track the vane of God
Far from our sightless eyes are his affairs.
Yet Faith and Hope can be a dowsing rod
With Love the force to trace the Spirit bare.
Oh,come down,Spirit,take me as your wife
Fill me with holy grace and with new life
Each life is an art made with craft
Dancing eyes attract men of note
Who often grand music have wrote,
If you don’t like my tenses
Pay my expenses
Just look deeper into whatever I’ve quote.
Fortune may favour the brave
But Red Indians are asleep in their graves.
These pat cute expressionss
No doubt have their lessons;
But in the main, life is how we behave.
What we pay attention to grows.
Whilst our other seeds lie here unsown.
The evil tree towers,
Over the bankers ill powers.
It’s a haven for vultures and crows.
Let us examine our gifts.
The race is not all to the swift.
We each have our talents
With patience to balance
Each life is an art made with craft
The oxymoron class
There is a sentence often spoke
In jest or repartee:
“See how the cookie crumbles,mate.
Why don’t you have more tea?”
But my cookies don’t crumble
They bend in multi-ways.
Why here are some I made for you
Only yesterday.
You want to know why cookies bend?
Well,mine are made from rubber.
They look impressive on the plate…
As good as any other.
But when you pick one up to start
And press it in your hands
It does not crumble,but just falls
Into a thousand rubber bands.
The guests suffer embarrassment
As they gaze down in dismay.
But the children and the dogs and cats
are happy as they play.
I gave my lover,one cookie
I gave him three or four
But he was never satisfied
Until I gave him more.
Then when I met him later on
He seemed to be in pain…
And claims his doctor told him off
For eating food again.
So now I’m having lessons
In how to bake real fakes.
It’s called the Oxymoron Class
And you should see our cakes.
I made one,I made two,
I made fifty four.
But now the freezer’s full right up
So I can’t make no more.
I want some crumbly cookies,
But mother doesn’t know.
She has gone to heaven…
Oh,how I miss her dough!










