Category: poetry

Nature’s lowness is my theme

Bute

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Winter weather,frost and sky,

See white geese and silver stars.

Two cooing doves with collars red,

Watching out for seeded bread.

From the sun ,low in the sky,

Light falls slantwise to my eyes.

Trees bud though invisibly,

Nothing that my eyes can see.

Bulbs shoot up from dark cold soil

Where worms and beetles quietly toil.

We take for granted air and sky,

Love the birds we see fly by

But who loves the worms and slugs

And those creatures we call bugs.

So in our dark cold winter time,

Praise these creatures in the grime.

Without these worms ,our crops would die.

No cornfields for us to lie,

Midst the poppies bright red flowers

Revelling in soft summery bowers.

Praise the snails and bees and ants

For these and spiders,let’s give thanks.

As the lightness needs the dark,

From darkness come life giving sparks.

Enrich darkness with our gifts.

Look not always to the swift.

Slow and patient like these worms,

Nature’s lowness is my theme

Peace

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When wanderings take my restless mind

To places peace can never find,

When imaginations linked to fear

Push tranquillity away.

To my green garden I must go

And let my mind and thoughts go slow.

I look up at maples in the breeze,

See sunlight dappled through their leaves.

I see the apples hanging down

And blackbirds peck them on the ground.

I see the hawthorn berries ripe

Upon the hedge in gold sunlight.

And then my soulf is brought to earth

Peacefulness is given birth

I feel at one with nature green,

And all that is just now unseen

So back to everyday routines

Without “what for?” and “might have beens”

All is well and shall be so

Wherever we may chance to go.

Waxy flowers in the snow

 

Waxy flowers poking through

Snow so white
Flowers bright.
Made me think of you.

I see once more your dark  brown hair,
Soft as snow,
On my pillow.
Now my bed is bleak and bare

,
Your face turned to me,flower to sun,
I loved you.
You were true.
Fear by love was overcome.

I saw the cyclamen in snow,
Pink and red,
Now frozen,dead.
Love was,oh,so long ago.

But never gone from in my mind.
Thoughts so deep,
Upwards seep.
Love was gentle,love was kind,
You’re always in my mind

My hand is lonely

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Sometimes my hands curl up,
and other times,they open.
Then I feel the air;
My fingers relax.
I touch your hand;
uncurl it and press it to mine.
Palm on palm,it’s no secret
that palms connect to hearts.
In your face I see a hint of melancholy,
I feel it in my soul..
as if there was a secret connection..
thought how,I don’t know.
Somehow,touching, we create another soul,
Neither you nor I, but we……
Touching,need to be physical..
We know how a story can affect us that way.
What a gift to know we have touched someone…
In the heart.’s. most tender space.The place of love.
Both true and false,my palm is lonely.
Then I feel the caress of summer air..
To touch is to be touched
as one soul opens to another..
Vulnerable,human,loving,
Painful and illusory,like those dreams of childhood.
Now I go,first gripping, then loosening our hands.
Goodbye,we say,Goodbye

He ate nothing but milk and All Bran

In Mexico lived a wise man
Who ate his food straight from the can.
When he was asked why
He made no reply
for he was eating some milk and All Bran.

Constipation’s a problem to men
Who only eat veg now and then.
If they have no wives
They are risking their lives
As they live on cold pies and fried hen.

Guinness has iron in the beer
Which helps the anaemic to steer.
So drive your car home
While you’re in the zone.
You really have nothing to fear.

Some men live just with a cat.
That is nothing ,as some love a bat.
But cats like to purr
As a man strokes their fur.
A poor bat can’t compete with that.

Men often live with a wife
Whom they married before they had a life.
So they cheat and conspire,
play with ice and with fire.
Till one day she gets out her knife.

Being locked in a prison’s no fun.
If only I had a re-run.
I’d pretend to know naught,
about whom he’d caught.
And find myself another hot one

Making a poem

My old blue fountain pen allows
The ink across the page to flow
Like wet paint from an artist’s brush;
And words come in a rush.

Enchanting through the hand which writes,
Bewitched with art, beauty alights.
The script is like a music score
Through which you pass as through a door.
Imagination’s home.

As,mysteriously, to you,to me,
The spirits of our hearts are tamed,
By rhythms of pen,of brush,of mind.
They enter vision quite unplanned,
Like moths to flutter softly round
Fire joined heart and hand.

The pen slows down,the hand goes still,
And just as dreams at daybreak will,
They shrink,they disappear,they’re gone,
I almost caught that one.

Destruction

Wakening up,remembering.
The rain falls onto the windows like an angel’s tears
Thinking all the time,it was a bargain they wanted
.. not this…….not this… no,no
Is there a name for this destruction
which destroys also those who commit such acts?

A haunted Europe;Britain
the interfering empire,grasping at the world’s wealth
have made a patchwork out of Eden
Here where man began to be civilised
where we learned to make an aleph bet
and to write on scrolls
where God spoke from the fire
Why is it here that the hate is so strong?
What did we steal from these Arabs
when we bought their oil and made them wealthy
Materially,only; they had the wealth of knowledge and learning; they who invented the abstractions of mathematics?How have they become who they are?

And from those learned Jews when we plundered their religion
their Book and their G-d.
And their mystical traditions and learning..
and scattered them like dust across the diaspora
Our rulers and others thieved like starving beggars
and sat watching as they struggled?
How can religion be used with such cruelty?
The hate they should feel to the West
is transferred to their neighbours.

The wet eyed and heart weary,the strained and tearless too,
those whose hearts are heavy with
the pain of unsheddable tears
They turn again to the mountain
the steep climb continues
Tears water the path and the cold earth
As we look into the heart of darkness
Hoping for a sign
Or at least to be ready for a sign…
Those who have eyes to see,let them see

But he said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test

It’s not that I don’t love you

It’s not that I don’t love you,
only that I don’t want you to become part
of my mind’s furniture
which I sometimes stumble across unknowingly in the dark.

It’s not that I don’t hate you
only that I don’t want you to become fixed
as my resident devil
who’s reponsible for all the badness in me .

It’s not that I want to become indifferent to you,
only that I want always to see you afresh
when my eyes greet yours
and not ignore you as you are always here.

It’s not even that I don’t care about you
only that I want to be unburdened
from the guilt of love
and to love freely when it’s the right time
or not at all.

It’s not that I cannot sing for you
But that I want to sing for others too
when I find my voice
and to sing my own song as the spirit moves in me,
or not at all.

It’s not that you are lacking in any way
only that I need to be alone some days
to digest all I’ve gathered
You know, I am never myself without you,
that’s all.

And it’s not as if we can’t be together
But we’ll be more fully together
when we live our own life
You know I’d never have sung my songs without you
No, never at all.

When my voice trembles

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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 up

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 are

just enough

“Their beauty has more meaning” by Robinson Jeffers

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    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2008/03/poetry-sunday-xi/

    Yesterday morning enormous the moon hung low on the ocean,
    Round and yellow-rose in the glow of dawn;
    The night-herons flapping home wore dawn on their wings. Today
    Black is the ocean, black and sulphur the sky,
    And white seas leap. I honestly do not know which day is more beautiful.
    I know that tomorrow or next year or in twenty years
    I shall not see these things—and it does not matter, it does not hurt;
    They will be here. And when the whole human race
    Has been like me rubbed out, they will still be here: storms, moon and ocean,
    Dawn and the birds. And I say this: their beauty has more meaning
    Than the whole human race and the race of birds.

Arched like a fallen moon

Old man,bending over,
arched like a fallen moon
in a dark lilac November sky.
joy and pain wrestle my heart across the emptiness
and toss it up like a damp rocket
to fall in a hidden corner where mice live.
Would that not be a good ending,to be dust
to these little creatures nesting
in my chewed green twine and my tartan basket?
They have eyes and shiver in my hand when I rescue them
from the cat…
as any heart might.
Now night falls on the newspaper basket
where the damp Times and the Guardian mix into glue
and tomorrow the sun will rise
and it will just be the garbage
with no poetic undertones nor deathly hushes..
Heather and a silver light
you stand on a hill top like a god
looking over his domain.
Strong and now weak
it’s the humane condition
Everlasting life is too dangerous for humans.
Silent,motionless,home of beetles
bit by bit we fall away
into the mother soil
with cracked jugs and dropped coins
for a future academic to dig into.
Transparent hand touches me.
Who are you?

We call it 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 .

Nice one!

I like the 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 your 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.

It’s called love

Love is map enough for me

Your face is map enough for me ,

Your gaze,your smile,your frown,your glee.

And if I want to know the rest

The shape your posture‘s made is best

For showing how your life is now.

A look,a gesture all this show,

Till who you are is then disclosed

And I am in your arms enrobed.

Love vanishes when analysed,

And thinking too by Love’s despised.

Choose the means to fit the end,

And then I’ll be whom you intend

My scheming heart

Sonnets

A sonnet has three verses of four lines each which rhyme in a certain way as you can read in mine.Then the have two lines at the end which should be succinct.Shakespeare’s sonnets are the most well known and rightly so
Source: Katherine

My error

I live a life that many would enjoy
My home and garden artists would admire
And yet my heart is sad and I feel flawed
As my real life fits not to my desire.
I married for the money that I’d gain
and for the house and garden of my dreams
Yet looking back my error is quite plain
That love cannot be found by she who schemes.
I gave birth to six children whom I love
My sons and daughters are my living joy.
Yet I fear vengeance from the One above…
I made my husband’s life into my toy.
And yet he seems so happy with his lot
Perhaps my traitorous heart has been forgot

Like startled flowers

lit-up-hands

The hailstones pounded the window
as violently,as if they had minds
bent on killing;soldiers in rows and ranks rushing onwards;
as each fell another and another took its place.
Cold and mathematical they had a simple precise force and geometry.
Into this warlike scene,floated two white butterflies
Crossing and recrossing the spaces between the hail
they followed a random path;now together.now apart
Their unplanned,loving dance leads to mating, procreation and a future
while the hailstones can only die.
Seems sometimes fragile freedom is more productive
than the fierce mechanical modern world can imagine.
I see the butterflies now like startled flowers
hunting for the sun

We hear God howl

I learned an  ‘ymn in our old kirk.
I realized then that God don’t work.
I think he  offen laughs and cries.
When one thing grows,another dies.
We went t’t  church and we all sang.
The organ played and the big bells rang.
We  heard no answer then
till a strange loud voice called out,”Ah! Men!”
I want to think  we were made to sing.
What but joy can we each bring?
The psalms will comfort us at night.
And in the dawn we see the Light.
Then we rise up and our songs float out.
The cats miaow as they run about.
The dogs join in to bark and growl.
And from the sky we hear God howl…..

Ah,men

Now there is no vertical

When you struck me,I vibrated like a kettle drum,
then as smaller percussions and repercussions
echoing from all the glassy surfaces
creating a balletic geometry of sound tracks
in space and time.

When you knocked me down,
I fell against her and her and her;
we were like a row of skittles
and we all went down with the lifeboat;
The infinite chain of being is.

When you hit me,the Fall spread across the world
Now there is no Vertical
All is undivine and graceless.
By the Rod it’s ruled

When you left me,I left myself,the world,the rocks,dry land
I weighed down sank to the ocean bed
with coral eyes
gazing.

When you struck my mind
I became an instrument of a foreign power
Singing a song I didn’t know.

When the glass was smashed
the splinters flew into all our hearts.
You didn’t know what we couldn’t see.

I lay on barren ground and gave birth
To my own Creator in the desert.

The North facing coast of Norfolk UK

Long pale sands,
the strand,the white topped rollers,
holier than the Eucharist,
sun kissed waves,
three coloured cliffs
Whiffs of scent of broom and gorse
winds make us hoarse
sea salt coarse
oh,  to be walking there with you
And the sky so blue
Higher than any view

From those lost lands of long ago

In the land which dreams dwell in
where love and hate and life begin;
where 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 love is real
Remember that 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 kindness may descend.
Soft as wings of butterflies
Tears well up and wet my eyes.
My heart has melted into yours

And thus we live and die like flower

It shall be so

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Gently dancing in the sun
Wildflowers grow;
they bloom,
are gone.

With no thoughts,they have no cares;
Yet their lives are gentle prayers.
May I walk in such a way
That I am alive to this day.

So I see with widening view,
And joy and sorrows embrace too.
Then my time will come, like yours...
And of us nothing  endures.
As to the earth our bodies go,
All are one;it shall be so

The alphabet by Karl Shapiro

The letters of the Jews as strict as flames
Or little terrible flowers lean
Stubbornly upwards through the perfect ages,
Singing through solid stone the sacred names.
The letters of the Jews are black and clean
And lie in chain-line over Christian pages.
The chosen letters bristle like barbed wire
That hedge the flesh of man,
Twisting and tightening the book that warns.
These words, this burning bush, this flickering pyre
Unsacrifices the bled son of man
Yet plaits his crown of thorns.

Where go the tipsy idols of the Roman
Past synagogues of patient time,
Where go the sisters of the Gothic rose,
Where go the blue eyes of the Polish women
Past the almost natural crime,
Past the still speaking embers of ghettos,
There rise the tinder flowers of the Jews.
The letters of the Jews are dancing knives
That carve the heart of darkness seven ways.
These are the letters that all men refuse
And will refuse until the king arrives
And will refuse until the death of time
And all is rolled back in the book of days.

Love grows richer every passing day

When first I saw your limpid pale blue eyes

That held me with a merry loving look

I then fell into love without surprise

Without consulting people or a book.

My heart was struck and rang out like a bell..

Like crystal struck by silvery rod or spoon.

And yet I hesitated,you could tell…

Is love a treasure or a road to doom?

For in the past,love’s robbed me of my soul.

I gave so much and gained not at all.

But with your love I felt I could be whole…

Free from those whose very touch appalled.

The sun looked down and smiled upon your face

As we held each other in a tight embrace

Houses built of gold and sin

Ante mortem let us trust

For in the grave we turn to dust
Yet in life the poor are cursed
Our treatment post mortem is just.

The worms and beetles care no more
For the rich than for the poor.
They are happy to devour
Bankers,despots,every hour.

Ante mortem, greed does win
Houses built of gold and sin
But God,who lives in each within,
Cares no more for gold thann tin

If post mortem we are judged
Why does the rich person grudge?
Why do we refuse to budge
Right until the final nudge?

Throw away your heavy goods
Live like daisies by the woods..
Fear not hurricane nor floods
As daises grow even in mud.

More dependent on all power
We trust in madmen’s city towers.
Yet One told us to live like flowers…
And enjoy this  life  but for an hour.

Perception is not privilege.
We each have the wits to judge.
See and note where you have smudged
What your creation would allege.

Post and ante, even now
The currents of our hearts allow…
The inner sea which has its flow
To take us where we need to go

Love was oh,so long ago.

Waxy flowers poking through

Snow so white
Flowers bright.
Made me think of you.I see once more your dark gold hair,
Soft as snow,
On my pillow.
Now my bed is bleak and bare

,
Your face turned to me,flower to sun,
I loved you.
You were true.
Fear by love was overcome.

I saw the cyclamen in snow,
Pink and red,
Now frozen,dead.
Love was,oh,so long ago.

But never gone from in my mind.
Thoughts so deep,
Upwards seep.
Love was gentle,love was kind,
You’re always in my mind

Love dies like a tree

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;
it’s 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.

Where once a cat

The apple tree,now bare of leaves,
Still bends in worship to the sun.
The sap flows down into the earth
Its fruiting year is done.

Where once a cat sat on the branch,
And children played below,
Now only sparrows hunt for crumbs,
and patterned snails slide slow.

The sun is setting to my left;
where is the slivered moon?
The day is deeper than a dream,
and over all too soon.

Oh,come,my lover,to my bed
And hold me in your arms.
I’ll rest against your fragile chest,
Whilst you enjoy old charm

With tender puzzled eyes





A day of sudden changes.Clouds

cross the sky

like whales swimming North in rows.

The sun was bright,dazzled my eyes

with gold and silver.

Wind cut across my face

like a slap from an angry father..

Those who love can also seem to hate us too..

The lure of that small childish body

tempts them to divert their anger towards it.

When the ones who hurt you

are also the ones you love,

it’s hard to know which direction to run in;

but it usually turns into a circle.

Retreating turns into a new arrival.

Straight lines might be better. though

On a spherical earth

difficult to find.

Even parallel lines meet

In their Riemannian geometry.

So we can never get away

Sometimes the best we manage

Is to increase the circle’s radius.

Though how is hard to know.

Do you love me or hate me?

Do you want me to stay or go?

What do I want?Do I have a me?

The memory of warmth draws me back

Like a cold lonely beast leaving the jungle

To lie down with a what appears to be a lamb,

Surprising the farmer up early to milk his animals

Finding a strange new one

Looking with tender,puzzled eyes

into His Human Face.































	


	



			
				


			

			
I want a winter lover
		
	
	

		












New River












In summer time when  sun does shine


I’m  happy on my own


I gaze up through red maple leaves


All transparent in the sun.


But when winter comes I’m lonely


Sitting here beside my fire.


So I want  a winter lover


To make my  spirits  higher.


Oh,my winter love  come to me


And I’ll gaze deep into your eyes


The light that shines in there


Is so much warmer than my fire.


We’ll  stroll  through wintry  woodlands,


Where elegance  lies bare.


The branches struck  by sun


Now feel  the frosty grasp of air.


I’ll love you all  the winter time


i”ll love you in the dark.


I’d like dwell  within  your arms,


To love   in London Parks


When summer  comes I’ll disappear


To roam across the dales


I’ ll sleep on heather moorlands


And send you  loving  mail.


I can’t be tied  in summertime


I must be roaming free


But ,if  you accept   this need of mine,


Then how happy I shall be.


 


 


 













	


	



			
				


			
				


			

			
The music of silence
		
	
	

		
 


 


trees swirl


I didn’t hear you coming,
then you were by my side.
Happiness fills me.
Standing in the garden
looking at red leaves,
I hold your hand gently,
and share the sweetness
of these green leaves,
the distant doves cooing,
the sun dipping to the horizon.
Life is good.
We hear together
the music
of this silence


 




 

	


	



			
				


			

			
Ask the wife
		
	
	

		














I love you and you love me!

Believer!

Where on earth should I be?

Whenever.

I blocked cookies all my life

If you want one,ask the wife.

I eat spam, and google then,

I begin all over again.

whatever.

I ban websites for a living

But my wife is very forgiving,

Men ever!

I eat splogs and gurgle blogs

Then I cut up all the logs.

Whenever.

I’ve been married fourteen times,

They divorce me for my rhymes,

Whatever.

I eat cookies if I can,

If I can’t I get them banned,

Forever!

I’m the God of Monster Space,

I’ll destroy the human race,

Moreover.

If you meet me you won’t know

‘Cos I look like old so and so,

Whoever.

But I am mad and I’ll get you

I eat up this human zoo;

Together.

Whenever.

Can’t forgive,erhhh