Category: poetry

Trust in darkness

“Trust the unknown”. Autumn 2013 008All 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.

A pool of light

photo1049_001

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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‘ow Ah used te speek

A modern reenactment of a Viking battle
A modern reenactment of a Viking battle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Photo0920 frozen 1When ah were in’t town
Ah met sum folk from up our road.
She sed,you’ve got a verry educated accent
and moreover you luk just like wa daughter in law,
She’s Danish.Am sure you must be related to her.
Ah,sed,the Vikings did get to Ireland..
I expect am descended from them.
Actually i wasn’t talking like that at first
But when they said,you have no accent I suddenly found
If Ah shut mi nostrils and kept my mouth barely open
Ah cud talk just like I used to..
But mi face is configured differently.
When I got home,I wer tellin’ mi husband
but he finds it distressin’ like;
Cud be it reminds ‘im of his dad and mam
And all the uther folk he knew when eh wer growin’ up
Bit it hurts now he’s not got them any more.
Am I putting on an act?
Which is real,what I once was,
or what I became.
Well,luv,ah’ve got numor to say now…Ta ta.
Ooh,it’s rainin’ again and the sheets are out in the backstreet.
Oh,bugger.

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The very notion of God

One of the insides of the many churches on Sicily
One of the insides of the many churches on Sicily (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Alan Durst carving "Absolution&q...
English: Alan Durst carving “Absolution” on the Woodchurch Rood Screen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

photo1049_001

If God felt like getting absolution
that’s one drawback to his position
that the priest would not know how to cope
with the very notion

Hello,I’m God,Father.
Oh,you’re with the Mafia,then
I am with everyone
That’s noble.Any sins
I made a grave error.
You don’t have to worry.We all do it.
But I’m God!
If you say so.
I made a man from earth.Then I made a woman.
That’s very wise under the Equal Opportunites Legislation
Then they bred.
Well,surely no one blames you?
I do.
Are you unwell?Shall I call an ambulance?
What for?
To take you to the Asylum.
So you think I’m an asylum seeker?
Well,you don’t look British!
It’s enough to drive me mad.
You are mad.
How come?
You think you are God
I am God.
Do you have any identity card?
That’s rich!who’d give me one?The Pope?
Well,they say,see Rome and die.
I never die.I’m immortal
Well,I absolve you and your penance is to forget yourself
Wham,shudder,bang,bump
Everything is on fire
Lord have mercy.
I’m thinking about it.
Be English!
English… what a joke!I am black.
So am I!
Black And British.. or Black and Foreign
Is God a Foreigner?
Definitely!

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My cat

Male tabby cat
Male tabby cat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Feeling the sadness in my heart
and in my arms a tender feeling
as if the flesh is calling out;
My breath’s coming in gasps and
my throat makes a murmur
as if trying to speak.

Sensitive skin on my inner arms yelps
and my heart aches like
I’ve run too many miles .
My legs feel strong
My mouth is dry and my back
needs an arm around it
for protection.
My eyes are wet with the moisture
that might have made saliva.

My cat died
And then my other cat died.
Whatever.

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I see the sun through closed eye lids

English: Poppies and cornflowers in Jubilee Park.
English: Poppies and cornflowers in Jubilee Park. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Cornflowers
Cornflowers (Photo credit: simone-walsh)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

English: Buttercup meadow The shorter creeping...
English: Buttercup meadow The shorter creeping buttercups (Ranunculus repens) are most popular in this field however patches of the much taller meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris) are abundant. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Underneath the deep sky,sweetheart,
You shall be the one.
You were with me in the dark
When all the rest were gone.

When the trees grow their green leaves,
I’ll love you all night long.
When the flowers fill the cornfields
Love shall be our song.

Poppies red.and linseed blue
Shall decorate my dress.
Hold me in your arms tonight
While I my love confess.

Meadows filled with buttercups
Fill my inner eye.
I love the scent of minty leaves
When my mind is all awry.

I see the sun through closed eye lids
And rose scent’s in the air.
Wherever summer joy comes from….
We have had our share

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Touching with tenderness

Fennecus, vulpes cavaiissima cum auribus maior...
Fennecus, vulpes cavaiissima cum auribus maioribus. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Body Farm
Body Farm (Photo credit: ZenOptic)

 

Amyloidosis, H&E Most of the amyloid consisted...
Amyloidosis, H&E Most of the amyloid consisted of acellular pink globules that effaced and expanded the node, but this image shows the characteristic involvement of blood vessel walls (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Let your lips meet gently,

the top one resting against the lower,

touching with tenderness

your own skin to skin.

Forefinger propped on chin,

I let the others dangle,

like leaves on a branch;

how softly gravity tugs them downwards.

Let heart beat quietly,slowly

as the blood circulates

carrying its music,

a river,

following the path of least resistance.

How the blood vessels receive willingly this flow,

touching it kindly as with tiny open fingers,

helping and being helped.

How the hair on the head

floats

on the breeze,

like tentacles of an octopus

waving goodbye.

Top eyelid loves the lower one;

as we blink they touch

like lovers kissing swiftly

behind a tree.

and how the light comes in

we see a world.

[mine may not be yours,]

but the blink of my eyelid

sends waves through the air,

so we’re all touching and being touched,

lips kissing each other,

kiss all living creatures.

skin to skin.

air to air.

And inside us,the rich darkness

of creative night

transforms,in turn,

these touches

into dreams.

 

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A sorry story

Autumn 2013 008

No human being comforts my sore heart

No human being looks with favor on my doubts.

Yet still I ate a tasty  apple tart

And went to bed in nothing but a clout.

No human being loves me as I am

No human being wants to comfort me.

Yet still  today  I shall have cakes and jam.

And drink ten   mugs of  boiling  China tea.

No human being looks inside my soul

No human being  cares about my cares.

Yet still today I’ll eat a bacon roll.

And spray some perfume on my golden hair

For God helps those who help themselves to most.

So I shall  talk with his lamented Ghost

Trying to recreate the world

 

The Lindens of Poissy, by Claude Monet (1882).
The Lindens of Poissy, by Claude Monet (1882). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Claude Monet, photo by Nadar, 1899. Français :...
Claude Monet, photo by Nadar, 1899. Français : Claude Monet par Nadar en 1899. Türkçe: İzlenimcilik akımının öncülerinden olan Fransız ressam Claude Monet’nin, fotoğrafçı yurttaşı Nadar tarafından 1899 yılında çekilmiş fotoğrafı. 1840 ile 1926 yılları arasında yaşayan Monet, bu fotoğraf çekildiği sırada 50’li yaşlarının sonundadır. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

The bus is late and I’m

Thinking of what you said,

trying to understand, but

I’ve never met you,so

I have nothing but written words

which,however beautiful,may not give

enough for me to truly imagine

the depths of your heart.

My legs hurt and I have a cane,

but I don’t like it.I can’t accept

my own infirmity,my troubles,

my pains,my disagreements,my mistakes.

Rain falls over me and drips down the lens

in my spectacles,as if the world is weeping

the tears I can’t shed.

If I cried now,standing at the bus stop,

for all the years of pain

noone would know,they’d

think it was just

raindrops running down my cheeks.

The bus comes,but it’s half term…

The shops are too crowded,I can’t

stand in queues…imagine how most of you

say it’s boring.Well,I’d love to do it

but I’ve decided the pain is greater

then the rewards.

The bus driver stops at a place where

the pavement has been lowered to allow

the owner of this house to drive

their car into the front garden

so they won’t need to buy

a resident’s parking permit.

It makes it a harder task to descend

from the bus and I hope he won’t

start while I’m still getting down.

In the coffee bar are exhibits from

a local museum,and I think,one day

my cane and my watch from Argos,

my shopping bag with a picture of Monet–

such vulgarity…..

they may be in a museum too…

along with my door keys

my bike lock and my spectacles

and will somebody try to conjure me up

in their imagination.

Someone who used to like Topology.

knitting,writing and holding hands with lovers

on the top deck of the bus

crossing central London without noticing

anything except their reflections in the eyes

of the other.

Light bounces to and fro.

My mind shuts down, the words

packed away in boxes,till there’s only

you and me and a few elementary particles

trying to recreate the world

with the big bang

that will end it all.

 

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The butterfly

A Butterfly on a flower
A Butterfly on a flower (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Butterfly on flower with fake eyes on the wings
Butterfly on flower with fake eyes on the wings (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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 color and of love,
Blessings that rain down from above.
I wish to be a flower too.
Ah,that the bee could but be you.

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Tempests of the mind

Biltmore Art Glass Glow
Biltmore Art Glass Glow (Photo credit: cobalt123)
At the remembrance garden in Dublin
At the remembrance garden in Dublin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The "feather-robed archer" figure in...
The “feather-robed archer” figure in the 1968 flag is inspired by Assyrian Empire period iconography. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We were sitting by the window
gazing at the trees
You began screaming:
The house is under attack,
A storm is coming up.
The glass will shatter
We’ll be stabbed.
We’ll be killed
Looking out I saw only the bare branches
Of the maple
And two wood pigeons in the fir tree
were chuckling to each other.
The wind had not changed.
I know it’s midwinter with the bitter
breeze with an edge to it like a knife.
The sun low like an almost empty glass of lemonade.
Sending light through the forsythia onto the old fence.

 

 
I turned to you puzzled
Reached out my hands to comfort;
But you shouted
Keep away
as you grabbed your thick coat
and ran from the back door into the dark woods.

If there was real danger,why did you desert me?
Afterwards you told me of bad news you’d had.
Seemed like the inside and outside got confused.
I became a Fascist.I was a flaxen Anglo-Saxon.
I was Hitler’s grand-daughter.
I would break my glass and cut your face
with the jagged edges;
And, unlike science,
We can’t go back and repeat the experience
as if it were an experiment.

If you’d stayed a few minutes more
You might have realized
You were half asleep
And dreaming.

Once gone,you’d  probably never return
To the house where  you thought the glass splintered
into shards and cut you to shreds.
I don’t blame you
We are often deceived by our imaginations
We see not what’s here
But what we most fear.
And flee the human contact
Which alone might help.

I always leave the door ajar
And some food on the kitchen table;
In case you come back hungry and tired
It was your mind that shattered,not the glass…
And that’s much harder to mend.
But it can be done
When you stop struggling
And let the inner seas flow free.
You needed a hand
But closeness also frightens you,
And,besides,my hand is not strong enough to hold you.
Only to touch you gently
To say how sad I am

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Please make a full answer with brevity

Lear Book of Nonsense 101.jpg
Lear Book of Nonsense 101.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
North America and Pelican Nebulae (narrowband)
North America and Pelican Nebulae (narrowband) (Photo credit: DJMcCrady)

Is keeping a blog a necessity?
Is reaping the whirlwind atrocity?
Please make a full answer with brevity
Or my wits may explode with sheer levity.

Is marriage a convenience like a lavatory?
Is washing the bed sheer depravity?
Please prove your email’s veracity.
Or my Company will be very nasty

Why do we sin with tenacity?
And have sex when we have no elasticity?
Do write down your thoughts without acidity.
And reflect your emotion in tranquility.

A game is such fun when in amity
And is fair except when played in emnity.
Please kiss your own arse with great dignity.
I speak here in jest without bigotry

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Must we walk into that darkness?

The sunlight shining through these clouds in E...
The sunlight shining through these clouds in England is an example of sunbreak. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Four o’clock– and the sun’s still glowing
Four o’clock – of a  colour bright day,
Up above, pink-tinged clouds are sliding
Down still sky, sweeping sun away.

Come back sweet sun, do not leave us.
Come back bright beams,I need sunlight
Down on earth,it’s witch moon darkness,
When your golden face is out of sight.

I see the orange tinged clouds extending
I feel such sense of sky lit bright.
But gently now, the mist surrounds you
And sweeps away that happy sight.

Into velvet blackness sinking,
The dazzling, dreaming darkness falls.
Goodbye to haste,and glare, and sunshine,
Time for reverie,night time calls.

On the night-trains gentle journeys,
On this  trackless train we ride
Strange visions and haunting pictures
We will see in dreams’ designs.

In my night train,I’ll be happy
In such rich deep reverie.
We visit darkness in our sleeping,
There we learn its ecstasy.

Now we may have no God to hold us,
In His Hands of Living Love,
What will help us trust deep blackness
If there’s no Saviour from above?

Must we enter that great darkness,
Go back to dark from which we came,
Into dark all living creatures,
In that darkness find our home?

Trust the dark unknown, to hold us,
Trust the dark,both night and day.
Must we walk into that darkness
And trust it is our safest way?

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Lucian Freud

Detail of the Burning Bush triptych by Nicolas...
Detail of the Burning Bush triptych by Nicolas Froment, showing René and his wife Jeanne de Laval (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Moses receiving the Law
Moses receiving the Law (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The apple it was that made man glad

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/28_chart.html

The language your forefathers spoke
Dwells in your images.
Faces bleed with feeling.
Bodies rise out like rocks.
Your self portrait sings
Me,myself.I am.
As God spoke from the burning bush
You took the flame and ran

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Trust the unknown force that grew you,

Trust in God and fly away
Trust in God and fly away (Photo credit: Martin Gommel)

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.

 

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As if I were

November
November (Photo credit: Cape Cod Cyclist)

I was walking behind you

on the footpath

by the river

and I stopped for a moment because

I could see some wrens inside a shrub.

When I looked up

I saw you were

quite far away and  walking fast

as if you were already leaving me

and going on to

the next phase.

The sun shone on the playing field,

It was obscenely green for November,

as if to deny the end of the year

is getting nearer.

I left the wrens fluttering

inside the shrub

and hurried after you

as the swans eyed their five cygnets

and a few drops of rain

ran down my cheek

as if I were weeping

in the sunshine.

You looked smaller,

more determined,

as if anxious

to be off….

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A thin poem

POETRY SOCIETY POSTCARD
POETRY SOCIETY POSTCARD (Photo credit: summonedbyfells)

I have to write

these very thin poems

because

my hand hurts

So,

if I make them thin

they look longer

as if I’ve written

much more

than I really have.

And also

it’s easier to read

a short line

than a very long one like I sometimes write when I get that feeling

of

wanting to tell you

the whole story.

But now

this way

You have plenty of lines

To read between.

See what I mean?

It gives you more

chance to invent it yourself

which means

I talk to you and you

talk to me

even when we can’t hear.

What is a poem so thin called?

I got my linear poetic licence now.

So I’ll write

as best I can

and listen for an answer!

Linear or non-linear.

As we say

It’s the thought that counts.

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The line of your lips

Big Love
Big Love (Photo credit: UMTAD)

The line of your lips is finely made,
as suffering accepted has transmuted pain
into a sculptor who
has given you much beauty;
yet the pain has shaped too
the eyes setting,
as if a slight question waits
in the back of your mind
asking,is this right?
and I perceive this and how you may suddenly tremble
with a memory too piercing;
yet how you love
the world so broken,
so humane
so vulnerable
so strong.
what are you saying to me?
I gather you ask me this of me:
Tell me it’s good to be alive.

And I do.

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Don’t love as if

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.
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
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short eared owl

short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale's edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.

on windside,careful sight
may swoop to prey
and away.

your yellow broad-eyed look,
at once both sharp and distant,
holds me.
oh,silence,
oh ,wind on green,
oh. earth,
sky.

immense your held vision,
sphere without centre,
pied geometer of flight,
sketch your descent and ascent.trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home.
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Reverberations

 What a day

Serebro in the music video Lets Hold Hands.
Serebro in the music video Lets Hold Hands. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Menorah
Menorah (Photo credit: Lawrence OP)
 

Like a piece of ground where bombs go off repeatedly,
my inner landscape is perpetually marked
by these explosions of sorrow,
made all the worse
by the lack of a listening ear,
a warm open heart
or an outstretched hand.

I have constructed a map
but it's incomplete,by its nature;
so even now,I might stumble into an old hole
or a new one,created
by reverberations underground;
the noise like distant music,
a  constant drumbeat.

We do not dance
I might call it the Liturgy of Loss,
a dance to the music of rhyme;
Patterns and shapes hold the feelings
and express them.The shape of these forms
is a container for the grief.

In this way,I indicate
that life will go on;I hear the healing music
and sing to its melodies
like a mermaid on the edge of the sea in winter
when the water is cold and green like his eyes,
and the rocks are hard like large fists.Nature can be a symbol for such emotion
we cannot walk without a tear in ech eye
and a softening of our hearts
as tenderly we touch the world
and are touched in turn by each other.Stretch out your hand to meet mine.
We can hold each other better
than each can hold theirself.
Like in sex, the meaning is not the climax
but the giving and being given;
receiving and being received.
The sacredness of the erotic needs no explanation
to a gardener or a fisherman
but may need it for the information saturated,postmodern
who dwell in the fascist virtual reality we call life today
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Yet runs my nose and do my eyes not blink?

Blink (novel)
Blink (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have no teeth and combless I remain
My hair once silk is now  a  tangled briar..
Men gaze on me with ruthless cold disdain
My visage does no longer light their fire.

I have no mind and so I cannot think
I cannot love nor hate now I grow tired.
Yet runs my nose and do my eyes not blink?
Where is that man with   care nd with a desire?

I have no heart,or it turns cold and hard.
Yet soul I have and spirit and my sight.
At life’s long game I fling down all my cards.
And ask for nothing but a means of flight.

For beauty withers as my wisdom grows.
And none observe the circling of the crows.

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A newly discovered sonnet by William ~Snakeswagger

English: Edward Lear, illustration for "T...
English: Edward Lear, illustration for “The Owl and the Pussycat” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Eugène Delacroix's 1825 painting "Louis d...
Eugène Delacroix’s 1825 painting “Louis d’Orléans Showing His Mistress”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 My mistress’ eye is like a currant bun

Though she has problems,she is  quite divine

Her bosom is bared,bold out in the sun.

I hope that  what his hers is also mine?

My mistress eye looks fine as it is glass

She lost her marbles playing with a fox

She’s good at letting errors whistle past

And mending fuses in that little box.

My mistress dear I gaze upon that breast.

I see her skin is warm and she does sweat.

I too have lusted and I have confessed

But still she gambles and she places bets.

In truth I am as fickle as a weed

but each must act according to his need

 

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The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath – University of San Francisco (USF)

23 Fitzroy Road, London : The house where Sylv...
23 Fitzroy Road, London : The house where Sylvia Plath committed suicide. It was also W.B. Yeats’s residence for a while. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath – University of San Francisco (USF). by J C Oates

English: Grave of Sylvia Plath The grave of po...
English: Grave of Sylvia Plath The grave of poet Sylvia Plath in Heptonstall. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a fascinating essay by the novelist Joyce Carol Oates..so intelligent and thoughtful…not to be missed

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Sylvia Plath – Online Articles and Texts

Newnham College, Cambridge, where Sylvia Plath...
Newnham College, Cambridge, where Sylvia Plath studied. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: Digital image of Sylvia Plath's signature
English: Digital image of Sylvia Plath’s signature (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Joyce Carol Oates, 2006
Joyce Carol Oates, 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sylvia Plath – Online Articles and Texts.

This has  a long list of all you can find on line.I am looking for a review by Joyce Carol Oates.This is a very good resource for literature students and like minded people.

Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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If it were laughter ….

Bloggers,beggars,buggers… in dreams they are all one.

Wrapped in a grey blanket,who can tell one from another?

They all begin with B

As a matter or tact

My dreaming mind hides the buggers

Inside calm astute faces

Who are political braggers

At daggers drawn with the rubrics of formal

I mean,normal,life.

Who’s to say who wrote The  Four Tartlets

,Or  what rough breast Yeats hoped was coming?

Sometimes they say,it’s behind you now;

that’s an asinine remark.

Idiosynchronizing all my devices

I find my heart and mind left out.;

 makes me doubt,

However,negative capability will pull me threw

the stone you chose to cast.

So you are without sin,a TV

Sin in a tin

A smartphone is not a trombone

Yet it creates more noise

Sneaking categorically,

I’d say I’m tired of the gales

all these tablets are creating


If it were laughter then o.k.

But it’s more like domination

Say it again,Sam.

Wham!

That the world contains THIS, this person,this scenery,this light.

English: The Langdale Pikes
English: The Langdale Pikes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m sure since then
I have seen more beautiful places
but what was once called
The Shock of the New
washed over me before I could think.
Then I might say
That the world contains this,
That the world contains THIS,
this person,this scenery,this light;
That the world contains this..
this beauty,this love at first meeting;
THIS person
The total lack of expectation makes the experience possible.

Approaching by rail,on a line now closed
the train needed two engines as it rose from the coast
to Newby Bridge.There we walked onto a steamer and the sail began
At first the long lake is banked by dark trees
It’s peaceful but not remarkable;
turning a bend, all of a sudden the Langdale Pikes are manifest
And ever after they have lived in my heart like a blessing
I’ve even climbed on as a foolhardy schoolgirl;
getting down is the hard part.
Further and further into the heart of the Lakes
Every view is truly loved
but it was this view,the first,from just a small hill
That took away my breath.
Wanting nothing,we sometimes receive everything.
A person , a place,once loved,
is loved forever as they shape our very being
into a truer form;show us possibilities,
Transform us,even though,through them.
we make acquaintance with the sadness of loss and grief.
Love and loss our twin polarities that form our souls.
“And the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters”

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You so love me

Only Time... (49854383)
Only Time… (49854383) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 In the sudden hotness of the day

The bench beside the roses seemed set right.

We  talked about the flowers  so sweet  so  gay,

And whether Love is visible to sight,

 

The flowers seemed more beautiful and rare

Than any flower I’ve let  my eyes rest on.

I welcomed them with bold yet merry stare.

Ah,all too soon bright summer will be gone.

 

The sun was at the apex of the sky.

We caught the moment like a netted fish.

And as we looked the broad white clouds blew by.

All we can do is wish and wish and wish,

 

Now back to dishes,socks and “what’s for tea?”

I live so well because so  you love me

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How I wrote this poem

The subject matter of a poem must come from whatever is inside your head.So reading more poetry or any well written literature contributes.The form of the poem may determine what rises to the surface as you write.I got the idea of beginning with a negative from some poetry newsletter I get [Sorry,not kept  reference] I was reluctant to write a sonnet.Iambic pentamet sounds frightening.To help me keep in my the right structure I recite

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

Then I have to start,I think if a first line

“Not love nor money should we seek to steal;”

I like that as there is some alliteration,it’s the right length.and I agree with the sentiment.Once I have a first line then  the next lines seem to come more easily.THe whole sonnet is a surprise to me.Did I know I thought like that?Well,in a way, but r so explicitly.I have written about five now.They do resemble poems by the Metaphysicals like Donne.So I am unsure if I have found my own voice.I think the more one write the more likely it is you will find your own voice.Check the meter.Check for cliches.Check for adverbs used to correct the meter

Read poetry in books,on blogs,on the internet.Study some guides like

Teach yourself:writing poetry.

I like

W H Auden ,,Sylvia Plath,SimonArmitage,Donne,Marvell…..,Shakespeare,Rilke,Seamus Heaney,Hopkins,W B Yeats/

but you really need to read some modern poetry,

bus stop 6

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

Remember any poetry

Which poetry do you remember without trying to learn it?I remember Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll…author of Alice in Wonderland and Island by W H Auden.Also the Lady of Shalott and some of Wordsworth and Shakespeare.I wonder why those?I am glad I did learn some by heart but sometimes my heart has learned them by itself!!