An artist’s canvas stretched, a matricide

Saturday was shopping then a walk
Epping,Ongar,Finchingfield by car
Reading book reviews and chewing stalks
Buttercups and meadows,Henry Moore

Driving back from Chelmsford, cornfields flamed
Smoke and fire and earth, the sun dismayed
Farmers working hard,  a harvest, grain
The sky  through mist a cobalt  blue displayed

Standon with its fords and wandering cows
Little rivers,Essex, flowing down
The Stort joins with the Lea,a gurglimg sound
Water for the Thames  and mossy ground

The earth feels like my body sacrificed
An artist’s canvas stretched , a matricide

 

Into a little crack  a seed may fall

Hiding in between two  garden shrubs
A little  fruiting tree has grown unseen
Now it’s filled with blossom humbly borne
That decorates the patient garden green

I see it with delight from up above
The window gives me visions ,maps of space
I see the blackbirds, hear them sing at dusk
Now all nature finds its proper place

Into a little crack  a seed may fall
A tree grows up and cracks the paving stones
Thus are the mighty broken,scattered, scorned
All they leave are  heaps of whitened bone

The humble may be raised  without request
The proud  are filled with hatred of the rest

From the bitter winter of the heart






We  feel the bitter winter of the heart
The icy hand ,the cruel teeth’s sharp bite
When close friends die, when lovers break apart

Terse,cruel words can make our deep self smart
The weak have  little power to make things right
So feel the bitterest winter of their hearts

Humans may like fruit be much too tart
Thus fantasied revenge  can  blind with light
As close friends die or false lovers depart

While we suffer, we seek maps and charts
Which path to  follow,which leads us aright
From  the bitter winter of the heart?

The muscles clench, the ligaments are taut
Faces frown, in mirrors demons  shriek
If close friends die or lovers haste to part

The pain of loss, the tears that agitate
The mental functions,all have gone on strike
Stricken in  the  winter of the heart

Retaliation , bitter, wants to fight.
Yet we have little time to see the Light
We   curse the bitter winter of the heart
Instinct, humbler. finds for us new charts

No words existed in its welcome hold

Struggling in the black of sinking sands
As I heard of when a little child
I gave up hope and let myself descend

My garments as a mourner I did rend
Death itself was shown me and beguiled
Struggling in the black of sinking sand

Far away from loved ones ,with no friend
The suffering of the past seemed almost mild
I gave up hope and let myself descend

I felt from every heaven I had been banned
With demons  of the Nazis  in exile
Struggling in the black of sinking sand

I am not inclined to make demands
Yet then  a mystic light caressed my soul
I  had lost my hope and feared  the end

This  golden light  enwrapped me like a stole
No words existed in its welcome hold
Struggling in the black of sinking sands
I was lifted out by  unknown hands

 

I did not lift my head

Drawn towards the tunnel deep and dark

if I entered then my life was done 

My voice was mute my choices few and stark

I looked for help but no help  had then come 

Paralysed by grief and fear I stayed

The time went by and I sat still and dumb

I did not lift my head nor say a prayer.

Until I learned a golden light had  come

I was wrapped in love and comfort warm.

No words were spoken yet I seem to hear

I felt absorbed in love and held in calm.

Turn back to Life he said for I am near.

He changed my heart because it had turned black

Love had entered through  a little crack

Oh, gentle Light

I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time
You did not converse with me in words
You were simply present with your Light

Nowhere did I feel your power and might
You were no eagle, but a little bird
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time.pp

Who made our language with its subtle rhymes?
The ancient people had their well trained Scribes
You were always there,oh gentle Light

You gave me warmth, you changed my too fixed sight
A comforter , a Spirit, how describe?
I ‘ll try to get it right a final time.

The agony inside me lost its bitep
I wanted to go on, to be alive
You do not always show your golden Light

We do not know when we at last arrive
We do not reach this meeting place by strife
I ‘ve tried to get it right this final time
I never saw such Gold until that night

Choose not death

The crushing grief when someone chooses death
When life had shown much promise and much hope
Turns the ones who loved to find new paths

Some may sin, encouraged by cruel wrath
Against the one who chose the wicked rope
The shock of grief at such too early death

Others freeze and cannot take a breath
Scarcely moving as their mind elopes
Making then impossible their path

The mountains of deep grief I could not pass
Until a warm gold light caressed my0 heart
The wounds of grief , the sacrifice, the Mass

Do not dwell in darkness and distress
Follow me he murmured while we start
I will help you find a different path

The golden light had brought for me a chart
The sea of life had ripples ,brilliant sparks
The suffering and the grief from such a death
Turned the one who loved onto this path.

When my mind is still confused by sleep

When my mind is still confused by sleep
I’m so relaxed ,I’m full of hopeful dreams
The sudden shocks of memory make me weep
The feelings of my love are strong and deep
But when with strangers I must be discreet
Avoid the talk of men and wily schemes
When my mind is still confused by sleep
I living my world of joyful dreams

For some invite me to a dating site
And some avoid me, dreading I may weeo

ear my glowing eyes so clear and bright
Still visible without electric light
They think I’ll pull their man with all my might
So now I try to look wild and unkempt
Lest some invite me to a dating site,
And some reject me fearing I will tempt.

That village Street

Standon church, the village and the ford

How the eye will wander as it stares

Lazy cows stand idly by the gate

How deep silence holds and melts our cares.

The heavy load of work, the children’s gaze.

The weight of coppers spoils the father’s clothes

The cake stand gleams, sadistically exposed

The cat sleeps on,while BarclaysBank is closed

We left the car beside the butcher’s shop

Climbed up to the church his mother moaned

She  enjoyed the view  down this long Street.

Despite the aching of her twisted toes.

Now they’re gone and I stand here alone

I see your face, your eyes,your smiling bones

Essex cornfields

Saturday was shopping then a walk Epping,Ongar,Finchingfield by car

Reading book reviews and chewing stalks

Buttercups and meadows,Henry Moore

Driving back from Chelmsford, cornfields flamed

Smoke and fire and earth, the sun dismayed

Farmers working hard, a harvest, grain

The sky through mist a cobalt blue displayed

Standon with its fords and wandering cows

Little rivers,Essex, flowing down

The Stort joins with the Lea,a gurglimg sound

Water for the Thames and mossy ground

The earth feels like my body sacrificed

The artist’s canvas stretched ,a matricide

The burning stubble , earth’s deep fires

  1. Oh,doctor I  have a brought a sample
    I hope you will find it ample
    There is no coffee left today
    Drink my sample, then we’ll pray

    If I’ve got a new infection
    Can’t you give me more protection?
    My immune system’s  gone on away
    And I have to write a Play

    No Shakespeare  am I as yet
    No bookmaker’s taking bets
    But if I write a sonnet new
    What will all the critics do?

    Meantime I get up at night
    Stumble to the bathroom bright
    I don’t know why my pee’s  so green
    Now it is aquamarine

    Green the sea at Hythe in Kent
    Down the Saxon cliffs we went
    The burning stubble , earth’s deep fires
    The inner work  that purifies

    Steep,steep road in our old car
    Smoke around us  where we were
    From the depths my soul cries out
    The cry is answered , do we  doubt?

    As we reach the lowness deep
    In our conscious mind we weep
    When we touch the lowest place
    We will    feel, angelic grace

    So the symbol  of  deep fires
    Filled my mind as we drove by
    Glory , for the Burning Bush
    Burned again  as stubble’s crushed

 

Destruction  of all our intent
Is itself a  sacrament
For it makes an empty space
Where  new creation can take place

Symbols in literature

photo1337

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Best%20Symbols%20in%20Poetry%20and%20Literature.htm
Excerpts from “More Poems”
by A. E. Housman

XXIII

Crossing alone the nighted ferry
With the one coin for fee,
Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,
Count you to find? Not me.

The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,
The true, sick-hearted slave,
Expect him not in the just city
And free land of the grave.

Charon’s ferry symbolizes the transition from life to death, or dying. The “one coin” is the obulus, which symbolizes death: the ultimate cost of mortal life. The river Lethe symbolizes forgetfulness, oblivion and concealment, as the dead are concealed from the living, and vice versa. The grave is also symbolic of death. In this poem the river Styx symbolizes death; although it is not explicitly named, we can infer it. In Greek mythology, Charon’s ferry carried the newly dead from the land of the living across the River Styx to Hades, the realm of the dead. It may interest Christians to know that Hades was not “hell,” as Hades incorporated heavenly regions such as the Elysian Fields and the Blessed Isles. Y

 
Sonnet 147
by William Shakespeare

My love is as a fever, longing still [1]
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest.
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are, [11]
At random from the truth vainly expressed,
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as Hell, as dark as night. [14]

This is one of Shakespeare’s famous “Dark Lady” sonnets. It employs simile, a type of metaphor in which comparisons are introduced by “like” or “as” (please refer to lines one, eleven and fourteen).

Being alive unchosen may be worse

If you think of Auschwitz think of this

Your children will not die by means of gas

All of us will walk that final path

But we have lived our lives so on we pass

The Jews of Europe killed without a word.

The death of God no longer feels absurd

What they might have given forever lost.

Prescription murder,there will be a cost.

As we walk around in obscene dress

The rational and objective caused this mess

Be thankful that our God did not choose us.

Yet being unchosen and alive is worse.

Who commands these viruses like flu?

 Who commands these viruses  like flu?
Consternation makes our hearts feel blue
Do we have a lifeboat or an Ark?
The situation does feel rather stark

Who  decided we could work while sick?
Our energy depleted , brains feel think
Decisions  so important  need clear minds
Not one both  unravelling and blind

We  travel  round the globe, a virus ride
Our garments are as louche as fratricide
We snap some photos of the Golden Dome
Then jump on a plane and turn to Rome

Why not stay in Britain  or in France?
The piper plays but  only demons dance

The ladder

I fear  to stand up  tall on this new earth
One hand is on the ground,  my back is bent
Shivering fear, excitement, what’s  this birth?

I climbed , like Wittgenstein, a ladder’s worth
Then threw the ladder down   as my assent
I fear  to stand up  tall on this new earth

Far away, so far, the time of mirth
For sometime a lover I was lent
Shivering fear, excitement, what’s  this birth?

I wonder can I walk ,this step the first
 Love may die and who shall then repent?
I fear  to stand up  tall on this new earth

I see myself in black, the window’s bust
A man climbs out  uncut by accident
Shivering wonder, what allures  such birth?

I see in my mind’s eye  the incident
I  learn to balance  gravity with  sense
I desire  to stand on this new earth
Shivering, wonder, is it birth or curse?

When after death I lie deep in the earth

O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat
When after death I lie in deep in the earth
My bosom,hands and eyes  become your meat

You have no sun as you enjoy your feast
And none is  chosen as we were at birth
O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat

All of us are equal in defeat
None are high or low , what are we worth?
My brain,my hands,my eyes  become worms’ meat

In the soil, we rest  in comfort sweet
Let us all be blessed,God  make no curse
You made the happy worms who   will  us  eat

O  remember the deep  ash from Auschwitz’ heat
The little children killed without Kaddish
Those  hearts ,those hands, those eyes   no worm   could eat

,
Why should we  be satisfied by wish

When  people burn or starve  beside our dish
O Godly worm that of  my flesh might eat
Let my very self  become your meat

Praise these creatures in the grime

Winter weather, frost, grey sky,
See white geese and silver stars.
Two cooing doves with collars red,
Are watching out for seeded bread.

From the sun, low in the sky,
Light falls slantwise to my eyes.
Trees bud, though invisibly,
Nothing that our 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 can love 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,
Amidst the poppies’   wild red  blooms.
So we forget all winter’s gloom
.

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

Wild Geese

Leaves have gone so suddenly
Small birds float on the wind
Like boats astride a choppy sea.
Their swaying soothes my mind.

Wild geese fly past at dusk again,
They head towards the North.
The holly berries glow in sun,
Nature gives joy birth.

I gaze intently at the sky,
The clouds hang dark and low.
If I too were a mere wild goose
I’d know which way to go

But I am left with only words
To find my destination.
Yet words do carry down to us
Wisdom from past generations

We use old words in unique ways.
We structure them to form
A new design not seen before
A new sentence is born

I send my words with love to you
I hope you safely catch them.
Give me answers from your heart
And I’ll do my best to match them.

Geese fly by

I like this old poem I wrote 10 years ago when I had no idea what I was doing.The last two lines surprised me.I reaised
that poetry is not logic



brown and white goose on clear water
Photo by Denis Linine on Pexels.com






 It’s Autumn weather, geese fly by;
Autumn rust,red,gold,so gay.

Drystone walls, edging fields,

Apples gathered,holly berries

Flash so brightly

Look like flowers

Sun shines sideways,shadows long

Of trees appear I dwell among

Woods of gentle beeches sing

Swaying with the sideward wind.

See their roots, all intertwined.

Feel their geometry in the mind.

Look up now into the sky,

See the V formation high.

Geese fly home at end of day.

My heart is moved by patterned dance

In this peace and great silence

My mind opens like the sky

And in this moment I would die,

So I could stay with this still vision

Of geese set out on autumn mission.

Snails in rain pools slither near

My feet upon the terrace here

And look,upon their whorled backs

All the sense of life is packed.

And yet so easily Life’s destroyed,

When blind foot steps into the void.

Love’s victory

Turn back, live again, he asked of me
Do not wander in this darkness anymore
One false step might give death victory

We are each connected to that tree
The sunlit top, the roots hid in earth’s floor
Come back, live again, he asked of me

While we live, we’ll live with dignity
Not scrabbling for the gold in blood and gore
One false step will give death victory

The kindness of the golden light was clear
And left an image in my mind’s deep core
Come back, live your life, he then soothed me

Do not wonder now why you are here
We’re here to live and living shall restore
What our suffering self has found so dear

I had never seen the Light before
Only Christ the Tyger with his roar
Come back, live through pain, he asked of me
One right step will give love victory

Love will need no trick

In my despair I felt that I was stuck
Paralysed by  grief and guilt I failed
By the end I had tried every trick

From prayer unthought to deeps of logic black
My  life, my engine ,juddered off the  rails
I hated God and of “his” Church was  sick

Starving  and alone I was in shock
The death of one I loved   had made me frail
By the end I had tried every trick


I felt  Love’s arms around me,  death was blocked
I knew   this goodness,  why else would I wail?
I   thought I hated God  but Love had struck

Warm and golden light  that  did me hold
Where are you now when Evil has grown bold?
Kind despair  that  made me long time sit
By the end I learned Love needs no trick

Oh, gentle Light

I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time
You did not converse with me in words
You were simply present with your Light

Nowhere did I feel your power and might
You were no eagle, but a little bird
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time.

Who made our language with its subtle rhymes?
The ancient people  had their well trained Scribes
You were always there,oh gentle Light

You  gave me warmth, you  changed my too fixed sight
A comforter , a Spirit, how describe?
I ‘ll try to get it right a final time.

The agony inside me lost its bite
I wanted to go on, to be alive
You  do not always show your golden Light

We do not know  when we at last arrive
We do not reach this  meeting place by strife
I ‘ve tried to get it right this final time
I never saw such  Gold until that night

Oh,sweeter than the love of man

· 

Inside my mind I dream of pearls,
Caterpillars,snails with whorls.
I dream contented, all enwrapped;
With reverie and dream I’m lapped.
The inner seas will comfort me,
While gods refine my eyes to see

Oh,sweeter than confectionery
Is my Oxford diction’ry.
The words whirl round then fall to shape
The sentences which my world make.
This furnishing is rich and strange
And magically self arranged.

Oh,sweeter than the love of man
Is reading works of poets long gone;
Feeling deeply their dark tides
.Upon which our boat may glide.
The infinite sea we float upon
Is the same warm sea the ancients swam


Sweeter still is the spring air
And the blossom spreading fair
We’ll drown our selves in grassy fields
To the gods of poetry yield.


We’ll rise again and spring up tall
To grow more rich until we fall.
Then we’re compost for the worms
God enlighten these my poems

Eden for 1-hour

I remember everything you said

As we lay together in our bed

The light of joy lit up my heart and soul

I remember everything we did

On the happy night that we were wed

Fulfilment in our very bones is bred

And from our minds the devils have all fled

As we’re taken back into the fold.

For one small hour in Eden we were glad.

The hatred and the pain for now are shed

With love and hope our lives can be more bold.

Even now when you have gone from sight

I miss

I miss the cat that slept upon my bed.

I miss my husbands presence in the night

I miss the words of Love from him who’s dead.

I miss the cat that slept upon my bed

For God is dead unless I find new light

The lonely darkness fills my soul with dread.

I missed the man that slept with me in bed

I miss his presence in the dead of night

Creating tragic plays and untold wars

In my sleep I dream my unthought thoughts

Creating tragic plays and loathsome wars

I feel the feelings which i have not sought

Healing is not created with an ought

Neither does it come from Santa Claus

In my sleep I dream my unthought thoughts

When I waken up my dreams feel short

They’re more akin to poetry than prose

I feel strange feelings which I have not sought

I feel the pain in my unclothed heart

How little children suffer loss uncaused

In my sleep I dream my unthought thoughts.

I will feel the feelings I abhorr

This is love and we must feel far more

In my dreams I think my unthought thoughts

I will feel the feelings I’ve not sought

Than the song of birds,he had the words

He ‘d held me in his arms and said,
what I had never read,
That life is more than learned discourse.
So as he spoke, I watched his face
And his rich dark eyes;of course
His eyes gave out such natural force
More strong and subtle than the song of birds.
Yes,almost like a poet’s words
In how he moved me like no other man;
No matter how they think they can,
They lose the step and do not dance
And never ever chance
A leap when they might lift me high
Above their head. I’d want to fly.
Yes,the form and feeling give an extra note
To express those feelings more remote…..
We do not need to speak or write
We have both touch and our eye sight.
And yet our human discourse is a need
An anchor,lest the current’s speed
Should crash us down on Coniston,
And we’d be gone.
Just write it down
A verb ,a noun..
A string of sighs,our mouths,our eyes.
A paragraph that never dies,
within your finger tips and cries
For pen and paper and my wish to save
Some part of you,some heart some art

far beyond your grave.

Your gaze.

My days

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 long to see your face just one more time.

I long to see your face just one more time.
I didn’t know that day  would be the last.
I can’t create the real by using rhyme.

You’d  smoke a cigarette  and write some lines
About the mountains that we’d  climbed or  passed
I long to see your face just one more time.

On Ingleborough  we had made designs
But heavy rain came down and we were lost
I can’t create the real by using rhyme.

We turned around as if it were a crime,
For we knew  such decisions have a cost
I long to see your face just one more time.

I teased you  on the muddy  slopes  in mime
I could not speak for I had seen  your ghost
I can’t create the real by using rhyme.

 

In Dent  or  up in Teesdale  will you come?
Or  by  scarred boats in Staithes,  eternal rest?
I long to see your face just one more time.
I can’t create the real by using rhyme.

 

 

 

Sailing like a flower across the sky

I spent my life on books on how to live
Then  when death was near I really did
I saw the little smile on my friend’s face
I saw the shining eyes, the lost embrace
I gathered up these books and threw them out
I wasted time in thought  and curious doubt
Let’s leave our heads alone and use our sense
To hear a bird sing to enthrall his spouse
To see  a swallow dip and fly away\
To see a  little orange butterfly

Sailing like a flower across the sky
The silken skin of children and  their glee

When father stops to  show them the cat’s flea
The smile of mother, her security
Containing all their woe  transformed and free
To  gather in sweet memories  of joy
Noone else can know what  our life ‘s for

Blythburgh thoughts

Today is yellow ochre, damped to grey
Not much contrast from the soft silk sky
No birds nor any brightness, light won’t play

The ones who act so manic are not gay
If there is no truth, there are no lies
Today is yellow ochre, damped to grey

On our backs on Sutton Bank we lay
My acts outcry, my grief I shall defy
No birds nor any life. the light won’t play

Who is born a hunter.who the prey?
The lion has lost the unicorn nearby
Today is yellow ochre, damped to grey

I think of brexit, oh the blush,the shame
The spirits flatten;rise up,do not die
No birds nor any life, the light won’t play

I wonder what the loss is or the gain
I wish we were in Suffolk by the Bly
Today is yellow ochre, damped to grey
No birds, no life ,I’m languid, would you stay?

s

Poetry and lovely images