Category: reflections

Where are the boats.the anchor chains?

We stopped outside the gates of the small park
A pool had grown from  heavy  Pennine  rain
A danger to the old  when nights are dark

I leaned on the  old push-chair ,aching heart
My other sister ran around blocked drains
We stayed outside the gates of the small park

She asked, is this the sea, or just a  part?
I said, where are the boats.the anchor chains?
A danger to the old  when nights are dark

She saw a vision  coming from her  heart
She saw Dad cross the ocean leaving wains
I looked  right through the gates of that small park

Oh,Daddy, do not leave us all forlorn
We heard an angel sounding the ram’s horn
We wept  quite near the gates of the small park
The  pool  showed our reflections, they were stark

 

We must be happy or we’ll go to jail

We must be happy or we’ll go to jail
No holy Contemplation  nor deep peace
No ethics,love nor comforting  the frail

Sadness must be hidden from email
Confession disallowed, no humble priest
We must be happy or we’ll go to jail

We must be jovial even when we fail
Who needs to get a First, or a dance in  Grease
No ethics,love nor comforting the frail

Like a slug, we leave a joyous trail
Who needs a decent job or trouser crease?
We must be happy or we’ll go to jail

Yet humans ,even babies,need to wail
From far away  we see the foretold Beast
No ethics,love just save us a four big nails

Why did the Magi come here from the East?
Why drink the wine superior at the Feast?
We must be happy or we’ll go to jail
No ethics,love,no Mother  turning pale

 

 

 

Our own point of view

Why do  some people find it easy to stick to their own point of view whereas others are like chameleons who change to fit in with whoever they are with?I don’t know the full answer.It may depend on their background and in some countries women have to be subservient to men.Some people are just being diplomatic and some are wishing to avoid an argument to find our unique viewpoint and not go along with the crowd.i am not advocating breaking the law by doing/saying offensive things for pleasure.I believe  sometimes I have been lazy and not given thought to a topic and so I agree with another person whom I respect but really that is wrong.Since each of us is unique I believe we need to express our point of  view the best things about artists is that they  look or hear   at the world differently and help us to see the validity of different ways of seeing or listening

 

 

.But when a new artist or composer appears people often believe they are mad at first.This is what happened to Igor Stravinsky at the first performance of some of his music.Yet compared to composers who followed he was quite similar to  those  preceded him.Mahler wrote this music  a  year before the Stravinsky was composed and it is very different

 

 

 

In the road, we played our ancient games

The summer heat made cobblestones like stoves
The Coronation happened, I know now
We played with melted tar, industrial bairns.

My mother’s hands were black and much beloved
The coal and coke had tattooed her, we sa
The summer heat made cobbles hot as stoves.

In the road, we played our ancient games
The older children passed the knowledge down
We played with melted tar, industrial wains.

The bully boys were cruel , did not heed love
A little boy had tried to be a clown
In summer heat, they beat him on the stones.

We were  quiet they flaunted power again;
But in our hearts, we knew we’d let him down
We threw warn melted tar, industrial wains

And in our fantasy, he was alone.
No-one knew who threw the vicious stone
The summer heat made cobbles feel like flames
We played with melted tar, Christ  died again

Don’t let them due you

A Conservative MP was  suspended for using the phrase “The nigger in the woodpile”.

As a  child I heard people say when going shopping, Don’t let them dew you.I didn’t realise they meant “Jew.” I don’t know if adults did but I am ashamed to say it was used very frequently.As a woman, I know all who are not white  anglo saxon men are considered defective is some way and even men don’t have it easy if they are poor, shy or nervous.
As a teenager my brothers refused to let me read the Sunday paper as ” women shouldn’t need to read about politics”, they refuse to let me put a record on  the hi fi as
” I would probably damage it”.I had to iron their clothes while I was doing exams at school.Of course an adult could have intervened but they didn’t and it does have a bad effect.I was 25 before I could afford a  gramophone and play my own 2 records!

While we did homework in the front room one of my brothers played Wagner all the time very loud. I’ve hated it ever since.I was glad to  be able to go to college where I was treated well by everybody.It was wonderful.
And it’s not as bad as what some go through but we don’t reflect enough.

Knit of fear

Suddenly  the winter snow is here
What we desire  does not have any weight
Britain is now covered with new fears

At least the men are far too cold to leer
Wearing shoes that don’t protect their feet
When  the winter snow is  resting here

Babies shiver  as their mothers steer
Down the   unkempt homely little streets
Britain is now covered with new fears

Do I look a clot in  padded gear?
Shall I savour  friends   who’re bittersweet
As the winter snow is  resting here?

Am I  a racist, do you hate  the  Jews?
Shall we drop a bomb  on ghostly fleets?
Britain  revives madness old and new 

In the hills  we hear forlorn sheep bleat
Disappointed. where’s the Paraclete?
Once again  the winter snow is here
Britain  wears a blanket   knit of fears

 

The holiness of slow

The thinner branches wave  like fragile grass
Bewildered by the wind so strong and cold
Like prisoners suffering from a cruel lash

The cat walks by ,the  little hedgehogs pass
So in my winter coat I could be bold
The thinner branches wave  like fragile grass

If only winter travelled very fast
But time is needed for the seeds  to grow
As humble as a  snail on its own path

We humans  too need silence without rush
We must earn the holiness of slow
While thinner  trees  still wave  like fragile grass

In the soil, the worms  pursue their tasks
Eternities of beetles move below
Humble as the  snails on  their own path

Why we’re here  this day we cannot know
Our souls soak in the  silent world below
The thinner branches wave  like fragile grass
We’re not gods. we suffer  from the lash

 

 

My sweet fate


The roses by your gate
Revealed my sweet fate:
That I would love you in summertime,
That my poetry would always rhyme,
That a dream of petals falling from above
Would drench us both with sunshine’s golden love;
That we would fall into deep grassy meadows
Full of daisies,lie on our backs.Swallows
Darting across the sky would see
Our shapes intertwined with bright buttercups.
Who knows when love will erupt
And carry us on its flowing waters
To places unreachable in summer saunters?
Into the eye of love itself

Be silent  hearing  love’s new mysteries

Trying to solve old problems  bothers me
When I’m feeling weak or undermined
As if I could rewrite my history

The past is never dead, but leave it be
Or with  present troubles it combines
Trying to solve old problems  upsets me

In  the  trees  I find tranquility
As  they  give up so let our human minds
We cannot rewrite all our history

Restrain temptation  , drop hostility
Use the fire of anger to refine
The soul and heart and  problems none can see

The Holy One  remembers all we’ve been
Aids the poor as   to them we are blind
Be silent  hearing  love’s  new mysteries

Then having  no real truth  to   cleanse our mind
We  hope  and long for patient, thoughtful  times
Trying to solve old problems  wastes our lives
Time gives new perspectives, we   revive

Just had to play

While the priest annointed him with oils
I played in the gutter all alone
I hoped to find the marbles we had lost
Or from the melted tar to pluck a stone

The summer was so hot the cobbles baked
Looking like a row of fresh made loaves
There were no fishes in the millstreams rush
Nor a place where bread and Saviour rose

I found a florin in the cobbled street
I found two marbles lying near a grid
I found a daisy squashed in a wide crack
I saw a spider hanged in its own web

To summarise ,my father went away
The Queen was crowned and we just had to play

The  feeling is the space between the lines

The spaces in between the words make time
To and fro like waves on the  sea shore
The  feeling is the space between the lines
Why  is there  desire for  many rhymes?
The spaces in between the words mark time
The up and down like music well designed
The abyss may open  when we  can’t endure
The spaces in between the words    become malign
Our lives are  tossed up on a  darkening shore

Once we were two persons in one skin

Once we were two persons in one skin
I held you till your dying was quite done
I felt your loss  like panic deep within

I knew that death would conquer all and win
Now the  blackness took you, death had won
Once we were two persons in one skin

I saw its shadow cunningly get in
I had not known in what form it would come
I felt your loss  like panic from within

They took you to a clinic with a gym
Ignored the signs your dying  had begun
Once we were two persons in one home

I saw the  deadly blackness of your skin
Oxygen and sugar almost gone
I felt your loss  like panic from within

There was no doctor,drip nor  oxygen
You fell onto my  bosom,  all alone
Once we were two persons in one skin

The nurse asked me to help  you to lie down
Then to put some sugar on your tongue
I felt your loss  like panic from within

The paramedics ran in  like mad clowns
You were dead or dying, was I wrong?
Once we were two persons in one skin

They brought you back to life, to die again
They took you  off to A and E , how long?
I felt your loss  like panic from within

Then they phoned, he will not make it home
I sat by him and helped him with my songs
Once we were two persons in one skin

Then catheters and drips,   allover care
He  smiled at me and then he soon was gone
I felt  his loss  like panic deep within

Across the mighty river, pay his fines
I  felt  alone for I was left  behind
Once we were two persons in one skin

All I do is write my little rhymes
To get me  off the river bank alive
I feel  his loss  like  terror deep within

 

In the mud  my mind and body writhe
Can’t I  follow  him  by a deep dive?
Yet I am no master of my soul
The shape of death can’t  make me give control
I stand aloof and will not give  my life
Even though I was a  loving wife
Yet I cannot climb the cliff like edge
The river taunts me as I find a ledge
Why can no-one help me to climb back
From the mud and   from the  hellish rack?
They say I must not weep, it makes them sad
Now my grief  has got me labelled “bad”
Once we were two persons in one skin
I feel his loss ,a  torture deep within

 

 

 

 

Would you be perfect ,agonised unspared?

Would you  be the Chosen of  the Lord
With eyes that see, with ears that hear  the Word
Burdened by  the Tablets ,in great Awe

Would you   ache to feel the Roman sword
To wear a crown of thorns on your head bared
Would you be the Chosen of  the Lord?

Would you like to hear Kind David’s chord
To write the Psalms  which  only grief can bear
To  hear God’s wish  from  Burning Bushes awed?

Would you  persevere   when hunted, scared
No praise for  good,  and tortured, unprepared
Would you be the Chosen of  the Lord?

Would you be perfect ,agonised  unspared
When God has hidden  in a  fox’s lair
Yet may whisper to  the ones with ears?

Would you like to  cleanse the world with tears
To  walk  condemned to death    and no-one cared
Would you be the chosen of  the Lord
To sense his message,  bless us with its awe?

 

 

 

How can it be morning without you?

How can it be morning without you
There is  a hollow  place inside the house 
Vacated  and now filled with nothing new
For who can take the place of a loved spouse?

How can a day begin without your smile
Without your scent like honey from the hills?
What toy or person can a wife beguile:
Would alcohol or  bottles of strange pills?

I feel the pain  in my arthritic joints
I did not know folk lived  like this for years
Who can now my aching  back annoint
Or wipe away the hanging sheet of tears

How can it be  the world  is short of you?
You cannot be replaced by someone new

Just a mo, I’ll put the oven on

I don’t want to walk to the front room
Can I have my dinner on a tray?
I wept inside for he could hardly eat
So thin I thought his backbone might well break
I’ll get you a small table, honeybun
Just a mo, I’ll put the oven on
I want a steak ,he called another day
If he could eat it I would be God’s prey
I can’t  chew it, pet, my stomach’s full
The fluid from the blood, I knew it well
The valve is furred, his blood is being pushed back
Fills his inner organs  swells and racks
I was almost paralysed and stunned
Putting him to bed  was  quite a  pun
Then he woke up from a little sleep
Spoke to me  in words so clear and sweet
You have a personality so bright,
The sun must envy you  your brilliant light
After that he scarcely used his words
We did not need to speak, it was absurd

 

Words unwritten  cannot be erased

Each single word a pointed piece of glass
That splits itself to fragments   and the heart
Thus malediction  like a vampire harms
Our words are  strong ,affecting as they taunt

 The person hurt is damaged even more
Labelled as too sensitive, thin skinned
Shame attracts more violence as we blush
Standing with our face against the wind

 Blaming victims is a strong defence
We are sturdy, they attract  their fate
 The Jews  of Europe were an offering, burnt 
Mostly we will hide the force of  hate

Words unwritten  cannot be  erased
They show themselves upon the hearer’s face

Feel with  the whole body, feel entire

Without the narrow focus of desire
We see a new born world of coloured hue
Our eyes feel  the sensation, gentle touch
Then breathing is much slower in this view

With this text to read why waste our time?
Achievement is not judged nor measured   here
Feel with  the whole body, feel entire
Crumble  not if struck by panic fear

Expansion of our self ,  the muscles ease
Our body softens as we gaze again
Unable to believe all  we  have missed
The inner soul   is rinsed by hiss of rain

Effort and self torment do no good
Succumb  for we are  in the hands of G-d

What is gazing for?

To gaze is   but to love without desire
To be as  satisfied as  with a  meal
To burn  in joy in the eternal fire
To  take, receive and hold  what we can’t steal

To gaze is  but to lose our  central place
To feel a part of  Life in all its forms
The entire world ablaze and full of grace
Able to withstand the  mighty storm

To gaze is but to  be alive and here
To see the new creation every  hour
When childhood’s glory’s  are no longer near
And we no longer wish for total power.

 We gaze and we are touched  inside  our hearts
We  breath  more slowly, feel  our love restart

I wanted  nothing, all was in its place

Gazing at the trees touched me with grace
My eyes receptive ,mind so still and pure
I wanted  nothing more, no list, no place

Would I dare enjoy a human face
To see the lines of suffering long endured?
Gazing at the your eyes touched me with grace

All the anxious details steal our space.
 We cannot gaze afflicted and allured.
 I wanted  nothing more, no wish, no place

If we  lose ourselves, become engrossed
We gaze with joy ,with colour we’re imbued
Gazing at the trees ,oh green their grace

The  dignity of  art is unimposed
Majestic in its heart, we take our cue
Then want no more, our wish dissolves, exposed

Lying on the earth so warm. so new
I  fertilised, delight in  being you.
Gazing at the trees my heart was graced
I wanted  nothing, all was in its place

Reverie is in deficit by law

What is inconsistent gives us pause
Reverie is in deficit by law
Brings images  divergent from art’s laws

Our language  is abstracted  by the jaws
The mouth and tongue make murmurings that swirl
What is inconsistent gives us pause

A child that speaks too early is annoyed
She’s taken from her senses, by words hurled
Can an image   trespass in art’s laws?

He said he loved me then abused my voice
He changed what I had written to his pearls
What is inconsistent  must give  pause

He said he loved me ,offered no real choice
Our culture  makes us  hide what  may unfold
Those expectations  anchored by love’s awe

Greed  exaggerates what we are told
Come inside and shelter, it is cold
What is inconsistent gives us pause
Like tube maps  split from geography with cause

As the entire globe is burning bright

Our politics is changing like wild weather
The rain so heavy soaked  my   flecked tweed coat
Then the sun came back  as gay as ever

I wish I were down deep in Ilkley’s   heather
 Near the  haunted moors of Wuthering Heights
Our politics is violent like the weather

A criminal now leads as people gather
In impressive thunder  and strange light
When the sun comes back we’ll get some offers

A little child shall lead us  despite scoffers
Now the Amazon is burning bright
Our politics is violent like the weather

We have our own home grown dictator
He betrayed   us like the  immigrants in flight
The English Channel is such tempting water

We need some braver people   to ignite
Debates about what’s wrong and how to right
Bad  politics is crueller  than bad weather
Will the sun came back ? In hell, I gather

 

 

The sea sings wild

 

 

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The red leaves in the sunshine seem to smile
A pale blue sky, a silver aeroplane
I’m happy,I am warm, in your arms coiled

I  have no heater but the kettle  boiled
I made us coffee   then my  parcel  came
My face in the small mirror  had a smile

My love is deep, you never were on trial
If we quarrel, we both share the blame
I’m happy,I am warm, in your arms coiled

Our sorrow is, we have not made a child
Jesus cursed the fig tree in its shame
Yet red leaves in the sunshine seem to smile

Sorrow need not  madden nor make  bold
We do not know the purpose  nor the game
I’m happy,I am warm now as I toil

We need old fashioned virtues like restraint
We don’t see the whole  as life we paint
The red leaves in the sunshine seem to smile
I’m happy,I am warm, the sea sings  wild

The bitter cloud we feel envelops us

 

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The bitter cloud we feel envelops us
When friends are short and noone seems to smile
Is smaller than  the breath of the white dove

Do we envy  others who find love?
They may suffer inwardly  the while
Sad, bitter clouds some days can wrap us up

 

 

As Jesus in the Garden drained his cup
He shivered, groaned, but was not filled with bile
Sheltered  by  the   fluttering winged  dove.

His eyes too wet, to see the clouds above
He felt   the anguish   of a lost,small child
The bitter clouds  were broken by  his love

The storm would fail, the prophets hear no voice
God  is weeping  at  our human  wiles
Who dwells  within the breath of  holy doves?

Life may seem too dark , we want to fall
The hands of God are  caught in  new built walls
The bitter cloud we feel envelops us
It’s  self torment, it’s  profitless ,seek Good.

 

How can the world be here, yet he is not?

How can the world be here yet he is not
While beetles, ants and spiders   pass this way?
As my hungry fears I try to blot
How can the world be here yet he is not?
Whether it be cold or be it hot
No more words between us are begot
I must go through the narrow gate  today
How can the world be here , yet he is not,
As beetles, ants and spiders   pass this way?

 

If we can’t make distinctions, the world does not exist

If everything is relative and nothing’s true or false
We can’t make distinctions, the world does not exist
Meaning leaks out faster than a a list of all our faults

The patient is unconscious but  he/she  has a pulse
Waiting for the Coming of the Saviour or the Beast
But everything is relative and nothing’s true or false

We think  existential problems will be solved by someone else
In the Vomitorium the leaders have their Feast
Meaning leaks out faster by decision or default

The Leader’s being neutered;the people get more tense
Then s/he went to Downing Street  to get themself more pissed
Drunkenness is relative ; the reading’s not the best

There is still  a Dictionary; the words do not make sense
We fall  into chaos but we don’t know Them we’ve missed
Meaning leaks out faster as we  do not love pretence

I went  to have my Orals,but they asked me to desist
Every system’s incomplete,I wrote it on my wrist
If everything is relative and nothing’s true or false
Meaning  has no meaning; what will we all do next?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Europe is corrupt

Beyond  the image, man dwells now abject
We treated fellow creatures worse than worms
We do not talk of genocide, such tact.

What we can’t yet know, in us reacts
Europe is in trauma,I’m informed
Beyond imagination dwell  those acts

God   is  outside language,  he’s no fact
We can’t digest  the meaningless unformed
We do not dwell on genocide, such tact.

 

The  gypsies innocent were cruelly wracked
The men  who loved another man were burned
Beyond  the image, man dwells now abject

 

The s ghosts of Auschwitz  weep as Europe  coughs.
The past’s an old compartment in the train
We do not feel that genocide, what  lack

 

Oh, to wind the film back till we learn
Killing, torture, gassing,  we must mourn
Beyond  the image man dwells now abject
Enlightenment , ambivalent ,  has cracked

A play too far

The loss  had struck me down like a wild car
It jumped  the reservation by a fluke
Then landed  where the lost  were passing by

We crawl away, we’re bleeding ,we want air
The sense of what has passed is in some book
Loss  will strike us down like a wild car.

My heart ached like an abscess  on a scar
My eyes were wide but still I  could still not look
As the lame  were passing  with their sighs

I seemed  to drop onto a stage bizarre
A drama  being enacting as I shook
The loss  had tossed me up, an iron bar

I  must play my part, that’s how things are.
The waves of  loss whirl round like skipping ropes
The sad were passing  with their   shuttered eyes

Getting washed and dressed, I felt remote
Yet  love still spurred me on  to hope for hope
The loss  had struck me down like a wild car
Accelerating  till it   threw me f out past “far”

 

 

 

 

When will it be history not News?

No-one mentioned we must mourn the Jews
They were Europeans  and well skilled
What treasure Europe lost’s not on the News

We can’t lay waste  the world, blow up the fuse
Can we ever raise enough good will?
No-one mentioned we’ve not mourned  our Jews

We wander now in madness well confused
All we know is money and the till
What treasure Europe lost’s not on the News

All the  offspring  unconceived,unviewed
Would Europe be so crazed  were they here still? 
No-one mentioned we’ve not mourned   the Jews

Jesus was no Christian, but a Jew
His  eyes are bleeding as  he’s gassed in hell
No wonder Europe’s lost  the  chosen few

To Western minds , the  Word’s not fully formed
The Word came down in Palestine  not Rome.
No-one bore the pain   nor helped the Jews
What treasure Europe lost, those left  abused.

After being hurt we hide away

After being hurt we hide away
We turn down invitations  feeling blue
Ashamed to show our anguish or be prey

Behind a wall of glass we live our days
Thinking   others know the hidden clue 
After being hurt, we hide away

We miss the help of sharing or of prayer
Out skin feels thin, we agonise and stew
Ashamed to show our anguish or be prey

The way we feel is common, it’s not rare
We need to know that others suffer too
After being hurt, we hide away.

Our suit of armour stiffens , won’t repair
Retaliation   banish, don’t pursue
Enraged by our  own anguish we feel prey

Is there anyone who will rescue
The people who  to grudges cling like glue
After being hurt we hide away
Ashamed to show our anguish or be prey

Where force rules. love has no grounds

Once women to  a  man were bound
We could not vote nor own  nor lease
Where force rules. love has no grounds

Our menstrual blood  made us unsound
We scrubbed the linen, killed the louse
Once women to  a  man were bound

The older women passed hints down
Dealt with men who tried to pounce
Where force rules. love has no grounds

There were abortions, underground
Girls might die  without a spouse
Once women to  a  man were bound

As the world goes on its  rounds
The strong play games  like cat and mouse
Where force rules. love has no grounds

Disorder comes up from the past
In the night we feel the ghosts
If  anyone  is calm and  kind
Force rules less and love gains ground.

 

 

 

 

Now I am  old and I have realised

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Once I  cared for people who were old
Who wet themselves and  felt the winter cold
I gave them baths and washed their backs  and fronts
Helped them to get dressed and  zip their pants

I made them pots of tea and gave them cake
I gave them dinner  on a china plate
I listened to their stories of the past
An unknown world of war and  terrors vast

And if they cried I’d wipe away their tears
Talk to them  till sorrow disappeared
I’d   do the washing up and  clean the knives
The women missed their being someone’s wife

Now I am  old and I  have realised
I really had no feel for what it’s like.