Category: sonnet

Coming back to earth is very hard

Coming back to earth is very hard
When a loved one’s gone, the heart feels charred
You took them to  the gate but had to leave
And now you know at last you are bereaved

Why get better, what is there left now?
The Holy One has vanished,gone somehow
Should there not be sentries of the heart
To pull one back  before it is too late

Maybe cruelty’s kinder to those left
To punish us when we feel we’re bereft
Is there noone else when God  has gone
Taking in his arms your most loved one?

The form  may be grammatical and  right
Yet what it says is nonsense  in daylight

Spent a lifetime hanging off a ledge

Ah,rebellious spirit wanting space
With my finger on the map I paced
I climbed Helvellyn, fell off Striding Edge
Spent a lifetime hanging off a ledge

Meanwhile our kind teacher twittered on
Thomas Hardy, Hopkins., we were numb
She never mentioned she saw my escape
The way the nuns  hurt me, the bitter rape

I slipped  on High White Stones and almost  dropped
My feet were dangling off the  fearsome rocks 
No-one knew for I was climbing last
Know me  please but never learn my past

How quickly life has  run since I could climb
Now I merely sit here draped in rhymes

Lit by raging  fires  on holy lands

Gravity    pulls us to this earth of ours
Where grace is needed  for the heart to flower
The need for roots is what each person feels
Yet how can roots grow through a floor of steel?

Settlement in legal terms means peace
Agreement reached and hatred will soon cease
What  name exists for taking land not ours
The occupier pays no price,  he has  the power

The British Empire   leaves a trail of death
Pakistan and India split by wrath
Balfour  did not care for Arab lives
Jewish people fell to genocide

Lit by raging  fires  on holy lands
Burning children  cannot understand

i

Fiery air

Autumn time in Essex  where we drove
When farmers burned the stubble of the corn
The earth itself was  fiery  like young love
The smokey air rose like a  cloud  new born

The Kentish  landlocked   cliffs  are  wide and steep
The farmers grow  their grain on land beneath
And there too we  have seen the holy fire
The flames  and smoke arrest me with desire

The earth and soil, the  harvest  we find there
Give me joy  both full of wheat or bare
Why did burning stubble   make me glow?
These images affect the heart’s deep core

Now  fires are banned., they damage our pure air
And I   did not like the murder of the hare

Coming back to earth is very hard

Coming back to earth is very hard
When a loved one’s gone, the heart feels charred
You took them to  the gate but had to leave
And now you know at last you are bereaved

Why get better, what is there left now?
The Holy One has vanished,gone somehow
Should there not be sentries of the heart
To pull one back  before it is too late

Maybe cruelty’s kinder to those left
To punish us when we feel we’re bereft
Is there noone else when God  has gone
Taking in his arms your most loved one?

The form  may be grammatical and  right
Yet what it says is nonsense  in daylight

Fiery air

Autumn time in Essex  where we drove
When farmers burned the stubble of the corn
The earth itself was  fiery  like young love
The smokey air rose like a  cloud  new born

The Kentish  landlocked   cliffs  are  wide and steep
The farmers grow  their grain on land beneath
And there too we  have seen the holy fire
The flames  and smoke arrest me with desire

The earth and soil, the  harvest  we find there
Give me joy  both full of wheat or bare
Why did burning stubble   make me glow?
These images affect the heart’s deep core

Now  fires are banned., they damage our pure air
And I   did not like the murder of the hare

Its lack of elegance  offends my eye

Loneliness is only known to man
When he burns the  copper  frying pan
From the marriage bed he’s tossed  aside
For pans are more important to a wife

Yet if she  breaks  their  lovely china plates
He is not allowed to castigate
Oh,men! That is a phrase I hate
Generalising is a crude mistake

Now I  am alone, I’ve burned  eight pans
I broke the dinner plates with  careless plans
I broke the special mugs we  loved so much
All because I missed his soothing touch

The memories fill my heart with  love and light
In  my dreams he comes into my sight

Fiery air

Autumn time in Essex  where we drove
When farmers burned the stubble of the corn
The earth itself was  fiery  like young love
The smokey air rose like a  cloud  new born

The Kentish  landlocked   cliffs  are  wide and steep
The farmers grow  their grain on land beneath
And there too we  have seen the holy fire
The flames  and smoke arrest me with desire

The earth and soil, the  harvest  we find there
Give me joy  both full of wheat or bare
Why did burning stubble   make me glow?
These images affect the heart’s deep core

Now  fires are banned., they damage our pure air
And I   did not like the murder of the hare

THE MEMORY LASTS

midsummer days evoke the trancelike past
where children played in joyous, daisied fields
with buttercups so bright the memory lasts
a freedom that our conscious growth will steal.

those stones and leaves and many coloured flowers
were gathered into images that glow
yet later we forget those treasured hours
when for a while we lived in life’s deep flow

we did not look and see,but felt at one
we lived as did the birds high in the trees
now we write , experiencing has gone
we cannot live like flowers filled with bright bees

to lose ourselves in nature is a joy
which to our adult selves we must restore

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 breaks grey 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

Theatre forms the soul

When the fruit has rotted on the stalk
Bruised and broken like the poor in need
When leaders meet but rarely truly talk
When children caught in cross fire lie and bleed

Don’t we see God’s Kingdom is a joke
Ones hundred million lj bodies broke
They lost once and love dies in ktheir gore

Utopia, evolution, grandiose plans
Sacrifice yourself for those to come
We saw the little children hand in hand
Ground mines blow them up, they could not run

One thing’s clear, God’s here or not at all
The future’s fiction, yet I hear its callt

rvr

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

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

Just watch a single leaf as it unfurls

What kind of camera shows the changing light
Upon the yellow blossom as it waves?
The wind has dropped ,the breeze is here, but slight
And on the flowers I in languor gaze

The red leaves of the acers now unfurl-
Two side by side but different in their glow.
The light accentuates  them as they curl
Gives them time to unwind  and be slow.

Without the breeze the colour  varies less.
It’s flatter, less like Monet, yet still bright.
And as a grey cloud  sags across the West
It puts my dreams of colour into flight.

Yearn not for special tools to catch the world.
Just watch a single leaf as it unfurls

Mary meets her neighbours

img_20191128_114104

Sitting on the high backed,v Ercol sofa in the large sitting room of her new neighbours Tom an n jn n n nnnd Edina, Mary sipped at the PG Tips tea she had been given in a pseudo-art deco mug.The tea tasted pseudo as well!

Would you like some delicious cake,Mary? Edina asked her rather loudly
Mary jumped.
Oh excuse me, my nerves are all on edge, she cried.I’d love some home made cake
Edina took out a penknife and cut a slice of the large cake.Alas it was coffee flavoured and Mary was not fond of that.This was agony to her especially coffee flavoured butter cream filling as she liked all the other flavours..Suffering from this is a new psychiatric disorder called uncakeophilia disorder
Why are you using a penknife in here ,Tom asked his wife angrily.We have lots of kitchen knives and other silver ones
I found it on the floor,Edina said pensively
I don’t suppose you washed it, Tom answered wildly
Mary leaned back and shut her eyes for a moment.I hate noise, she thought.
No, dirt is good for the immune system, Edina murmured
What rubbish, you are so lazy I can’t believe it! her husband told her.
After 39 years you should be used to it,Edina told him sensibly.Who made all these new curtains and vacuumed the roof? she went on languidly
Did you vacuum the roof in your last house,Mary asked her?
We lived in a flat before so I never had to do it.
Well, it’s unnecessary,Mary said , why not learn Esperanto?
Where do people speak that?
I have no idea but it’s a language,Mary cried decisively
But can it really be a language if it’s not the native tongue of any country?,
Well Yiddish is a language yet few people speak it,Tom told them
It would be difficult for the dead to speak,Mary said in a sad voice
It used to be spoken by millions of people in Central and Eastern Europe.
Why didn’t Hitler teach them English,asked Edina?
You think he only hated their language,said Tom in surprise.I’ve never heard that before.
It is bloody ridiculous,Mary said in her soft yet vibrant voice…he didn’t kill them because of their language and they spoke German as well,Maybe even French,Polish and other tongues
Just then they heard a strange choking sound .It was Emile the talking tomcat trying to get out of Mary’s large plastic handbag
Good grief ,Tom shouted.Did we invite this cat? Does he drink tea from cups? Is he real?
Well, yes , I love tea, Emile mewed.And don’t shout at Mary like that!
I am not letting a cat order me about,Tom screamed like a lunatic
But it’s not nice for Mary.She is a highly sensitive person and I love her
Now, they tell us,Edina whispered.She is married to her cat
I didn’t hear you,Tom said,Is she harried ,did you say?
No I said married
But her husband is dead
Well, now she has taken the cat, for better or for worse.Edina said in a humorous yet angry manner.

For richer for poorer… a cat can’t earn a wage
Edina and Tom were shouting at each other not realising what impression they were making
Mary called out,
Why invite me to tea and shout like this?
Did you never shout at Stan?
No,I didn’t need to.He listened to me.
Well, you are very quiet, said Emile, so Stan had no fear you might shout
I might have shouted when I read Fermat’s Last Theorem.Mary admitted furtively
Was Fermat your teacher,Edina asked?
No he died a long while ago
Fancy dying and all you have to leave is a theorem
Well, it stops the family fighting,Mary said wisely
Suddenly the door opened and in flew Annie, the flame haired mistress of the late Stan
Why was I not invited to this tea party ,she asked rudely?Are we in Boston?
Sorry,dear,said Tom.Not many people like to come here because Edina has a bad temper
No I don’t she shouted.You have a bad temper
I get so tired of all these projective misperceptions,Emile said in his intelligent voice
My therapist was not a cat, but I kept projecting on to him and he looked just like a cat to me until he barked one day.He was in fact a dog.I realised
Was that the end of your therapy?
Yes, I stole all the money from Mary’s purse and there was none left.And I learned about projection, that was enough
Good heavens,Mary murmured.I thought Annie had taken the money
What!You thought I was a thief.Annie bawled What next?
Well, you’re more like a sister and I didn’t mind as I know it’s so demeaning to ask for money.
See, said Tom to Edina,I said you should not ask me for money after we make love
Why not, she enquired? I need some new art materials
Can’t you use the housekeeping money?
Well, if you are happy to starve,Edina said sarcastically
Don’t use sarcasm.Only prostitutes take money.,Tom added.I did say you can buy whatever you like in the way of clothes and so on on our credit card
How do you know it’s only whores? Many women do need the money as they may be single mothers trying to feel their family and not getting Universal Benefit on time,Edina told him But other women might demand jewellery, and expensive houses like Wallis Simpson
That’s a fair point,Tom muttered.It’s more complicated than I realised.
Money is a big problem in many marriages,Mary called
But I earned my own and Stan retired early and got a pension so I had no need to
beg him for money
But did he beg you,Edina asked?
No, we just kept in the bathroom under the soap.So it was clean.
I wonder if viruses can spread on money? Tom said
I feel sure it is possible but how would we test that out. his wife asked
Best to wear gloves but when you take them off the viruses might fly all over the place
I didn’t know they could fly, said Emile.Are they invisible?
Well, we don’t really know but people often get bad colds when they go on aeroplanes
Annie turned pale.
Are you ill, Annie? asked Tom
I am having a nervous breakdown.I’ve caught paranoia from a £5 note.
You can’t catch it,Mary said in her kind voice.It’s not a physical illness and they are plastic nowadays so they can be wiped down
Well where does madness come from? It is horrible feeling so anxious.
This is not much fun, said Edina.I thought it would be lovely meeting the neighbours but we go from tarts to paranoia and back.Is this wise?
They all sat looking glum,Then Annie revealed all
I am a Russian agent sent here by Putin.I befriended Mary on Putin’s orders
He must be stupid.Why spy on Knittingham?
Well, you will be surprised.Mary is an expert on differential operators
On bicycle chains, asked Tom?
How ignorant people are.Annie shouted.Did you never see anything odd about calculus and little things appearing and disappearing?
Well, to be frank, no!
I don’t believe we learned calculus said Edina
We learned quadratic quotations
Do you mean equations,Mary asked?
I don’t know what I mean,Edina said nervously
And neither do we, said the others
Calculus is a bit like the Mass.Important things happen but we can’t see them.Everything looks the same but it’s not
Then they heard a siren.In ran Dave, the heroic paramedic in his new pink dress. and coat
Don’t drop the bomb, he told Tom audaciously
I’m not President Trump,Tom informed him gravely
That’s what they all say,Dave said to Annie
Who can we trust
Just Emile,said Mary.And Annie.
Why don’t you trust me said Tom?
I am waiting to see how you behave,she replied
Like a kind of exam?
Yes, it’s called
Trust your neighbour and yourself? How to know the people who might be dangerous
to your life and mental health
There’s not much mental health in Britain now,said Tom.I’m a doctor!
Well, don’t shout at the patients, said Annie
I only shout at home,
That is horrible, surely those you love need kindness?
Tom burst into tears and Emile lent him his hanky
I don’t think we’ll meet any more of the neighbours Edina said
Enough is enough.Kindly go home
Pleased to meet you, said Dave.Do call me when you need coal bringing in or have a heart attack
No way,thought Tom as he drank a bottle of brandy in the bathroom
I feel we made a mistake… we will have to move as soon as we can

And so say all of us

Wandering   with no haste we see far more

In the pools, reflections , colours, gleam
Like watercolour paintings in a stream
Another world, a mirror to our lives
A way to extricate us from the cave

People have distinctive motions,shapes
When vision’s poor  the curve, the back, display
I recognise you not by face alone
But by the  pictures you make in the rain

Wandering down the avenues and lanes
The eyes are open wider, vision’s gain
The little muscles  slacken round our eyes
We see the broader images come by

Wandering   with no haste we see far more
Our inner eyes have opened like a door

God have mercy as the devil can’t

In the bitter depths of winter night
Boil the kettle, lose your human rights
If you feel depressed then eat our bread
It will remove the skull from off your head


Are you feeling lonesome in the crowd?
Buy our lipstick then men will be cowed
Did you think ceramic hobs were best?
Come to us and have your IQ blessed


I want a pan for halogen hot plates
I’d ask the cat but it’s out on a date
I need to boil my head and clean my feet
I guess that I ain’t smelling very sweet


Does Confession really help the damned?
God have mercy as the Devil can’t

Maps are no more certainties than hints.

My heart is like a rowing boat adrift

Whose occupant has fallen overboard

The empty vessel drifts through deep sea mist.
And in those pearl filled ears the q1 l deep sea roars.
Just as the boat drifts mapless, so do I.
My maps were drawn for quite another sea
My captain’s taken leave and now I cry
As if that drowned soul might just be me.
Yet on the sea bed mysteries abound;
Such wonders and such magic there displayed.
I wonder if it is my lot drown
And to a memory then quickly fade.
Maps are no more certainties than hints.
Between the lines hides gold from other mints.

For a moment everything was still

 

Religion has been privatised like gas
I know in church we still can hear the Mass
Yet  no Chaplain comes to dying men
I did my best alone without a plan.

Inside the  holy sanctuary  bare
I became the priest and comforter
I sang the sacred songs and  gathered crowds
Outside our little cubicle they bowed

I saw a canopy of golden cloth
Hanging down from heaven, as it does
It came nearer till it touched his soul
I was silent, love can’t take control

For a moment everything was still
A little bird sat on the windowsill
Then the cloth of gold was lifted high
I wept  the precious tears for those who die.

That one eternal moment gave us grace
I see your  deep blue eyes, your smiling face

Reflections

I knew myself in his face when he lived

But now I have no mirror,I’m alone.

I learned myself reflected in his love.

An actual mirror seems like a dull stone

I was alive when mirrored his eyes

For those who hate us do not give us life.

What’s the answer when when the loved one dies?

Without a husband there can be no wife.

All alone my blood seems not to flow.

The wellspring of my heart is arid,dry.

My hands curl up protective on my heart

I have no tears and so I cannot cry.

Yet I bleed inside from every part.

So where is my reflection, where my grace?

I feel I cannot live without his face.

In between the silence and the song

The beach between the low tide and the high

Treasures gather on the pale washed sands

Driftwood shells beneath remorseless clouds

Adults play for safety staying dry

Lightly loved the children’s little hands.

I don’t like the raw sand of the dunes

The tide fling salty water to the sky

Smashing shells make modernistic tunes

Creation and destruction undismayed.

Co-creators in the healing seas

All the laws of gravity obey

Inspiring music as the waters breath

.In between  the silence and the song

The pity of the heavens in mercy hangs

The edge of sight

The impatience of a hunter, keen,intent
Will miss small movements at the edge of sight
Will miss the sacred spirit’s new descent

Relaxing when in danger,insolent,
Will throw a wider beam of golden light
Curb impatience, excess of intent

Slowness is a sign we can present
That’s enough for heart to speak to heart
We see the holy spirit’s new descent

Can we from our eagerness dissent
Lean back, let the other play their part
Curb impatience, excessee of intent?

For my narrow vision,I repent
How I’ve missed the whole with graphs and charts
Now I see the holy spirit’s spent

Scanning with a wider gaze unvites
Calmer ways of living with less spite,
The impatience of a hunter, keen,intent
Will miss the gold of spirit’s new descent

Contractions

We lose our health we lose our lovers friends

Death comes slow but faster at the end

Now we can’t afford to use the lights

We feebly rage against the coming night.

Once our life expanded as we grew

Every year was filled with actions new.

Marriage job promotion travel fun

We never thought that one day we’d be done.

Who can fight against the dying light?

Once so strong and fierce your heart gave up

Oh my love I miss you in the night..

Filled with sorrow, we must drain the cup.

Aging is like dying everyday

Slowly slowly each life ebbs away

Do not go

Those I thought were friends now slide away

Hiding in the shadows with no light

No mirror can reflect the sun today

Maybe it’s my eyes that cannot see

Blinded by the shock of what I read.

I thought that we were lovers you and me

The looks and glances, what you nearly said.

As for all the others let them lie.

I shall not hear their words my ears are shut

My heart has shrunk, and slow the time goes by

I feel the knife blade but I cannot cut.

Do not cast your friends off with no word.

We do not like to feel the world’s absurd

Like swallows

Homesick for the home I used to have
The two of us and friends who were much loved
The  parents who had never had a car
We took them out to Essex  near and far

We went to Henry Moore’s home,saw his shed
Collections of old seashells,spiders’webs
The monumental scuptures   touched my soul
The grass so green, the lawns precisely mown

We went to Whipsnade Zoo  which Ma much liked
A tiger and her cub  were a great sight
Then we went to Berkhamsted  then home
Graham Greene grew up there, Chilterns roamed

Now all but I   like swallows  have flown high
Migrating to   far lands where earth meets sky

Fiery air

Autumn time in Essex  where we drove
When farmers burned the stubble of the corn
The earth itself was  fiery  like young love
The smokey air rose like a  cloud  new born

The Kentish  landlocked   cliffs  are  wide and steep
The farmers grow  their grain on land beneath
And there too we  have seen the holy fire
The flames  and smoke arrest me with desire

The earth and soil, the  harvest  we find there
Give me joy  both full of wheat or bare
Why did burning stubble   make me glow?
These images affect the heart’s deep core

Now  fires are banned., they damage our pure air
And I   did not like the murder of the hare

No religion but  a sense of awe

If we had no language,we’d be good
No communication but by sense
What devil conjured up the demon word
Made our dealings complex and intense?

No Tower of Babel, nothing but mud huts
Caressing,kissing,kicking, real contac
Boxing,wrestling,killing the unjust
No law except the fist. no guilt.no wrack

No religion but a sense of awe
The rising sun, the moon, the distant stars
Oh,bow before the Cedar and the Oak
Anything that is taller than we are

No books, no news no media,no war
It makes me wonder what live words are for

Theatre forms the soul

When the fruit has rotted on the stalk
Bruised and broken like the poor in need
When  leaders meet  but rarely truly talk
When children caught in cross fire lie and bleed

Don’t we see God’s Kingdom is a joke
One hundred million deaths in two world wars
Not quick death but tortured bodies broke
They lost once and  love dies in their gore

Utopia, evolution, grandiose plans
Sacrifice yourself for those to come
We saw  the  little children hand in hand
Ground mines blow them up, they could not run

One thing’s clear, God’s here or not at all
The  future’s fiction, theatre   forms  the soul

r

Yet I pray

I feel and fear the emptiness of life
Now that I have grieved as a good wife
No-one wants a holiday with me
Stop the car,I see an ancient tree

The future looms and ends with my own end
What will fill the space, perhaps my friends?
Each day is constructed ,falls to dust
I lie in bed untouched by  husband’s lust

My senses heightened by anxiety
I memorize the details  that I see.
The old man smiling , kissing my  cold  hand
We remembered Norfolk cliffs in coloured bands

When  he flew, he pulled my heart away
Now my breast is empty  yet I pray

When we speak but do not look

When we speak but do not look upon
The person we address, we are undone
We miss the tiny signs, the looks, the lines
We treat them as mere object we define

We treat them like a post of wood or stone
As if we cannot hurt nor cause them shame
We hit them with sharp words or thoughtless rot
And on and on until hate is begot

All want to be acknowleged,seen and heard
But must approach each other with great care
For most of us are thin skinned, nervous beasts
Who fear they are not asked to the great Feast

And in a thousand gestures we declare
We are not speaking merely to thin air

In the frying pan

I wondered how the two of me would be
If the sperm had got inside a different egg
And my egg was penetrated by a bee
Then by sperm whose entry was by bag

I often hum and buzz as I walk out
All unknowing of the neighbours thoughts
Full of concentration and of guilt
Wondering what my other half has bought

One half of me would know no way to change
It’s not like making sponges filled with jam
Unless the universe were rearranged
Then we’d all be in the frying pan

I cannot let this thinking carry on
I can be myself and all is one