No woman ever can be what he dreams

Nor can they give comfort,not a  goad

Yet every night he plots and thinks and schemes.

And rarely does he ever go abroad.

No food he eats will satisfy his tongue.

The best wine is as naught to mother’s milk.

He grumbles and will not admit to wrong.

I‘ve known more men than him of this same ilk.

No bed can be the right one for his sleep.

No sheets and pillows suit his wary skin.

He often has made gentle maidens weep

Crying out they’re  too fat or boney thin.’

Beware the man who never can adapt

For in own lone wishes he is trapped

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I embraced  the ambiguity like a bride
Who fears  disclosing that her face is fake
And while we’re on the subject, I take pride
In stealing water colours  from the lake

Ambiguous  in intentions we don’t know
We send out signals full of first class news
If this rebounds  an artist might then show
Our vision rests  upon our point of view

Seventeen types of clarity are mine
Fifteen from my  mind and two from pride
From this glass I make a view divine
Though Sunday someone said they thought I lied.

Ambiguously ,we hover by the scales
Trying to glimpse another through their veil.

Sometimes when bereft  I’d love a snail
Though it might wet my bed with silvery trails
Would  snails be lonely  living in my house?
Shall I be but fit to  love some  louse?

I  hugged a rowan tree  and now it’s dead
The council said they’ll give me oak instead
It stood upon the pavement by the gate
But now it is what McCall Smith calls “late”

I  wonder  if self massage is the   thing
Some perfumed lotion stolen on the wing.
I    stroked my arms with Cream E45
Now they say I’m not allowed to drive!

I was sad but now I am at peace
All I needed was a plate of eggs and grease.

I got a  cheque book  after you had died
With only my name  printed on the page
I  lost this new one even though I tried
To keep apart from life, my grief and rage .

I do not like that statements  come to me
They emphasis what I’d like to forget
There is no “us,”  it’s sadly” I “not “we”
These little signs, emotions  sad beget

Though I hate arithmetic and rules
I always  cooked  the finance and the meal
You didn’t want to suffer as at school
Mostly   you left me to do  these deals

I rarely use a  paper cheque today
I find  impersonal,nameless ways to pay

How like a dream this world appears to me
My mind unfocussed spreads itself about..
No details, just an outline I can see.
And  this vague dimness fills my mind with doubt.

How like a prison is my cubicle;
A prison,a trap, a cell,a place of fear.
For humans,this is truth indubitable;
We need to roam ,to see,to smell,to hear.

Yet in the bureaucrat realm , we must observe,
The rules laid down by generations gone.
And from their ancient code ,we cannot swerve.
Even if by rules we are undone.

Did Archimedes    sail boats  in his bath?
Did Moses fear to see the burning bush?
Did Einstein follow someone’s else’s path?
Did Socrates give voice to utter trash?

Imprisoned spirits are to revolution called.
Unless by Ariel they would be mauled.

Diagonal streams now  stripe the windowpane
And in them, tiny insects drown and die.
Unexpected ,sudden rain  has come.
Those escape who have  the wings to fly.

No angels were seen peering  at my  room
No doubt they have their  Sunday wings to press.
No  camera ,even with psychotic zoom,
Can catch an angel while she is undressed.

Now the rain has dried and all is sweet
I tend to houseplants standing by the door.
By good luck these houseplants never bleep.
Only in the real world do they flower.

Bleeps and pings are not a natural sound.
But to the artificial   we  will bound.

This form of poetry is beloved of me.
As Shakespeare wrote so I like writing too.
Free verse I like but with this, I can see.
And as I wrote thus, well my writing grew.

Thus and hence in mathematic’s  shared
Are also used in sonnets when I write.
They make connections till the logic’s heard
The logic of the heart makes love feel right.

To imitate the poets who’re  well renowned
Is impudent yet I refuse to stop.
I do not ask to get a  golden crown
Such satisfaction I get from my work.

If you think I’m conceited you are blind
I’m humbled by the treasures of the mind

The sky is now pale lilac edged with dark
The   trees where small birds sleep are almost black
A mystic may enjoy a vivid spark
Through having senses other mortals lack.

The sky’s more pale than  it is darker grey
I see a pink, a blue in clarity
Now it turns as rapid  as dismay
Until  devoid of  such variety.

And darker still ,in grey it edges down
Until it’s less distinct from those large trees.
But  with my words  to keep me from a frown
Darkness comes and so my words must cease.

A mirror to the outer world in verse
May save  us all from  wintering with a  curse.

The sun sinks but it burns like a  great fire;
All the sky’s aflame with  fierce intent;
Who thinks of death as weakness, is a liar
Before the end  our glory must be spent.

The  graphics of the branches look Chinese
As  blackened brush is drawn across red silk
Infinite yet countable  my days
Running like a river without silt

Thus I am not transcendent in myself
But joined to all that lives I feel I am.
So in conjunction we will find our health
Ambivalence contains both lion and lamb.

The fire of  orange leaves me with a glow
As into night I with all creatures go

The sky is bright and yet behind  black trees
The dark orange of evening   has begun
This sight is free to all  without a fee
Yet we must wisely  choose or blind become.

Soon,too soon the whole sky will be dark
Incremental changes come to fruit
And then it will be black without a spark
Except  for stars whose light we cannot loot.

Imperceptibly  like this we too will change
From glossy youth to hunched and weary crones
And yet  we must refuse to be deranged
As  all our body weakens from its bones

As long as we can see or touch or feel
Life is  worth the eating in this meal

No-one could have  told this state to me
Experience is needed which I lacked.
Just as the spider can’t live as a beee
A wife can’t  know of widowhood’s impact.

At first the pain is like a serious burn
Though stricken ,we must plan the funeral  rites
And, yes, that pain  does lessen in its time
Alas then other pains alight.

The grey confusion,  though it is not vile,
Makes one feel an isolation cold.
A puzzlement  of grief makes weakness  wild
And noone wants the story  to be told.

No longer human,I stare at the sky
If this be truth, then  where  is her ally?