Category: sonnet

Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.

How softly sweetly,gently flowers pose
Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.
Intricate the petals that should shield
Yet bees with striped force shall make them yield.
Appearances,both natural and contrived,
Mixed with the wiles of human nature thrive.
As, knowing not, we pluck the apple rare
And bite its flesh,with teeth we burn to bare.
We too deceive the innocent who pass
Not seeing watchers hid behind the glass.
The windows break,the deep earth quakes;
Seized is the maiden ,he  her virtue takes
.Beneath the surface,force and fierceness thrive.
What fearsome, burning God enjoys our lives?

Cleveland Hills

Lying in the heather with you,love
The world below,the cliff edge of the hills
Swainby,Stokesley, Stockton,Saltburn sea
Happy, free, still unaware of bills

The butterflies, the little flower bells
The scent of honey and the Yorkshire bees
I see your face as clear as it was then
But you have crossed the Styx and not the Tees

Yet still I feel your arms that held me near
I see you smile , so happy to be wed
We hitched a lift right to Osmotherly
The entire hill seemed like a marriage bed

There is a place where that sweet day exists
I take your hands and kiss your inner wrists

The future is fiction

The future unpredictable as gas
Its fictions must be written by our hands
On tablets with the clarity of glass
Which crack  like bones  dried out  on foreign sands

The prophets’ meanings , unnnamed, cannot pass
The sentences bind stories till they blend
The whispers and the excess of his blasts
Till all are crucified  by  loss of sense

The arches of the heavens will surpass
The  golden eye ,the mind its telescope
Then all  at once humanity is trash
The microcosm, a particle   escaped

Will Evil  change our hearts  till blood is  brass
The valves  are closing,   polished  into death

Nor rain to flood

Katherine   May 30, 2018

A mood of stillness like a quiet dove
A lack of wind, vast silence gives repose
Symbolises blessings from above.

My trees mature now form a holy grove
The sorrow ruling me has been deposed
To give me stillness with the nesting dove

In such moods, there’s space to think, compose.
To learn the ways of energy and love
Symbolised by blessings from above.

In the crowded Mall, the shoppers shove
The special mood of peace  I fear eludes
We lose the sense of silence and the dove

In public life, we quarrel and oppose
We lose the way to  our fine treasure trove
We lose the symbols and the deep repose.

Give me your hand without its heavy glove
As we caress,   we  value human love.
A mood so stilled, oh, fluttering of the dove
No wind to destroy peace nor rain to flood

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

The holes and ink are fashion

I’ve got liquid Quink on all my clothes
I thought that everyone would like to know
I’ve got moth holes in my sweaters like small eyes
But my winter coat is still almost alright

I’ve had this coat for fifteen years,it’s brown
It drapes quite well, the maker is renowned
I must put it on to take a walk outside
To see which plants have died and which survived

My husband would be very shocked indeed
My tights have gaping holes upon my knees
The ink has penetrated to my vest
God knows where that Quink will wander next

If your clothes are damaged, do not cry
At least 5,000 moths have learned to fly

It speaks

seashore under blue sky
Photo by Tom Swinnen on Pexels.com

This poem is written in the sonnet form,
And yet I have my doubts about its shape
Though nearly to that structure it conforms
There may be holes where nightmare faces gape.

It looks and speaks just as a sonnet would
And talks of metaphysical concerns.
Do we conclude, as poets and readers should,
That in our schizoid age we cannot learn?

For humans may be decked in clothes of wolves;
And lambs be dressed in lion’s fearsome furs.
Thus, sense is tricked and problems are unsolved.
Landscapes etched, yet details seem quite blurred.

It looks like one,it feels like one,it speaks;
Yet from these words, does human feeling leak?

I could not own my grief

The moment that they told me he was gone
I knew I never more would be at one.
The guilt  is bad, the shame is harder still
That I no longer am  what I would will

That I did not perceive the   your state of mind
That to your heart I seemed to have been blind
That I was not enough to keep you here
That life and death most grievous are  so near

Then  shamed by my emotions I withdrew
Into the prison cell  that no-one knew
My soul was  pierced , I could not own my grief
 Limp, submissive , blown away, a leaf.

Shame is deadly, unexposed to speech
With reddened face and   faltering voice I weep

Swear words are so boring nowadays

Now we’re used to hearing “fuck” and “shit”
What words can we use to let off steam?
Oh, what a twit omitting words like “twat”
However will I have erotic dreams?

Few words are forbidden in our books
Little children learn to swear and scream
On the television, some won’t look
As words like this flow out in lengthy streams

Lady Chatterley, you were the cause
But what will be the affect and effect?
Lawrence, you were eager to enjoy
But who could know what others might detect?

I think I shall say ” sorry” when I rage
Would “lies and curses” draw more to my page?

The silence glows

Aldeburgh,Sizewell,Dunwich Heath
The nuclear bomb shall bring eternal peace
Housed between the town and the Reserve
Its blackness is ignored by little birds

If force deters, then we shall all be saved
Or this our world will vanish without trace
Innocently playing on the shore
Children find old marble unrestored

Birds may sense the blackness of our hearts
For, even though unused, the bombs take part
They are here where Britten once composed
And so the sanctuary ends unsaved,destroyed

In between the lover and his rose
A screen electric in the silence glows

Not the words we read

Do not rush about when under stress
You may fall and bang your tender head
With agitation caused by business

Rather than do more, we must do less
Do it slowly till it’s time for bed
Do not rush about when under stress

Do not ruminate nor second guess
Grace is blocked,imagination led
By agitation caused by business

Slowness leads some space, so slowness bless
In tune with nature, not the words we read
Do not rush about when under stress

If you are a hare,keep from excess
If a tortoise,you’ll end up ahead
No agitation caused by business

The lilies of the field by grace are fed
And so our hearts are when our burden’s shed
Do not rush about when under stress
With agitation causing grief to living flash

Do not ask



Astounded by love’s impact, my tears fell
As if a door was opened up by you
The reservoir of grief, the flooded bell,
The marble on the shore, the hidden view.

I stayed still and by you I was held
In your golden cloud, I felt embraced
You covered me with warmth,I was your child
A candle in the gale,a shining face

I was silent,I was even dumb
They who see a face can not unknow
Love is not a method nor a sum
Nor can logic point the way to go

Do not ask for knowledge or belief
Do not ask reprieve from human grief

And their prayers

My heart and guts were stolen by a thief
All I was became a frame for grief
Extremities of bony hands and feet
The shrinking brain now denser.distressed heat

Umoving in this lethargy, I stared
My head and body felt like they weren’t there
A headless chicken runs though it be dead
Motion in itself does not fool dread

I gently felt my hands,I let them be
My eyes were still closed to humanity
My feet were trembling as they lay so flat
I saw the slivers of the shattered glass

The glass had cut my skin,I felt despair
Bring me stained glass windows and their prayers


No new disgrace

Trapped in home made offices , we work
Reading from our screens, no space for thought
As we type ,our tender fingers hurt
Not the copperplate that I was taught

No commuting, no more fraught deceit
Harder are affairs, no private door
No more kisses unless they are quite fleet
Just daydreams, which will come to be no more

No walking to the station at sunrise
No hour alone to read or look without
All is known, where is the grand surprise?
Where the room for thoughtlessness or doubt?

Work from home but keep some private space
Do not harm your friends, keep from disgrace



When I saw with no intent to look


I love Picasso, it’s his line,you know
How he evokes the movement fast or slow
The sundered parts arranged in a new form
The image still and yet depicting storms

The unexpecting vision threw me down
My mind was blown and I lay on the ground
I heard no sound except for music lite
For I was in a shop,not an art site

I did not think I’d see great art in there
My fences bypassed by such beauty bare
The light of art burns into human souls
May shatter or fragment, create new wholes


Noone ever knew the blow I took
When I saw with no intent to look

The angst and joy of life

The clock electric does not need to tick
The seconds pass unheard by any ear
If you watch, the hands don’t seem to move
Eternal is the memory of love

So my life is passing as I write
I see the seconds hand move fast as light
The memories stored inside my brain,my mind
Will influence all I do, will make designs

When this my heart stops ticking like a clock
The cells of all my body run amok
Who will mourn for me when I am gone?
The angst and joy of life will soon be done

The golden numbers move in patterns bright
The sun defeats the ogres of the night

Trying to glimpse another through their veil.

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

Ambiguous  in intentions we don’t know
We send out signals full of world slass news
If this rebounds  an artist might then show
Our vision centres  on 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 enchanted, given bail
We try to glimpse another through their veil

Illegitimate and born in desert grey.

So you are gone  who once declared your love
For that phantasm conjured in your mind
For onto me you brought down from above
A torment bitter and   some words unkind.

Used to  friendship from within your books
You did not understand that I was real
Irritation grew as you did look;
You threw your poisoned  arrows  at my heel.

What once you loved then you began to hate
If not perfect then intolerable I must be
And then you cursed me with this  sorry fate
Our child was born and him you’ll never see.

Illegitimate and born in desert grey.
I carried him alone from death’s dark way.

I may be a weed

Think of this, a weed still has its flowers
They may be small, like ivy  they may spread 
We must  display ourselves, not cower
Until  the   moment comes when we are dead

Does it matter that you hate my guts?
That you dislike my face so pink and white?
I am happy to deflect your bombs so hot
The nuclear  option seems so very trite

I am me and I may be a weed
The definition falters as we talk
Let us be judged by all our deeds
The sparrow  must be careless of the hawk

I no longer want your letters vile
Be gone from me and you will make me smile

In the desert grey

I walked across a desert grey and bleak
All alone, with nothing there to eat
I shuddered when I realised the truth
I was giving birth;I was refuse.

Cast out for some failing quite unknown
My baby was too small and I alone
A doctor with no face appeared and said
This baby died for he was never fed

He flung my baby  to the heap of dead
I lay in the dirt,  now red with blood
I  had to leave or I  would  die of grief
The will to live is stronger than a thief

I went to kiss my baby, then he smiled
He was still alive, my love,my child

A  song  that has no words nor any tune

Your absence from our home is a  still  a wound 
A  bruise upon my heart, a  knock, a blow
 A  song  that has no words nor any tune
That hovers in my ear,is loth to go

Yet I am glad I helped you to let go
I would not wish that you were here alone
But when the lake of tears still overflows
I wish that I could reach you on my phone

I am not lonely,I am missing you
Your tenor voice, your loving touch and words
The distance when you from the world withdrew.
Seems to me,   few  voices I have heard.

Yet I accept all living creatures die
But why are widows not allowed to cry?

We sense the sacred in these peaceful walls

We sense the sacred in these peaceful walls
Yet men have died in places that appal
Women too and children then unborn
Fell into cold dark earth in lands forlorn

As our weapons grow, our hearts are hard
The people live in Gaza behind bars
The water all polluted as taps drip
Is this war or is it vengeance fit?

In Britain, it’s the poor who lose the war
As it was when Jesus Mary bore
Yet here are clerics blessing marching bands
A military show for all the land

The genocide in Europe of the Jews
The self destructive actions of the proud
The fields of France filled sick with blood and bone
Who are we to cast judgemental stones?

The War’s not over when the fighting stops
The soldiers and the tortured suffer shock
The widows and the parents all bereaved.
The unborn children hover in unease

We let the remnants out from camps of death
But who would take them in or take their path?
The injuries will travel down the years
As still we fight and still we live in fear

It’s Europe’s grasp and greed which was the cause
Of death in Gaza, Syria, in long wars
Yet we judge we are more civilised
As we self defend with careful lies

I’ll follow where love leads

I heard the thud our cat made on the stair
But when I looked there was no creature there
Can our longing make us hear strange sounds;
Delusions,wish-fulfilment, breaking bounds?

I heard the wrens sing by the kitchen door
At least there is no cat to  make them fewer
I want to make some tea but I feel stuck
I’ll fill the pan, while love my heart strings plucks

For aeons I feel I’m paralysed by grief
The caterpillars gnaw upon  green leaves
I judge myself incompetent,too  slow.
Yet would I judge another, wound with blows?

I  feel half-way between the real, the dream
In reverie I’ll follow where love leads

Connections,maps and roads

Roman roads connected in straight lines
The cities they had built in wealthy times
The remains of one  goes past my garden gate
Do ghosts of Roman legions pass at night?

I like to see connections,maps and roads
Others  love  old cities ,walls and moats
My road ran to Lincoln  near the Wash
Migrating birds and swans  go there to rest

Going South, there is the Pilgrim’s Way
Canterbury, Becket,murder, prayer
Julius Caesar, Deal,  the Roman hordes
Boudicea,  and her fighting Lords

Layers of history, meaning,love and death
Still we argue  what should be our path

In honour of Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich gave our spirit proper place.

He showed us courage as a  space to dwell.

He wrote for us and left us with   his  grace

With hope he might  well speak and he might tell.

So many people ignored Fascist speech

And lived with mind cut off from  their own soul

With pen in hand he wrote his soul to reach

And touch us as we strive towards the whole.

Expelled from his own country, he wrote on

Continuing during  tortuous war long years

He lived, he loved ,he wrote, he died and then

His books continue to dispatch our fears.

For many men have lived and have destroyed.
 Tillich showed  us how to face the  void

 

My first attempt: wind and eye

An ancient one roomed building was  once home
Lit and warmed by fire,heat upward flowed
The smoke escaped  through one small  hole or “eye”
The winter wind  would fight to get inside.

Like a human eye, it was a breach
The bones of head and face allow this reach
We must see out and not live all within
Wolves, those metaphors. might  bite our skin

Enclosed spaces need  selected gaps
Few would enjoy choking in a trap.
We need a way to breath, to see, to touch
Sophisticated means, this eye  to watch

Sitting round the fire we hear  Wind howl
Through the eye, we see the moon,our jewel

 

Entertainment,sadism, power

On a hilltop not so far from Rhyl
Mother took us to the Zoo as Mothers will
The wind was strong and cold, the air was harsh
Although it was in August, not in March

Vultures  in enclosures   chained by leg
Like convicts in a prison   full of dread
When they vainly  tried to  get away
I felt their faith and hope dismayed

Who had chosen birds like these to show?
Even God himself would never know
Entertainment,sadism, power
Making people pay  and  children cower

When we got back  to the station I was sick
What cruel minds  played such a trick?

We’re burnt by love and loss

You smiled at me and then you disappeared
Flying skyward with no hint of fear
Stunned and left behind,I wept  with shock
Deprived by death of one last lingering look

No kiss, no word of love,no last embrace
No  colour and no pinkness in your face
I saw you fly as fast as hawks at prey
I held you in my heart ,I felt dismay

How could you leave me when I need you so
Could you not remain till I too must go?
Death is sad,mysterious,unknown
Once lovers   all complete and now alone

Silently at last we take the pain
We’re burnt by love and loss, that dual frame

In the dark

No goods nor gold can cross the Styx
The boat is small, by water crushed
The boatman’s ready with his hand
He has no use for such dry land

The woman wrapped in winter clothes
Hindered by the mist that rose
She weeps, she leaves her home and man
The dark mind  showed her where to come

Her  husband  stood beside her bones
In his loss, he softly groaned
He wept and wept and did not eat
His world  entranced by ice and sleet

Nothing’s quite as sad a sight
As old men crying  in the dark

Shielded

The clouds hang out together like bored girls
Until they form a shield with  greasy curls
The radio mumbles on about  the old
As if we are  unable to be bold

Do we not have courage as we age
When we have laid our dear ones in their grave?
We edge our way downstairs to make the tea
Sit in bed,imagine we’re at sea

Children play their games and so may we
The bed a boat,the sky as wide as eyes
Where is the navigator, do we drift?
Eclipsed our passage  through  the soft  soft mist

If life’s a Play then we may take our part
To hypnotise  the audience and their hearts

His  eyes were  silent,still, and very black

The day his mother died he’d cut his arms 
With bits of pointed glass like frosty nails
The blood  had stained his shirt, yet made him calm
He did not like to  make a scene or wail.

The day his mother died he sat alone
Wondering what  to eat or who to call
Above him was hot sky, a blue, blue dome
Below the earth where very soon she’d fall

The day his mother died he hugged his cat
She alone gave comfort without blame
His  eyes were  silent,still and very black
What hope, what help, where is the nameless Name?

The day his mother died he went to sleep
To dream and wander in the deepness deep