Category: sonnet

Henne

Hennetwistle  has a railway stop
The name is Viking  now it’s usually spelled
Entwistle, where reservoirs fill up
Manchester wants  water , here it’s held

Too Thirlmere is an artificial lake
For tea in Manchester, those thirsty folk
How much more d’ye think that they will take?
Hamlets drowned, dull cypress trees that cloak

I once passed through Darwen on a train
On the way to Ilkley  with my aunt
No memory of bliss with me remains
Except the  flowers  so wild, their ghosts  still haunt

Yet nowhere else gives me the feel of home
This landscape is my body and my soul

What we don’t want to say

There’s something in the faces of the old
Transparency, the seeing of the  soul
A little light that shines out from within
A candle burning through the flesh so thin

Everything is taken   but their bones
A little flesh is stretched out  to atone
Till after death the skeleton lies bare
A challenge to the young whose eyes close there

Now in Lockdown we  learn that we are lame
We live upon the cliff edge of our pain
Nothing seems secure, we can’t defend
We see the naked truth that all will end

Forced to see what we don’t want to  say
We fall upon the ground , our   knees give way

Whatever suits your heart

Am I an  idolator  today
For to St Jude I have been known to pray
Patron of the Hopeless, the Outcast
I call on him to find my shopping list

I call on him when I have lost my phone
And long to hear my  husband’s mobile groans
If this ignites distress I am to blame
The fires of love are what keep women sane

I call on him while  homesick though at  home
Without my love  the house feels empty, lone
 Does God  detest me when I pray for aid?
For these years, with suffering I have paid

Say or sing whatever suits your heart
We never  gain the end if we don’t start

God, at last

Human sacrifice had disappeared
Would God bring it back to  strike with fear
The hearts of children washed in Jesus’ blood
His heart so sacred died, does that sound good?

Why stress the Cross, the  crown of thorns, the fear
As if God is a sadist,  cold yet nuclear
Who  might wish to   propagate this myth?
In Eden  dwell to hear the snakes that hiss

Jesus, kind and brave,  had no cruel wish
To feed a crowd he conjured loaves and fish
He  walked on water,  perhaps he loved to tease
No Caesar he,  his stories were decrees. 

And in the night, he wept  but never cursed
God, at last, knew humans at their worst

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

We don’t see what is there,we see ourself

The eye is not a  camera taking shots
Our mind affects  the aspect we  perceive
And what it feels important it will spot
Give grace or hatred,cause us  all to grieve.

When we are afraid ,we see the worst
We see disgrace or ruin as our fate
As if our self  for horror has a thirst
So all the little details we collate

Yet when we  love we see before us joy
The flowers sing, the birds dance in  the air
We see no evil  nor with  hatred toy
All aspects of  our world appear more fair.

We don't see what is there,we see our self
To learn ,we must employ all human wealth

Green flowers

 The  bowling green, the clack of ball on ball 
Across the grass as perfect as  the dawn
We sit down on a bench,new painted too
Lumpy paint  but good enough to do

Round the edge, the dahlias  bloomed  like suns
No irony was meant nor overcome.
Goldenrod, geranium were bold
The earth was   hot and rich in summer’s hold

Past virgin rhodedendrons , children  played
Swings and see-saws, all somewhat decayed
Painted with the same paint as the bench
I saw my father fall, I felt the wrench

Where shall we sit, my sweetheart, by the lawn?
I have lost your face. my heart lies torn

Choice

Shall I be one of those who get no care
The framework of the doctors’  thoughts  lies bare
Who can say migrainous hearts  are weak
Who  has  got a  heart valve which might leak?

Since I see the world throught just one eye
Will that be enough to let me die?
My thyroid gland is fading as I age
I do not have the  energy for rage.

We have no rights from God [ is he a  lie?]
Kant’s Imperative  deserves a try
If I’m looking pale  or even sad
That does not mean I  wish that I were dead

Austerity was  hardest for the poor
Now the Graveyard waits, there is no cure.

Words or sin

The paradox  of praise is that we’re judged
Yet how can judgement place us on a dot
The eye is wet, the dropped tear is a smudge
A line in-finite,  dense with its own spots

Whether beauty of the body-mind
Or depth of thought,  now hanged by awe
Where many alien eyes look out unkind
And noone knows what we each saw

How can we be ranked on things long passed
Yet  not forget the lessons  we took in?
We sat  matric in school while Jews were gassed
With children  backward, queers and gypsy kin

We learned to  read the maps we  now live in,
Forget the world is more than words and sin

Wallflowers,wild as eyes are when sincere

I remember Charmouth and the cliffs
A piece of land had broken  off and tipped
On this island rabbits sang and danced
We stood high above.amused , entranced.

We walked  the Devon side and came to Beer
Saw wallflowers wild as eyes are when sincere
On the cliff mixed in with weeds perfumed
Above  the sky hung  silent like  the moon

The Baker’s shop. the little stream the path
The innocence of love,unknown the wrath
The hope of being healthier and strong
The  hope that my own heart  had not been wrong

O beauty, where are you when I am old
My husband  in his his grave, why am  I cold?

Ecstasy can’t last,can’t be pursued

Maybe Meghan  knew we’d have a storm
A hurricane of doubt,  the leaders scorned
She’s back in Canada, I wish I were
Seeing Leonard Cohen every where

A thousand kisses deep may be too much
Especially  for those who’re unrehearsed
The tower of song is just a maisonette
Joan of Arc burns as she pirouettes

Suzanne  bore his children then she left
She fell out of  love, he was bereft
Poets need their time alone to muse
Ecstasy can’t last,can’t be  pursued

We still lose  the space to enjoy dreams
While up above our leader stands and screams

A cruel hill

We measure walls and windows and the rain
But not the patterns painted on  the  pane
We measure flour and butter and  the tin
But not the love with which we mix them in

There is  no  linear scale in human  minds
Where you are up above and I’m behind
Complexity and wisdom  intertwine
No measure seems quite apt  for those who’re blind

There’s something  Nazi in  the way we rank
The industry of measurement now stinks
Every human  is a  unique  world
Yet into the abyss , they might hurled

We do  not   get perfection as we kill
The Christs who stumble up   their cruel hill

Make my heart into a cottage pie.

Make my heart into a cottage pie.
Already it is minced and lies estranged
My   enemies insult me with their lies
And my last will and testament is made.

An onion and a carrot chopped up fine,
Saute  with these my heart till  all are gold
With herbs and spices I will taste divine
A mashed potato will a rooftop mould.

Do not forget my blood to use as sauce
Though now it’s cold, with garlic  make it boil.
For what is gravy but the blood of lamb
With  sliced  onion  fried in olive oil?

O foes and devils eat me and you’ll be
Transformed into  myself, your enemy

Continue reading “Make my heart into a cottage pie.” →

This treasure

Absenting ourselves from presence in this life
Glued onto the pictures in our minds
It neither matters if  we wish for strife

Or whether they fill needs of better kind.

We know that wish fulfilment comes in dreams
And also in our fantasies by day
When anxious worry fills our mind with schemes
Guilt and shame impede us from our play.

Creative thought requires the loss of self,
And needs our empty soil to plant its gifts
So throw out selfish fancies for this wealth
We’ll let ourselves  go slow, so minds can shift

To waste our days in suffering or false pleasure
Will lose for us this vital, vivid treasure

Then opening  like a smile 

Forsythia  hangs ,oh flexible and flowered
A wig of  natural hair by breezes stirred
A budded branch  has caught my face and eye
While squirrels laugh from woodpiles yet unburned

We are sick but garden flowers will come
Pushing shoots into the mad March air
So eager to find light, to  patterns grow
Then opening  like a smile  its flowers to share

Now  my friends are all awayI’m sad
I see  the falls by Buttermere  in dreams
Not the mills and dirt of my  home town
In Buttermere we first saw those clear streams

Silence  has its joys and  lets us  hear
The  still, small voice, the whisper. the blessed ear

I wonder who you are and feel for you

So many people read on WordPress blogs
Many write their own  words down as well
From different countries  all across the world
What the effect is nobody can tell

But  is  it  so  surprising that  all words
Written with a true and thoughtful heart
Can bind together  those of us who care
And  so from cruel Wars we may depart

From Vietnam and China  from Finland
From Maryland,Brasilia,Peru
From   Rome, from Jordan and from Palestine
I wonder who you are ,I care  for you

The mystery is the goodness  we can share
Yet always there’s a darkness in the air

 

Fear of illness

The wasted years  of  our uncivil war
Continue as we fight for toilet rolls
All too soon will come the blood and gore
The bulls escape,we trained no matadors

Tins of soup and packets of  dried meat
Fly from shelves  to baskets as we queue
Fear has grasped  our throats  with its deceit
The faces of the old are  turning blue

Still there is a palace on the hill
A forest where the princes ride  each day
Doused by rumour,fear  that watchers kill
What worth is there in  turning now to prayer?

Stupid and corrupt  we miss our lives
Our children cry,  our  heartfelt anguish writhes

Where God’s in hell

The sadness of the television world
Where actors have no character to share
Where all is flat and perfect but unreal
Where God’s in Hell,  and yet it is concealed

The sadness of a toddler with a phone
Eyes near focussed like he is alone
Where he can see a Zoo in Montreal
Or hear hyenas  as they  make their calls

The sadness as we toss out ancient books
And never teach our children  how to cook
The imaged food is perfect in   young eyes
But when we live on that I think  we die

The sadness  when our neighbours  have blind eyes
The sadness as our culture slowly dies

Over burned spaghetti and red wine

God has made men suffer making me
As beautiful as morning by the sea
Because I’m only interested in maths
I have long since left the garden path

I never look in mirrors  or deep ponds
Narcissus eat your heart out in ferns’ fronds
I  never used to wonder how I looked
When my eyes were glued on a textbook

What irony that men would love me so
I   thought myopia  would  make them shy
I thought they’d like to talk  of Wittgenstein
Over burned spaghetti and  red wine

But now I’ve learned how beautiful I looked
Lying on the sofa with a book
Alas it is too late for any more
I see the edge of Heaven by the door

God  may seem ironic, it’s a test
I may kiss you once if you insist

Touching

I let my entire being take you in
Surround you like  it were second skin
I made an astral cloak to give your peace
Where I could  share the burden and release

How hard it is to find the  words that say
How we live and die  afresh each day
When we  get a foothold on the hill
We must not hurry , pressed on by  our will

Every instant,every time we breathe 
Eternal life  is here, we’re not deceived
God appears and disappears ,he flames
The Burning Bush, the  prophet and their rage.

Enlightenment  comes after we  have crossed
The  avenues of suffering   and  the cost

The churchbells shuddered

When God came down , the rivers overflowed
Great trees were floating ,angled and exposed
The houses broke up like a loaf to crumbs
The hearts of humans  trembled  till they hummed

The winds deceived, the gusts unmeasured stung
The churchbells shuddered then untimely rang
The power was cut and all our screens were dark
Where were the rulers, where the saving Ark?

The women  giving birth were paralysed
The babies in the womb took ill and died
Their cradles rocked the world,  they swung so fast
And in a moment all of life had passed

In the void, God started  his new  world
Rich and strange,  the grit and then the  pearls

 

No words

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 contact
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

Banal to hide the strife

Wandering roung the local brancb of Boots
Shall I buy  a moisturising cream
Maybe Astral, or E45 ?
Many choices, who  can bear to dream?

Shall I wear  red lipstick  dye my hair
Boots or shoes, a skirt or velvet shorts
Trousers of black wool  or  sky blue tights
Shall I keep the baby or abort?

Shall I take an M.Sc. in Art?
What about my car,shall I replace?
Which man shall I marry or repulse
Will the baby  now have  grown its face?

Underneath the common wastes of time
The real concerns are pushed out from the mind

 

Happiness was like a golden shawl

The pebbled beach  on which we walked at dawn
The sun was dancing  singing  stone to stone
The sea was pale as silk and gently ran
The tide was coming in, the day began

Why is my memory so deficient here?
I remember little but you near
I remember Portland Bill at dusk
The sea was wilder then with many thrusts

Happiness was like a golden shawl
A  world like Eden, man before the Fall
Today they say, illusion, I say, no
What matters  is where this insight makes you go

The fruits of meditation are its test
May we be generous, may our souls be blessed

The astral body

Tenderly I held him  took him in
As though we touched each other skin to skin
Dying is what everyone must do
Even when it splits the Me from You

What we took for granted  every day
Had its end like any mortal’s play
The length of life is just enough to lie
It’s not here forever, don’t you cry

We are on no plateau   but a slope
Slight at first, so we don’t  see and note
Gently we are led to where it ends
Beautiful and foolish  like ourselves

How can we be split when we are one?
In deep darkness dies the winter sun

Like babies

Sunday dinner. roasted  spuds and meat
Yorkshire puddings, gravy,pepper,salt
These are what the English like to eat
Though microwaves  may bring it to  a halt

Roly poly,syrup sponge and cream
Apple dumplings,marmalade on toast
Men adore hot puddings gently steamed
Though who will  have the time to be a host?

Now we buy sponge puddings ready made
Bread and butter custard ,raisins,hot
How did  women manage in past days?
Spotted Dick, brown sugar,that’s the lot

We seem to love the sweet yet we are rude
Still like babies, ignorant  and confused

The labour and the  hurt that life will cure

I found a pair of knickers on the chair
They must be mine,oh dear, that is bizarre
I did not take them off,I am quite sure
They make the entire room seem quite impure

Yet why are knickers   thought to  be like porn
When they adorn the  place where life is born?
If you  hung the washing out to dry
You might see an angel in the sky

Most of us traversed the  holy path
We suffered pain but hope it did not last
Mothers too have struggled and endured
The labour and the  hurt that life will cure

The simplest items, pretty, well designed
Tomorrow I shall hang them on the line

Beyond

Of Genocide.  who could sing or write
Just silence,impossible and stark
Yet was transmuted in a   poet’s mind
Into a dance of final light and dark

Walking to their death by Mozart’s  sound
Their special prayers were offered,what great trust
In Cohen’s mind   the source of love  engraved
Like Job  before, he knew the sacred dust

Mysterious is the Lord with his demands
Christians went to  Mass, reviled the  Jews
Few of us  will suffer, understand
Past pure reason ,feeling…God  help who?

Beyond  that flickering  candle  flame called God
We see the shadows lost, we see the Dead.

Awesome  now means  medium at best

Rubbish is  just something we don’t need
Or something  not worth mending   we believe
Where nonsense may be foolish talk or jest
Or English humour at its lethal best

There is no Judge, it’s people who decide
Whether it is nonsense to deride
The  message of the media  online
Which like the Consecration, is divine

Awesome  now means  medium at best
That is, you have barely passed the test
What a lot of stupid people say
Appears on someone’s T shirt the same day

Nonsense can give pleasure,make us loose
Sometimes it can make us feel confused.

O wounded heart

O wounded heart,I cannot heal your pain
I shall bear it  as it still  remains
But why should I forgive  the one who broke
My tender  heart, my love and all I wrote/

The pride of men, the  anger soon provoked
The  cruel emails and  the  words he spoke
Why can’t we be kinder, more aware
Yet God himself was  killed,  who can compare?

The sadist drawn to those  who seem less strong
Will find  a dozen reasons  to do wrong
They  know their own pain not  the pain they cause
Some will kill  despising land and law

We  choose life despite these cruel  acts  
We ‘ll do well if we can live with tact

What nonsense

Writing nonsense is extremely hard
Writing rubbish verses can annoy
Nonsense has some style, some meaning too
Gyre and gimble till the spies  find you

Read aloud it makes me laugh and cry
Borogroves are woods where mancipes die
Wabe is like  the sea, its rappling  gorm
Please put  your wrong name upon  a form

Why not  stroke A Rest for Oxford now
Lie down in a stunt without a cow
The rivers   bring  down water from  the  hills
Why God put the springs there, we can’t tell

Read a little Alice for your heart
Through the mirror is the wiser part