Silent, arms and legs  akimbo, floating
In a cloud of photographs and files
I must not think there  is no solid  ground below
The act goes on but I ‘m not reconciled

No one speaks to me, the alien woman
I see the fence, invisible the door
Floating with my feet like hands  contentious
I   must not think there is no second floor

Silent with constriction in my larynx
Flying  with the wind an awful presence
Where the edges. where the strapped up artist?
Where the place such silence starts to lessen?

Floating through detritus, not existing
Not the journey ‘s end, oh silence hissing
,

Is this tunnel like a birth canal
Where one   must struggle, find a pathway new.
Or is it dark as coal and black as death
How to tell and how to wisely choose.

There must be instincts guiding us  inside
To show us where to go and what avoid
Always there is risk,uncertainty
Maybe heavy prices to be paid

Life is never clear in its prospect
How to act with  strength and not with greed
Living  in this age of fake and lies
Who to trust , to find what we each need

With the inner eyes, we see the Light
Fall down,worship goodness, end our flight

By accident I broke my sister’s doll
It’s head hit  wood, the arm of my brown chair
With a sorrow desperate I was  filled
I wept onto the doll’s distasteful hair

So my route was set,I could not play
I studied books and learned to write and draw
No more to  fantasise or dream  my way
But make submission to an abstract law

Outside your window peering at your lives
I am the lonely watcher in the night
No more  to find a husband,  be a wife
To live in patches in the shadowed light

An accidental movement   not a choice
Determined what would be my lifelong course

I have seen so now I cannot doubt
But what I saw, I do not know its name
The laws of  common sense it likely flouts
Yet  it brings   ripe comfort to  the lone

A felt experience without any words
A  brighter, stronger comforter declared
As  swift as sunshine on a  flying bird
There was a living being who their love shared.

Shared is not the best word I might use
For this was someone stronger than a gale
Stronger than the sun, could nothing lose
Would always be surprising, could not fail

How hard  to  here  communicate   my seeing
For we have different eyes and different beings

You say you love yet  mail  me such harsh  words
You say you care yet shoot me down to  die
As if you are a despot always heard
While in black silence. I in pain must lie.

You say  you would embrace me with your love
But   could I in your presence ever rest?
I must be prostrate and you above
I must be  the lowest, you the best
.

You never ask what I may want or need
Am I not human,   have I not a soul?
I must offer  help when your skin  bleeds
Mine might  peel away and leave me cold

Oh,foolish woman,I believed you true !
I  am no judge of men, I’ll stick to glue

How like a prison is a cubicle
Where office workers type out bills and forms
How I prefer to mend my bicycle
Or lie with a sweet man among  ripe corn

Oh, why did we not stay as chimpanzees
With no house , no tax or rent to pay
Even  might I envy a striped bee
That gathers nector as it gently  plays.

We would not need to study etiquette
Nor washing up ,clean worktops or new  clothes
We would not even know an alphabet
As in the  hot sunshine we  would all doze

I escape traps by fantasy and mirth
That’s my  sonnet, estimate my worth

Across the road  I see a  Tudor wall
In its cracks defiant flowers grow
The modern traffic sounds out a loud wail
From the East a freezing wind still blows

In between the natural world and man
The space  provides a habitat,retreat
Ancient yew trees  grow without a plan
And in each little bird a heart still beats

Concentrating on the green and ancient views
Ignoring  the red buses as they pass
Ignoring strident music , find the clues
Down comes  peace and joy, our Holy Mass

Reversal of the figure and the ground
Brings out a new world  where love is found

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

A needle, pen or life itself  have points
To sew, to write, to beautify or haunt.
Our hands and minds, creative in intent
Give our lives their  point, their way. their bent.

The long hands of the clock  to numbers guide
The  fingers on the the gun can life deride.
The hand of fate without our will can point
The demons in the dream will rudely taunt.

Our lips may tighten when we are enraged
When others in our lives direct our page
Our words are stuck, we cannot let them out
So we never learn the truth ” about”

Fingers pull the trigger on the gun
Who will say enough as spiders spin?

We saw the view from Langdale to the sea
Windermere, a riddle ten miles long
Coniston a question of degree
Old Man standing like a  children’s song

The risky climb, the tough hand that saved me
The energy of youth and the unknown
The  boldest child, the future poetry
By the shape of hills ,I’m overthrown

The shock of beauty  and the cliffs of rock
The slope as sheer as  silk, the mirrored poem
The sturdy heart that startled with its knock
The  pensive soul that brought these wishes home

On the highest peak’s edge, we   lay down~
Closed our eyes to  hear the   sheep bells sound

The face that was familiar is no more
Yet with my mind I conjure up his eyes
His last warm smile, his wink,oh my sweet Lord
As I whispered  psalms he made his flight

The face that was familiar  now has gone
I see it inadvertently by  need
I shall  never  seek another one
With eyes and lips and speech that I might heed.

The face that was familiar  comes in dreams
Yet when I waken he is not in place
And so with grief my body hunches, squeezed
To keep the heart from  ravages unsafe

O face familiar,now like leaves you’ve flown
And I am left alone in homeless home

To fulminate against the hands of fate
To vent our anger on  beloved friends
Will not repair our ills and our mistakes
But may bring friendships to  a bitter end.

For who are we to know what is the best?
Who are we to choose when loved ones die?
And  do not think this is a needed test.
As if on us God wastes his time to spy.

Once  we were a joining of two cells
The lively sperm, a salmon riding high.
The egg awaiting without  need for bells
Is fertilised and grows that which  shall die.

Astonishing that we should live at all.
Unsurprising, that a loved one falls.

So vertical ,the mouse was a biped
A feat that engineering never bred
He looked into my eyes and then away
As if in wonder what words he might say.

But no, it is a plastic object made
To stop us getting hands that  wildly ache
The little wheel is not for mice’s fun
But with a little turn, the cursor runs

Touchscreens are another recent feat
But touching hearts is good and far more sweet
My heart is open to the sun and frost
What is this life and what might living cost?

No longer living mice and  feeling hearts
No,  sincerely  we must prostitute our art

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?

My love was so elliptical it passed
Before the first one realised and grasped
But now I prefer the straight lines to connect
Or perhaps an obtuse angle I’ll bisect

In truth, I  married mental furniture
His mind was  parabolic in its shape
And filled it was by  study and nature
Yet spacious in its arts to let  me hope

He did not know of numbers  past belief
I enlightened him, yet he was filled with grief.
For as the caterpillar eats the very leaf
Learners  are depraved  like common thieves

I made an error beating him at chess
And when he died,  he left me no address.

Looking at the garden as a world
The overgrown becomes a rich terrain
Where myriad living forms seem uncontrolled
But  make a balanced whole in shades of green

What I hear are calls from nesting birds
The sway of  breeze among forsythia’s gold
The patterned  snails, the slugs cannot be heard
Nor can the slow worm’s wiser words be told

The  pattern is a natural life, a wood
Where Cambridge monks had ponds  and trees
Ten Cedars tall were chopped till dead
But still remain their long striped bees

Small in your eyes, infinite in mine
Such marvelled worlds can’t be designed

Cain and Abel fought the bitter fight
Like baby eagles,sharks and all that bites
For parents stand aloof as if amused
By sibling killing sibling for their food

This may be  the crime original
So common it may seem to be banal
Inside the heart of love lurk greed and hate
Genetics brings destruction as a fate

So hatred precedes love, if any grows
As dead egrets have not a claw to show.
Families have  their scapegoats all will harm
No-one seems to notice wild alarm

So Cain was not unusual nor mad
Indeed he was a hero to his dad.

His act perfected,speeches memorised
He looked upon her visage and made eyes
Why do you stare at me, she questioned him
Do you wish to take me to the gym?

I never knew we could in such gyms play
Exercise makes people feel so gay
Are you gender fluid,she replied
No,I’m not,in truth I’ve never lied

I only want to flirt and dance and sing
On hearing this a wasp gave him a sting
Oh, he cried,I feel my end is nigh
I fear I’ll be cremated  if I die.

Like a fool, he malice felt all night
By  morning he was dead from  his own spite

My friend misread my posts between the lines
So he accused me of a dreadful crime
He said he was from the top echelon
As  far as I could see, he was far gone

He told me off for  moaning at his words
In which just four rude letters  did appear
It seemed I must be chaste  enough for two
While  he would carry on as such men do

My face must always smile and never frown
I must  obtain some silken dressing gowns
I  should  take rather risque photographs
On hearing this, my  tortoiseshell  cat laughed

It seems I did not fit inside his frame
He cut my head off, then to love he came