Category: villanelle

They’ll steal what you don’t own

Have no possessions,  give  your stuff away
But don’t go outside naked  when in= town
It’s not religion, just simplicity

Happy  are those people  free to play
Who may be sunk in dreams or study brown
Have no possessions,  gave   their stuff away

Sing and  dance and let yourself be gay
Remember that a verb is not a noun
It’s not  high learning, just simplicity

If  you see   evil, do not go astray
Help the neighbours,   give them all your gowns
Have no possessions,  give  your stuff away

In Commerce, there is much duplicity
Be aware they’ll steal what you don’t own
All you lose is mere complicity

The lips of wealthy  men speak  vicious  tones
Corbyn  makes them fearful, do they owe?
Have no pride in   virtue,  rather pray
It’s not an error, God may die today.

We try  to be alive, despite the pain

Underneath the shallow pools lies sand
Where shells are  fractured by the ocean’s blows
We  soon  learn what  being alive demands

To bare feet on sunny days beckoned
The warm wet trickles in between the toes
Underneath the shallow pools lies sand

In whose sums is our living reckoned?
Calculation, not so bleak it shows
We learn by pain, true living makes demands

God allows the  abacus unchained
To sum us up as if we are unknown
Underneath the pools,  are these his hands?

Who will be allowed and who detained?
Like refugees, we come to love alone
We try  to be alive, despite the pain

Our hearts are fragile shells, not heavy stones
We, soft flesh enraptured by framed bones.
Darkly on the  beach we humans stand
The fretting waves cry out with love’s demands

God is a  fragile voice, still as a bone

God is a place we rarely  find alone
His spirit  guides us  past the demons wild
God is a  fragile voice, still as a bone

God gave his prophets  sweet  dark honeycombs
By his word they were struck, beguiled
God is a place we rarely  find alone

The Reed Sea parted  should she risk its foam,
The woman heavy with an unborn child?
God is a  fragile voice, still as a bone

The spirit called a dove  by Leonard Cohen
Caught, entrapped  endangered and   then sold
God is a place   where we  kneel, atone

Shall he  leave us bread or  graven stone?
When we feel afraid, his  love enfolds
God is a place we rarely  find alone

On we wander,  hear  the whisper frail
If we listen well we  will not fail
God is a place we rarely  find alone
God is a  fragile voice, still as a bone

And BTW why are you using Tide?

Would you be more gentle,dear,I cried
She pushed my head as if  it were a stone
I only want my hair washed not to die

And BTW why are you using Tide
Shampoo is much kinder,on I moaned~
Could you be more gentle,dear,I cried

I ‘m glad you don’t  use Ariel,  suicide
She wrote about the Moon, her  love and home
Did she want her hair washed not to die?

In Spain she  bought sardines so she could fry
In the wilds of Devon left alone
Ted was  getting famous, not his wife

I re-enter time ,I let  her dye
My hair is purple when  rinsed  from  the foam
Did Plath want her hair  dyed not to die?

Marriage holds a  breeze but not a storm
The  rose had pricked her finger with its thorn
Could we be more gentle if we tried?
We all need human love or we will die

 

 

 

Where is the world?

The boundary of my self is my own skin
Fragile, and so sensitive,  yet home
Most of what I call me dwells within

Some may have it thicker, some too thin
Some are cautious, some  have heavier bones
The boundary of my self is  my own skin

We  lose the  most beloved of our kin,
We who lose  a lover, still feel torn
Is what I call my self all   held within?

Unconscious feelings lead us  into sin
For  these malicious feelings  let’s atone
The boundary of my self is merely skin

Losing love’s  akin   to losing   limbs
No more around the wild woods may  we roam
Is what I call my self  just held within?

Unwilling, from our mother’s womb we’re thrown
She suffers as  we  leave our  perfect home
If the boundary of my self is my own skin
Where is the world when we call it within?

 

 

The parting

My intellect has parted from my heart
Two now dwell within one person’s frame
I am double, I cannot restart

Like a weary horse with heavy cart
I do not want to play  for little gains
My intellect has parted from my heart

My eyes are sad although my tongue is tart
I am the object  of my own disdain
I am double, I  will not restart

Is this the journey with no  written chart?
SatNav  bears no solace for my pain
My intellect deserted this poor heart

Google Maps have missed this savage shark
Which bites and bites but will not kill   the flame
I am  two, dissociated, stark

 

Did I make an error  I can’t name?
Hold me in your arms,love keeps us sane
My intellect has parted from my heart
I am   cut in  two, who wrought this harm?

 

 

 

 

Play with our doubts

Fear of chaos stopped me looking  out
I could not see its value   nor its  gifts
To see new sights we need to live in doubt

So I  travelled on established routes
I got to places happily and swift
Fear of chaos stopped me looking  out

We often wonder what life’s all  about
Then we hurt our kin, oh love, oh rifts
New wisdom   comes from  fine creative doubt

Forgetting  this we find life full of threats
We swallow drugs and wallow as we drift
Fear of chaos stopped me looking  out

We suffer all  to find what will enchant
Then we are raised high by all we’ve missed
To see new sights we need to  feel our wants

Alert yet indolent   the  wild flowers wish
To  entice honey bees with honeyed flesh
From the Void, God’s word made mountains shout
To see new sights we must play with our doubts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I could see the Pennines

I’m looking for a pavement cracked and worn
But now the council put some tarmac down
I make my images from  objects scorned

Artweaver and Pixlr have been warned
I  use  their tools, their feathers,  and their down
I’m looking for a pavement cracked and worn

My hands are full of lines,my nails are torn
My eyes are narrowed,I  intend to frown
I seek my images in objects scorned

I want  the dead, I want our old brick home
I want to dwell  on  moors near Darwen Town
I’m sure their   features  will be cracked and worn

I remember bilberries  and limestone
I  remember larks,  birds free from   bounds
I make my images from  what love scorned

If I  could see  the Pennine Hills  I ‘d drown
To Anglezarke the water’s rippling down
I’m  looking for the place where I was born
The  cobblestones,the kerb ,the  marbled halls

 

 

 

The future

The enemy we  need  is close at hand
Like a secret lover  right next door
We’re always ready with an army band

Today, it is the husband who’s condemned
For dropping baby’s rattle on the floor
The enemy we  love is close at hand

The wife too is quite useful, here she stands
Her pinafore is torn, her heart is sore
She’s turned the sound down on that bloody band

Cain and Abel, was the killing planned?
Look down O God as we  your  skills deplore
The enemy we   want  is close at hand

We have no  theatre, war  is  on demand
And always it is just and it is fair~
We singalong  and wave our bloody hands

An enemy,a scapegoat, a caged  bear
Absorb the torment  we have just prepared
The enemy we  need  is close at hand~
Don’t kill them all at once, the future’s planned

I never knew that  modern bus stops speak

The bus stop says its out of use  this week
Men are digging up the road again
I never knew that  modern bus stops  speak

I wonder will the street lamps follow suit
Their  voices like  the chiming of Big Ben
The bus stop says its out of use  this week

Maybe I can find another route
Will railway stations stutter like shy men?
I never knew that  modern bus stops speak

How to travel ,hearing voices break
Pity and compassion   hit my pen
The bus stop says its out of use  this week

I fear my travel plans  have gone astray
The journey I am on will never end
Did you know that  modern bus stops speak?

From the dark grey sky the rain descends
Evolution staggers round the  bends
The bus stop says its out of use  this week
I never knew that  modern bus stops  speak

 

I’m chased by signs,equations and cats’ eyes

My nightmare lives in bed,  oh fire,burned bright
I’m chased by signs,equations and cats’ eyes
After  I’ve turned out  the bedside light

I am far too weary for a flight
I see  the art and love yet all’s awry
My nightmare  comes to  bed, oh heck,oh might

Can you tell me  more about my sight?
I seem  no longer to get eggs to fry
Before  I have put on  the bedside light

The Hebrew letters  make my heart turn white
Denoting  both infinities not pi
The nightmare re-occurs, obnoxious site

Then its almost  Grecian  at its height
The tragedy of theatre, does that lie?
Forget about the bed and its gold light

The cat  bemoans it’s eyelessness  and  sighs
We’re not in Gaza yet but  don’t say  die!
My nightmare lives in bed but I shall write
After  I’ve turned on my little light

 

 

Is the paper ruled  when it arrives?

The equation so familiar is  gone
We cannot represent the world by signs
Seen and mocked by scholars,  all is done

Reality imposed  this skeleton
Where is the human feeling, once benign?
The equation once familiar is  gone

Deferential calculus. what fun
Simply wanting others   to resign
Seen and mocked by scholars,  all is done

Thinking  at that level breeds no pun
Nor does using paper filled with rhyme
The equation too familiar is  gone

Can we bring it back, can thought be won?
Mention en passant both space and time
Seen and mocked by scholars, has God come?

 

Why  write mathematics in straight lines?
Is the paper ruled  when it arrives?
The equation  evil speaking  is  far gone
Seen and mocked by scholars, shot by gun

 

 

Dialogue

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.

Margaret Miller [ att]

 

A monologue needs friends  attuned and named
If  alone, the endless thoughts would wind
Like cotton wraps the reel,like life begins

 

Self obsession  leads us into sin
To treat with bare contempt the human mind
A monologue needs friends to  find our aims

Do we know to whom we speak so plain?
Why ignore the facts of  life that bind
Like cotton wraps the reel till none remains?

Our thoughtless words may leave an inkless stain
And later we  mysterious sadness find
A monologue needs friends  or it brings pain

If Freud were  here we wouldn’t say the same
Would you unfold your past. all thought aligned
Like cotton wraps the reel  and order makes?

There is no static past  in  this life’s game
What we choose to utter  breaks our mind
The monologue  turns dialogue , yet lame

I prefer my paper with no lines
Then I draw, my metaphors  design
A monologue needs friends to make, bargain.
Though  they be  mute , a dialogue begins

You may dream the meaning  in the lines

Do not read  a poem   anytime
Do not suffer anguish and despair
Looking for the meaning  in the rhymes

Think  about it as you see its lines
Recite it to  the mirror,do your hair
Do not read  a poem   anytime

If you can’t resist then do be kind
As you  are with jeans  that never flare
Is there subtle meaning  in the rhymes?

Every  tongue is different in its binds
Translation  is a guesstimate deferred
Do not read  a poem  in clock time

If you cannot act, you’ll have to mime
To show the public you are no nightmare
Especially  on  the meaning  in the rhymes?

 

Be a proper reader if you dare
This is not the end of the affair
Do not read  a poem   at night time
You may dream the meaning  in the lines

When the mute begin to feel their wrath

When the mute give lectures to the  rest
When gross torturers run the world’s affairs
Ambiguous states of mind are put to death

Then the blind can navigate the best
The bones, the  human parings, the cut hair
Indict the mute and torment all the  rest

No more does spirit send  us holy breath
The foxes and the wolves wait in dark lairs
Indict the mute and torment all the  rest

Send the poisoner out to kill the pests
Do not be concerned if it’s unfair
Hear the mute and silence all the  rest

Who decided loving was unblessed?
Cover up the Gorgon and her stare
Unbind the mute and  let them each confess

 

Do not any fuehrer war declare
Do not listen to the voice that blares
When the mute begin to feel their wrath
Uneasy states of mind are put to death

Of crypto-theological  progress

Of crypto-theological  progress
Of humans rising from the humble worm
Where is Evolution’s  grand success?

Those who are imperfect cause distress
Soon we want to murder the deformed
Oh! crypto-theological  progress

Evolution’s natural life works best
Eugenics led to genocide in turn
Who is Evolution’s  grand success?

Soon  arose the measurements and tests
As if no human being could discern.
Oh! crypto-theological  progress

 

Is your IQ less than all the rest?
Does testing impede  children’s wish to learn?
Where  is Europe’s  male  evolved  success?

See the Nazis and the books they burned
Did any  of the living feel concern
Re  crypto-theological  progress
Has Europe evolved yet  into success?

 

 

Attention must be paid to each small thing

The air feel still and cool and nothing moves
The birds  have disappeared and do not sing.
Life  feels distant, love’s in interlude

As we age  when health  and wit we lose
What new  learning may our own life  bring?
The air feel still and cool and nothing moves

Are we present to  the life we choose?
Attention must be paid to each small thing
Life  feels distant,  heart feels un-renewed

Like the dough we must be left to rise
The hidden power of yeast the flour shall wring
Minute yet powerful,  how the grains collide

Hidden in the dark ,what myriad eyes
Insects scurry, wasps to nettles cling
Life  feels distant, lovers lost are rued

Now  we feel the breath of a small wind
A whispering voice, the holy dove descends
The air feel still and cool and nothing moves
Consoled by  darkness, we await its clues.

Be still my heart

On the day. forlorn, we  had to part
I helped you go  as birds rise from the nest
Oh, hidden anniversary of the heart

 

I do not need to keep a special chart
I remember  every glance and kiss
Before the day on which we had to part

 

  People order me  to make a start
Create a life  of pleasure, should I wish
Oh pain, oh anniversary ,oh my heart

 

 This  bleeding of my heart, my joy  thwarts
Yet  still I  live in spirit and in  flesh
Since the  sad day  we were made  to part

 

 I fear those dreams that criticise  and harm
The words of others  pierce my tenderness
Oh, recurring anniversary in my  heart

 

Comfort me, surround me with your arms
Protect me from the Visions and the storms
This  the day we knew we  had to part
Oh,  love,  oh memory,   oh, be still my heart

 

I  feel I’m  more important than before

I  feel I’m  more important than  before
For no-one cared I lived here in my house
Now Google  spies on me  through my glass door

If I buy shoes from Clarks, they’ll tempt me more
Advertising frequently  and loud
I  feel I’m  more important than  before

If I  buy one new laptop, I need scores
How stupid is AI , and yet how proud
Now Google  spies on me  through my glass door

They know I’ve been to Boots but not what for
Soon they  will be spying via my mouse
I  glow, I’m  more important than  before

They steal as silently as none before
Even when I’m ironing  my spouse
See Google  spies on me  through my glass door

I   taught   what the laws of chance  allowed
I even taught my cat till she miaowed
By FBI and MI5   ignored
I   guess I’m  more important than  before

 

 

Sadness in its force has an allure

The memory of my loss still gives me pain
I do not wish to feel it  anymore
The butterfly is   battered once again

The waiting with its vigilance is strained
As if a monster shuffles to my door
The memory of my loss,  oh heart of pain

Who for love will risk this sadness named?
Who  is criticised  for spirits poor?
The butterfly, the storm will come again

Life is hard and  wildness can’t be tamed
Sadness in its force has  an allure
The memory of my loss still gives me pain

Leaving Sodom,  salt dissolves in rain
I must look forward with a vision pure
The butterfly find pleasure once again

The loss of movement  we may  each endure
The ills of age won’t have a final cure
The memory of my loss  will fade with time
The fluttering flower  gives joy  yet has no fame

 

I see your face,  you disappear again

The blank paged notebooks where you  used to write
First with pencil then with ballpoint pen
The Freeling novels you read in the night

These special objects bring you to my sight
I see your face,  you disappear again
To blank paged notebooks where you  used to write

The reading lamp showed in its small clear light
Your telephone, your desk, your writing plan
The Freeling novels you read in the night

My heart feels strange, my feelings re- ignite
The fires of love quelled by the sudden rain
Oh, blank paged notebooks where you  used to write

I did not let you go without a fight
But once accepted, I endured the pain
I read the  books that you read in the night

The force that makes the  wheat produce its grain
Also kills   as freely as blood stains
In blank paged notebooks where you  used  to write
Where  do you read  now in  endless night?

 

Let me be the caller who is heard

Let me touch your mind with silk, with words
Let me feel your colour, let me sing
Let me be the artist who is heard

Let me see the  heartfelt  flight of birds
Let me catch you with my golden ring
Let me touch your mind with silk ,with words

Let my love be judged as wild, absurd
Let me see the lightness of your wings
Let me be the artist who is heard

Let me be stirred up by what occurs
Let the bee live even when it stings
Let me feel your mind with silk,with words

Let me be no noun,I am a verb
Let the sunset come and darkness bring
Let me be the caller who is heard

Let me hold you close and comfort bring
Let me love you little, let me long~
Let me touch your mind with silk,with words
Let me  wander  with the music heard

 

With each image ,still your dreaming heart

 

To write a poem will take our entire heart
Our mind and soul, our body and our dreams.
With trepidation,take a pen and start

Let preconceptions , though well meant, depart
Creative work evades such plans and schemes
To write a poem will shake the entire heart

We travel lands unknown without a chart
With our courage, trust the dark unseen
For inspiration,take our pens and write

We bite the apple, bitter, hard and tart
Knowledge enters in its dream -like streams
To write a poem will move each living heart

No logic, reasoning, signs, however wrought
Will bring to life the holy pattern’s themes
With each image, still your dreaming heart

The earth ,the oceans, seas, the sacred scenes
Where humans live out daily what life means
To write a poem , we need a mystic’s heart
We fill our empty pens,we  make a start

Intolerable, vocabulary, rhyme

 

 

We’re stuck with that first sentence  at the time
The page was blank yet now the way’s  declared
Intolerable, vocabulary, rhyme

When we  make a poem, we start with line
Write the second one  with  tactful care
We’re stuck with that first sentence  for a time

Like a builder standing in the grime
We have a vision of a construct fair
Special words,vocabulary, rhymes

The other mind within has its designs
As dreams are made, nobody human  stares
We’re stuck with that first sentence   just this time

Shakespeare in the  bedroom gives a sigh
Disappointment, rapture, angry glare
Special  the vocabulary of rhyme

 

Excess,  the words we linger on are pared
Today I  was more lenient than I cared
We’re stuck with that first sentence,  I’m resigned
Intolerable, vocabulary, rhyme

 

If I should cease to love you

 

If I should cease to love you when you die
And quickly fill your space with a new man
Then perhaps my claiming love was but a lie
And I can fill you place with anyone.

Are not our friends unique and therefore lost
When death pulls them away to darker shores?
Yet we will love each one despite the cost.
And when we weep, is this not what life’s for?

Loss and gain and loss and gain again
A pattern from the infant to the sage
So joy and pain and joy and pain remain.
Who knows what is next upon the page?

To feel,to suffer, then feel joy once more
Will guide us soon unto that golden shore

The kitchen looked as bright Labour wrecked.

 

The kitchen looked as clean as I’d expect.
I was a fool to move the old knife rack;
All I do is make hot toast and text

I moved the rack, my fantasy was wrecked.
In hygiene, seems I show indecent lack!
The kitchen looked as clean as I’d expect.

Only within maths was I correct.
I seem to live in fantasy, not fact
For all I do is make hot toast and text.

Now my actions must become direct
I shall approach the grease and crumbs with tact
The kitchen looked as clean as I’d expect.

My health and reputation showed their cracks
I see now it is action that I lacked
For all I live on is hot toast, quite black

Over the formica, I put lots
Of powdered soap then hit it with an axe
The kitchen looked as bright Labour wrecked.
For all we have is Socialism banjaxed

Woodbines dipped in beer

Every seven minutes someone dies
It should be made illegal, I declare
We could live forever if we tried

We can control our diet with advice
Dress up warmly  when dark clouds are here
Every seven minutes someone dies

Don’t  go out in winter if there’s ice
Kiss stress goodbye, let  good sense murder fear
We could live forever, Lord abide

Put poison on your head to kill the lice
Do not  pet mosquitos near  the mere
Every seven minutes someone dies

Melanomic  sun is bad for eyes
If you’re blind,  a cat smells like a  steer
We could find infinity as spies!

Oh, Mammy how I wish that you were near,
With Daddy smoking Woodbines dipped in beer
Every seven minutes someone dies
We could live much longer than a cry.

 

My red-haired neighbour  loved her high heeled shoe

My red-haired neighbour  loved her high heeled shoes
She dressed in cream and black  when she went out
Her smart appearance called in many views

Even when she fell and was much bruised
Her eyes so sharp  drove off   marauding louts
My red-haired  neighbour saved for grand cream shoes

She dyed her hair blood red, oh men confused!
Though she was ninety she was never stout
Her   dear appearance wondrous was well viewed

By the Daily Mail, she was bemused
She meditated, used it  wrap sprouts
My  neighbour   dyed her hair and matched her shoes

Suddenly her blood  its power would lose
Her nights out and her cooking were in doubt
She so  stylish no more  could be viewed

She went to Mass on Sunday, sin to  rout
Her hair fresh dyed, she died where God’s about
My red-haired neighbour  loved her pretty shoes
In her coffin,   may  she be amused

 

 

 

The lost embrace

The sparrows sing as if to draw me to
The present moment’s gravity and grace
Our contemplation of life’s nature new

What  other attitude is worthwhile now
That I no longer see your loving face?
The sparrows sing as if to greet me too

Eden is still here, we miss the clues
We miss the  ardent touch,  the lost embrace
Our contemplation of the world renews

On my face, the tears are jeweled dew
In my body, I feel held, enclosed
The sparrows sing as if to greet me too

Now the blackbird sings as if on cue
Inside my swollen heart, I feel its grace
Contemplation of  life’s nature new

I saw your soul in your transparent face.
And crisscrossed lines from struggle left their trace
The sparrows sing as if to draw us to
The contemplation of the  wildness true,

I think I am invisible

img_20190311_170607Living in my bedsit in the tower of  the old folk
Watching television,I heard somebody speak
A robot does my cleaning and it does not ever smoke

I think I am invisible, I wear a  dust grey  cloak
Maybe I’m a loser; my bones already creak
Living in my bedsit in the tower of  the old folk

Noone  here can touch me, now maybe they will joke
But my heart is feeling empty and I know I am a freak
A robot does my cleaning and it does not even smoke

The council can’t afford replacements for any mugs I broke
I see a few  young people  drinking coffee  in the street
Weeping in my bedsit in the tower of  the old folk

If I tried to drown myself no doubt I would just float
When I go to a farm shop, the sheep  won’t stop to bleat
A robot does my cleaning and it does not even smoke

I am serving my life sentence, but it seems incomplete
I can only walk ten yards, arthritis in my feet
Living in my bedsit in the tower of  the old folk
A robot did my cleaning, the dumb thing never spoke

Even when it’s suicide to smile

Taunt no longer idiots on these isles
For like the Lord they are not English pure
They voted for the  stupid and the wild

In appearance, May looks fairly mild
For the old, she has   a faint allure
Being  the chief  sweeper of  church aisles

 

Boris Johnson Turkey has defiled
He cooked his goose  in rapeseed oil  uncured
As   befits the  madmen and the wild

Michael Gove’s own  head his heart defiled
Yet save him from the deserts of the sewer
Taunt no longer morons on these isles

The NHS is poorer  mile by mile
It’s good if you are dying on the wires
Even when it’s suicide to smile

Mrs Thatcher, never   paid the toll
She wrote a cheque and signed the counterfoil
Taunt no longer MPs on these isles
We chose among the cunning, the most vile.