Category: villanelle

Perfect love will cast out perfect fear

There is humour in the Bible we revere
Soles are heeled,partitions sent to God
Perfect love will complicate your fear

Five thousand people shared a single deer
The meat was cooked by one fierce lightning rod
There is humour in the Bible, we can hear

There is nothing much to salvage the impure
But plentiful the ways to cut off heads
Perfect love can escalate one’s fear

God made Jonah subtly disappear
And caught Elijah when in caves he hid
There is humour in the Bible if you peer

With a wail from Jonah,God appeared
His still small voice got louder by the Flood
Perfect love will castrate perfect fear

After many liars are burned as wood
I hope Gomorrha we will all be good
There is guidance in the Bible, but laugh here.
Perfect love will tame that perfect fear

I remember reading of Gommorah

I remember reading of Gommorah
Sodom too where no good men were found
I’ll get the Bible out  to read tomorrow

We don’t act but wait  and wait forever
While homeless people lie upon  cold ground
I remember reading of Gommorah

Jesus spoke, it’s we who must deliver
We act as if we’re mentally unsound
We’ll get the Bible out  to read tomorrow

The politicians may be very clever
Yet I  don’t like the way they act or sound
I remember reading of Gommorah

We have a dusty Bible made of leather
It may not be in Jesus ‘ native tongue
We’ll get that Bible out  to read tomorrow

Our home is on this earth where all belong
Yet after all these years we still do wrong
I remember reading of Gommorah
I’ll get the Bible out  to dust tomorrow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beauty,lust and brilliance do not last

How can you love someone who is cruel
Beauty,lust and brilliance do not last
Then every word you say is used as fuel 

Masochism and loneliness for fools
Soon your love is in the misty past
How can you love someone who is cruel?

Conversation  must not be a duel
We  should not cling when we are now harassed
When every word we say is used as fuel 

In our breast the heart  may sing and howl
How can we control  our own disgust?
How can any love  the one  so cruel?

Why not take defeat and use  this tool
Change our life  whatever way we trust?
When every word we say is used as fuel 

The wisdom of the heart is  killed by lust
The work of men and women  is unjust
How can you love someone who is cruel
Where every word you say is used as fuel ?

The gratitude of rivers

When we’re empty what will fill our hearts?
What can be created in this space
Where Eros lived creating  love’s sweet darts?

War has outdone Love on every chart
What race is   run without the nuclear waste?
When we’re empty what will fill our hearts?

No  way to  grow  our love  has yet been thought
Even though we know of every taste
Since Eros lived creating  love’s sweet darts

Love is free, we find it where we ought
We do not need to grasp to  obtain grace
When we’re humble love will fill our hearts

Love cannot be measured on a chart
We see in  human  beings  god’s new face
 Eros works creating  love’s long darts

Whose  the finger that my feature’s traced?
Whose the womb that bore me  and embraced?
When we’re empty   trust will help our hearts
The gratitude of rivers ,mountains,Arks

 

Where does logic go to in the night?

Where  do dreams  go while we are awake?
Where does logic go to in the night?
Why does laughter make our body shake?

Why do  men like eating home made cake?
Why  do little children want to bite?
Where  do dreams go while we are awake?

Why is Windermere not Winderlake?
Why do we have wars and want to fight?
Why does laughter make our body shake?

Why do people not read William Blake?
Why is it so rare to have insight
Where  do dreams go while we are awake?

Why do we so often feel like fakes?
Why do people like to see the Light
Why does laughter make our body shake?

Oh, to see an eagle high in flight
Oh, to see  a friend   and love the sight
Where  do dreams  go while we are awake?
Why does laughter make our body shake?

 

Windy day

The honeysuckle ,heavy as a crown,
Wanders,waving ,in the windy air
Yet its roots are anchored in the ground

The branches wave like arms without a sound
Searching for another wild and bare.
The honeysuckle ,heavy as a crown,

Soon will come the flowers, a  pink nightgown
Who can hold the treasure hidden there?
Its roots are anchored in the  underground

We don’t always know what we have found
Illusion cloaks  perception till it tears
The honeysuckle ,heavy as a crown,

Shall we  describe our virtue with a noun?
New perception tortures what is rare
But roots are anchored in the  underground

Knowledge hides inside a  new nightmare
In the darkness ghosts come out to stare
The honeysuckle ,heavy as a crown,
A  stunning ship now anchored in the ground

In the  sighing woodland ,birds go by

Acer-palmatum-2020

In the wanton woodland ,birds flash by
Busy with their mates and with their nests
Caught a glimpse  there in my cornered eye

I walk held up by silence  undefied
Life is plain when  we don’t send the texts
In the gentle woodland ,birds flash by

I call out softly with a plaintive cry
No bird will understand  my strange request
Caught in movement  from my cornered eye

The sun showed through the highest branches  sly
Lit the birds up as it wandered West
In the mossy woodland ,birds arise

Nature’s  not in lockdown as we are
They find their food, the insects and the rest.
The many coloured berries  gleam like stars

We do not see the murders and the feasts
The magpies eating  nestlings we detest
In the  shadowed woodland ,birds flash by
I see this from the corner of my eye

God  is murdered daily, we perceive

How precious is the life that we will lose
The joy of senses open  like new leaves
The  holy sun, the air,  our attitudes

Our boundary, our skin  protects, is bruised
By those who  claim to love but soon deceive
How precious is the life that we will lose

The mind  and body open  for new views
Are vulnerable, yet glad, as they receive
The  holy sun, the air,  our attitudes

And Jesus came to Earth, a holy Jew
God  is murdered daily, we perceive
How precious is the life that we will lose

We are   torn apart, love, hate ,confused
Yet every  moment, God   is re-conceived
In  holy sun, in air,  in gratitude

First we love  our neighbour , then believe
The web of  holy actions, who can weave?
How precious is the life that we will lose
The  holy sun, the air, its magnitude

Love buried and unseen

The kindness of  our neighbours helps us cope
With life, with death,with many shades between
When we despair and  can’t imagine hope

When the sailor takes us in his boat
When he rows us on a  night-blank sea
The kindness of  our neighbours helps us cope

The world  seems  made to hurt, and then frustrate
The mind confuses   dreams , reality
When we despair and  dare not even hope

 Love is built  as we contain our hate
Sailing well  we  find a new country
The kindness of  our friends helps us  to  cope

Persistence in the virtues   gives us scope
Start again, the angel said to me
When I despaired and  lost my  bits of hope

In our mind love’s buried and unseen
Yet we can raise the dead with energy
The kindness of  our  frriends helps us cope
When we are lost and  can’t discover hope

 

Fragility is measured by the glass

As fragile as the sacred crystal glass
Which  broken was smashed up like any cup
Till its particles invaded us at Mass

Uncontained,  how will this  moment pass?
Suffering  breaks us down, what helps us up?
Hearts as fragile as  a crystal glass

Do not climb the cliff  in love’s mad  rush
Height  endangers, vertigo, a drop
Whose particles invade us at the Mass?

Feeling like the flower tramped underfoot
Never to be raised,  true life has stopped
When fragility is measured by the glass

Did Jesus know that physics  would  forecast
That he could be alive mixed in, not mocked
His particles  shall dance with ours at Mass

When we die, the shop is out of stock
There is no other I in any book
As fragile as the ancient crystal glass
Whose particles  fly solo in the Mass

Abbey Steps

I’d like to visit Whitby and its shores
See the Abbey ruins on the cliff
I can’t climb those steep steps any more

The whip of salty sea, the shells, the lore
The  old town with its alleys and its fish
I’d like to visit Whitby and its shores

We heard the seagulls shrieking, Jesus rose
We were in a cottage but in fact
I  won’t climb  those abbey steps no more

In my mind I find an unmarked door
A dream comes by,  who  whipped my tender flesh?
I’d like to visit Whitby and its shores

Fish don’t die like sheep in abbatoirs
But yet it must gruesome so to thrash
I can’t climb those steep steps any more

I don’t like eating fish,I hate their whiff
It makes me conscious of my father’s death
I’d like to visit Whitby and its shores
Who can’t climb those Abbey steps no more?

I wish we were on Sutton Bank again

I wish we were on Sutton Bank again
The Cleveland Hills with heather and bright bees
We lay down in the heather in the sun

We hitched a lift, Osmotherley, a van
Another day was Whitby and the sea
I wish we were on Sutton Bank again

I wish that you were near, my loving one
Your suffering  face was   very  sad to see
We   lay in  purple heather in the sun

What shall I do, what am I  to become?
I  waken up  too early, make my tea
I wish we  lay on Sutton Bank again

Our backs ,warm earth , our faces smiled as one
The  heather a warm bed, no shady tree
We  once lay in the heather in the sun

I miss your face, your eyes, their loving plea
The sun above, the windswept  leafless tree
I wish we were on Sutton Bank again
We ‘d lay down in the heather ,where’ve you gone?

 

 

No map

The more I  write, the more I feel the gap
From  the immense, the real  of skin and eye
To what  I write or draw upon a map

When you  lay still, my skin around you wrapped
I touched you with my  nerves   but made no cry
The more I  write, the more I feel the gap

We can hold  a baby on our lap
But not a  husband who needs space to die
What  could I write or show upon a map?

Words like little wires,  a  rabbit trap,
Catch a moving moment as it flies
The more I  write, the more I feel that gap

There is a silence, music is surpassed
A puzzled truth and not  wordly lie
What to  write or show upon a map?

Can we close the lids, the lover’s eyes
Sorrow  follows  couples like a spy
The more  the words, the more I feel the gap
The real  hides as I write, there is no map

Living in our daymares out of bed

Clematis-armandii-2020

Thanks to Mike for allowing us to meditate on  his images which aid the hearts of the suffering and add to the joy of life for all who gaze upon them

More dangerous than our weapons are our minds
The fantasied revenge will do no good
Some kill a neighbour even  when they’re kind

I never thought that I’d ring 999
But why wait  until I lose my only head?
More dangerous than our weapons are our minds

We have  eyes to see  yet we are blind
Living in our daymares out of bed
Some kill a neighbour even  when they’re kind

Though people starve, are tortured all the time
I must not be so  passive in this bog
More dangerous than our weapons are our minds,

Instead of fighting fantasies, let’s write
Slowly choosing words,combined for good
Though humans  torment   friends  and their own kind

Onto Jews we  cast  our shadowed bad
Then we killed our souls to shed their blood
Why were fascists not made into swine?
Where is the precious water and the wine?

I think what others  have suffered when I feel self pity

 

Small and humble

The clouds are large  like galleons on the sea
The sails are rounded swimming on the blue
The earth seems small and humble company

Some take  fright and into dark they flee
Blinded  by the size,ignored the clue
The clouds are whipped  like  icecream into goo

I see a dream that  hangs high on a  tree
A crow stands on its head, the small birds rue
~The earth seems small ,unreal yet company

God wrote us a  letter,that is key
We staggered to the fire,we burned with glee
The clouds  disguise  the sin of  our envy

The dying god hangs through eternity
Shall he be raised, shall we his promise see?
The earth seems small and humble company

Oh, do not  let us kill the sacred tree
Fragmented it wlll split  the Trinity
The clouds are  beads  upon a rosary
The Cross  beseeches.words are  heresy

 

 

 “Day  shall come again”

When red sun  drops and  cooling night  rolls in
Darkness masks both danger and our vision
Ancient minds fear   day won’t come again

Courage for the  delicate   seems thin
We  wrestle  with  our horrid indecision
When  sun  drops deep and  night  rolls  softly in

But now , new stricken by   a dread of sin
Who shall doubt  the soul’s   derision?
Our  ancient minds fear   day won’t come again

When  we sleep we’re entertained within
Dark dreams squander  sweet   illusion
When  deep sun  drops and   gentle night  rolls in

In reverie we’re loved  our hearts widen
Then  fancy turns to full communion
While ancient minds fear   day won’t come again

And so  it was that our own life began
When sperm leaped up in  proud confusion.
When  deep sun  dropped and  a   new night  rolled in
When  ancient  hearts cried  “Day  shall come again“

Before we have the words

The childish jealousy, the painful heart
The remnants of a past that live within
Which make my  skin  feel pain, that make it smart

Measured feelings  appear   on  noone’s chart
We hide our knowledge of our own dark sin
The childish jealousy, the painful heart

It  comes too fast, takes too long to depart
Before we have the words, can thought  begin?
Unthought knowledge,wordless,  makes skin smart

Can action makes us better deal with thought?
What protection helps the smarting skin,
The childish jealousy, the painful heart?

Can virtue, unlike love, be sold and bought?
Turn the phones off. numb the brain-made din
Unwanted knowledge peeves the soul and heart

Like the dangerous wall that cut Berlin
We defend ourselves,  don’t   let life in
The childish jealousy, the hating heart
Make my  very self  feel pain.I want no part

 

After him

The gravity of loss brought me to earth
Beneath the rotting leaves, I lay with worms.
I wondered if I were of any worth

No more to be enchanted by love’s mirth,
I  with unnamed particles was turned.
The weight of loss bears down the heart to earth.

The weight of  love has readied us for birth
The fragments moulded with the love that burns.
I learned we need  not wonder  over  worth

My sorrow brought no guilt nor fear of wrath
I am both  sharp eyed eagle ,twisted worm.
In my little grave, I  loved the earth.

Like the adder, shocked into rebirth.
I from silent underworld had learned
Not to judge my soul nor think of worth.

I shall not  fear the flames of hell that burn.
When blackness is accepted, may one learn?
The weight of loss breaks down the soul to earth
With dusty shredded leaves, we then convers

I suck upon this lump

I suck upon this lump, this errant growth
As if it were a sweet or tooth unbroke
It cannot be removed  but will it die
Ot getting spiteful ,will it multiply?

I suck on it though never on my thumb
Being deprived  by mouth will make me dumb
It’s cheaper than a cigarette or sweet
Next I’ll be a cannibal,my meat,

I suck it hoping I can make it die
And then the world will feel much less awry
I want back my own mouth as a clear space
Not this horrid monster of disgrace

Yet how divert my self from its own thoughts
Feeling toothless, humour can’t be bought

Little hands

Ten thousand words, a million diagrams
Noone can know others nor themselves
Nor the errant ways, the  wavering spans

Flee the fluttering of a diaphragm
Blind  the eyes and ears to all this wealth
Ten million days, a  thousand diamonds

Fifty million cells in a doll’s pram
Life is  touch and go and needs our stealth
Not the errant ways, the  wavering  plans

No matter how I speak I can’t command
The instant  of his death,his plangent depths
Ten thousand gasps,  the weight  about a gram

God below, with worms he understands
He needs no words, no pictures, nor  new hells
The trains to Auschwitz,  had no waving   hands

By  Dunwich Beach we hear submerged church  bells
Golden angels   fly  from one, Cromwell
Ten  mighty words show less than one diagram
See the watery   childrens’ little hands

Feel the woodland beauty as in prayer

The hurricane has turned into a breeze
The sun shines on a squirrel leaping high
The  birds are hiding in the holly tree

Every human being will agree
We’d better live, if soon we  knew we’d  die
The hurricane has turned into a breeze

Soon will come the butterfly and bee
And every little insect that can fly
The  birds are hiding in the holly tree

I like hills.my lover likes the sea…..
Different people different loves arise
The hurricane has shrunk into a breeze

Lilies hide, so deep, love’s mystery
Then  its offspring decorate our days
The  blackbird sings  atop the holly tree

Feel the woodland beauty as in prayer
Trust the unknown darkness at its core
The scary wind has turned into a  breeze
The  doves are  cooing from the maple tree

I dreamed I rode a tricycle last night

I dreamed I rode a tricycle  last night
Large and painted blue without  a bell
Then I met my doctor,what a sight

He told me he had lately seen the light
And wished to be a monk inside a cell
I dreamed I rode a tricycle  last night 

Ted Hughes had gone out fishing for a pike
The army in my head was doing drill
Then I met my doctor,what a sight

I see the almond  blossom, what delight
My sister thinks I’ve left her in my Will
I dreamed I rode a tricycle  last night 

Yet I am weary with my oversight
I am rarely mad enough to kill
Unless I met a doctor  out on strike

Because of such a strike I lost my sight
The Eye emergency  was  left too late
They say  that if I sue I’ll feel a chill
Surgeons  with knives on my window sill

 

 

Quivering in the meadows of the heart

We saw the cows at Easter freed from barn
We were on a hill beside our lane  
They were running in the meadow’s  fresh green charm

Renting a small cottage on a farm
Dorset  has its literary fame
We saw the beasts at Easter freed from barn

Beasts will share their feelings  and their heart
Not for them the clever,wordy games
But dancing  in the meadow’s   alien charm

These images annihilate the harm
Suffered by the sick and by the lame
We saw the beasts at Easter freed from barn

The green of spring, the green thoughts, the great calm
Thus poverty brings us emptiness for gain
Running  to shelter of your arms

Was it not a right to be insane
Freed from prison  when the summer came?
We saw the cows at Easter freed from barn
They were  quivering in the meadow while I yearned

 

When God came down

We may know what’s right and still do wrong
Greed and envy run our inner world
Like a crazed drunk bee we like to sting

Even as the blackbird is in song
The darkness of the heart will on it fall
We may know what’s right and still do wrong

We love to think we are the Queen or King
Perfect in our power , oh iron the walls
Yet crazed drunk bees can float on high to sting

The hurt inside the heart can last too long
The self retreats , the matador has failed
We know the end , the bull will kill the throng

When God came down, our spies soon had him nailed
The burning bush , the little voice, the tales.
We may know what’s right and do the wrong
Take pleasure in our violence, kill and sting

Your sacred smile

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Embraced  entire , your sacred smile held me
Until we  both were one deep in  our souls
As still as a white dove  held tenderly

 

For a little time so warm and free
As if your smile contained  me, made me whole
Embraced and loved , your sacred smile  touched me

As  we  cross together the  dark sea
I wish this sacred love could  always hold
As  gently as a dove ,as tenderly

And if I felt the  brilliant light  touch me
My eyes would weep,my tears would turn to gold
Embraced and loved, oh sacramental  tree

Would that humankind were truly free
That in the darkness, we could find our home
As dies  the  fragile Word on Calvary

We fear  the Tempest and we hear the Storm
The still small voice  will whisper , not perform
Embraced  entire , your  smile   encompassed me
As still as a white dove, as tenderly

Take your love and in your arms enfold.

Did anyone believe blind rage expressed
Could benefit the agent without harm?
Did anyone read Freud and then digest?

Feelings need the heat of blacksmith’s fires
Held inside until they find their form
An image worthy of our right desire

As well as rage, we should mistrust love too
Be backward in expression till more’s known
Or risk an avalanche of cruelty.

Take care of others, they are not our fools
From sacred meetings all mankind has grown
We misuse folk to test our worth and tools

Holding in the inner fires our wish
The blackness of the heart can turn to gold
No contradiction hides such sacredness

Take your love and in your arms enfold.
The future of the world is growing cold
We liked to have the choice for rage and death
Until we found the charred remains of bliss

The more we hide

More defences make us feel more pain
As if by building walls we  make more real
The  fantasies  we’ve formed in our own brain

The murderers and the thieves all know our name
They  watch our door to enter and to steal
More defences make us feel more pain

We need a  lock or two but more won’t gain
The peace of mind, the peace we wish to feel
Not  fantasies  we’ve formed in our own brain

Ten locks on a front door might break the frame
Send the message we’re well heeled
More defences make us feel more pain

The more we fear, the more  fear we obtain,
The world is our perception ,it seems real
Not  fantasies  we’ve formed in our own brain

The less we try, the less we learn  to feel
The more we hide  more  poignant is our shield
More defences make us feel more pain
Those little  fantasies  we’ve grown in our own brains

 

 

Be off,old death

I read novels so the time goes by
I hate to be at leisure,I’m so tense
They stop me thinking   that all  creatures die

Why  do I kill time,  we have   few days?
Fearing death we add the great pretence
I read novels so the time goes by

We live remotely  even when we try
Two lovers text in bed, that makes no sense
They cannot speak   their love nor  that we die

The  natural world is freer than we are
They have no minds,no money, no intent
 Read no novels, still their time goes by

Losing, dying, grieving, take us far
One by one the candles burn till  spent
They cannot speak   their love or  that we die

Yet while we’re here, we see the butterfly
The faces of small babies and the sky
We read novels for their depth and cry
Be off  old death,I’ll live until I die

I don’t like  the odour of your shoes

I am good and you are evil now
I decide and you must  just agree
I am  your superior and how!

I must be the bull and you are cows
You are blind but I can truly see
I am good and you are evil now

By  good fortune, I am well endowed
I make better cakes and better tea
I am  your superior and how!

I don’t like  the odour of your  shoes
All  I meet will  certainly agree
I  shine  bright and you are duller now

I know  that  God himself was born  anew
I will  learn his language  for a fee
I feel so superior in the  pew

I am the python  in the apple tree
The adder shedding skin, the perjury
I am good  but boring too I know
Where are the shades,  the LSD,the glow?

Is politeness false

Do we have a  more real self inside,
Fully grown and  smart  without  cruel wiles?
Is politeness false and not just kind?

Unlike kittens we are not born blind
Yet  we speak in only screams and smiles
Do we have a more real self inside?

If the Chapel’s Lord with me abide
Turns to gossip with the usual trials
Cruelty and  abjection are on file

Does the real self speak  and is it rude?
I don’t  like  hearing people  being vile
Do we have a hidden self inside?

We have our dispositions , it is true
But we  grow what’s  a self from mother’s  guile
Is politeness false  or  is it kind?

Can we adapt but not so much  we fail?
Be  a true friend, not feel we’re on trial?
 We don’t have a more real self inside
Courtesy’s the oil that soothes and guides

 

Like children

We once rolled  like children down a slope
We stopped the car to climb the grassy bank
As if we were reliving some lost hope

Ecstasy  is way  beyond my scope
My mind is always veering to the  blanks
We once rolled   our  children down a slope

We laughed and laughed  till our ribs nearly broke
The grass was wet  and soon so were our flanks
As if we were reviving some lost joke

Back to childhood then  we grew  and wrote
Mainly  to our others to give thanks
We once rolled  joy’s children down a slope

From a bridge, we dropped the paper boats
The Lea is pretty  ghastly, never  punk
In the eighties  Ted Hughes  told a  joke

Crow or wolf or magpie, what a hunk
Waiting for a vision, hit, distinct
We  sold books in moonshine  to the Pope
Feeling wild, enchanted   by new hope