Love must be so pliant , like a blade of grass, Bowing to the wind, till the storm has passed. Love is enigmatic Like the sphinx’s smile. Waiting for an answer, Nothing is on file. Love is often near us Yet we do not see. Sometimes where we are Is just the place to be
Images made by me using Microsoft Paint program old version
Your skin glows like an old lemon which someone left in the fridge for two years or more.
It blossoms as rudely as the nastiest weeds in springtime.
My yearning heart rises to your thunderous voice and leaps like a pig at the whisper of your name,Hardknut.
The evening ascends like a lion riding on a great Kentucky Fried Chicken Wing.
I am calmed by your old vests that I carry to clean the car headlights with in fog
And I hold them in my hand when I have run out of Kleenex tissues.
I am filled with dismay that I may need to dry your tears of shame with old worn out knickers
Yet you ignore mine as ever.You appear to forget I am a woman.
As my right eye falls down onro my blue shawl,alas it reminds me of our unmade blue bed once more.
I shall not forget it for my self esteem is low and falling
and it’s a year since I changed the sheets.
In the hushed yet noisy night,I listen for the last tweets of the autumn and look forward to an icy winter of miscontent
sleeping with the cats on the internet highway
My overheated heart leaps into my hot green mouth.
My lipstick is fading away with shock.
I wait in the faint moonlight for your secret bank check
So that we may strive as one mad being
in search of a golden ring
Symbolic of ambivalent married love that has passed its sell by date
But still has some intrigue remaining.
I never met anyone as dreadful,sweet and ugly as you.
I love you,Nameless.You are mine forever
Or so I believed foolishly..but I prefer a cat now.
The worms and beetles care no more
For the rich than for the poor.
They are happy to devour
Bankers,despots,every hour.
Ante mortem, greed does win
Houses built of gold and sin
But God,who lives in each within,
Cares no more for gold thann tin
If post mortem we are judged
Why does the rich person grudge?
Why do we refuse to budge
Right until the final nudge?
Throw away your heavy goods
Live like daisies by the woods..
Fear not hurricane nor floods
As daises grow even in mud.
More dependent on all power
We trust in madmen’s city towers.
Yet One told us to live like flowers…
And enjoy this life but for an hour.
Perception is not privilege.
We each have the wits to judge.
See and note where you have smudged
What your creation would allege.
Post and ante, even now
The currents of our hearts allow…
The inner sea which has its flow
To take us where we need to go
Apples hang low near the ground. robins chirrup all around. sun on glowing maple leaves gives a red glow that deceives. Autumn air is flowing near, though it's still bright summer here. wind dismays the flowering rose as with arrogance it blows. Leave me one flower for my eyes. Leave me roses,as I sigh. Leave me not my dearest one. Soon enough we shall be gone. What remains is love alone. If your heart is not of stone, Fear not sorrow,fear not woe. Into this earth all must go.
Waxy flowers poking through
,
Your face turned to me,flower to sun,
I loved you.
You were true.
Fear by love was overcome.
I saw the cyclamen in snow,
Pink and red,
Now frozen,dead.
Love was,oh,so long ago.
But never gone from in my mind.
Thoughts so deep,
Upwards seep.
Love was gentle,love was kind,
You’re always in my mind
It takes a long time for a tree to die.
Though its trunk be almost severed with the axe.
There was plenty of sap above
Then the leaves began to wither
and fall though it was spring time…
It takes a long time,to forget.
Not to remember
How to live.
First the tree stops growing.
It pauses,as if waiting for a message.
Then,as I said, the leaves turn brown.
It all takes time.Time to stop waiting
The leaves drop,then the smaller branches shrivel.
Humans also find that when ill, the hair may stop growing
And the finger nails.
We sacrifice the less important pieces of ourselves.
Even the most.
The small branches shrivel and dry out….
Yet the tree still looks alive.
Then gradually we notice it’s drying out;
it’s branches are parched and soon the trunk dries too.
It may split in places and insects make their home there.
It takes a long time before the trunk dies.
From the top down it dies.
The sap is too limited in quantity
To climb the trunk….
So the sap stays near the ground.
Eventually the whole tree seems dead
Yet in the roots there is still subterranean life.
The tree has died and is now brown and leaning a little sideways
No longer magnificent in display.
Time is all it needed
After the sharp cut…
And sometimes the roots are strong enough
To begin to send up new shoots
Another tree may grow..
I have seen that.
People ,of course ,die more quickly.
We have no roots.
And what of love,how does love die?
Like a tree,like a tree,like a tree.
I was unready for anything,
with no charms, like a bee.
Each fresh day is torture..
When you don’t hate me.
I was as tame as a mango,
I was alright in my mind.
Each night was a daydream
Where you were so kind.
I was harmed by your molars.
They were sharper than whales.
Each claw brought the moon out.
As you cut your nails.
Rolling stones gather….
Your heart is not mine.
I’ll give you what you wish for.
It ‘s a true new design .
.
As long as the clock speaks
As long as the rose.
As long as the bike pumps..
I’ll remember your nose.
As long as my patterns;
As brief as they are;
As long as my brain’s dead…
I shall parse on a star.
I love a good proverb.
I love no cliche.
When you find some Wisdom
Do not never pay.
Justice long as a ruler,
Sharpened to a screw.
When you are more kind,then
I may leak what I brew
.
As long as the flat Earth
As wise as it’s broad.
The moon in the water
Heard the crow caw.
Please hear my tall story
Sing beside my cello.
I may fail at the Wife Class
But I can still say,Oh,no!
I went to the Church belle,
And asked for a clue.
The finger on the dial
Keeps pointing at you.
The music of laughter,
The joy of details,
I went by the river
and the moon never paled
I know the sky’ s tilted
My muse is with me.
Don’t sting like a buttercup
Nor like a striped bee.
I didn’t hear you coming,
then you were by my side.
Happiness fills me.
Standing in the garden
looking at red leaves,
I hold your hand gently,
and share the sweetness
of these green leaves,
the distant doves cooing,
the sun dipping to the horizon.
Life is good.
We hear together
the music
of this silence
The man who never listened to the troubles of his wife
fell down the escalator at King’s Cross station.
No-one met his eyes,
as he lay sickly on the concrete,
though someone did push his shiny briefcase towards him
as if hoping that was enough.
He phoned his wife but she was out
complaining about him to a neighbour instead
of painting or cooking dinner.
As he lay down there on a level with the feet
of the commuters
he noticed no-one polished their shoes anymore…
well,no-one could polish trainers of course..,
though you can wash them—-
he saw the way people leaned forward as if pushing themselves
against a gale.
though it was a still warm day.
It seemed as if they were battling against a huge force,
not relating to the feeling of their weight upon the earth.
It was some spiritual force which was pushing them back
towards the Underground,hot and turgid with sweat and dust.
A sanitised Inferno,where the hell is in the collective mind
.
The force seemed to push them in and they pushed back and did
eventually make it into the street outside and into Westminster,
for we all need our rulers.
He lay there all morning musing, until a tramp came over
and asked him to buy a copy of the Big Issue.
And he stood up and bought it gratefully,
taking strength from the acknowledgement of his humanity.
He phoned the office, went home
and told his wife
he’d like to know how she had spent her morning
how she felt,how he wanted to learn to talk and listen,
and recommends now
that if you can fall off the escalator
without breaking a leg
you might be glad
to see life from the bottom up;
for he’d always looked from the top down
and was above everyone.
These reversals,though fearful,
can give us a new perspective
especially on women who are so often
on the underside of society
He’s wondering about changing his life
from up to down..
and down to up.
Mothers always said,it’s good to have a change.
I don’t think it was their husbands they meant..
though………who knows?
A game of musical chairs might be good
on the weekend,
if you live near a good escalator.
Escalating… it’s not for the beginner
at falling.
With apologies to Lewis Carroll and his fans including me
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171647
‘Twas feelring ,and the grimy stoats
Said,wire a bumble to the knave.
All grimly were tomorrows moaned
And the thrown graphs stones were paved.
Beware the fabled cheesy scone
The laws so trite,the flaws per batch.
Beware the run up blurb and bun
The floor left on the latch.
He spank abnormal words in hand.
Wrong rhymes the grandsons wrote.
They arrested me by the pillow flea
With irony they bought.
And as in his British thought he would
Meet catwalks filled with eyes of glame
He rifled through my saddled frogs
Until spears brought me frame
Uno duo. uno dua
The awful spade bent thick as flak.
He raised the dead without their heads
Then froze the buffalo’s back.
Oh,was it pain,to write and schlock?
Give me those larns my Flemish buoy.
Oh,captchas day,hullo,oy vey!
He smarkled faux de roi.
‘Twas spellig and the grimy stoats
Said,fire a grumble on the waves.
All grimly were tomorrows moaned
And the grown graphs growths were grave.
Their eyes drew me,
And their eyes draw me again
Into a pool of winter light
Golden from the low sun.
I swim in it
Like a hawk flows on the wind
Over the depths,
Of life.
Contained by a white china cup,
I’m your reflection now
Drowning in the slanting sunlight
Like a stone in a lake.
Falling deeper until I find
the creative mud
with which I mingle
no longer a stone
but a soft flowing stream of sensations
which meets with joy
the earth’s depths and presence.
And something new will grow
since i lost you i have lost
maybe i need better boundaries
closed doors
and windows
the wood pigeon was so strong its agitation rocked the front door like a thundergod
like you,it did not realise
there are easier ways to leave
than smashing through glass
leaving shards to pierce my heart
not to mention my feet
become a better leaver
have mercy on those other lovers
for charm wears thin but courtesy is everlasting
like love itself
copyright
If I go I won’t tell you.
I’ll just disappear one day.
Like when a cigarette ,which seemed so long,
suddenly has become smaller
and you never noticed it
because you were talking
about the meaning of life
while life was somewhere else
blown away with your smoke
into the sky
and then dispersed
never quite visible again
but still floating on the breeze
hoping to be caught
in a butterfly net
but unable to communicate
except by flying.
If I go it will not be today
but it will be an ordinary day
no one will realise
that it’s that day
that the bird flies
from her nest
to go to a new place
only seeing the deserted nest
he realises,
my bird has flown
.
With what ceremonial geometry
Could I describe the sympathy of the parts to the whole?
What self can contain the feelings engendered by
the response of the heart of the tree. and my heart,
to the space and light offered
and how the clouds float away on the wind
as I stand ,hand on my throat, gazing;
and the new moon points me out to the sky.
What laughter is there in this moment of dancing?
We see only the stillness
but know while we are turned away
a young girl and an old woman murmur together
as one passes the movement to the other.
Caught in the camera, in a moment of rest,
the tree obeys the law of gravity
before levity arises at the moment we turn away
and the dance goes on and the tree is alive with inner movement
Feeling the sadness in my heart
and in my arms a tender feeling
as if the flesh is calling out;
My breath’s coming in gasps and
my throat makes a murmur
as if trying to speak.
Sensitive skin on my inner arms yelps
and my heart aches like
I’ve run too many miles .
My legs feel strong
My mouth is dry and my back
needs an arm around it
for protection.
My eyes are wet with the moisture
that might have made saliva.
My cat died
And then my other cat died.
Whatever.
No woman ever can be she of whom he dreams;
Nor can they give him comfort on the road.
Yet every night he plots and thinks and schemes.
Hence rarely does he ever go abroad.
No food he eats will satisfy his tongue.
The best wine is as naught to mother’s milk.
He grumbles and will not believe he’s wrong.
I‘ ve known more folk than him of this same ilk.
No bed can give him comfort in his sleep.
No sheets and pillows made can suit his skin.
He often has made delightful maidens weep
Crying out they’re far too fat or skinny thin.
Beware the man who rarely can adapt
For in his hidden wishes he is trapped.
Of course when I say man I am using it in the generic sense to include all humans of whatever gender or bender they may be as wall know our Latin and the difference beteen vir and homo.. so homosexual refers to lesbians and virsexual applies to men in the nongeneric sense…
It’s many years since I learned Latin so i may have erred there and elsewhere though never as a homo as yet but that may be in the future waiting for me like that black monster that ran across the floor last night.
Horror and sex seems an odd thing at my age but if it kills me what away to leave the planet.I think I’ll knit a crocodile now
Trust the unknown force that grew you,
From the union of two cells.
An act of love and total giving,
Which has produced whom you call self
Trust the dark,the unseen aspects
Of the life we all do live.
Trust that there is wisdom elsewhere,
To your emptiness to give.
Wait in patience for the time
When inspiration comes at last
Trust in darkness,silence,lowness.
Opposition forms the cross.
Pain is bearable in lowness,
Like the worm in earth I dwell.
When I look I see the sunrise
And I trust all shall be well.
Stan is feeling very odd
He ate a piece of rancid cod.
He hates to throw out bits of food,
but now his insides stewed.
He feels sick and tired of life.
He hates the housework and his wife.
He’s tired of cooking cakes for her.
And he dislikes her hair.
He does like talking to his cat.
They always have a friendly chat.
And he likes teaching tricks and jokes
And see….his ears do smoke!
He went to see a Doctor Brown
Who wore a bright red dressing gown.
He asked him why he had no suit.
And only wore one boot.
>Dr Brown said, Look here,you!
I’m the doctor,how do you do?
So Stan said “I am feeling sick.
The world whirls far too quick”
“Travel sickness is not nice,
The world spins once,then you spin twice.
I’ll give you some pink medicine,
See how you get on.”
“I want to get off, not get on.
My time on earth is surely done.
I want to hear angelic choirs
Instead of Mary’s tyres.”
“I think you’re very melancholy.
I prefer my patients to be jolly.
Please take Prozac ere you come”
“I’ve already taken twenty one
,
But I still feel so black and grey.
I can’t tell if it’s night or day.”
Oh,help me doctor,it’s that time,
When men run out of grime.”
“Now look her, Stan” the doctor said,
“I think that you should go to bed.
A little rest will do you good
And renovate your blood.”
“But who will bake the cakes and bread.
And make sure that the cat’s not dead?
And who will clean the purple bath
And sweep the garden path?”
So Doctor Brown began to cry.
He’s not much good but he does try.
So Stan went home and had a rest,
And ate some buttered toast.
Some days the world is too much here,
But other days it seems less queer
So Stan feels he can cope with life
And even with his wife!
I have loved you and I’ve held you.
Many years,you have been mine;
If the time has come for parting
Let us embrace for one last time.
You know you have to leave me,
Though you desire a longer stay.
Let me hold you in my arms now
For just tonight and perhaps one day
Then I’ll watch you travel on,love,
We take this last step all alone.
I’ll be here beside you watching.
I shall feel when you are gone.
May you accept,may you surrender.
May you reach the promised land.
Into earth my tears will fall, sweet,
As I recall your tender hands.
The process of writing is clear
As mud that is mixed with black beer.
Just recollect some words
And write down what you learned….
With nonchalance,then, persevere.
My old man was feeling so drear
>He dived into a barrel of beer.
He swam to the edge
And perched on a ledge..
He complained that there wasn’t a pier.
Shimmering light
The lily pond
The music of your eye
The touch of your arm
Your always honey smell.
I love.
Rustling trees in a row,
A wide green lawn;
People stoop to see small flowers.
A snail on the path.
The perfection of the shell.
I believe
Unusually tall dandelions
at the edge of this wood
Wave in the warm west wind.
We smile.
Sitting pen in hand
I wonder what I would have written
In all the letters I’ve not sent you.
Far away on the Ridgeway,
Cars, like ants,
Rush towards the motorway.
They make us laugh.
How green the meadows
How fresh the old trees.
I gaze at you.
I find I am.
It’s mutual.
We are.
It’s here.
The hole sucks me in,
with its deep darkness
The Fall was never healed.
Can I resist the call of the killers?
Will they kill me with kindness or with hatred?
I try to hide but no place feels safe anymore
I negate my writing and hide my pens.
Pain degrades me.
Writing deleted returns in imagination
I can do little but I try
Black gravity is the monster in my soul…
Sway not the tree
On whose strong branch the leopard drapes himself
But let the moon speak in silver tongue
as the leaves rustle
I am invisible
except as a home for ants
Who steals my words.
I am no more than a punctuation mark or a short title
I am near the end of my sentence.
I’ll be hanged by some inverted commas
From the oak tree.. burning in the sun’s borrowed fires
I can’t see your face now.
Just shapes in grey fog
Like the doctor without feeling for my child.
A child,that was..
that would have been…
that has gone.
I am uncertain
outside the circle,
outside the circle.
the circle
the circle
of your arms
Or isit that my eyes have known their spite?
I tempt this sin with all my female parts.
They feel I’m like a spider with a bat,
to cure ,devour,digest my ghoulish pests,
They think they should be learning on the sat.
But some who mind me feel they have been robbed.
I give them all detention,I’m a liar.
I give them generous fare and sing sheeps’ songs.
I give them comfort like a hellish fire
Oh,come back ,bad boy ,don’t desert me yet,
The clothes I thrashed for you are not quite set
Black,white,orange.
could be Mondrian
but death throes
I feel my soul is trembling like a leaf
that clings on in the worst of a fierce gale
It will fall into the mud so far beneath,
though briefly through bright sunshine it may fall.
I am as nothing, trodden into earth.
And lower than the lowest living beast,
I make no estimation of my worth
and for the worms I shall provide a feast.
At first I thought that I could ride the storm
That I could live without your circling arm
But truth has taken hold of me entire.
The choice is death by mud or death by fire.
I know well I’ll be trampled with earth’s dust
No more to be an object of mere lust
Let your lips meet gently,
the top one resting against the lower,
touching with tenderness
your own skin to skin.
Forefinger propped on chin,
I let the others dangle,
like leaves on a branch;
how softly gravity tugs them downwards.
Let heart beat quietly,slowly
as the blood circulates
carrying its music,
a river,
following the path of least resistance.
How the blood vessels receive willingly this flow,
touching it kindly as with tiny open fingers,
helping and being helped.
How the hair on the head
floats
on the breeze,
like tentacles of an octopus
waving goodbye.
Top eyelid loves the lower one;
as we blink they touch
like lovers kissing swiftly
behind a tree.
and how the light comes in
we see a world.
[mine may not be yours,]
but the blink of my eyelid
sends waves through the air,
so we’re all touching and being touched,
lips kissing each other,
kiss all living creatures.
skin to skin.
air to air.
And inside us,the rich darkness
of creative night
transforms,in turn,
these touches
into dreams.
Blind sight scattered my wits Like whitened bones Across the deserts of my mind. I descended into blackness. Love shrank into the tame cat By the fire,unacknowledged hate Grew to fill the room. I stared too much, A full stop grew gigantic Crowded out All the words in the sentence I saw nothing but this dot Now a gigantic black hole Into which I was dragged. An energy coming from within my own head Sucked me into the black hole. That place was the wrong sort of dearkness. Within that full stop, Love Fundamental became invisible. Disappered into the dark. I dragged my eyes away And saw the moon appear , so eerie, It shone,grey silver. If I had opened my eyees wider I would not now lament What I destroyed in the wormhole Of the black dot that drew my eye Into a tunnel of darkness It blinded me to the light Did not let me read the sentences Beside the full stop. An error of focus left hate Unacknowledged,unmitigated unredeemed, Kept from love or goodness Afraid to spoil my love with hate, The fear of hate became That which spoiled all else else, By freezing Love itself |
[Art by author]
Suddenly, blindly
She punched my solar plexus,
Never saw my fall.
How a deathly hush
Hung over the small room
Like a cloud of ash.
I saw his face scream.
His eyes shrank and shivered.
His sweet tongue knotted.
I’m finding Derrida de-structured
And Wittgenstein’s‘ mind makes me smile
Who would have conjectured
That one day I’d lecture
On thoughtfullness and all its trials?
I prefer Kierkegaard to Sartre
Who sometimes makes me feel mere.
Who would have expected
That words would be texted
As men smoked cigarettes and drank beer?
Some people like reading Jane Austen
While others fight with Wittgenstein.
Who would have discarded
The notes in the margins?
So strangely these words recombine.
Munch had to paint people screaming,
his premonitions were strong
Who else would have expected
The human destruction
Europe brought to the world before long?
Munch was not only an artist
He was a philosopher too…
who else would have dreamed up
an image that screamed up;
a warning struck, out of the view.
How my heart sings 