My sympathetic
Nervous system is on hold.
I shall sleep now.
Sometimes I feel fired
The parasympathetic
Can’t switch itself off.
A good cup of tea
Can restore British people.
Drink one now with me
Then take to your bed.
Fall asleep or go daydream!
Soon you feel better.
Rest is neglected.
Better to do nothing or
Stare at a big tree. .
Flowers delight me.
Anemones are the best.
Such colour and joy.
Give up fight or flight.
Just write a funny poem.
You will enjoy tha
When first I saw your soulful face,
Then wished I most to you embrace.
I wished as well to clothe you in
The sacred images within.
To find a home for love without;
To fold my dreams all round about
Your loving body and your face
Were covered in such joy and grace.
But now my dreams are cast aside
The world of meaning denied life.
What seemed most precious now is fled…
And I lie sleepless in my bed.
What is the world when unadorned
With all that in my heart I’ve formed?
There is no meaning I can trace,
As in a mother’s empty face.
On these grey rocks my path is hard.
From paradise, my soul is barred;
To struggle or to grief succumb
When this dark day of mourning’s done?
Into His dazzling darkness dart
My dreams and love like dying sparks.
Into His Mystery so fair
I’ll cast both hope and my despair.
Thus my dreams will be transformed
To show themselves in other forms.
What feels a loss may foretell growth.
On my hope,I’ll take an oath:
That nothing in my life is waste,
That I have not for phantasms chased.
And you are human,as am I.
Let’s live once more until we die
The hailstones pounded the window as violently,as if they had minds bent on killing;soldiers in rows and ranks rushing onwards; as each fell another and another took its place. Cold and mathematical they had a simple precise force and geometry. Into this warlike scene,floated two white butterflies Crossing and recrossing the spaces between the hail they followed a random path;now together.now apart Their unplanned,loving dance leads to mating, procreation and a future while the hailstones can only die. Seems sometimes fragile freedom is more productive than the fierce mechanical modern world can imagine. I see the butterflies now like startled flowers hunting for the sun
When the windows shattered
And the splinters flew in
He just made for the back door
And left me
not knowing where to begin.
When the shards of glass hit me
And pierced my vulnerable skin
He was already going
Leaving me
feeling he was an inhuman being.
When I fell down covered in glass and bleeding,
And the storm raged on,
I didn’t look round because
I knew,I knew,I knew,
I knew he would be gone.
Gone.
Suddenly peace came,storm had quite
disappeared..
It was all over so quickly
Not as terrible as I feared.
My wounds were bad,I have to confess.
I had no bandage
Nothing with which to dress.
With an old towel I cleaned my blood
Then I lay me down
Just to have a rest.
Since that day,no storms come this way.
My wounds are healing
I have just one thing to say.
When the storm was so bad
He left me all alone…
but strangely since then
all is peace and calm.
His absence has become
almost a balm.
But I hear stories of fierce storms rising up
In towns and villages
Not too far from here, where a wandering man appears.
Seems like he’s running to get away
From some storm
But the storm’s inside him…
He gives it form
So when the windows crashed in
And glass flew at my face
left me all alone
In what, he thought,
was a very dangerous place.
Did he not pick me up
and carry me outside?
No,my daughter, he left me alone;
I might have died.
But since then
I lost a great burden…
And I lost a great feeling of shame.
Rise up,you women,bleeding and torn.
For on days like this,a new resolve is born.
While you live don’t accept all the blame.
Don’t live so long as I did,in fear and in shame.
Rise up and find that calm
In the eye of the storm…
On days like this
a new woman is born.
When the windows shattered
And the splinters flew in
You just made for the back door
And left me
not knowing where I could begin.
When the shards of glass hit me
And pierced my vulnerable skin
You were already going,
Leaving me
feeling you were an inhuman being.
When I fell down, covered in glass and bleeding,
And the storm raged on,
I didn’t look round because
I knew,I knew,I knew,
I knew you would be gone.
Gone.Gone.
Suddenly peace came,storm had quite
disappeared..
It was all over so quickly
Not as terrible as I feared.
My wounds were bad,I have to confess.
I had no bandage
Nothing with which to dress.
Gently I washed away the blood
Now I just have bruises
And a dark shape
On the floor,where you stood
Since that day,no storms have come this way.
My wounds are healing
I have just one thing to say.
When the storm was so bad
You left me all alone…
but strangely since then
all is peace and calm.
Your absence has become
almost a balm.
But I hear stories of fierce storms rising up
In towns and villages
Not too far from here,where a dark man appears.
Seems like he’s running to get away
From some storm
But the storm’s inside him…
He gives it form.
So when the windows crashed in
And glass flew at my face
He left me all alone
In what, he thought,
was a very dangerous place.
Did he not pick me up
and carry me outside?
No,my darlings, he left me alone;
I might have died.
But since then
I lost a great burden…
And I lost a great feeling of shame.
Rise up,you women,bleeding and torn.
For on days like that,a new resolve is born.
While you live don’t accept all the blame.
Don’t live so long in fear and in shame.
Rise up and find that calm
In the eye of the storm…
On days like this
a new woman’s soul is born.
No words of mine can potently display
the anguish and the joy that touch our lives;
yet all our ghostly forebears went this way
where words may pierce our hearts like sharpened knives.
No sentient being willingly at first
Accepts the pain that true perception brings.
Yet we must not take hearts to be a curse;
we need not flee from knowledge,though it stings.
Each day demands our thoughtfulness and love
from which all better action gently stems
each day the grace we have is just enough
as through the meta narratives we thumb.
For life’s but a true story we invent,
with passion and with purified intent
When you struck me,I vibrated like a kettle drum,
then as smaller percussions and repercussions
echoing from all the glassy surfaces
creating a balletic geometry of sound tracks
in space and time.
When you knocked me down,
I fell against her and her and her;
we were like a row of skittles
and we all went down with the lifeboat;
The infinite chain of being is.
When you hit me,the Fall spread across the world
Now there is no Vertical
All is undivine and graceless.
By the Rod it’s ruled
When you left me,I left myself,the world,the rocks,dry land
I weighed down sank to the ocean bed
with coral eyes
gazing.
When you struck my mind
I became an instrument of a foreign power
Singing a song I didn’t know.
When the glass was smashed
the splinters flew into all our hearts.
You didn’t know what we couldn’t see.
I lay on barren ground and gave birth
To my own Creator in the desert.
Clock on the mantelpiece beats like my heart
More regular.not affected by emotion,vision,thought.
Cats stand proudly in their grey stone bodies
As if at the entrance to some other world.
The heating comes on with a bump,
and suddenly darkness has come to earth.
Clock,clock forever beating,
Will my heart outstay you?
will you tick for someone else?
Though strong in silver case
you feel nothing
give me another heart instead
to share my feelings.
Let another heart beat alongside mine,
and we’ll be tuned in unison,
sing our song of love,
or heartbreak.Human,made of flesh
We will drop like leaves
still the infernal clock beats steadily
controlled by,not love
but radio waves.Imagine now
these waves multi-layered across the earth
carrying shopping lists,time,date.
whilst we go on living ,
hearts fluttering like a cloud of butterflies,
see they go now
climbing away
into the soft tenderness of your hands
In the land which dreams dwell in
where love and hate and life begin;
where swiftly the deep rivers flow
from those lost lands of long ago.
I wander through wild poppy fields
Underfoot the dark earth yields….
I see the flowering fruit trees start
Their blossoms gather round my heart…
I hear the sparrows sing with joy
And bees their busy wings employ.
In those lost lands I saw your face
And now I long for your embrace.
Are you real, am I deceived?
From this earth we all must leave.
Earth to earth and ash to ash
Glory,pride and boasting pass.
Leave me now,my dearest one
Soon I too will be called on.
Nothing lasts but love is real
Remember that and your ideals..
Earth to earth, we rest in clay
We must give all self away
Softly on this earth I roam
Seeking still my love and home,
for until the very end
Love and kindness may descend.
Soft as wings of butterflies
Tears well up and wet my eyes.
My heart has melted into yours
And thus we live and die like flower
Gently dancing in the sun Wildflowers grow; they bloom, are gone. With no thoughts,they have no cares; Yet their lives are gentle prayers. May I walk in such a way That I am alive to this day. So I see with widening view, And joy and sorrows embrace too. Then my time will come, like yours... And of us nothing endures. As to the earth our bodies go, All are one;it shall be so
#
The good things my mother taught me
are too numerous to list
here or even on a large hoarding
I could rent for a week by the train station.
She gave me my blue eyes and my love of stories
and tolerated the fact that, I like my father,would learn
for the sake of it and not with a view to earning money.
She praised my sense of color though not my three year research scholarship
to place of higher learniing
would rather I curled my hair and smiled at boys.
But my destiny was determined by the fact that I never could
master that Singer sewing machine she had
so I had to learn Theoretical Physics to make up for it.
And here I am now,thinking of her home made bread
her showing me how to read music
and the names of the keys on the piano.
I know I was a big disappointment in not marrying into money
or becoming a saint or virgin and martyr,well martyr anyway
She always believed me to be a virgin, even after marriage;
and it’s true I was a virgin with regard to common sense
getting on in society and all related issues.
Some ordinary female knowledge never penetrated me
so I’d sit in the rain wondering what tolerance was
or how Pascal got to lie in bed so much,and whether I could too
because I got creative ideas in bed—
not what you may be thinking of—–
She always changed the sheets and washed our clothes however poor
we were…
And made us dresses from scraps of fabric
That’s how we learned geometry,with the trapeze dress……
Numbers we learned from the stars and excitement from playing with boys
in a disused brickfield.
Strange what makes us who we are,but
the biggest contribution comes from mothers
and just to please her I hope as well as all my academic success
one day I’ll make myself a dress out of some rare print
embodying simultaneously both male and female design and shape
And she’ll look down and say,
She always had her head in the clouds,in a book,in the smoke
patterns from Dad’s cigarettes, in a dream and a whirl
but she did have a good sense of color.
Yeah,she is my daughter
Yeah,once I imagined I must be adopted but
Yeah.I’m her daughter.
She’s my mother.
Yer she’s gone.
The letters of the Jews as strict as flames
Or little terrible flowers lean
Stubbornly upwards through the perfect ages,
Singing through solid stone the sacred names.
The letters of the Jews are black and clean
And lie in chain-line over Christian pages.
The chosen letters bristle like barbed wire
That hedge the flesh of man,
Twisting and tightening the book that warns.
These words, this burning bush, this flickering pyre
Unsacrifices the bled son of man
Yet plaits his crown of thorns.
Where go the tipsy idols of the Roman
Past synagogues of patient time,
Where go the sisters of the Gothic rose,
Where go the blue eyes of the Polish women
Past the almost natural crime,
Past the still speaking embers of ghettos,
There rise the tinder flowers of the Jews.
The letters of the Jews are dancing knives
That carve the heart of darkness seven ways.
These are the letters that all men refuse
And will refuse until the king arrives
And will refuse until the death of time
And all is rolled back in the book of days.
I saw a shadow on my wall
Cast by the setting sun
I turned around to see a face
That made me feel dead glum.
“Twas but a man in a very large box
He seemed in a foul mood.
He’d lost his head while logging on
But now it’s been re-glued!
He likes windows and doors as well
He likes his Vista wide.
But Windows Eight is just alright
As his little cat has spied#
.
She looks in one,she looks in two
She looks in seven and eight
She sees nothing but smoke and flames
Oh,what a nasty fright!
Ronald comes out and sniffs the air
For he is feeling bright.
He’s fixed all his new purchases
He’s set his world to rights.
He nibbles hot jam tarts and beets
He drinks his brandy neat
He daydreams as he sits and smiles
with the striped cat by his feet.
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 donkey 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. It’s either my eyes or my bladder
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 onto my blue shawl, alas it reminds me of our unmade blue springform 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. I changed the last ones into light bulbs but it wasn’t easy
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. It’s called Wensational Rose but it’s not sensational enough for me
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.
