Tag: poem

The notes in the margins

Munch-studio-Getty95002154

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.

 

 

Avoidance can be a grave error

I went to the doctor today

I was full of pathos and terror

I was ignorant of what he would say….
but avoidance can be a grave error.

He looked in my eyes with an egg box
He took my blood pressure and weight.
He said,have you seen any clocks?
I said,yes,but I ain’t only seen straight.

He tapped on my skull with a teaspoon
And remarked that my head sounded hollow.
I said,well there’s plenty of room
for all the ideas I  will follow.

He heard my pulse buzzing bee-like
And asked if I kept my  heart still.
I said,yes,it has a few flea bites…
but it disobeys the commands of my will.

He said, we must give up our egos
and trust in the great dark unknown..
And attempt to give money to beggar
As by our dried fruits we are known.

As far as my health goes,I’m perfect.
I’m average,ideal . I’m  the norm.
But in everyday life I am perplexed
As all the old rules are long gorn.

Thank you for crossing my hands,dear.
II need all of your silver and gold.
Love in its depths wipes out fear.
But don’t believe all you are told

May the fire not burn you

Standing close together,but not looking

We lean forward touching foreheads lightly against each other

Eyes closed

Tenderly we graze

On the other?s smell,skin,softness.

I feel your heart beating

As it it were mine.

We lean for a few more moments like this.

Wordless.But everything else speaks

Holding the broken places,with love.

Then we turn and walk away

Yet those moments last forever.

Foreheads touching,

Skin on skin..

Our boundaries.

You are another subjectivity

A real person

Wanting nothing but everything

I see your smile.

You were with me

And now we go our ways

On our own journey.

One meeting of souls

Remains a blessing forever

May you be blessed

May the fire not burn you

Nor the water drown you

May the Lord keep you always near him.

Forever blessed.

I release you.

Threads of gold

 Doodling


A heart pain woke me from my sleep.
Inside my soul there was a gap.
I tried to make it disappear;
To delete it from the map.

But still the ache persisted;
I tried hard to forget;
Till I sat down in my garden chair,
And stayed with my upset.

The sun may shine,
the birds may sing
But that to me
no pleasure brings
Because of my regret.

As I sat still upon my chair
To me three Angels did appear,
And they are with me yet.

They took my heart into their care,
With golden threads they are sewing there,
Until the work’s complete.

My task is just to sit quite still.
And let God’s angels do His Will,
As I sit  here at Her Feet.

From one hour to the next

Far from the madding rowdy crowds
with peace I long to be.
Away from noise and music loud
My soul desires to pray.

As palms were waved  and smiles blazed free
Jesus came to town.
Yet soon a different sight they’d see…
And hear the deathly groans.

From joy to woe we humans pass
From one hour to  the next.
For sins and troubles do harass…
And  impure hearts are vexed…

Yet we are told that in the end
Love will outdo death..
And so we beg for grace to lend
To us the strength to last.

As fast the river flows

  • Oh,John Joe was a farmer’s son

  • He lived up in the hills

  • When he went to tend his sheep

  • He saw the cotton mills.

  • The rivers ran with water pure

  • And so provided power

  • Yet over these dark ruined towns

  • The heathered hills did tower.

  • Mary was a local girl

  • She walked out on the moors

  • She wore a dress of silky cloth

  • Printed with small flowers.

  • John Joe saw Mary

  • When he was dipping sheep

  • She peered over a dry stone wall

  • And saw the new lambs leap.

  • Her hair was long.Her hair was gold

  • Her eyes were sapphire blue.

  • In John Joe’s eyes she was so fair

  • What was a man to do?

  • He watched her walking all alone

  • Was she sad or sick?

  • He showed her how his dog behaved

  • And showed her shepherds’ tricks.

  • So one day,he held her hand

  • As they walked to the Pike.

  • They stood up there and gazed all round

  • So John thought he would strike.

  • He bent down on his right knee

  • And spoke to Mary then.

  • I’ve loved you Mary since we met

  • I hoped we’d meet again

  • Mary smiled with her blue eyes;

  • Her lips were pink and bright.

  • I love you too and love the hills

  • And. love the summer light.

  • The next year they were married

  • Mary wore white lace.

  • She looked so happy then

  • To know she’d her own place.

  • The church bells rang,the people sang

  • John and Mary wed!

  • And naturally, when evening came,

  • At last they went to bed.

  • When Mary lay in John Joe’s arms

  • She knew this was her home.

  • And so for many many years

  • On the hills they roamed.

  • They cared for sheep and hens and goats

  • They cared for children three.

  • They never had a falling out…

  • But talked beneath a tree.

  • Fro youth to age the years went by

  • But John still loved his bride.

  • And Mary too was happy

  • With John Joe by her side.

  • Their faces,lined, were full of cheer

  • Their hair as white as snow

  • And everywhere that JJ went

  • Mary too did go.

  • Until the day came for his death

  • He lay down in the grass

  • Mary ran and held him close

  • And thus dear John did pass.

  • The muffled bells rang from the tower

  • John Joe was carried in.

  • The parson prayed and hymns were sung.

  • The sheep dog made a din.,

  • In the dark earth John was laid

  • and Mary wept and cried.

  • what will I do now,my sweet John ,

  • without you by my side?

  • So Mary grieved and wept and sighed

  • And thus she spent two years…

  • The loss was great and bent her back

  • with the weight of care.

  • For when we open up our hearts

  • We feel both joy and woe.

  • This is tha pattern of our love,

  • Which like the river flows

 

You are a notorious and naughty person

Image

You are a notorious and naughty person
You love both cursin’ and swearin’
You look like a crane.
Bei mir bist du shayn:
Because you’ve still got your hair on.

You have eyes like pools of  spring rain,

with a certain proud disdain.

Despite woe and pain,
Bei mir mist du shayn,
Because you’ve still got your brain

You have ears like small plates.
And you guzzle like a goat
Your hair is a mane
Bei mir du shayn
Because I liked how you wrote

If I go

Image

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

Oh,John Joe Brown,you were my man

Oh,John Joe was a jolly man.
He was the one for me.
He had ten fingers on his hands,
And always on my knee,

Oh,John Joe was my husband dear,
He slept upon my bed.
He had ten toes upon his feet,
No man was better bred.

Oh,Dear John Joe did pass away,
Whilst he lay on the grass.
And now ~I have no one aside of me,
How slow the night hours pass.

I love John Joe with all my heart,
I’ll never love a man
The way I loved my dear John Joe.
I don’t believe I can,

I read a twenty dozen books,
And went for therapee.
But all I want is my John Joe
In bed aside of me.

Oh come back John,Oh come back Joe
Don’t you leave me here.
Oh,John Joe I can’t live without
MY husband lying near.
Oh,life’s so simple,life’s so clear,
We all need work and love,
I have my work cut out today
A grieving for my dove
.
Oh,John Joe Brown,you were my man.
I’ll not have any more.
I wish I lay within your arms
Were oft I’ve lain before.

I’ve never lain wi’ noone else
And never will again,
If I can’t have my sweetheart John,
I’ll not have any man.

Oh,come back John,Oh,come back Joe
Don’t lay down in the grass.
I’ll bake thee cake and mutton pies..
So sweet the hours shall pass.

The promised land

=

Joy sings now in summer light;
Yet after day comes deep,black night.
New moon will rise by these gray trees.
Our earth is where I want to be.

I want the day;I want the night.
I want the dark;I want the light.
I want to see and to be seen,
And not to lose myself in dreams.

The sun has set,gray clouds turn black,
The day just gone will not come back.
I’ll rest in thoughtful reverie
Until the reaper’s scythe takes me.

And then I drop and mix with dust,
till worms and beetles sate their lust.
I fall into ten thousand motes,
And dance,in sunlight,music’s notes.

No more striving;no more ambition,
No more fighting;no competition,
Every particle’s the same
Without even its special name.

And, side by side, we all are one,
The lusts of life have been and gone.
We dwell with dirt and grain and sand
At last we’ve reached the Promised Land

Before we die

Ante mortem let us trust
For in the grave we turn to dust
Yet though  in life the poor are cursed
Treatment post mortem is just.

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

As post mortem, all are judged
By the book where sins are lodged
why don’t the rich and famous budge?
Their taxation’s boldly grudged

 

Give away your weighty goods
Live like daisies by the woods..
Fear not hurricane nor floods
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 life for an hour.

Perception is no 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

 

Postmodernism preys

Postmodernism’s the fashion ne’er manque.
We must study Foucault and his scribes.
Get reason trapped and do not court  delay.
You need to find your intellectual tribe.

Where is the goose which laid the golden egg..
Invented meta-talk and fairy tales?
Which narrative is balanced on a peg?
Which philosopher gets re-homed by a whale?

Where is the whole truth and the nothing but?
Whose ‘ the eye which sees reality?
Who ‘s the judge who makes the final cut?
Where is the God to whom we owed fealty?

Now nothing is what anyone can say.
I understand it’s meaningless to pray

Roaming through wild poppy fields

In the land which dreams dwell in,

where love  and hate and life begin;

where swiftly the deep rivers flow

from lost lands of long ago.

I wander through wild poppy fields

Underfoot the sweet 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 or make believe?

From this earth we all take leave.

Earth to earth and ash to ash

Glory,pride and boasting pass.

Leave me now,my ghostly one

Soon I too will be called on.

Nothing lasts but truth is real

Keep the faith and your ideals..

Earth to earth ,we’ll rest in clay

We must gi ve ourselves away

Softly on this earth I roam

Seeking my love and my home

and until the very end

Love eternal may descend

Spiritual verses

  • Gravity
    Oh, cradle my soul in your light
  • As I am in darkness tonight.
  • Fill me with your love
  • On earth,not above.
  • Your touch is both gentle and bright.
  • Seeing and feeling are one.
  • As senses conjoin yet are none.
  • I know it is so
  • The darkness shall glow
  • You are both god and person.
  • It seems like the heavens are weeping
  • Rain and snow fall while we’re sleeping
  • The clouds are grey black
  • As Northward they trek.
  • As for records, are they all we are keeping?
  • We dwell in a body of flesh
  • With others we love to enmesh.
  • Let’s get up and dance now
  • Love shows us how…
  • We dance to the tunes that refresh
  • We humans need meaning to create
  • The meaningless can agitate.
  • But stories abound.
  • Pick the best you have fo found
  • Get in there and start to narrate
  • In nature time goes round and round
  • Life’s a spiral, the wise man has found.
  • Each time I pass you
  • I see you anew
  • Until gently we are laid in the ground.
  • The end is the beginning,they say.
  • So say what is important today.
  • For time flows like a stream;
  •  What is ,soon has been.
  • So we are foolish to encourage delay

You are of this earth

You  came  to be here gradually,
from the whirling chaos of the dreaming infant,
anchored by the maternal hand to earth.
Do not try to fly back to heaven today.
Be patient;your guides will,with no effort,
Teach you the patterns and the dance.
All you need is to be open and to trust,
For you have a place in the world.
We need your contribution.No-one else
will see this world from your perspective.
And as you trust the chaos now,fear it not
Should it return.Every creative act
involves the breaking of these barriers
by which we keep the chairs and tables
anchored into themselves.The patterns may break up
but new ones are somewhere near.Patience
with this suffering is the only route now.
You cannot go back.Heaven comes only after
you have grown roots into this earth,
grown sunward,and travailed the storms
and stinging blows;
have grown your flowers and leaves
And let them fall.
Accept.
The only way you can go
is the earthly way.
You are part of us.
We love you.
Our hands are reaching out
If you just lift your eyes.
In the Chaos,God danced and rainbows
Flew from his hands and tears fell from his eyes.
Those tears which fertilised our earth.
He wept, knowing of the pain to come;
And yet,he did not cease to dance.

I asked,why do you smoke when we kiss?

Image

My husband is so enigmatic

he makes  Mona Lisa  dramatic.

Except for the night

The bed set alight

And he screamed on a scale near chromatic.

 

I said, why do you smoke when we kiss?

Apart from that,love is pure bliss

He said,my heart is on fire,

The smoke ascapes via

My mouth. my nose,my desire

He was my epiphany

Loose in the fields of green…
Oh, my own lover!
He was such a bold flirt;
with his love unclaimed,
he could recite George Boole
he was one of the old Cool.
He never reached his goal.
so with my bling and some flair
I hoped he’d open the enchanted bud
To the music of his lyre.
I’ll pray this for him:
T hat he should find what he wreaks
and write it down with a stylus.
Really he is the allurement of angels
He was my epiphany
Make it up, as the clocks clang..
It’s not really you…it’s just an affliction.
I can do nothing for my calves
It’s because of all the punning I did once.
I can’t even lump a stone over a wall now.
My arms are as weak as Trojans.
I never suffer viruses to be declassified.
Like I said,just wink and say a prayer..
In God we dare

On barren ground

 

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.

My own Creator

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 kmow.

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.
He was not dead at all.

Did you kill him?

Wind dismays the flowering rose

 
 
 
 

Apples hang low near the ground.
robins chirrup all around.
sun on glowing maple leaves
gives a red glow that deceives.wint

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 flowerfor 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.

 

 

Heroes

 

Odysseus travels across the nuclear seas

 

In  March madness. Where are you dear stranger?

 

I lost you to a computer , now I weave my web

 

To tempt you home .Eastern zones where people scream

 

In silence are   not the place for your journey.

 

Oh, timeless zone of wanderers ,send him back.

 

I love this green eyed stranger ,this star angel

 

From above. He shone like a crackling nuclear reactor

 

As we walked along the edge of the world,

 

Where  the  seven  seas roar endlessly.

 

Are you Hamlet’s ghost?

 

Could Shakespeare write your tragic story?

 

We have no stature now,leaning into the laptops

 

Talking into the air, like people trapped in hidden ellipses

 

We stare out, unseeing. We listen but hear nothing.

 

Where are you ,my  stranger. The sea boils in anguish.

 

I await you ,the  unseen, the unknown.

 

 

I can’t love you without

I can’t love without

I can’t love you

without loving the whole world too.
I can’t open my heart

unless everyone can be part

Wait for me.

I’m not afraid.
Wait for me.

I may be delayed.

I see you in my mind

Smiling, sad and kind.
I can’t love you

Unless I love the lost too.

Give me your hands

Outstretched across the  strands
We’re all one.

Life has begun

 

It’s not that

Image

It’s not that I don’t love you,
only that I don’t want you to become such a fixed  part
of my mind’s furniture
that I sometimes stumble across unknowingly in the dark.

It’s not that I don’t hate you
only that I don’t want you to become limited to being
 my resident devil
who’s reponsible for all the badness in me .

It’s not that I want to become indifferent to you,
only that I want always to see you afresh
when my eyes greet yours
and not ignore you as you are always here.

It’s not even that I don’t care about you
only that I want to be unburdened
from the guilt of love
and to love freely when it’s the right time
or not at all.

It’s not that I cannot sing for you
But that I want to sing for others too
when I find my voice
and to sing my own song as the spirit moves in me,
or not at all.

It’s not that you are lacking in any way
only that I need to be alone some days
to digest all I’ve gathered
You know, I am never myself without you,
that’s all.

And it’s not as if we can’t be together
But we’ll be more fully together
when we live our own life
You know I’d never have sung my songs without you
No. never at all.

My lover

Like startled flowers

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


	


	



			
				


			

			
Leave a little space for grace
		
	
	

		


When you speak,leave a little space.
And I’ll leave a little space before I respond.
A space where my mind can gather in her nets
to see what your sentences draw up.


The inner seas call out.
They ebb and flow
Tossing treasures onto the shore,like
Sea shells where once your ancestors dwelt.


Sometimes it’s good to walk that shore line
with an empty mind.
The vast space of the sky and ocean
can be freeing.


Space for dreamers’ boats to sail.
to unknown and alluring places.
Is the wind fair?
It seems partly chance
and partly readiness.


When you speak to me,
I’ll wait a moment;
Then, in that space, my words will rise
to engage and mingle with yours.
Something new is born…….
Our creation.


Leave a little space,
A little space between us.
Space is the place for grace,
for the spirit to enter us.
 
Leave a little space for the unknown,unborn,the waiting.
We must make a little space for creation
Keep this all in mind
The in-between is where life starts.


The emptiness and fullness,  in-between.,is where we share.


 






Posted by K2 at 12:39  



	


	



			
				


			

			
Come back,beggar man
		
	
	

		
I saw you on the pavement

with your old brown dog

You were shabby,poor,ragged,

Sat on your tartan rug.

You had water for the dog,

You hugged him and you sang,

But the people walked on by,

And no-one looked at you.

No-one looked at you.


But you still sang your song.

And you sent me so much love

It crossed from eye to eye.

I felt it coming in.

I heard that you had died,

Though you were only thirty three.

Only thirty three.


I wonder,where’s your dog?


I felt our souls had touched,

You gave to me so much

As I wandered in my grief

Through the roads and round the streets.

In your glance, you touched my heart.

I felt love swimming through,

From you right into me.


Will you come again?

I see all these dim, grey men

Who cut your benefits

To give more wealth to few;

So that the needle’s eye,

which is waiting when we die,

is forgotten, for they want

protection for their wealth.


I wish that beggar man

would come back here again.

I liked to hear his songs

But I can’t recall the tunes;

Maybe I’ll write songs myself,

That’s the highest sort of wealth

Our creativity

Is a path to dignity.


Come back every one!

I wish you had not gone.

come back in my dreams

and give me some new themes.

I’m singing like you sung.

it’s this world that’s so wrong.

come back beggar man,

I knew you were the one.

	


	



			
				


			

			
What had caused me to behave with depravity.
		
	
	

		


Sometimes I just write to make myself laugh and I hope others may laugh too.


Image


 


I went to the doctor today
I was filled with elation and gravity.
I told him I was unable to say
What had caused me to behave with depravity.


He asked did I want any pills
I threw them all down the lavatory.
He said women have weaker wills…
This makes living with one such a purgatory,


I said I have lost my tom cat
If you see him, he’s called Mr. Mcavity
He offered to tame me a rat.
So I asked him to send me to Coventry.


I whirled around in my bed
Surely dreams should be celebratory?
I know no man ever bakes bread…
Yet they call it history not herstory.


Oh,why not let go of the reins
Run wild with the escapatorii
At least they have blood in their veins
And stiff whiskey runs through right through their arteries