31 January 2015

storm clouds gathering
looking darkly down to earth
choosing their target

30th January 2015

Shredding Paper

All that history and angst consigned to the bin.
It's therapeutic letting go, free to do as I please,
walking away from the past and thinking
it all comes down to this - what a waste of trees!

29th January 2015

all that I yearn for
moves away just out of reach
of my fingertips

28th January 2015

warm summer sunshine

bees humming while hauling gold

dropping off to sleep

27th January 2015

Shoah (Hebrew word for catastrophe)

A failure of justice made the Jews inferior,
packed like cattle in the stinking train,
families clinging in desperation
trusting their prayers would not be in vain.

Children ripped from clinging arms
stripped of humanity, filthy despair.
lambs to the slaughter, how shall we remember?
Dusty museums with shoes, teeth and hair.

What have we learnt to stop it repeating?
All of the promises, truth rearranged.
Suffer our children while the world watches
walled up in ghettos nothing has changed.

26th January 2015

Fools if they think I'm coping, getting on with it as they say,
then they won't have to worry,  oh she'll be ok.
Brave face to the world, grief is private, though feels like I'm torn apart,
some little thing reminds me, and memories flood in the heart.

25 January 2015

rain lifts light returns
a rainbow arcs overhead
in silence we wait

24th January 2015

Ringing the call centre's driving me mad
Nobody answers the service so bad
The music was crass & when I got through
The guy that I spoke to did not have a clue

He said just a mo and put me on hold
I waited so long I began to grow old
My blood pressure rose, pains in my head
And all of a sudden the line it went dead

So dialled once again & tried to get through
I'm getting so cross, don't know what to do
Your customer service fills me with sorrow
I'm going to bed,  I'll ring back tomorrow!

23 January 2015

Poetry Workshop Offering

In the room above her father's pub
she would ask her sister to fetch the ladder,
with bare feet climb the treads
to gaze at the picture
half hidden on the dusty shelf.

Eggshell blue sky, curve of river,
children splashing in the water.
A world away from her grimy city life.

22nd January 2015

visit the library
two to take back
come out with four

21st January 2015

Oh Dear

What have we started
What have we done
Should we have left it
To go round in circles
Neither winning nor losing
No one gaining ground
The fallout to come
Before peace can be found

20th January 2015

Listen with Mother

The garden was her refuge
when she was on her own
not dwelling on the past
or of the love she'd known.

New Year she'd sort out seeds
for sowing in the spring
and tell me of her plans
I didn't hear a thing

In June the garden blazed
she'd go round gathering snails
I'd lie back in the shade
or answer some emails

Come autumn tidy round
how tall the plants have grown
she'd tell me how the roses were
but I'd be on the phone

Even in the winter
she'd potter to and fro
I wish now I had asked her
how does your garden grow?

19th January 2015

After grief, with luminous clarity
I see the road that lies ahead.
The hands that touched with tenderness
dreams dissolved the future dead.

A different story from the planned one
each chapter now I face with dread.
This brave new world of distances
meditation,  loss instead.

18th January 2015

lightening flashes
illuminate the night sky
face at the window

17th January 2015

musty garden shed
dust motes in a slant of light
hanging in the air

16th January 2015

small rust red squirrel
racing round and round the tree
like a mad march hare

15 January 2015

snowdrops
white nodding heads
peeping shyly outwards
milk flower carpeting the ground
harbinger of spring

14 January 2015

winter afternoon
indoors reading an old book
and drinking earl grey

13th January 2015

light of the new moon
with luminous clarity
shows me the right path

12 January 2015

after the rainfall
the scent of pine through the woods
freshening the day

11 January 2015

a winter robin
hopping along the pave stone
looking for a worm

10th January 2015

the tree's bare black boughs
stark against the winter sky
longing for the spring

9th January 2015

darkening sky drops
huge icy cold hailstones  hard
against the windscreen

8th January 2015

Charlie Hebdo

Who would think coloured pencils, weapons of mass creation,
were responsible for the carnage on a quiet Paris street?
This close on the heels of children butchered at their desks,
classrooms running red with blood, lives ending incomplete.

Outrage simmers, disbelief, for all those gone we mourn,
 no threat to any other, their right to freedom gone
by terrorists who live and die by barbarous violence sworn, not
comprehending the pen will always be mightier than the sword.

7th January 2015

poems sometimes show

the writer to the reader

more often they don't

6th January 2015

long past my bedtime
much too tired to go to bed
fall asleep right here

5th January 2015

raindrops
soaking the child
playing in her sandpit
oblivious to her mother's
calling

4th January 2015

Snowdrops

Secrets
that lie beneath
the drifting virgin snow
will be revealed when the snow melts
dead white

Snowdrops
1. A bulbous European herb, Galanthus invalid, of the amaryllis family, bearing nodding white flowers that often appear while the snow is on the ground.
2. Russian slang for a body that lies buried in the winter snow emerging in the thaw.

3rd January 2015

traffic lights turn red
a splash of colour in the
washed out winter day

2nd January 2015

Just another rescue dog
with a hidden past
looking for someone to love
not a lot to ask

Then someone saw your sad brown eyes
she'd lost a cherished friend
so took you home to care for you
Two broken hearts will mend

1st January 2015

end of year
looking back
from the future