A verse to celebrate International Woman's Day.

I, Woman
consider myself rightly the female guardian
of humanity's decency,
the feminine mountain of care and example
of ageless achievement.

A win or lose mirror who separates dreamers
from willing doers
I have grown from challenging problems ready
to shape my future
and with endurance I look on any unassailable
course as already won.

I am Woman,
the force who owes all to her own existence,
the Self who, travelling towards
light of revelation discovers genuine courage
inside female gender.

I stand alone yet am happy to choose things
which I do with faith
in authenticity, facing consequence bravely.
An icon of tenderness,
an I who fosters respect but whose eye when
catching need feels tender compassion.

She who mother's man and leaps to defend
male maladjustment
when attacked by makers of trouble or a he
who allows doubt to undermine.

Inveterate my conscience treating all as free,
yet I know there is never a come or go,
not a yes or no,
nor a birth or death
with any whisper of weight ....... without Me.

I dare to make my own mistakes and have the
strength to forgive,
empowering thereafter some rectification.

But better look out, as when tested

I, Woman,

am impregnable.

The wind that day
made hairy spray of the horses tails
and drove them along.

By night we were hungry.

On reaching the Inn
was offered a bed of swan's down to
pillow my wearisome day.

And slept like a baby.

While my brothers
went wenching I stayed close by the
Hostelry's turreted home.

Used to being alone.

Next morning I woke
to breakfast off salmon served fresh
in a bowl of old pewter.

Boatmen kept me amused.

From the casement
they looked like cushioned swans all
ready and pilgrim-waiting.

******* to their labour.

Ladies and maids ferried
to market left men squatting on boat
bottoms until their return .

All day I went wordless.

Night had fallen when
I heard noisy returns and asked for
the latest Armada news.

But it was refused.

I was so thankful
my lively un-born was not yet ready
to greet times of war.

I fastened my door.

Elizabeth's glory was
not yet to its end for she as our Queen
still ruled the year 1558.

I prayed for long reign.

Fatherless but not
unprotected my baby would savour
her grace.

I knew I was favoured.

The mother-of-storms
had passed when we set on our way
again to the Queen's Court.

Ladies in Waiting never falter.

Love me not
for any
grace
of beauty
in my shape
or face.

Love me not
by sight
of eye
love me
yet know not
for why.

Swirling in oily rainbowing movement
the bubble traps time,
wraps beauty around eternity and vibrates
in worlds of pure fluidity.

Excelling in soapy space jailed restraint
orb creates and encases
its outer in fragile globular skin layered
in tiny gossamer jewelry.

Look at its see-through glassy sphere
and matchless potential
caught in a universe of wondrous hues
of shining swirl entombed inside.

Then in bursting lets fall what was first
indescribable but now
disappeared bubble-magic still appeals
to the mind of an inner-child.

Dawn and night-clouds part the horizon,
Dark muddy blues turn suddenly light
Spilling change on her hues as she rises,
And oh that fullness of sight.

Glow of greeting bequests later heat-time,
Brazen sun brooks no trace of the night.
She aims to captivate dark guilelessly
With oh such flourish of style.

Her blush in pale sky flashes a brightness
Over first tremble of her prelude to fire.
She welcomes day by blazing sublimely  
In oh what a show of surprise

Cornish spring drips and
all growth becomes riddled with
desire for warmth,
ridden with need for having more.

Freshly risen, green
gets liquid-addiction, an invisible
draw makes sward
swoon for regular fixes of water.

Crafty Spring knows
plants crave doses so being fickle
he drops trickles used
to tease shoots upwards for fuel.

Whoresome he opens
cores formerly hidden, then the
illicit physician lopes
in and flippantly erases hopes.

Bold, he impregnates
the deep sleep of inactive nature,
forcing in secret wet
potions to unclothe closed petals.

Then he may withhold
his advances and allow winter's
return to bring nights
of freeze to show is own might.

Old Spring hangs around
to tickle ground's fancy yet Sol's
hard passion he fears
for at start of heat he disappears.

Moonstruck Lunacy.


Oh ominous moon,
pale portent of danger,white luminous disk
suspended aloft
in a midnight-high bloom of enchantment.
Hear me.

Thick blanket of black,
shot thru with bright shiny cats-eyes of light
and coated in soft
unearthly glimmer this earthy-dark night,
shine out your
lover's lantern-like gleaming on harvested
fields which are
waiting like I am from moonstruck insanity.
Retrieve me.

Aided by dreaming
you invaded my heart, broke down the door
to any resistance,
now ecstasy hides in clandestine moments,
secreted from daylight,
delighting in dark with this stolen obsession.
Release me.

Oh wanton moon,
which with passion bewitches us, he, bidden
by lunacy-love,
will come hurrying soon to my arms again,
and forbidden sparkle
from his eyes shall light and set me aflame.
Relieve me.

Oh moonbeaming night it is you I shall blame.
Believe me.

When half the world was blank on maps,
when people still believed in magic,
sounds became muffled
as underground tappings sprung up
in the hills and holes appeared.
Feet vanished for what seemed like days
then flat Northern caps
full of dust, topping faces of loot-happy
smiles shuffled off hazily
clutching large seeds of glimmery gold.
White-knuckled black
fists clutched closely to ribs dead weight
of their findings, bags
of pure alchemy, stones which changed
when kindled in home-made
dirt-hearths, to the hot comfort of flame
keeping away winter's cold.
Nuggets lost beneath time became finds
worth more than diamonds
when, in days of old, warmth could save
peasants' work-worn lives.
Yes, coveted then was possession of coal.

Regeneration.

Grab my heart
while it still beats in fretful synchronicity.

It is yet yours,
but before it ceases to part with wholeness,

just as it needs
to become effervescent again,

with someone new by withholding itself
from marital vows, reach out

receive and take it, release permanently,
love's regeneration.

There will be no bar to acceptance, time
regrets loss of accessibility

so take this final offer of trying
for compatibility
because I still carry your heart in mine.

Too long hangs rain in our valley.

Sky's clouded face cracks to cry drizzle-patterns
over sown ground
and growing seedlings face hazard.

Too long has water earth-wronged.

Makes mud by changing each leaf to sponge
that ***** out green to
leave brown where verdant belongs.

Small lakes rise in the hedgerow-rose.

As tears of lime run down from hilly meadows
sad rinsing brings whispers
of wet killing by un-seasonal cold.


Too long shudder of feathers droop.

While across far horizons a fox runs foodless
as damp cubs look for sun
while prey floods in the hen-coop.

Too long a chill has made harvest weep.

Thatched cottages drip in the village street,
trees bleed moss and weight
burdens the thick-coated sheep.

Swathed in neglect droops each garden.

Knee-deep in unattained tasks the farmyard
sprouts idle days as folk bide
time waiting for signs of drying to start.

To long hangs rain in our valley.

This morning of mornings when dawn
on waking tints her blue face
with wispy-white make-up,
when no breeze stirs the quiet or ruffles
day's essence I breath in a
freshness and thrill at being alive.

This summer of summers when growth
all around thrusts to race
upwards at re-born pace
as ardour covers the ground, when force
invades plant-space I taste
the fight and feel their excitement.

This delight of delights when July affords
warmth to outdoor creations
with florally fragile fragrance,
when petal exposure's juicy insides show
a future of fat seed sameness
I become awed by beauty's survival.

When.

When time is my own
And no-one is making demands
While evening quiets my soul
I think of you then.

When I have moments
Which allow me two idle hands
To win some respite then wholly
I think of you then.

When sunset tucks folds
Into daylight and night takes stands
Between duty and leaves me alone
I think of you then.

When love sets me goals
I lower my sanity-anchor
And sink into hope's future mold
And think of you then.

When dreams are unrolled
And dark hours are at my command
I strip off decorum boldly
To think of you then.

Jewelled with
rainbow translucence roll
rain-bead *****
slowly down outer-windows.

Golden-globe
seed pearls, clear watery
glories slide
in uniformed lines, floorward.

Diamonds in
transit they shine and fire
sparkle from
each crystaline orb's inside.

Smallest gems,
if unnoticed, might seem
irrelevant,
joining the fall into sheen.

Caught however
by eyes with keen poetic
insight rain-drop
wonder bequeaths an ode.

Defying barriers of culture or race,
smiles
bound in togetherness,
timeless as silence,
strong as the reaches of flame
and deep
as endless unfathomable space
find distance
closes
as in between fades,
disappears
into contentment.

Fate floods as it feeds itself into love,
and as surely as
sunrise,
as clear as daylight
souls know
when they become one and the same,
one single flame

Scent of the storm he aroused in my heart
sends memory's perfume to bathe
every tortured dream.
Whispers of verse seared to my core start
a chain of re-tasting late love's
delightful appeal.

Zest of meant words fed me excitement,
bound me to vows of contact on
fierce clandestine pyres.
Can pierced bliss retrieve grief's surprise
or from separate corners could we
re-charge empty fires ?

Intention's lost cause breeds displacing,
as hopes fade and lonely nostalgia
replaces out-worn plans.
Yet love's voice once heard is not effaced
and days arrive when comfort may
take hold of cold hands.

Past fragrance drunk down can enliven
and again make rejoicing recalled
stir heart's needed ferment.
Despite tears spilt at nectar's sweet lines
I still breathe his scent.

Chasing Night.

I chased this evening evening's painterly
tints blatantly seizing sky-time before
sun-down display.

Dark's parade festooned in anodyne darts
of bright lunar-spears seared twilight
and flamed the lake.

Silver-foil ribbons began to invade pallid
glow as granite-grey filigree skirted
today's farewell.

Patterns of sparkle captured the change
to best forgotten wet afternoon when
heavens melted,

Night's foot now dry left silvery scuff
on watery top of eel-thread shapes
moving with breeze.

Moon-glinted landscape seduced as
with ghostly aliveness, by chasing
night, night chased me.

Light has a secret affair but not many discern
how much she yearns for love's bait.
Each dusk and dawn is where union, borne so
clandestinely on high becomes sated.

Light imperceptibly early lowers herself into
dark places to lie in Night's lair.
Begins then their mingle where tingles of first
passionate movement stir her.

Breathes then the flimsiest changes, kindling
flame of impending birth.
Leading her lover to dawn Light then devours
his forlorn role-reversal.
_ . . . . . _

Dusk finds her yielding again as Night tightens
his own tremulous hold.
She turns pink with desire to shoot colourful
stains into his inky folds.

Creeps then inside and around Light this bold
Night lit by need's lurid flair.
Filters then miracles of firey sunsets as Light,
in mating fades during pairing.

Twice every twenty four hours two lovers meet
in seeking amour and entwine.
Lightness of Night joins with Darkness of Light
to produce change by one dying.

We pair of home-comers

built from painful baggage a water-tight dream,

we painted an idyll of walled delight.

A bright corner where care could cover old scars.

Oh that happy hand-in-glove fit of regenerative
pleasure which we dared to admit

into the picture of autumnal love.

Such easy laughter sparked need to spend more
new-found treasure in glad togetherness.

Fresh as youth the stream we dug from aridity.

Your tenderness stoked heat
in forgotten feelings, blazed pathways to places
I had never been

and seared heaven into every greeting.

So gentle our mountain
of unleashed freedom that time gave us

chances to climb to new heights.

I thrived in sweet air of acceptability.

You re-sculpted sallow existence, blushed my
palid future, accessed the girl inside
and unfastened this

latched-up former conformist.

You let loose love's abandon and I did not refuse.

Beautiful man your breath
warmed every fold of compatible essence, toned
any slack in my short-sighted outlook
and de-misted

smeared myopic signals.

Duo-passion soon oiled and honed rarely used
adaptability so we could reach bliss.

Our joinings were something greater than flesh
and that better otherness I shall

always remember.

No ocean of parting can break devotion's deep
integrity and I know for certain

we shall meet again.

Oh unforgettable man
you stole into destiny, captured my soul

and now you hold it forever.

Oh Word,
whose language can be lily or rose,
rain, dewy cloud, scaly fish
or feathered bird,
whose music trumpets in morning
and plays out night,
orchestrates stars, speaks thunder
and sunshine.
Word, who composes lion, dolphin
or lively stoat,
inscribes wisdom in insect, gorilla
and mountain goat,
writes perfect signatures in each
atomic thing,
whose silent symphony mystifies
with symmetry.


Word, praise to thee who sang Self
into humanity
for looking we find in thy grammar
superb diversity.

Dearest My Lord. read this with haste.
and view this unholy state
to which thou hast brought me, mind
heart and flesh quiver
at mention of thine intent with alarm,
as I lately hear say,
even alas as I, indisposed, thou be got
ready to ride away
but fie upon thee shouldst thy conduct
be so for thou surely
knowest in me thou hast sired a child,
pray father no *******.
To embrace wedlock before this confine
and duly confess needeth
brave heart for the babe beareth no name
if thou now abandon me,
prithee have pity on forthcoming shame
to mine own family.
Pray marry me do, thou canst not afford
to blacken my name by
fleeing abroad and relinquish thy duty,
destiny calleth along with
my kin as I have been only thine so plead
my case, do not ill-use me.
Thou hadst thy way now takest thou mine,
for without thy support
I must surely decline thus I live in despair
until reply won, mine heart
beateth only for thine I assure, though hast
thou lately undone me.
Prithee my Knight reconsider and stay like
I must to face results, fraught
with dependence on right being done unto
my reputation this day
of the Lord in the month of September 1609.

From Mary Elizabeth, distraughtedly thine.

Crouching alone and always alert,
left to fend
for themselves little fox cubs
know well
how to silently wait, ferns skirting
the cave provide
animal comfort when rubbed
with motherly scents
but how long, it seems, this time
she is in returning.
Their eyes reflect tension as wrong
vibes fill the air
and scared breath pulsates, learning
quickly that danger
is near, desperate bodies shiver
and cautiously
nosing the air alert ears listen again.
We will not know
this pair's fate, but rivers of spilt
fox-blood instil
inner terror, long reigns of horn-fear
and hunting will
forever be bred into red psyche,
for when fur bristles
as caution senses evil man-smell,
wild hearts become
wary and leap to dig deeper dens.

I reach for your core of warmth
in musings and dreams.

They lift me lightly into your keeping.

Large loads float by, weightless,
after reading your verses.

Hurts melt in the heat of your words
and become no more a burden.

Holding you soul-close my spirit survives.

Time cannot enliven me
like warm phrasing and rhyme.

If this be love then love transforms parting.

Breathe then your gold, dear friend,
pen it over my heart.

One summer evening as light spoke its last
and covered with gold
opening rose-buds, a blackbird's late song
wrung the still air in passion
from nowhere as neatly strung cascades of
notes coated the gloaming
with soul which struck my heart in passing.

Delighted by listening were my ears dulled
by too much busyness
to hear crystal clear scales piercing twilight
with symphony as in my
childhood's countryside quiet where I then
heard magic in birdsong
and first felt need to describe the beautiful.

An inspiring muse to me was he once, he of
sweet trill which pleasured
my nights by writing his liquid lullaby into
rhyme, now again reminds
me to feel strength in his message, resurrect
the freedom of pen and try
to express thru' word his recital of self-hood.

Oh if only I could.

Oh Muse, bearer of wisdom, may your words
which traverse the globe
by verse affect attitudes, move objections,        
lash egos, rock divisions,  
reunite misunderstandings and by power of
digestion resurrect what
the populace thinks weak, kills and forgets.

May poetic energy slice through innumerable
rules, instil sympathy,    
drown separation, re-find buried faith within
faded friendships, appeal
for awareness to  remember hatred no more,
help those forget who,
prejudice-laden perceive many as enemies.

May powerful words smash inbuilt devisive
desire for retaliation,
create instead meant relationships, lasting
handshakes which re-shape
distance placed between hearts by age-old
spite as groundless pride
grows no happiness alongside bitter regret.
    
Oh Calliopé, never forgo scribes' minds for
evoking soul-felt change,        
poems pleading for world-wide review of
love's fallen portals  
re-invite  causes for unearthing a paradise      
in this war-riddled earth.
Peace needs minnions' pens, at the ready.

Crouched in viewing the shivering cobweb

craftily spanning a waterfall's edge

I saw fine precision-knifed filaments

cunningly strung with infinite wisdom.

A weightless weapon of swinging steel,

death-celled bed spun on gossamer wheel.

That devilish duvet of glistening gauze

betokened real craft as the spider paused

then in obscurity tensed for success,

alert with magnetic insect suppression.

Hairily silent as tensile wires, cleverly glued

met miniscule life of wriggling food

that by moving caught death in but seconds

while spider gave fly lethal injections.

As water's curtain cascaded to ground

and whirling catch-trap spun victim around

fed spider wiped mouth, cleaned sticky legs,

repaired any holes and prepared for the next.

To live with a loss so great after times
of month-long waiting
invites such a natural rage in that a child,
a babe of no age
who was wanted and loved so much
could die,
and leave me in loneliest pain seems
unbearably hard.

And if heaven was not making it plain
that my dear baby
now faces a state of tenderest peace,
and that clutching him
tightly in my place is an Eternal Love,
touchingly
singing his lullaby needs, I could not
be carrying on.

God knows I must take this view of loss,
see such ways as right,
because if I did not I would go insane,
but now I feel
I can cope with waiting to see him again,
by trying to stay sure
he has not ceased to be, so please God,
carry on helping me.

In that twilight when sea-foam skittered sand
on bare wet toes,
as sun-down scuppered need for dour grum,
you took me
and we shackled wonderment for a moment.

All rile was left in a yesterday-mire and just
nothing felt slutchy
to our touch of contentment that little while.

In dark's cove we chawed  clandestine risps
of stolen kisses, unrolled
tongues of delight and gloried in fetterment
while gyved together.

Those neckled heaves hankled all the asurn
of heaven and earth.

One summer's eve we two for a pretty time,
wooed an alivenesss,
slaked passion and sated sleaved  smeddum
as never before.


Hagseed may take tomorrow but we did what
was waited for.

We pierced a rive into infinity on that azured        
shore, you and I.


N.B.
Grum = gloomy, morose
Slutchy = mucky
Asurn = vault
Risp = green-leaf branch
Gyve = handcuffed
Sleaved = raw
Smeddum = energy

The breast of the sea swells tonight
as her efforts to rise, heightened
by great heaving breaths break her skin
and inflated balloons, topped thinly
with spume burst, the sea is in labour.


She roars, tries suppressed pitch to gain
the shore, finds her efforts checked
then sweeps out once more tumbling
somersaults over herself, grumbling
with loud submarine thunderly sounds
as irate she sends pebble-bed pounding.


Bloated, yet moving in no way slower
her bellows ignored foamy tears flow
down watery frills and rollers make
short work of staining her saline face.


Sea-Swell intends to bare all tonight
in majestic embrace with a Spring-tide

at Now's surreal boundary where rough
meets mind's edges, life invites
ears to timely hearing

as pebble-tough questions lie underfoot

and as sting of saline rimes wet cheeks
in unkind steps when reason
meets stress rises queries,

needs to ask things not yet understood

there, as endings mingle mysteriously
with every beginning does grief's
hold let go for life to begin

in one who gladly late love undertook?

For height, girth and spread
they said
there was never one like it.

Weighing a train-load with
oaken coat on
it took every seasonal gale.

but was never stirred.

Winter blasts groaning thru'
**** branches
tore down good fire-wood.

Sagely magnificent

it withstood many decades
of weather behaviour,
sheltered all feather and fur
for generations,
made lovers a hiding place

but now it's not there.

Yet I see a sapling has been
fighting for air
and some say a gone-tree's
ghostly presence
can urge spurts of growth
in its successor.

I sincerely hope this is so
for all who pass by
that one-time great oak
will have to sigh as
its memorable strength will

be mightily missed.

Liberation discharge has a loud call, need
to unwind shouts boldly,
as the fettered heart feels no better until
it is de-controlled.

Caged, a muzzled soul will unravel slowly
having freedom, believing,
when turned adrift emancipation widens
as it homes for relief.

So unhand my heart, release me, disband
this neglected affair
and leave hold of erroneous persuasion
that shacked means care.

Who I am is unique and of late I begin
again to celebrate
life for my own pleasure, and not for what
others think is my state.

A little silence mothers more truth for those
who dare seek and embrace
the unheard,
for if not smothered stillness guides minds
to find in quiet
something of beauty waiting behind sound
to become to the listener
more than mere antidote.

To those who see value in unsung whispers
a soundless time provides
escape to peace,
composes a peerless calmness aiding days
of halcyon balm
which reaches life's mystic core of healing
for only at rest can stillness
stifle stress of noise wholly.

Key-stone of conformity stays with the banal and
trite persuasion,
thinks only in formal straight lines.
Break with staid
and taut peels back from mind, lets in unrestraint
and stretches credulity.
Breach convention and back-to-front insight will
violate orthodox,
peer squint-eyed with curiosity and
welcome poetic muse that infuses and revitalizes
customary thought.
Sail out of the usual in oddity's sea , Sphyx-like
greet life less ordinary.
Leave safe-shore solidity, take a sound
lateral look
with mind-set's original back-sidedness and feel
feet leaving the ground.

Now tilts light into November.
Sags Ol' Sol low in shortened day.
Now is the season of pallored earth.
Time when cracked-open kernels decay.

Now with no violence ground sleeps.
Beds the worm down in blackened grass.
Now, burnt-out all heat in harvested fields
Time eases flight while growth turns to ashes.

Now slows to drowse wise November.
Mutes to silence past labours of birthing.
Now into seared dreams of tired meadows
Time breathes but whispers of far-off Spring.

Now seems the time to leave pre-winter
quietly savouring November's short peace.

We inched towards that space today
You and I
Where lovers pace themselves before
The taste of nectar
Takes their breath away.
We dallied in some dreamy glade
And made ourselves
Stand still
To smell the longing mounting, then
Me and you
Began counting seconds 'til through
The moment's glaze
We silently pledged our love anew.