A girl runs in the woods
Deep and dark and daring,
Black is the velvet night
Bleeding are her bare feet
Pounding is her heart;
A girl runs under the sickle moon
Both are pure and white and chaste
Glowing with innate pride,
One bearing down on prey
The other bearing in the tide;
A girl is ancient goddess
Her silver arrows sure of aim
Utterly self-contained,
At the pink dawn of the day
She sighs and fades away.

Ah me, what can I do?
I see the fear and the pain,
The terror and the unfair gain,
The starving masses through a screen,
News reported blandly;
A woman *****, her strangled throat
Cannot voice her pain,
Black children shot, democracies rot;
We must enrol to vote.
Yes! Use our voices and
Pick the suited white man, who
Best represents our feelings;
We might as well be kneeling
As picking from that self-same lot
Of narrow minds and paunchy pots,
Ah me! If I only knew
What I could do.
For now I only have these tossing thoughts
So hard to sort, or to abort;
Truth and lies, life, demise,
So I only utter, as I watch the TV screen
A silent scream;
Ah me! One day, will I find my voice?*
Voice my findings and my rage?
Have enough nous, be enough sage
To let that scream be heard,
And crack through the screen’s merde?

For you my darling, you my muse,
I write this billet-doux.
For your soft skin and violet scent,
Your fingers pale and ears meant
Only to hear words of love,
Oh my dove,
For your mind sharp and erudite,
Your pearly tears for other’s plight,
The love that swells your heart to pain,
Your voice like falling rain,
Or whispering winds
Through a broken window pane,
For your tenderness and aching grace,
Your dear familiar face…
For you my darling, you my muse,
I write this billet-doux.

A pomegranate on the tree has split, crying tears of blood onto its twisted roots.

Persephone sits alone in hell. Are her hands stained with blood or pomegranate seeds?

My mother always said
not to pry green buds o p e n - let them be.

Girls are drowning in such darkness that freedom looks like an open window.
Bodies smeared like make-up on the pavement.

Ophelia wan and glassy-eyed, drowned like a spring flower.
She’ll see no more male rage.

Men lusting after ******,
no thought for the daisy-fresh girl her mother remembers.

Why do they hunger so for our blood?

We ache as the earth aches
where she’s been violated; skies
beaten black and blue shroud their stars in clouds.

In a daisy-strewn twilit meadow Persephone, violet-eyed, watches
her mother and lover fight to the death.

Hades saw her, loved her,
p l u c k e d her from the earth.
Gave her his dark kingdom.

She rolls power about on her tongue
and it is viscous like black honey,
but not the wild sweet kind she used to eat.

My heart it breaks, how long ago –
Amidst the sleet and falling snow –
It was when I saw you go.
My heart it breaks, how long ago –
In heavy heat and sun a-glow –
It was when you brought me low.
And now I swim though salted tears
For those wasted, love-ridden years,
And the past ever will, I know,
Remain in my mind a lingering echo.

Lilacs and lilies
Daffy-down-dillies
Sugar-sweet sap
Softly dripping tap;
Gardening in the sweet moonlight
My silken roses red
Jasmine curly white
Watering garden beds
Full of life.

A delicate petal
Fallen from its rose,
Blown down to the concrete ground;
Appreciated by all as a patch of beauty
In a grey, industrial world;
A worthwhile existence,
To spread beauty and joy
Where not much can be found.

A bright red umbrella
Against the dull grey sky,
Providing light to the darkness of day;
To the relentless drizzle
And the misery of the people
It came as a welcome change.

A tiny green plant,
Reaching towards the sun,
Is pitied by passers-by,
But it lives on; it struggles and continues to grow,
And if it can, why cannot I?

Rage and roar upon your thrones,
Love, loot and hate, be disparate,
But not for me are bawls and blows;
I’ll tend the hearth, the heart, the grate.
In the shadows I rest, my face a-glow –
Not plagued by fury as hot as fire,
Nor ambition, wrath, desire,
Nor revenge as cold as snow.
Quiet yet not dormant,
Docile though not all compliant,
You may scoff and scorn my choice
But I still hold the eternal fire –
My flame keeps Olympus alight,
I keep all safe throughout the night
And though I am not in your sight
You’ll always find me through your plight.
For I am Hestia,
First-born goddess,
The softest star.

Hark the lark that warbles with the dawn!
Catch that wink of pink that precedes the day!
Oh, smell the violets, dew-laden and new-born,
Born with freshest spring, frolicking and gay!
Sweep away the cobwebs weighing down your heart,
For spring is come, fecund and alive;
As the bees seek the buds, so too you must start
To find the activity that makes you fairly thrive.

A la fin de la nuit longue et noir,
Les étoiles disparaissent avec le clair de lune ;
Quand le premier rayon de soleil arrive,
L’ombre du ciel mêle violet, rose et bleu.
Dans ce moment le monde est encore muet,
Et pale, et doux, et vaste,
Les oiseaux gazouillent, leurs ailes déployées
Et rosée reste sur les roses comme des larmes.
Les nuages semblent comme flocons d’or,
Et le flot de la brise gonfle doucement,
Il chuchote un songe pour mon cœur
Belle, et triste et charmant.
Je sente les lilas, je sente les herbes,
De ma fenêtre ouverte ;
J’écoute leur musique, comme un proverbe :
La vie est belle, lui garder précieusement.

Violettes et jacinthes, au milieu de les herbes,
Rosée sur les roses dans tôt le matin ;
Est-ce que tu as vu mes capucines superbes,
Et as-tu senti la fragrance de mes lilas divin ?
Arriver dans la journée ensoleillée, si tu veux chéri,
Ou dans le nuit, et voir des lys opalescent, sans peur ;
Mais venir dans le crépuscule, à l’heure de magie  
Et puis tu comprendrais l’amour dans mon cœur.

As the sweet pale moon
   Waxes and wanes,
So the swelling sea’s tides do
    Ebb and flow;
United despite distance,
Like me and you.

As the day and night
   Do meet for but a mo.
They feel such delight
    At each other’s sight;
And the hours between go slow;
My darling, please, don’t go.

Yet like a fairy-tale, a valentine,
    A lullaby soft and sweet,
I know I shall see you again -
   That once more we shall meet.

Like a rare, elusive butterfly
The world fixates upon,
Love is shown and sold to us,
Without it we are forlorn;
We seek it out in classics
And the new film of the year,
But what some just don’t realise
Is that love is already here;
Sisters doing each other’s hair –
What is that but love?
Mothers working to pay the rent
But still treating children – love!
It may not be the honeyed tones,
Or jewels, or desire of fantasy –
No, it’s something much more precious,
And it belongs to you and me

I feel your kisses through your letters
But they are pale; an echo
Of the passion of your presence
And the nearness I long for so
Bitterly; I am beyond sense;
Can there be recompense
For the pain I do not show?
I don’t think so.

Oh, to gently enter the water’s embrace,
to be weighed down by
something other than my grief.
The currents look strong, the water rushing
and swirling, voracious in its appetite.
One by one, I drop the flowers into the water,
their petals leave the stems,
they are so bright and pretty against the clear blue swirling currents.
I am on the branch of a tree, gazing down after them,
my ***** blonde hair in my eyes.
Slowly, I prize my fingers off the branch,
and swing my legs over one side.
I jump.
The water is chilling, exhilarating.
I have never felt so alive.
My white dress gathers tightly around my ankles
and I can’t kick them free,
so I lean back, gazing at the green canopy above me,
looking at the bright glow of the flowers
swirling about my head.
Rosemary for remembrance,
pansies, rue and columbine,
daisies, sweet and innocent, like how I used to be.
The water rushes over my head;
I meet my watery grave; I think no more.

i
A pomegranate on the tree has split, weeping
tears of blood to
ancient gods and stolen girls.
I wonder what Persephone thought when she devoured those six seeds.
Maiden of flowers
snatched from her mother’s twilit meadow,
become courtesan of Death.
ii
They call me Queen here, Mother, I roll power about on my tongue - it is rich, luscious like black honey.
My garden grows jewel-like flowers, bruised blue roses - the colour of the sky when I saw Him.
I didn't want to hurt you, Mother,
so I return, bring spring in my wake, but your burning sunlight blinds me, I long for blue, for blood.
Even when I’m Above, with you,
in that dizzy, dozy daisy-strewn field, my roots run deep to Him.

In the blushing blossoms
Of new spring,
I blushed for love new-born;
In sultry summer’s flushing heat
With heated skin and mellow eyes
I watched my love grow in size;
In autumn when ruby leaves were blown
Onto the dry and hardening ground
I lowered my eyes down;
In the whistling winds
Of winter’s wasteland,
I let my thoughts grow dim;
But now spring has come, my friend,  
And I’m due to start again!

There are two types of summer; white and dark.

White summers are those full of lawn and linen, the sea and soft sunshine, cherries and children’s smiles, in which you feel disconnected and light, almost floating, dreamy and distant in a haze of white dandelion fluff. You don’t ever want to land.

Dark summers are honeyed and sulky, full of pomegranates, thunderstorms, magnolias and un-kept promises. Cinematic and shadowy, you exist in a trance of melancholy, and feel passionately, though feign detachment. Pandora opens the box, and lightning fills the sky.

The sun sunk low on Half Moon Bay,
Along it briny breezes swept
Sand and sea spray along my way.
The sun sunk low on Half Moon Bay,
But I hardly noticed as I wept
The tossing tide and waves that leapt.
The sun sunk low on Half Moon Bay,
Along it briny breezes wept.

In the ethereal gloaming
Of glowing flowers and dusky haze,
A lone figure was roaming
Under the sweet moon’s pale rays;
A lullaby sang the breeze
With its melody the rustling trees,
That in the night looked not so sere
And without moon’s glow did disappear;
A lost lake lay along the way
Ringed by cedar and willows weeping,
A water-lily cupped a lone moon ray
Ripe for plucking and for drinking;
Stars spangled the infinite sky,
Which is where she flew –
Up and away, further than high.

Clouds spit out water like
Pomegranate seeds,
Heavy droplets splashing
On the silvery jasmine;

The adolescent moon
Sighs alone, dreaming
Of the flush of heat she feels
At the sun’s arrival.

Doves and roses filled the air
When last I saw your face,
Even Aphrodite stared, and
Couldn't quite believe your grace;
My heart was like a swelling sea
That pounded with delight,
But now I find that woe is me
As you’re no longer in my sight

What doth the sun say to the moon,
As he takes her place each morn?
And does the soft white lady smile,
Or turn her face from dawn?

As the great swelling sea
   Laps at hoary shores
So I yearn for thee,
   All the more;
As it swells with desire
But must ever subside,
   So must tire
   My slow fire

In the sunlight softly sweet
   I hope we shall meet,
By the moonlight burning pale,
   Oh my heart, it fails;
   I yours
   You mine
Shall it be, sometime?

Girl of silver moon,

Hunting in dark woods with just

Arrows and pure pride.

Pomegranates de-blossom,
Crying tears of blood
Down the grasping hands

I wait and ache,
Thinking of things past
Alive only in memories
And in my dreams;
I ache as I wake
To another day
Desolate and alone,
Clinging to a hope that
Slips like water through
My trembling fingertips
As I wait and ache.

Soaring like a new-grown bird
That flutters high and swoops away,
So my heart doth shyly fly and flay
Innocent to harsh blows or words;
As the sea doth rise and swell,
With halcyon bays masking shadowy depths,
So my heart’s lightness is beset
With an ache rolling like a tolling bell;
May I yet find content at last,
With distress, misery, left it the past?

When all the coloured things have gone away
And a mist of cloud and snow descends,
And it seems the world is at an end,
Do not let yourself dismay.

It does not have the green of spring
It does not have summer’s bowers
And longer are the owl-time hours
Than the sunlit ones to which we cling.

The trees all bones, without one leaf,
Stand mere silhouettes against the grey
Gloom of the day’s weak rays, which
Cast shadows cold and deep.

The heart is not all warm and well –
The soul writhes and aches within;
And winter’s dark vast vacuum brings
Such comfort, one can’t tell.

Refulgent rays of silver light
Shine through the blackberry clouds,
Illuminating the shadows of the night.

It shines down on her stature proud
As she begins her journey away
From the betrayal of her avowed.

She lingers ’til the break of day,
Then lowering her hood and eyes
Walks the first steps of her way,
Towards the sun’s blush-pink rise.