Breath of dragons fill the vale
curling round the trees
carding on the mountain firs and pines
the wool of lambs still strung on barbed wire fence
their eerie horns of rusty iron
among the bramble thorns
no smell save that of pungent leaves
or rotting timber piled
where wrens and robins nest

this damp parade so often comes at dawn
the cows sit silent even yawn
their patches matching those
of moss turned brown on stones
while up above the dragon hides in pale blue skies
his mocking laugh spills daffodils of sun
he's having fun at our expense

while damp our eyelids weigh
our heads bowed down
we critters in the towns
the fog horns blow their melancholy drone
lost is the world we've always known
changed by mysterious theatrical mists
into a mosquito bliss
preparing battle swords to tap our blood
when sunshine sallies forth and lights the flood

Margaret Ann Waddicor 4th May 2012.

In clay from ancient times
our tread has deepened faded
graded its declines
those patterns of our gait
translate the size and height
our stance
we rise to walk upright
seize weapons of the hand and mind
our troubles multiply
our brains try hard to understand
have we
do we ever progress
we think it so
we know
and still we make the same mistakes
that man made eons ago

Margaret Ann Waddicor 18th November 2011.

The bed still flowers
where your ashes were spread 
now seven years after your death 
the breath of the wind and the rain
still falls on the pond
making rings rings of time 
silently rippling memories 
they tell the old story again 
how you used to laugh dance and sing 
full of life full of joy 
I see your face as now you smile 
you've done many a mile in the dark 
but your spirit still hides in the park

Margaret Ann Waddicor 26th May 2015
About Roland Michael Harvey, my father.

Each human searches for the passion that suits them best,
to feel at ease and happy with their lives;
they need something,
just something that is beyond them,
an aim out of reach.

For a woman, a man,
for all religions, a philosophy,
a leader to worship and adore, follow and copy.

When in love this is the same passion
that guides our feelings
and establishes so deeply the sense of love,
that it lasts forever, or doesn't.

The same self-suggestion of passion we nurture,
cultivate, breed in our minds and lives,
because it gives us meaning, an aim
and at the same time sensations of joy
that are unsurpassed.

It creates great arts,
great expressions of man's wonder at the universe
and all its explanations that,
greater than ourselves, pace about this little planet,
out there in the unknown depths of nowhere.

Of course we exaggerate, enhance what is of pleasure,
shun that which is of pain,
yet those two define each other,
without them they wouldn't exist, we wouldn't even exist.

This kind of enhancement can take many forms
using the whole gamut of human methods of expression,
passion and powerful intoxication,
not unlike alcohol or drugs,
we do not become more intensely intelligent
or aware under their influence,
quite the opposite, we loose ourselves, our rational minds,
and plunge into the depths of this other world,
parallel to our own mundane existence,
into the euphoria of pleasure.

Throughout the history of man
are numerous examples of this over indulgence
in things, seemingly giving high pleasure
to our minds and bodies.

To take only one example, the Romans,
we all know how the fall of Rome
affected the world of pleasure seeking human beings,
and yet we would not be without it.

It has produced everything we have created,
it is close to the spark of life that generates life at all,
we may look at all things with seemingly
rational, serious researches and make exact machines.

But in the end it is the leaps of intuitive creativity
given birth from passion,
that produces the wondrous machines
of our industrial existence.

Forced into this concrete, iron, built up world
by our own choices,
we long for the simplicity of nature's
own ways of existence, and look to her to yet again.

Embellish our chimney'd cities
with things almost forgotten,
our longings can turn to nature,
to discover the such-ness of all things found on earth.

A direct contact with the spirit of the world
which clothes itself in mysterious theories,
or expounds itself yet again in religious ceremonies,
all trying desperately to find
the hidden gem that explains it all.

This we shall never find, because we are what is,
only our minds weave patterns never ending,
thoughts and fantasies, dreams and visions,
Utopias's and heaven's,
hells, gods and fiery demons -
oh what a rich and magnificently
embroidered life is this life we live,
on this beautiful blue planet.                  

Margaret Ann Waddicor 2011

I agree that love is the most important,
but it is after all an idea, a figure of speech,
like time, also a non existent element
which can be bent and extended
according to circumstances in the mind.

Love is an expression of a sentiment,
we give it it’s worth,
each in our own individual manner,
being different and yet the same,
each expressing their love,
which after all is self love too,
as without the capacity
to love oneself, one cannot love another.

Falling in love is only an emphasis
on those feelings that create our sensations
of need and giving to a hyper sensitive state
which permeates our all and in some way
takes over our common sense in its fervour,
there, to goad the ****** functions
to reproduce the species; that is the grand puzzle,
why do we wish to reproduce ourselves?          

Margaret Ann Waddicor January 2013.

WHITE DOWN

White down
so high 
and yet so lowly, soft,

your flecks of light
where brown turf darkens 
damp,

so innocently growing
'spite the weather;

torn clouds,
against the blue or grey,

beside you green of moss
stone, heather, 
grasses, hay,

Not lauded, 
given honours like the rose
but there the mountain knows
your sweet repose. 

M. A. Waddicor
10th sept 2011.

Translated into Norwegian...

MYRULL
 
Kvite dun
så høgt på strå
og likevel så kravlaus, mjuk.
 
Lysa dine logar
der torva mørknar
fuktig, brun.
 
Du veks uskuldig, rein
trass uvêr,
rivne skyer
mot det blå og grå.
 
Ved sida di er grøne mosen,
stein, lyng,
gras og vier.
 
Ikkje lovprisa
eller gjeve heidersteikn, som rosa bar;
men fjellet kjenner til
din vakre kvilestad.
 
            M. A. Waddicor/ Gjendikting ved Åse Lilleskare Faugstad

COTTON GRASS YOU WAVE

Waving at the sky,
you tufts of downy white,
your presence in the marsh,
or standing on the cracked dry earth,
the bottom of a bog.

So delicate you are,
in such a place,
where winter blizzards blow,
and icy waters, snow, 
cover your bed. 

Yet there you always are, 
a faithful friend to travellers,
a light where grey skies dull,
a flag to show where not to go 
in rain.

As pretty as a poem tossed 
on hardy stems
not pictured in a painting
yet as dainty, beautiful 
and free, 
as any bloom can be. 

M. Ann Waddicor 
10th September 2011.

Floating in the day
today
it is today
the first day of the year
in blue
so blue
so blue
so blue
the sky is full of cloud
a roof of dew
of dew
of dew
the trees like silhouettes of black
although a darker green
of green
the houses hiding in the mist
they almost can't be seen
be seen
the weeds that stick up here and there
make arabesques up in the air
the air
and all seems in a dream
a dream
a dream