Friends are like moss
on stones
softening the way

We entered the wood    
losing all weight
in the silence

Revolving, evolving
this earth its changing coat
a flower

Its leaves like autumns gathered leaf on leaf
a pile of thoughts put into words that make a whole
a series of pages full of meaning
of expressions full of art
of shaped forms called letters

once written by hand
flourished
holding a birds feather
a plume
where each word was an aesthetic creation
a characterful statement made by the author
containing nuances of inner meaning
that no printed word can contain
save in our own hopefully fertile imagination

and now a digital page
in a parallel electric brain
in fonts of different character  
anonymous and yet communicated to the world
to many eyes that see
in graffiti on walls in cities
flown by in the sky
how all has changed since Dickens lit his candle
wrote his screeds

Margaret Ann Waddicor 6th April 2016

Today the sun burst through grey clouds
and sported great cumulus
sailing high up in the blue nordic ocean of the sky

below
resting on the earth
the indigo of the hills shading to infinity
strange distant escape routes for the mind

storm shadows shading the picture
slowly encroaching on this idyll
in ominous grey-black layers
silhouetting the colourful lupins

ah lovely contrasts
how they lift our spirits from the mundane
and send our imagination into celestial dwellings
we only see in our dreams

now the dawn of another day
has come
and gone
and evening light dwindles
behind the winding sheet of the weather
that earlier hid the bright sun

a sense of quiet
permeates the atmosphere
birds have disappeared
they were peppering the birch tree
most of the day
clouds
small puffs of damp
some of which have been stark white in the sunshine
have become pale blue-grey

all is spread like a water-colour wash
beneath a slightly pink pastel powdery paper sky
the hills close their flowers
hush their hawks
streams carry on their gurgle and chatter
among the rocks
and the firs stand upright
to reach a better view of the valley

while we shut out day
and stare into the dark
becoming a part of it

Margaret Ann Waddicor 13th December 2015 (edited then)

None the wiser
are we 
were we 
will we be

after the before
going through that very door
to where 
a better place
a haven
a port of call
is that all

or is there more behind that door
stop up and listen
what was that
only my feet on the mat
and yet I thought
I heard
or did I
no

its silent here 
just like a landscape full of snow
the only sound
a stream down far below. 

Margaret Ann Waddicor. 6th October 2013. C

The wrinkles
they are a bit faded
but have a gentle presence
that fits with the folds
of the 16thC altar cloth
once ****** white
but now stained
through years of use

bread and tears
or wine
and tiny rice biscuits!

The Christ on the cross
is very old  
made of painted wood
and the altar is surrounded
with a fence
of turned table-leg like posts
pale blue
as is much of the interior
perhaps denoting Heaven

and as the psalms
waft music round about
we look through the windows
to the listening hills
and streams
the old birds
wise
will sit watching too

and all the people
will suddenly feel their age

wow what a display of flowers
the church was as full of them as people

I put in the only black dress I had with dark pink roses on it too and I cut the rim of a black felt hat that had cost only Kr. 10.- in scollops and diamond cuts around the crown as it was too big for me.

Then I walked down to the valley to the church, and when I entered was ushered to the very front pew, I said there must be more important family members than me to be seated, I could hide in the balcony or something but he insisted. So I had a good view of the proceedings!

It think several hours waiting the ***** playing quietly in the background and finally things began to happen.

I sat next to a black man, he was already dressed in black!!! The white robed "prest" came into view and with his powerful voice sang twice as loud as the congregation.

After all the flower sashes had been repetitively read out, we left the church following the coffin to its final resting place.

And just as had happened in the church the priest mentioned the sun and its rays came through the windows, and as he threw on the "earth to earth, dust to dust," it broke through the grey clouds again and lit up the gay flowers, the frame of black and white onlookers many in tears watching.

Margaret Ann Waddicor

He sat there sad, 
his tree alight with silver ***** and trinkets, 
alone this holy night, while others gather round, 
resound with songs of joy, 
here silence reigns, his frosty panes describe the star.

Now passed away, his friends, his family and foes, 
he meditates, their atmosphere, 
so dear, so fresh, 
so faded in his memory of other times gone by, 
they leap, a flame, a candle in his mind, 
and opened a bright drawer, 
where lay the rosary his mother wore, 
and taking up this precious chain, 
of litanies and prayers. 

He heard his mother's voice again,
he saw her face, 
felt solace in his fears; 
now all the years of health and youth have fled, 
now bled the veins of beating hearts 
that gave him sustenance and sentiments so pure, 
devout; their ether filled the air, 
it was as if he'd taken flight and all his family was there.

A knock awoke him from his dream, 
his magic reverie, 
he was just sitting quite alone, 
who could that stranger be, 
a little boy, just like himself, stood smiling on the mat, 
he sang his favourite Christmas carol, 
his little box for charity held high for all to see, 
but when the penny dropped inside, there was no boy at all.                

Margaret Ann Waddicor 2010.

The sun comes visiting from crack of dawn
fills all the sky with light
evaporates the single clouds
that formed in black at night
no shadows hide except in valleys
down beside the lakes

the spring is here the spring has come
we must go out and celebrate
shake off the dust walk briskly on
into this growing year
catch its essence sing its song
join the birds
and spread good cheer

Margaret Ann Waddicor 21st April 2016

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

The excuses made by religious ideas 
break the monotony of the days, 
brighten the expressions of love to one another,
colour the thoughts with rainbows
gleaned from the subconscious.

The enlightened man sees all in beauty,
everyone in beauty and kindness,
walking through life in a euphoria of well being.

These placebo pills, the fairy tales of the grown ups
made into an everyday occurrence 
within the patterns of their lives.

Untouchable, 
unrock-able dedication to the illusion,
bound by the power and the glory,
after all, life at all is a most magical beautiful thing,
the words receiving a diadem of diamonds,
The Word phenomenon!

And now I learn that the majority of our thoughts 
and actions are guided by the so-called subconscious, 
this tallies with my own thoughts 
on the subject of joy in living. 

Take away a man's memory and there is nothing left. 

What the frozen head people think 
they might get out of life in a next life, 
finally defrosted by whom- I don't know. 
Does the memory defy ice and live on?

Life is beautiful - and yet
life is strange
life is tantalising my mind
its elusive jumps and starts
give it an impetus
as I unwind from nature's wonderful excess
undress and offer myself - soon
not yet
I expect you're wondering
as I am too
what will happen if I do
we'll have to fantasise it
because - as yet - we haven't met

Margaret Ann Waddicor 19th January 2016

A poem is
a diary of things seen
memories woken

the moment in the brain
when these things correlate
gel into a thought
become synchronised

a symbiosis
of all that one is at the time
an expression of existence
in the now of life

personified
described
intensely controlled
subtly born

Margaret Ann Waddicor 30th August 2017

A poem isn't

A banal expression of every day life
it isn't a substitute either
or a cure for some disease of the mind
it isn't an alternative to anything else
it isn't a final solved statement of reality
an equation fixed

it isn't meant to be other than itself
and within it are meanings it hasn't got
only those it engenders
it cannot define life
although on studying it
you can find a hypothesis of life

a meaning that might resemble others
ideas of life but isn't the whole story
it isn't what it isn't
or what it is expected to be

it just is
like music
measuring moments
concretising glimpses of that life
the life of one individual
a poet

Margaret Ann Waddicor 11th September 2017

The willow wrote my thoughts
on the surface of the river
remember them then she said
but I did not
they flowed on down into the sea
of my other thoughts
and mixed up in its melting ***
churning and turning about
in the weeds at the bottom of nowhere

we catch glimpses of our old thoughts
often inspired by something that moves us
and if we don't write them down
they go on and are forgotten
this is part of what poets try to capture
the moments that have stirred the mind
into sensing something special
something out of the ordinary
and so a poem is born

Margaret Ann Waddicor

A poem is like a gem, the saturation of a text,
so complete, and being shorter than prose text,
beautiful as such.

In the readers mind, while reading,
it dances in unison with his own thoughts,
his gathered knowledge, his word associations,
his joys and sorrows.

He uses this symbiosis as a harmony,
or marriage of perception, that gives his reader,
a different experience, just as the poet himself,
has had his own unique experience in the writing of it.

An apricot cloud adorns the sky
just there behind the birches
the silhouette of leaves in odd array
one stem a slender trunk
is like a pencil streak
with decorations on the tips

and Skorve sits there dressed in grey
it is the end of a summers day
pale blue the sky up there
beyond
so far away

the salmon on a plate of blue
in the lake of space
its crown
above and out that vacant stare
we watch the passage of that fish that changes shape just there
so seeming near

the scene it dominates in green
so many variations
of colour shape and size
the lupins look surprised

M. Ann Waddicor 1st July 2020

The day was hot
the sky was blue
the river flowed
the wild flowers bloomed
the warbler sang his bubbling song
the chaffinch too

this heat took out our energy
our walk was shorter
lunch was on the lawn
then in to find the cool
with cakes and ratatouille to follow
walk the dog and sleep until tomorrow

Margaret Ann Waddicor 25th June 2016

A star fell down from heaven, was it you? 
A leaf fell from a tree, a little letter just for me, was it from you? 

A feather from the nest took my spirit in an arabesque, 
the birds, their voices singing through the dew, 
my dreams of you come true.

Take heart, we are apart, so long, yet messages come through, 
in such ways as only those whose sentiments 
touch nature's traits, decipher them, read what she says, 
such blessing is one's heightened sensitivity, 
when love flows with the river through this life of many joys,
awakened to all subtle things that change the light, 
colour the view, charge the psyche with new visions, 
teach us to create and recreate.

Margaret Ann Waddicor 5th July 2013

I feel awake at four o'clock
it stares me in the face
my restless limbs are hot
is it the spring that bothers me
or is it something else
I turn to left and right
but find it doesn't help
what shall I do tonight
just write a poem
that's alright
and now I'll say goodnight

Margaret Ann Waddicor 7th April 2016

A row of letters
written
attracts other words
as in all else
I strive to make a whole

like ants around a heap
they gather in my mind
some put on hold
as later they will come to use
but not before they're weighed
judged apt

then they're considered
their rhythm
rhyme and meaning coincides  
a flash of recognition gives them impetus
they play their subtle game
running round the corridors of my brain

then out they pour in unison
a choir of  random thoughts
gels into a poem unexpressed
the letters gather on the page
to my surprise
I recognise their message
develop it  
to sit back and sigh
was it truly I who wrote it
it must be a new life before I die

Margaret Ann Waddicor 18th December 2015

I write a poem about anything
a friend
a beggar or a king
each subject has something interesting
a challenge to my feelings

every time I start
it's natural
some call it art and art's a general word
whatever becomes
comes into being

there it is
good or bad
that depends on when in time
you're making marks
on life's waiting empty page

Margaret Ann Waddicor March 2018

Along the valley
mist goes on its journey to the lake
silhouetting trees with white behind their shapes
they're green
but that's not visible today
as all is dressed in grey
since the dawning of the day

now later
when the invisible sun went down
all turned a blue
such a strong pale colour
its aura framed the view
we felt as if we were in an ocean wave
drowned by this apparition
its delicate embrace

Margaret Ann Waddicor 22nd May 2016

Under the bleached bluff
sea shells shape the bay
the grey and white
like seagulls
shines in sun

each tuft of grass is hardy
rough
tousled by sudden wafts
of salty gusts
that ride the waves towards the land
where
free as air
the litter flies across the sands

swung in the sky
the birds are tossed
their cries
those far off saddened screams
that make the coast their theme

a contrast to the balmy days
when summer winds are warm
and breeze
a welcome sense of calm

the tide comes in
now challenging
its rattle of those shells
percussion in the out of doors

a band that takes repeats
encores
for granted
while it roars

until the change relieves its chores
receding back again
to join the great wide ocean main

Margaret Ann Waddicor 25th December 2015

Among the nordic hills
where wild waterfalls
resound
and flowers cling
in the cracks
of granite rocks
mosses carpet
the forest floors

in moon or sunlight
tall firs make
revolving sundials
telling time
time that's now
and time that's past

time to see
what life it was
being me
among those
with foreign tongue

at home
for home for me
was where I felt
the now
as now it is gone
its meaning
stretched into forever now
no longer when
but then

Margaret Ann Waddicor 25th July 2016

Bring in the cool of forest breath
the sweetness of nights perfumed air
its fresh bright glittering intensity
permeates the mind
the body feels a calm
a quiet peacefulness  
that lasts until the depth of black 
turns out the light 

only stars are witnesses 
as they so constant send their flashes far
while we revolve to see again
our life giving star the sun
morning steps out new 
and in the dew her feet are washed 
as beams of heat touch tops of hills and woods
to slowly reveal our world its evergreen coat
and all becomes awake

Margaret Ann Waddicor 2016

Some people in this life
are here to be looked after
others made to be the carers
I think I am here for the latter
complex minds are born
and clearer simpler minds too
like man and woman
soft and hard

we differ
but in the interchange of time together
grows a harmony
a music of happiness
that forms around ones aura
and makes all things seen through it
beautiful

Margaret Ann Waddicor 10th May 2016

Carrying the tears of winter’s long refrain
the autumn leaf that lodged between some twigs
took flight to reach the earth again
its life now savouring the last of rites
to fly in spirit to another world
where in the mould of many years uncurled
it changes into something else
but in its heart are days of sun and rain
days of happiness and joy
among those other moments sad and dour
its stories from the tree its library
as written deep within the loam
are tomes of history

Margaret Ann Waddicor 1st May 2015

I looked out,
Christmas decorations were already hung up in the sky,
even the frosting floated about
with the lights of the town dwarfed below,
such a glow, each ***** of a star,
the hills, hulks of stone, seemed warmed,
ready for celebrations,
annual explanations of our psyche and its exaggerations,
where the simple tale, just like the one stella, bright,
enacts its cycles in the dark of night.

Margaret Ann Waddicor 27th November 2014.

The birches branches
are blown to the north
on Christmas Day
on Christmas Day

no snow this winter
no snow
no snow

the clouds obliterating the view
so low today
so low

they're making my head feel bad
when it's time to be glad so happy and glad

oh why do the elements cry just now
hang like a shroud
instead of a rainbow

send us a rainbow
right now
just for now
to cheer up our trees
and our lakes in the view

for others
for others
for me
for you

Margaret Ann Waddicor 24th December 2015

Spring is come and spring is going
and no word from my love is flowing
down the page of purest white
with ink so black as darkest night

winter thaw has finished now
and spring took over with the bough
all dressed in coloured petals all
fit for the hall of a wedding ball

so give me sign that you are there
where the brook is purling fair
in that very secret place
I want to stroke your sensitive face

so well I do remember then
when we sat and watched the wren
sing his song so piercing loud
like a cheering teenage crowd

as we sunk together down
on the grasses golden brown
found each others tender dream
as flowers floated on the stream

ah would that that time come again
so now could be and not a then
the wren he sings but no one's there
except my thoughts as ever ware

time passes like a drifting shawl
across the sky and we enthral
like memories that light our sky
of lying there just you and I

Margaret Ann Waddicor 25th April 2012.

Gods and devils are created by humans 
they are the comforters
that little children take everywhere
with them and which they feel
they cannot live their lives without.

A kind of fetish with describable attributes
and predictable thoughts
conjured up by ourselves  
to compensate for being out on a limb  
alone in the great hall of matter  
an anchor to stop us from disintegrating  
a book of word- a work of art 
into which we can meld our dreams  
and feel energised and at ease  

a 'being' to goad us into joys  
and a scapegoat  to blame for all our ills  

a figure reflecting our own individual cravings  
that move parallel and within ourselves
akin to the blood that courses through our beings  
supporting our bones and tissue with its imagined presence                    

Margaret Ann Waddicor 4th April 2014.

Our consciousness paints the view,
colours the flowers,
touches the cotton grass's softness,
its sturdy thin stem sways with our heartbeats
in the freedom of the mountain air,
and we know then that we are, we exist. 

Margaret Ann Waddicor

Pastel the sky and land
with green pointillist patterns in the fore
one black crow on the tree
that's all that I can see today
as the sun gets up

we're promised thunder later on
but most things are lying still
only leaves on the hanging branches
slightly sway
prelude to this hot day

Margaret Ann Waddicor 7th June 2016

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.

Crown my Venus mountain 
with your fruits of summers sun, 
their ripened glow of colours 
fill my cup, 
as does the bee its visit honeyed sweet, 
our hearts meet in nectars so complete, 
charges passions flames 
with heat of forest fires 
that satiate the peak of our desires.

Such autumn blaze 
of red and gold, 
pierced leaves unfold 
and grip the branch with fervour 
like the flight of moorland birds 
their sudden rush strikes screams of fright, 
and sighs of love, 
its powers unleashed by blasts of fuming flows, 
tumbled waterfalls 
deep down to depths unknown 
you crest my senses flung.

BOOM BOOM BOOM

Diagnosis cancer
what goes through the mind
am I left behind
on the dump just rotting
cast out no longer viable
my bodies not reliable
its growing funny things

BOOM BOOM BOOM

Its growing funny things
perhaps I'm growing wings
so fly me up and out of it
can't stand its din get rid of it
this mood that snatched my breath
I'd like to take a clout at it
it could cause my death

BOOM BOOM BOOM

Let doctors fry and poison me
they've done it once before to me
I'm knockin on the door of doom
shut in an MRI its boom

BOOM BOOM BOOM

Its beat, its heat, its feat complete
rotting on the ******* heap
shouting like a lamb its bleat

Baeeeeee

Cut me, slash me, burn my bones,
I'l be new. I'm going home
home where I belong...

I'm still here to sing my song

BOOM BOOM BOOM
SCREAM.

Blown cracked
the bone of contention
split in two
each shard searing the sheet of calm
the broth
its murky mixture
stirred in the stench of disagreement
odours that clamp the nostrils
stop the breath

gasping
we grasp at dripping black branches
that close in above us
as we sink slowly into the quagmire
and disappear without trace
into the abyss of despair  

Margaret Ann Waddicor 27th January 2016

Going for a walk with a dog
one feels there are two minds looking
thinking
and sometimes wonders what the dog is thinking
or perceiving

he/she sees from a different height
is closer to the bluebells
the snail
or the mouse hole
perhaps these give off a perfume  
her sense of smell is stronger than ours
she has other knowledge than ours

I wonder as we walk slowly past things
what she is looking at
and this influences how I look too
we sense each other
absorbed each in our tasks

the one creating poetry
while the other is contemplating
the library of perfumes
and maybe fantasising he dogs
or perhaps just being
being a dog
as I sometimes am
just being me

Margaret Ann Waddicor 22nd March 2016

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.

It is the mystical evening
when Christmas is rejoiced
carols too are voiced

all to celebrate a man
who lived so long ago
yet only recent in our history

we do not know
his date of birth
but like to think it's now

when winter's s dark
turns into light
and lights up all the snow

this magic story still inspires
and makes all children
feel it's glow

cheers the spirits in the dim
satisfies
our every whim

life's a dream
or so it seems
yet we are in control

Margaret Ann Waddicor 24th December 2015

If Easter is a celebration for some
it is a quiet time
when spring is waiting to become
when birds start fretting building their neat nests
and sing their arias to the sun
hammer rhythms on the tall dead trees
we even here the sound of buzzing bees

shy flowers rise from sodden brown black earth
lifting their heads to open wide
little faces of light to show their place
the air is damp and bright and fresh
we open the windows take a deep breath
we're still alive to see to feel to sing
so lets rejoice now lets begin

Margaret Ann Waddicor 13th April 2017

We wonder at this world,
we wonder what and if, and but,
and never come to words
that can describe the whole,
only the tiny part that we ourselves impart,
and then not even understanding our own art.

We try with this and that,
we see how all takes part,
and realise that's all that we can do,
to sense those others,
just the few,
that we can see and feel,
their needs and ours entwined,
in this a life
as human kind.

Exist, exile,
when set aside for that last mile,
a trial at close of day,
why me, not you,
'tis for the few
to end at break of day,

my life not easy,
trouble free,
and yet it had its way,
through times of joy
and times of sadness
times of freedom,
times employed,

twinned the two halves
joined in gladness,
mother, father's seed
developed into me,

what magic that we live at all,
mysteriously understood,
the chemistry of matter,
solids, particles,
bones and flesh,

changing places over years,
blood and consciousness,
include a formula,
that random took its place,
in present times, its power,
its grace,

when we understand the whole
loose face,
the universe
so vast a form in flux,
like glazes in the white hot kiln,
their unpredicted fusion,
clay and rocks reformed
as glassy liquid,

soon to be a solid surface
hard,
and we, the human race
are only shards.

Poetry is an extension of emotion
a reaction to the phenomena of this world
and to the manifestations of our species
an exaggeration of the mind
drugged by the beauty
or the horror of reality 
an effort to recreate in words
the sensed visions of our consciousness
and express them in tangible
understandable
symphonies of thought

Margaret Ann Waddicor August 2015

Flip out, life's begun when you're seventy one,
nothing's not done,
you can eat how you like, wear what you like, if you like,
kick all the traces, go out on a binge,
roll all around in the bed,
there's no one to scold because you're so old,
all the powers that be are now dead,
so look on the bright side, go out have some fun,
there's nothing to gain sitting down,
your body needs exercise, move anyway,
you'll be younger and younger as day turns to day,
find out what you can and pursue it,
because if you don't, you'll know that you blew it.

Margaret Ann Waddicor November 2011.

FLOWERS OF SNOW (Christmas roses)
Margaret Ann Waddicor 24th December 2012.

Flowers of snow,
they blow about the sky like birds in flight,
a sight that sends the senses in a spin,
for deep within our hearts
we love this dance,
this ballet-dance of nature,
as all is frozen, stilled,
and movement only comes
when winter wishes are fulfilled.

We wish, and wish, and wish again
for lightness in the dark,
for moments by the burning grate,
warm sparks of orange bright,
the contrasts of the darkest nights,
with stars of ice, that ******
****** bells on forest trees
of rainbow colours, fired.

For presents below a fir,
the reds and blues with ribbons silver, gold,
as Christmas comes and goes,
the hellebore, its ****** bloom
is plucked from frozen earth,
and brought right in
to Lord the full decked table,
celebrate Messiah's birth.

Flung  
flailing about aimlessly
dancing like an autumn wind
switching back and forth in urgent gusts
we
like leaves on water bend with the flow
no choice
to go against is futile
shortens life
makes hard the path we tread
from birth to death

in a breath it is done
over
past
in a gale of dimension
we twist and turn
plunge and surface
eels of existence
on a solid stone planet of fire

gaunt shadows give night
or people the shape of silence
with jagged forms
that cut our psyches
squeeze us through the mangel of time
onto the plates that comprise the whole
small beings in a vast universe

Margaret Ann Waddicor 30th December 2015

The horses are restless
the dogs run about
the birds all a flutter    

what was it

the children are screaming
and laughing so loud
the cars and the busses
the usual fusses and bangs    

how so

I don't know any more
my minds in a turmoil was that it    

or not

my own psychological state
goings on in my pate
or is it too late to address it

this stress I am feeling
in hurried state running
from what    

I know not.

Margaret Ann Waddicor 1st November 2014.

Following the waving trees, 
the same direction as the breeze, 
as if a thermal element 
was wafted with my gait,

as blown along beside the river, 
downstream with it's flow, 
I felt a kind of impetus, 
impulsive like a joy, 
that grabs the psyche, 
swings the spirit in high gear,

a thrill of moving onward 
through the day and year, 
as if time were anonymous 
and I a mere convolvulous, 
that happened to be flowering today.

Ann Waddicor August 2013.

I am to have Star Wars treatment,
placed in ******* in my space, 
laced and strapped and branded, 
ready for initiation fires
to permeate my skin, purge my sin, 

enter in to places undesired, 
exercise the halls that have inspired, 
pacify the devils now within, 
banish, excommunicate their whim,
starve them, beat them, flail them, shrivel them,
send them packing fast, 

save the rest a cavernous shell,
glean the remnants of my soul, 
change the negative into positive flow, 
a strange enlightenment method, 
so brutal, so brave, transformed, 
perhaps deformed and changed.