[Please read the note at the bottom of the page. It should help.]*

That night
the beach was full of fires,
and the waves rolled in mysterious,
foam-laden,
from the ancient lands.
And on the beach
full of fires and magic
we burned our paper wishes,
for that night they might even come true.
Then, because we were unwilling to wait
the last few minutes, we ran
a little before midnight
into the mysterious, ancient, pagan sea
and submerged ourselves in the foam.
You rose up,
shouting amid the waves
with the joy of that night.
When fireworks shot into the sky,
and some, falling to the sea,
exploded there again
to shoot from the very waves,
you also leapt up, shouting
with the energy of that magic night.
And later, when we were almost
the last remaining in the sea,
we went up onto the beach
full of fires and love.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Aquella noche
la playa estaba llena de hogueras,
y las olas se sucedían misteriosas,
cargadas de espuma,
de las antiguas tierras.
Y en la playa
llena de hogueras y magia
quemamos los deseos de papel
que esa noche aun se podrían realisar.
Pues, poco dispuestos a esperar
los últimos minutos, corrimos
antes de que sonaran las doce
a la mar misteriosa, antigua, pagana,
hundiéndonos en la espuma.
Surgisteis vosotras
gritando en medio de las olas
con la alegría de esa noche.
Cuando subieron fuegos al cielo,
y cuando algunos, cayendo al mar,
estallaron allí mismo
para subir de nuevo de las olas,
saltasteis tambien, gritando
con la energía de esta noche mágica.
Y al final, cuando éramos casi
los últimos en quedarnos en el mar,
salimos a la playa
llena de hogueras y amor.

Called out of a staff meeting, I was  told
my mother was on the point of death.
Searching in the regulations,
the secretary told me
how many days I was allowed
for the death, and
(separately) for the funeral,
each allowance dependent
on the degree of relationship – mothers
are in the first category.

Arriving home, without realising
how I had driven there,
feeling the need to be clean for her,
I showered, dressed appropriately,
and drove on.

A hundred and fifty miles of motorway,
somewhere a stop for tea.
Why did I look in the service station bookshop?
There was a life of Eliot.
I should read it one day.

She died before I arrived.
It was not unexpected.  She had lived a year
after the stroke, longer
than we, or she, had thought possible.
How cold her cheek was.
Death was not new to me –
I had known pets in plenty go
from age, accident, or lethal injection,
been with some as they died – but mothers
are in a different category.

This is my husband, my mother said
to the nurse with pride,
only she meant me.
Everyone in the day-room knew
who it was she had been expecting all day,
waiting like a birthday child.
We all laughed and put her right,
and she laughed and continued
... and this is her husband
(only she should have said, This is his wife) .
So we all laughed again,
and my mother laughed as much as anybody.

Later, walking round the garden, she showed us the flowers
– roses, geraniums, poppies –
only she called them all lilies.
You can go home, the doctor had told her,
when you remember your name.
Who are you?
– Lily, she said, Lily.
Lilies out there – pointing at the roses.
Well, at least she knows lilies are flowers.

It isn't as if her mind has gone,
I keep telling myself,
it's only that the words won't come.
A week ago she knew her way
through the dictionary blindfold,
amazing at anagrams
scholarly at Scrabble,
and quicker than anyone she knew
to finish the daily crossword.
But now the thoughts that chase round
and round her puzzled brain
find no expression.
How can you say it's 'only' the words?

Having survived the first critical week
she is in no immediate danger.
She might last any time;
she might go any time.
All this, somehow, she realises,
and hasn't even the words to tell us
she knows and is not afraid.
Then after awkward silences
and awkwardly cheerful conversations
it's time to leave.
Will you help me on to the bus? she says
– meaning the bed –
and she laughs again.
After all, it's better than crying.

This one was originally written in Spanish.

volví al Kilómetro Cero
donde empiezan todos viajes
y en el mapa
en el centro
de la rotonda
debajo
donde estaba escrito
Usted Está Aquí
he añadido
Pero Tu No Estás

Then I translated it, with a small change to the last line.

i returned to Kilometre Zero
where all journeys begin
and on the map
in the centre
of the roundabout
underneath
where it was written
You Are Here
i added
But She Is Not

I had to alter the line, because "tu" also translates as "you", which would have been confusing, but I think it's less good in the English version.

Looking into your pale eyes
I seem to see shadows,
phantoms of your history,
a history written in a language
I cannot understand.

Looking into your liquid eyes
I seem to see to the depths
of an ocean
into which I could sink
and never come up again.

Looking into your magical eyes
I seem to see a future
where things are changed,
where life as we know it now
would not even be history.

The last words of the lines of this sonnet are the same as those of a sonnet by Edna St Vincent Millay, "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why...".  There is no other connection between the two poems.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I cannot sleep tonight, and you know why.
You know how many weary hours I've lain
upon my bed and listened to the rain
lashing the window, and the mournful sigh
the wind makes. You have heard mine in reply.
I know you know the reason for my pain.
I know you know why, over and again,
I've wept out loud. I know you saw me cry
as I remembered carving on that tree
your name and mine. You were the only one
I needed then. You know, just as before,
how much I need you yet, but you have gone.
Only your spirit now still lives in me,
and I can never hope for any more.

The first cold letters, alone on the page.
A quick pencil found them,
and the lively and beautiful syllables blossomed.
The pale book felt the pencil
as the terrifying, hot words entered.
The lines grew, living and sensitive,
gleaming as never before,
and I knew the unheard lines!

First, a tiny and unselfconscious sound.
A noun struggled to appear among overpowering words.
A strong, golden adjective ran out,
a short, fragrant adjective, beautiful in the early spring.
A young verb grew among tiny blue conjunctions,
and a fortuitous adverb understood, instinctively.

The first sentence dreamed of trees, and a sad cloud.
It dreamed a grey rain,
and the tall trees felt the rain.
There was a first and unknown river,
imagined, inconsequential, like snow in summer.
A red bird glided beyond reach,
as if it had never happened.
The soft sounds fitted the lines,
and the quick bird cried,
Remember the short rain!
Remember the sad poem!

Here are some subjects of which I have written
in blank verse, or free, or in rhyme.
I've tabulated twenty-six or so,
but might think of more, given time.

Arts and music show our humanity,
but Birds and Beasts also have passions.
Celebrations of joy, or Death and grief,
Events of all kinds inspire Emotions.

F tells of Friends and Family;
G and H, Garden and Home;
and I is Inspiration,
sometimes slow to come.

Jokes and humour entertain us,
or may have the power to move;
and K could be the Key to all secrets
of Language, Life and Love.

Metamorphosis and Magic can change our lives,
and the Natural world can surprise.
Objects of all kinds may inspire,
and Places we visit can open our eyes.

Quirky poems may be Quaint,
though Religion is generally serious.
Scenery and landscape surround us,
but Time is deeply mysterious.

Unfortunately my index doesn't include
any subjects beginning with U;
but I do have Verse-forms of various kinds,
Villanelle, sonnet, décima, haiku ...

Weather and seasons influence us,
and pastiches (by X) may be fun.
Youth and age come to us all in time,
and Z shows a poem's a fantasy one.

As you see, I've forced into an alphabet
some subjects I've treated in verse,
and if this is not one of my best poems,
at least I can console myself by thinking that if I had maybe written it differently
        it could have been an awful lot worse.

I set myself a challenge to base a poem on eight letters taken at random  - D-S-B-P-L-W-D-G.  My original idea was to use the letters as the initials of eight words that would form the start of a poem, to continue in any way at all.  I would be pleased if anyone would like to try my original idea, by writing the first eight words of a poem with those initials, and continue it in any way they please.

What I ended up doing was to write five sentences that I thought could each make a possible first line of a poem, but, having got that far, I realised that those five sentences could form a poem of their own.

If anyone feels like using those letters in their own way, I'd love to hear from them, either as a comment here or by private message.

*"Down some black places, look what dimly glows.
Diamonds sparkle bright, produce light where darkness grew.
Don't stop believing. Perhaps love will do good.
Day shall break peacefully, light will disperse gently.
Dreams spread beauty, perfect love when darkness goes."

(I don't really hate pantoums, but once, when I wrote about the rules for repeating forms like pantoums and villanelles, one girl commented "I hate pantoums and villanelles. I guess I get bored easily." But this only provoked me to write a Pantoum using her words, just a little edited.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hate pantoums and villanelles
because I'm very easily bored
when a poem goes on and on, and tells
the things that have been said before.

Because I'm very easily bored,
I get impatient for lots of stuff.
The things that have been said before
don't need repeating. Once is enough.

I get impatient, for lots of stuff
I get to hear throughout the day
don't need repeating. Once is enough
to understand what you have to say.

I get to hear throughout the day
the same old news again and again.
To understand what you have to say
should not be hard. Intelligent men

and women don't need those extra lines
when a poem goes on and on, and tells
what it's said before, too many times.
I hate pantoums – and villanelles!

... and this one isn't.


They were going to start a new life,
childhood sweethearts become man and wife.
But a drunken stag-night
ended up in a fight,
and someone had taken a knife.

The function of a violet is to grow
out of dead leaves,
turning decay
into itself.
A poem too builds a little sense
from the rubble of life (what branches grow
out of this stony *******?). One and the other
flower according to their nature,
seen by those
who know what they are looking for.

A violet is not a poem,
but the message is the same.

"Found poem", all the text lifted from a tourist pamphlet picked up in Crete, only very slightly edited.

There are daily buses starting from Chania
to the head of the gorge,
which is called Xyloskalo.
Buses say on the front "Omalos" and depart
from the central bus station.
By taking any of the morning buses you get to Xyloskalo
after one and a half hours.
At Xyloskalo there is a tourist pavilion
where you can get meals, drinks,
and which has only seven beds for staying overnight.
For those wishing to spend the night
on the Omalos plateau
there is another possibility, that of staying
at Omalos village itself, five kilometres before Xyloskalo,
where are two cafés providing several beds. From there
you get any of the morning buses starting from Chania
to the head of the gorge.
The length of the gorge is sixteen kilometres, and you need
five to six hours to walk through it. There is plenty
of drinking water all along the gorge. Tennis shoes
or walking boots are recommended. Camping,
overnight staying, smoking, hunting,
cutting and uprooting plants
are forbidden.
At the mouth of the gorge is Aghia Rouméli village,
which provides restaurants and accommodation.
From there you take boats
either to Sfakía (duration: one hour) or to Soughia
and Paleochora.
Remember that the last boat to Sfakía is at 17 hours,
which connects with the last bus to Chania at 18 hours.
Duration of the bus trip: two hours.

A site I used to post to had a somewhat unhelpful, not to say discouraging,  line when you had posted a poem and nobody had commented it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“There is no comment submitted by members.”
Nobody bothers; nobody cares;
nobody gives a hoot how my work fares
– or they mean to say something, but no-one remembers.

The fire of my passion is reduced to grey embers;
the most piercing of glances just meet with dull stares.
There is no comment submitted by members.
Nobody bothers; nobody cares.

Like summers of hope fading into Septembers,
or flowers I’ve grown being smothered with tares,
I search and I search but, despite all my prayers,
I read once again, with a chill like December’s,
“There is no comment submitted by members.”

About half the world is female, while the rest of us are male,
and some of us are rather young, while others are quite a bit older.
Some people are emotional, and wear their heart on their sleeve,
and others, from the outside, may appear to be rather colder.
Some writers are extremely careful to obey all the rules,
while others in their attitude are very much bolder.
Some may be quite tolerant and easy-going,
but others seem to have some kind of chip on their shoulder.
In fact, from what I have observed over the years,
in some cases it's not so much a chip as a boulder.

Oh yes. By the way, please write this down
and store it very carefully in your poetry folder —
It is most definitely not a definition of "well-balanced"
if you are carrying a chip on both the left and the right shoulder.

Lines we travel together
are parallel
but not infinite,
never meet
but O too soon
end.

(well, this man, anyway)

My passport knows my calendar age
and, while I keep it,
my driving licence

But in my head
I am still thirty-five

And in my heart
I hope I can stay
seventeen
for ever.

I love my little garden, even though it takes me hours
to mow the lawn and prune the trees and **** around the flowers.
I love the bees and butterflies, and I wouldn't mind the snails
if they'd leave my runner beans alone and not go off the rails.

I like to watch the badgers as they amble 'cross the lawn
very early in the morning, in the hour before the dawn,
and if Mister Fox comes passing through, it's really quite exciting
- though I find the smell he leaves behind is somewhat less inviting.

I like the worms - they're useful and they don't do any harm,
but the badgers think my garden's their own private worm farm.
So I rather like the idea of a wild-life community,
Except the badgers messing up the lawn with such impunity.

Yes, I like to keep my garden like a small nature reserve,
but creatures sometimes do things that I really don't deserve,
like badgers digging worms up!  Though I really wouldn't mind it
if they'd just re-fill the holes, and leave my garden as they find it!

I am not familiar with your toothbrush,
not acquainted with it,
have no experience of it,
am unaware even of its colour.

I know that a toothbrush is an inanimate object.
It cannot feel,
cannot enjoy the closeness,
as it massages every surface of your teeth,
sliding in and out between your lips,
caressing your tongue, moving across
the inside of your cheeks.
It takes no pride
in performing its morning duty for you,
no pleasure in your gratitude
for the freshness it gives you.

It would be ridiculous,
surely,
to be envious of that lifeless,
insensate,
ultimately disposable
thing.
And yet ….

…. and yet I cannot totally eliminate
the feeling
as I imagine your toothbrush
in its daily moment
of intimacy
with you.

If you read somebody’s poem and it makes you want to say,
“I think this piece is wonderful; it really made my day, ”
just go ahead and say it. Feedback like this is good,
but saying why will please them so much better - or it should.

But if you think it’s terrible, be careful how you speak.
Some people write as therapy; their life may be quite bleak.
Don’t be too harshly critical and leave them feeling worse,
but simply go to look elsewhere, and just ignore their verse.

Some poems, though, may leave you with a puzzle or a question,
or even make you want to give some tentative suggestion.
There’s nothing wrong with doing this – just get it off your chest,
but don’t think your ideas are necessarily the best.

With writers, though, who think they are God’s gift to Poesy,
if there’s nothing to commend them as far as you can see,
you can state your own opinion – of course you have the right –
but don’t forget the golden rule: be HONEST but POLITE.

I

Once you were within my reach.
Suddenly
you became a
g l i t
         t e r
               i n g
damselfly
Just wait, I thought,
I can change too.
Why did I have to turn into a frog?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

II

Consider the Paradoxical Frog,
so named because it is several times smaller
than its p h e n o m e n a l l y huge tadpole.
(But then, look at people,
whose achievements often fail to match
the promise they once showed.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

III
The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Out of winter, spring,
out of spring, summer,
then autumn, winter,
and out of winter, spring,
always the same.
Out of the bud, growth,
out of the flower, seed,
out of death, life.
Entropy always increases.

If it is considered offensive to make disparaging remarks about those of the feminine gender,
I guess that makes me an offender
when I say I don't understand why, if rabbits are cuddly, and kittens are cute, and furry things in general are considered quite nice,
women feel the obligation to be afraid of mice,
even on a farm,
where they may be a bit of a nuisance, but don't do much what you could really call harm.
Now the farmer's wife of my story was by nature slow to wrath,
but maybe on the day in question she had been disturbed by the telephone ringing while she was enjoying a leisurely bath,
or someone had left a gate open and the hens had got loose,
or perhaps it was just her husband being more than usually obtuse.
Only she was annoyed by three particular mice who were blind
- if that, in these days of political correctness, isn't considered unkind.
Oh, let's just say they couldn't see very well,
but they were quite good at finding their way by smell,
unless they used their whiskers and navigated by feel
as they followed the lady of the house around in the hope of getting a free meal.
However, this time, when she saw the mice in the dairy she broke her golden rule.
She lost her cool.
In fact she threatened to get them with her cleaver,
but either they were deaf as well as blind, or they didn't understand English, or they simply didn't believe her,
and by the time they had turned round and decided to go
it became apparent they were too slow.
Yes, she got all three at once, but I am glad to say
that as she only chopped their tails off, they lived to scamper another day.

The love of a mother for her child
is not the same as the child's love for his mother.
The love of a man for a woman changes
after they are married
from what it was before,
and her love does not correspond in all points with his.
Love between man and woman
is different from the love of boy and girl.

Love can be permanent as the tides, regular, unquestioned,
with no end and no recognisable beginning.
It can come suddenly,
violently,
as a thunderstorm in summer breaks
upon the thirsty earth,
short-lived
except in the memory.

But under any one of these emotions
what is there for us to say?
Only, I love you.

Thoughts can be subdivided, classified, clothed with words.
Words fit feelings only approximately,
and our deepest feelings must often go unclothed.
So when I say I love you
I cannot analyse what I mean.
I only know that I do love you
and hope you understand.

No more the picturebook Eskimo,
the modern Inuit have central heating,
snowmobiles, welfare; they do not need
to fashion harpoons from bone, wait all day
for seal to come to ice hole, drag the body
to a home they have built from snow.

Once they lived with cold
and the creatures of the cold,
fish, seal, and white bear, familiar
if not friends, the snow itself
almost alive in its moods and movements,
falling as flakes, powder, clumps,
floating, flying, dazzling, stinging,
covering, drifting, compacting to ice.
Snow informed their lives;
one word was not enough.

Our life from infancy to grave
is shaped by love, comforting, calming,
thrilling, unsettling, dazzling, stinging,
covering, drifting, compacting to ....

Seventeen words for snow,
How many ways to say I love you?

I have looked at sunsets as long as they lasted
the reds and the golds and the pinks of them
the play of light on the edges of clouds
the changing shadows over the land.
I have watched the sea steadily rolling in wave after wave
breaking against the rocks with the energy of distant storms
or gently lapping at softer shores.
I have gazed up at the brilliance
of a black night of stars million upon million
no moon to dim their richness.
I have seen the hidden blues and greens in a slow river of ice.
I have known forests and mountains.

I have known you also and you no less
are part of the universe.  I can admire
the changing sky in the colour of your eyes
the moving sea in the curve of your neck
the wonder of an opening rosebud
in the crook of your elbow.

Waiting for a train,
I am thinking about nothing in particular
when ...
- "Excuse please.
Can you tell me?
What is Time?"

Time, that invisible dimension
in which we live
and grow
and die,
which goes relentlessly forward
and never back.
(Words move, music moves
only in Time, but that which is only living
can only die.)
Time, in which the future advances,
oh, so slowly
as you await the arrival
of the beloved,
and in which, as you grow older,
the past recedes
mercilessly faster
(Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
and the end and the beginning were always there
before the beginning and after the end).
Time, which rules
the natural world.
(The time of the seasons and the constellations,
the time of milking and the time of harvest).

Time, in which each observer is in a different moment,
according to where in the universe
you are standing,
and how fast
you are travelling through it.
(You are not the same people who left that station
or will arrive at any terminus ...)

- "Excuse please.
What is Time?"
Can I place that accent?
Ah yes, Russian...
No definite article in Russian,
no word for "the".

- Sorry, I was daydreaming.
It's half past two.

Such a wind today! The air
seems almost solid. Impossible
to go out in it.

Swifts invoking anti-gravity
lean on the air with sickle wings,
slice upward through it;
hang weightless at the peak,
then accepting the pull of earth,
hurtle downhill on kamikaze ski-run,
a mutual slalom, each avoiding
a hundred twisting obstacles;
alter their angle to the air, and rise again
up invisible gradients,
a swooping, soaring ballet with the wind,
its complex choreography
conceived in the tiny brains
of a hundred separate birds.

One pair, suddenly detached,
wings fluttering, wheel and plunge,
circle each other in an aerial
ice-dance pas de deux,
stunt kites without strings;
return to the flock, and are replaced
by another, and another, virtuoso couple.
The whole etherial stage is full
of improvisational star turns.

Such a wind! Impossible
for this earthbound human
to go out in it.
I'll stay and watch the show.

(based quite closely on The Naming of Cats by TS Eliot, my favourite poet, and one of the greatest writers of English poetry)

The showing of slides is a family matter,
It just isn't something to do to a chum.
Let the family watch while grandmothers natter,
But don't show outsiders those views of your mum.

First of all, at a pinch, try them out on the daily,
But watch for the yawns - you don't want her to leave.
Are you sure your wife liked them? Did she smile, or sigh greyly?
It can cause more divorces than you would believe.

Matching programme to audience you must be particular;
Consider the person, consider the slide.
If your buildings all lean from a neat perpendicular
Can you really expect to keep friends on your side?

The pick of the bunch you may show to another;
If you have any doubts, leave the slides on the shelf,
And reserve them for one who's more close than a brother,
And will truly enjoy them - just view them yourself.

I didn't take a photograph of the statue of Robert Burns.
His sightless eyes were looking out over Dunedin,
the most Scottish town in the southern hemisphere,
and there was a seagull, not a pigeon, standing on his head.
I would have called it "Robbie Burns and Friend."

And I didn't take a picture of the bus shelter
painted all over with jungle foliage and a tiger
peeping out over the simulated signature of Henri Rousseau.
The title would have been "This Bus Shelter is a Forgery."

Neither did I photograph another painted wall,
one round a cemetery full of ornate and sombre tombs,
with a large and skilfully executed advertisement -
Renta Sanitarios Mobiles (Hire Mobile Toilets).
It would have been called "Is there no Respect for the Dead?"

I didn't take the photo of a Fijian policeman.
A pity, for he had such a practical uniform,
very smart and cool,
in a tasteful shade of policeman-blue,
based on the traditional sulu
with a striking zigzag hem.
The title would have been "A Policeman in a Skirt?!"

I couldn't take a photograph of sunset over Popocatépetl
– although the sun was setting in a red and golden haze,
and the most romantically named mountain is just
what you imagine a perfect volcano should be,
even to the wisp of steam at the peak
– because the sun was actually setting over Ixtaccíhuatl
and "Sunset over Ixtaccíhuatl" doesn't have quite the right ring
The shape of the mountain is not very picturesque either.
Yes, I would have called that one "Sunset over Popocatépetl"
– if I could have taken it.

My camera wouldn't focus on the crescent moon
hanging over the Egyptian skyline,
horns pointing up, so close to the Equator,
and the evening star (Venus or some more ancient goddess)
just above and almost between the points.
If that one had worked it would have been called "Islamic Moon."

I couldn't possibly have taken a photograph
that would do any justice to the young piano student
in a Hungarian castle
hammering out Liszt as if the hounds of hell were after her,
but if I could, I would have had to call it "Apassionata."

And I didn't even have time to get my camera out
to take a picture of the wild humming bird
darting green and unconcerned
among dilapidated tenements in the heart of Mexico City.
But that living jewel shines bright in my memory,
even without a photo.
I don't know what I would have called that one,
and I'm sure it doesn't matter.

Shall these trees stand forever?
And the fields,
brown, green, gold, according to the season,
shall they remain?

But the hills,
the hills, they shall be there.
Always?
No, not even those.

What then shall be left of them?
Only the fact of their having been.
And when you are gone
and I am no longer here,
we too shall have been,
and nothing can be quite the same again.

Words have power.
We all know this.

Verbs have power
because without verbs
we can neither laugh nor cry,
neither run nor walk;
we cannot breathe,
nor even be,
without a verb.
A noun too has power
because with it we have, in a sense,
mastery of the object, the person, or the feeling
that we name.
Even an adjective has power,
for it qualifies the noun,
fleshes it out,
makes it more our possession.
A conjunction,
small, insignificant,
you might think
without power,
but ....

All words have power.
We know this,
or we would not be writing poetry.

But did you mean it?
did you? like that, I mean,
did you really mean it?
What you said was nothing,
really nothing at all,
unless you meant it.
It's just that ever since then
there is a hollow inside me.
You can fill it so easily.
Tell me you didn't mean to hurt,
but only if you mean it.

These are the rules of the game:
You may say what you like
provided it is not serious.
You may say something serious
if your tone is flippant.
You may say something flippant
in a serious tone.
You may even say something serious
in a serious tone,
so long as you exaggerate just enough
to show that you do not mean it,
or to imply that you would mean it if ....
(without supplying the condition,
even in your own mind).
If you mean what you say
you must not let anyone know that you mean it.
If you say something you mean,
and if it becomes known that you mean it,
it is no longer the same game.
It may not even be a game at all.

[introductory note: This is not a conversation. Alternate segments are A/ statements made by a Spanish teacher in a lesson, and B/ the reaction of a young man listening but interpreting in a different way as he is entranced by a girl in the class]

As far as actions in the past are concerned,
if you give the matter your attention,
you will recall various tenses:
the Past Continuous, the Past Definite,
the Imperfect, the Perfect, and the Pluperfect,
which we might call the more-than-Perfect;
we need not concern ourselves at the moment
with the Past Anterior.

I, at the moment, am not concerned with the past at all,
for you are very much Present, and your action
of brushing the hair from your cheek
requires all my attention.

Take, for example, this sentence –
“I was looking for a word, and found it
in a dictionary which I had.” You will notice
the action of looking for the word
extends over a period of time, and is Continuous.

What I notice is the luminosity of your skin
where the sunlight strikes your shoulder, for in my case
the action of looking at you is Continuous.

The action of finding the word is complete
and fixed in time,
and requires the Past Definite...

And I observe how beautifully complete you are,
and I am fixed in this moment
which is now and forever.

...while the action of possessing a dictionary,
in this sense, has no beginning and no end,
leading us to the Past Imperfect.

Your eyes, at which I continue to gaze,
are more than Perfect, having depths in them
which seem to lead towards an Indefinite Future.
And the Past Anterior and the rest of them
do not concern me at all,
for you see me looking at you,
and the corners of your eyes crinkle
as you smile at me, and in my case
the action of being in love with you
has no beginning and no end.

Ready to unfold from dawn's cold grey mist,
She'll know to follow nature's sweet path,
To reveal the beauty that only she hath,
Accepting the light that she cannot resist.

She opens with colours that call tender touch,
A spiral of petals that twist from the core,
Silky pages that open in her moment, not before.
Who knew that a rose could hold so much?

Come close and breathe the sweet perfume she holds,
The promise of nectar hidden inside,
The honey she gives, her treasure, her prize,
More fragrant than incense, more precious than gold.

Her petals now open, but the bud always there,
Holding her strong, yet so fragile and fair.

I  went into the kitchen and made sure to wash my hands,
then looked inside the cupboards and took out the pots and pans.
I sorted out my sharpest knives and laid them carefully
beside the wooden chopping-board I'd brought home from Capri,
a wine-glass, and a bottle of a cheeky Spanish red  
(another happy souvenir of my travels to the Med).
I thought I'd  better have some herbs to flavour up my lunch,  
so I went into the garden and picked myself a bunch
of parsley, sage and rosemary, then poured myself a drink
– a drop of wine should help me in my labours round the sink.
Then I peeled and chopped an onion, which I sautéed golden brown
in extra-****** olive oil.  There was no time to sit down
while I scrubbed some new potatoes and put them on to boil,
so I had another glass of wine to help me through my toil.
Some Italian vine tomatoes and some peppers, red and green,
I sliced up on my chopping-board – no need for a machine,  
and I always think that slicing veg is somehow that bit kinder –
then I sprinkled them with sea-salt and some pepper from the grinder.  
By now my glass was empty, so I poured another drop in
to replenish all that energy I'd used up in the chopping,
and started on the vegetables, some pak-choi and mangetout,
from the local Farmers' Market, though they cost a bob or two.
I got the steak out ready, a lovely bit of fillet,
and lit the gas to heat the pan, my well loved cast-iron skillet.
It wouldn't need that long to cook; I didn't need to think
too hard about it, so I poured another little drink.
“That's really rather good,” I thought, but noted, broken-hearted,
that I'd finished off the bottle – and I thought I'd hardly started.
Still, I laid the steak into the pan.  I left it there to fry
and uncorked a second bottle. “Here's to me. Mud in my eye.”
I don't know why at this stage I was feeling less than fine,
but the cure was very obvious – another glass of wine.
My attention must have wandered then, if only for a minute,
for I saw the pan was smoking, and the steak that I'd left in it
was going up in flames, and so, although I knew I'd rue it,
I emptied out the bottle – it grieved me sore to do it.
The potatoes were so overcooked they'd  boiled completely dry,
and were rather badly scorched; I wish I knew the reason why.
Still, I rescued what I could, and laid it sadly on my plate,
and I know you won't believe it, but I thought it tasted great.
So when relations come to dine, perhaps on Christmas day,
I'll serve my speciality – I call it …. Steak Brulé.

(Alternative last line, for American readers :
  I'll serve them up my specialty – I call it …. Steak Brulé.)

Two curly brackets
with an apostrophe each
for eyes
like two faces
looking at each other
with noses
– or lips –
almost touching
and between the faces
a small letter x
denoting
(you guessed it)
a small kiss.

The faces are so anonymous
they could be anyone
but one is me
and the other
can represent any one
of my lady poet friends
or should that be
"my poet lady-friends"?

So if any of my poet friends
who are ladies
think they might like a small friendly gesture
of affection
from me
please take it as that.

We are after all
so far away
that it could never come to more
but like a small birthday present
it's the thought that counts.

Isn't it?

My poems are my children, more or less.
I care about them, want them to go far,
would like the world to love them as they are.
Or would it help if I could maybe dress
them in fancy words, improve their accent? Yes,
though a judicious measure of sobriety
might give my work commendable variety.
Alas, they're disadvantaged from the start,
these single-parent children of my art,
and I can't blame their failings on Society.

In my childhood trees were green,
sky was blue, the sun shone gold.
Snow fell in winter thick and cold
as if the summer had never been,
and there was nothing in between.
But now I'm old, sky's always grey,
no colour left to light my day,
winter and summer all the same,
and Loneliness my middle name.
Why did you have to go away?

Sometimes in summer
when roots find no water
leaves wither, fade, and fall,
but with the rain
new buds, new leaves appear.

Sometimes after a forest fire
fresh green will push out of charred wood,
the ash of the old leaves
fertilising the new.

Sometimes in the thick of winter,
sudden mildness may stir the sap.
Precocious leaves may not resist frost's return,
but another spring will come.

Sometimes there is no hope
until spring comes.
Sometimes there is hope
despite everything.
Sometimes spring comes
more than once.

The one who should have lived has gone so fast.
The old ones, in their dotage, linger on –
they, with no future, live only in the past.

And we who can but sit, dumb and aghast,
scarcely believe that while the sun still shone
the one who should have lived has gone so fast.

Six decades older, surviving to their last
few days or years, together but alone,
they, with no future, live only in the past.

At least she kept on living to the last,
but should have had a future. She has none.
The one who should have lived has gone so fast,

and they, for whom so many years have passed,
are unaware that one they loved is gone.
They, with no future, live only in the past,

mark time until the final trumpet blast,
and never know the respite they have won.
The one who should have lived has gone so fast.
They, with no future, live only in the past.

(rondeau redoublé)

This lived-in face has seen the years go by
at such a wild and unforgiving pace.
My powers are weak, though my aims may be high,
and troubles are all bound to leave their trace.

And while I always feel the need to brace
myself against life's storms, I know that I
can never win. Death always plays his ace.
This lived-in face has seen the years go by.

It's little help to know the rules apply
to every member of the human race.
Dark clouds are growing in my evening sky
at such a wild and unforgiving pace.

In this vast universe I have my place,
but can my thoughts outlast me when I die?
or speak to those in other time or space?
My powers are weak, though my aims may be high,

Yet while dark thoughts of gloom may multiply,
to let them win would be a sad disgrace,
though many things may make me want to cry,
and troubles are all bound to leave their trace.

Yes, my mortality I must embrace,
not waste my time in always asking why,
or fearing not to do things "just in case."
I'll dry those tears. There's no point to deny
this lived-in face.

"Try not to think about it, then it will go away."
It's the only thing they can tell me - they've nothing else to say.
But how can I control my thoughts? I can't just stop myself thinking.
My mind's eyes forever fixed on it, never even blinking.
I wish I could forget it, I wish I didn't care,
But however hard I try to forget, the memory's always there.
He'd say, "I know you like it, it's only a bit of fun,"
As he did the frightful things to me that no-one should have done.
He treated me like his property, as if I was just a toy,
But I was only a weak young girl, and he was a big strong boy.
I never ever wanted it, and I couldn't stop the pain,
But was it my fault it happened? Could it ever happen again?
And now he never goes away, he's always in my head,
Invading my body again and again, until I wish I were dead.
I can't bear the thought of holding hands, and I'm terrified of a kiss.
I want to live a normal life. Will it always be like this?

But I do want to think about it, and talk it over with you,
And if I could tell you everything, I know what you would do.
You'd take my hand so softly, and tell me, "Don't be afraid,"
And you'd say I wasn't responsible for any mistakes I'd made.
Then I'd look into your eyes and see the affection that they hold,
For I know that you believe in me with a love as pure as gold.

He saw one evening a young woman in a red dress, and he remembered being in Luxor, sitting on a hotel balcony, looking out over the Nile, watching all day as the shadows shifted on the cliffs above the opposite bank, as the colours changed from ochre to gold, from pink to violet, and how he had felt so completely at peace. And seeing the girl in her red dress, with her hair up showing the curve of her neck and throat, with her easy, natural smile and her confident air of self-possession, he knew the same feeling; he could have sat and looked at her for hours and asked for nothing more to make the evening perfect.

You want me to "give you space". If it were mine
I'd give you Space and Time, and all the rest,
those other dimensions I can only dream of,
and dream of sharing all of them with you.
Must I be satisfied with just one moment?
I looked (ah, once!) so far into your eyes,
and saw to depths where I could fall for ever;
your look, your touch spoke more to me than words.
One point in time, but such a radiant point
its light and joy filled all my universe,
and now you look away, withhold your touch.
So I must learn to ignore, deny my feelings.
How to deny what I felt from the start?
You ask for space. The space is in my heart.

there is a distance
between us
more than distance

something

not a wall
not impenetrable
a fence

a security fence
easy enough for our words
our thoughts
to pass through  
easy enough to breach
from time to time  
to allow access
to our innermost feelings

but so easy
to reinforce

too easy
when things get tough
when doubts arise

when protection
seems more important
than communication

Your ***** feminine pose,
the proud look in your dark eyes,
your legs strong as columns,
your statue enchants me.
The curves of your full firm *******,
your hips, your thighs,
the sheer femaleness of your belly,
speak to me so much
of the woman you are.

But a statue is fixed,
forever beautiful, but unmoving.
It does not breathe, has no voice.
Its surface, smooth as your skin,
does not have your softness.
Blood flows through your veins ,
your flesh is warm,
but your statue is cool to my touch.

All it can do is remind me of you,
and whilst that reminder gives me pleasure,
it saddens me that the statue is not you.
All I have of you is in my memories,
in my imagination,
and though I rejoice in those thoughts,
my joy is tempered all the time
by one unchangeable fact.

You are not there.

just as when looking into the sun
i am dazzled by pure light
which is invisible
and i only see what is lit
by the paler reflections of its rays

or when my mind refusing to hear a perfect silence
creates its own thundering echo
of that silence
so that i may more nearly understand
the incomprehensible

your absence also is absolute
and leaves a void in me
i cannot come to terms with
until it is filled
by a memory

The oxygen that we breathe
in
and
out
every minute of every day
is not lost
but shared
re-used
recycled
recirculated.

If we are in the same room –
or sealed hermetically for hours
in the cabin of a plane –
we breathe continuously
the same air,
the oxygen goes from me to you
and back again.

But air currents,
prevailing winds,
the jet stream,
cyclones and anti-cyclones,
all move the atmosphere further
and further still,
so that even if we are
on opposite sides of the globe,
separated by oceans,
it is a statistical certainty
that I still breathe in
atoms of oxygen
that were once
inside
you.

Do they carry your thoughts,
your feelings,
your poetry to me,
or mine to you?
Who can say?
I can but hope it,
as I thank you
for keeping me alive.