1 - Limerick

If you wanted to go to the moon
you wouldn’t go in a balloon.
    The hot air inside
    gives a nice quiet ride,
but you'd come back to earth much too soon.

2 - Senryu

With all that puffing
    his cheeks, so round, so scarlet
         – just like the balloon.

3 - Diamond poem

             Blow,
           puff hard.
        That’s better,
      getting  bigger,
balloon’s fat and round.
     No more blowing,
       that’s enough.
          Look out.
            Bang!

.
"I hate sunsets and flowers.  I loathe the sea; the sea is formless."

I hate sunsets and flowers;
I loathe the rolling sea.
What matter sunshine or showers?
None of it matters to me.

I loathe the rolling sea,
Where once we used to roam.
None of it matters to me.
No colours, no waves, no foam.

Where once we used to roam
It's formless now and bare.
No colours, no waves, no foam,
Because you are not there.

It's formless now and bare
Everywhere I go.
Because you are not there
Your garden's full of snow.  

Everywhere I go,
What matter sunshine or showers?
Your garden's full of snow.  
I hate sunsets and flowers.

I wake to bright sunshine
streaming in at the windows,
and look out, it seems, on a vast snowfield,
a white plain with rounded hillocks
reflecting the brilliance of the light,
extending to the furthest horizon.

A few minutes,
and the snowfield is invisible.
Everything outside is invisible
but the dampness on the windows,
and an all-pervading fog,
shutting me, claustrophobic, inside.

Soon the fog too is gone,
and now a steady drizzle
beats on the glass.
I have to leave the warmth inside,
descend the steps
to the grey gloom
of an English morning.

But looking up, I know
that the clouds that cover the sky,
darken the earth,
are mere vapour,
and above them the sun still shines.

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.

Knowing you, as I do, in cyber-space,
not in the world that we consider "real,"
I have no way of knowing how I'd feel,
if I should chance to meet you face-to-face.

Looking at you, I wonder would I be
embarrassed, mute, uncertain what to say,
and end up wondering why I'd come this way,
not really sure if this was right for me?

Or would we hit it off right from the start?
Two minds that share their innermost ideas
of poetry and life, their hopes and fears,
like two souls with one single beating heart?

(In case you think by cyber-love I'm smitten,
I'll make it clear - it's fantasy I've written.)

The chair she sat in had seen better days,
any resemblance to a burnished throne
pure fantasy, for half its springs were gone,
cover and stuffing on their separate ways
towards disintegration; in the maze
of wire and fluff inside it a half-done
crossword, peanuts, a sweet, a dried-up bone
the dog had lost. In fact, to turn a phrase,
burning, not burnishing, was what it needed;
all thought of restoration or repair
into a distant hope had long receded.
Once it had been a comfortable chair,
the children's cosy nook, almost a friend,
but things wear out. The bonfire was its end.

As autumn weaves its spell and colours change,
long days of summer fade into the past
and spring's soft green is but a memory.
The leaves, so lately fallen from the trees,
shrivelled and brown, now lie upon the earth.
The morning chill brings hint of frosts to come
while pale sun weakly shines, and sets too soon.
As weeks go by and days grow shorter yet
winter moves on. Then slowly fails the light,
and soon enough will come the longest night.

They weren't kings really, those other visitors. The chaps that wrote the story down (and that was years after), they knew it, called them "wise men". Don't know where the "king" idea came from. Wizards, more like, astrologers even. Maybe there's something in that astrology stuff, but they were nearly a fortnight late. We were there at the birth, well, pretty soon after.

I don't know about angels. There was a light, like a star had exploded or something, but angels? We may have said so at the time; I'm not sure now. We'd gone into the village, some of us, looking for a drink and a change of company, but perhaps it was too late. Or perhaps it was just that the village was full of ­strangers claiming a royal ancestor. Pity they were all so ordinary.

But then we heard this baby, a real new one, in a cow-shed, with a pitiful little cry on him, and we went to have a peep. We had a lamb with us. Nothing unusual about that; he was only just weaned, and his mum had kicked him out, so we were keeping him warm. Lovely little chap he was, not a mark on him, just the kind for an offering in the temple. So when we saw the mum and dad so worried and lost-looking, and that scrap of a baby, well, they needed all the luck they could get. I suppose that was why we gave them the lamb.

But this is the bit that still scares me. When the baby saw the lamb he stopped  crying, and he looked ... peaceful. Wise. Only sad too, almost as if he knew what the lamb was in for. And - you'll say I was imagining it, but I know sheep, and I know what I saw - the lamb looked back at him the same. I've never seen that expression on a sheep again, and I've looked for it, believe me. It was almost as if he knew, too.

[I have written a few pieces  in French, or partly in French, but this is the only one to be based on a play on French words. Translation and explanation follows the poem.]

Je ne voudrais jamais
t'embarrasser,
mais ...
si le verbe avait deux lettres de moins,
je ne pourrais en toute vérité
jurer le même.
Et puisque le second de ces cas
impliquerait fatalement le premier,
je me trouve dans une position
impossible.
Autre exemple des ambitions,
espoirs,
désirs,
rêves
qu'il vaut mieux
ne pas exprimer.

---------------

I would never want
to embarrass you,
but ....
if the verb (in French) lost a couple of letters (^)
I could not in all honesty
swear to the same.
And since the second of these cases
would unfailingly lead to the first, (^^)
I am placed in
an impossible position.
Another example of the ambitions,
hopes,
desires,
dreams ...
that it is preferable
to leave unexpressed.

-----------

(^) i.e., if "embarrasser" (to embarrass) became "embrasser" (to kiss).
(^^) i.e.,  kissing would lead to embarrassment.

Embrasser,  curiously enough, doesn't mean "to embrace". And whilst "a kiss" is "un baiser", the verb "baiser" means somewhat more than "to kiss"!  Still, we all know that words are curious things.

I.
As you survey this marble hall
And cast your eye around the wall,
Consider the polyglot graffiti.
I personally find them far from pretty.
- That last line could have been more spectacular
Had I indulged in the vernacular,
But I thought it best, at this seat(!) of learning
to give my phrase a more modest turning.

II.
We would sit here and read with pride
the words we’d written up inside,
and when the caretaker rubbed them out,
we didn’t scream, we didn’t shout,
but knuckled down like Oxford men
to write graffiti up again.
So now the Taylor’s rarest, if not best,
this manuscript’s its only palimpsest.

I was only seventeen, and you were about the same,
and I knew nothing about you – I barely knew your name.
But I looked at you, and you looked at me, and we looked at each other, and then…
I knew, the first time you smiled at me, I wanted to see you again.

So I went where I knew I could find you, and asked you to go on a date,
and you looked quite shy, but you said you would, and I knew it must be fate.
And I looked at you, and you looked at me, and we looked at each other, and then…
I knew, the first time I held your hand, I wanted to hold you again.

We were crossing the river. The sky was grey, but the sun came bursting through,
and lit up your hair like a coppery flame, and I couldn’t stop looking at you.
Yes, I looked at you, and you looked at me, and we looked at each other, and then…
I knew, the first time I stroked your hair, I wanted to touch you again.

We walked in the park and sat on a bench -- I still see it all so clear.
my arm was round your shoulder, and your face was oh, so near.
And I looked at you, and you looked at me, and we looked at each other, and then…
I knew, the first time I kissed you, I wanted to kiss you again.

You were everything I wanted – well, that’s the way it seemed –
everything I wanted and all that I’d ever dreamed.
For we met again, and I held you again, and we kissed again and again,
and I’d never known a feeling like the happiness I felt then.

But life doesn’t stay that perfect, and dreams don‘t always come true,
and there came the day that you told me you had found somebody new.
And I looked at you, and you looked at me, and we looked at each other, and then…
I knew, the one time you broke my heart, I could never be happy again.

But, though young hearts are easily broken, it’s surprising how soon they can mend.
So after you there were other girls, and now I have more than a friend.
But I still think of you with affection (even if it is just now and then)
for the one you remember as first love is never forgotten again.

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.

[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.

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!

There was so much we never did together,
places to go and other lands to try,
so much we could have learned about each other,
so many things to say before goodbye.

Nobody ever knew how much I suffered,
but, using all the strength that I could find,
I always coped. My strategies were successful,
the ache of separation left behind

So many times the same has happened to me,
and every time the anguish will restart,
just as intense. Although it's so familiar,
regret comes like a band around my heart.

Falling in love, each time's a new experience;
the same thing goes for learning how to part.

I saw you last night
in your bath
playing
singing
preparing for bed
three years old

as the camera approached
I saw in close-up
to the depths of your eyes
your deep­­­
­­­­deep-brown eyes
and caught a glimpse
into your soul

but after hearing you sing
so innocent
so spontaneous
so free
so absolutely
so essentially
you  
I know that for me
Incy
Wincy
Spider
can never be the same again

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.

I saw you again today
going shopping
I knew it was you
how could I not recognise you?
your hair
your height
your walk
you were there
but I could not catch up with you

it's always the same story
I see you
too far away
and you disappear
why will you never stay
and let me speak to you
hear your voice again
look into your eyes?

it's a long time
I know
ten years?
twenty?
half a lifetime?
but you are always close by
just out of reach
never out of mind

I miss you

please come back

1/
I called your number and
your voice answered –
“Sorry I’m not available.
Please leave a message.”
I put down the phone
without speaking,
and hoped you might pick up
my thoughts.

2/
I called your number and
your voice answered,
sounding tired and lost.
I wished I could hug you better,
but the voice said,
“Who did you want to speak to?”
– It wasn’t you,
but I still wanted to hug you.

3/
I called your number and
your voice answered,
and this time it was you.
I said hello,
and you said hello,
but what could I say
(that I wanted to say)
that you didn’t already know?
So we talked about trivialities
until we said goodbye.

(a "last words" sonnet)

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.

These two poems came from an exercise we were given in my Poetry Workshop group.  We were given five words (I don't remember how they were selected) and had to work all five into each of two stanzas.  The words were plain / shadow / mountain / light / glass.

1/
The lengthening shadow of the mountain
stretches across the plain.
The last sunlight reflects on the lake like glass.

I drain my glass.
The shadow of death looms over me like a mountain.
My future is plain. I move towards the light.

2/
Peering through my magic glass,
lights and shadows play again,
tuppence coloured, penny plain.
Explorers cross the mountain pass.

Over valley, over mountain,
sunlight now breaks out again.
What was shadowed now is plain,
like drops of glass the tinkling fountain.

Will Granny be coming for Christmas,
the same as she does every year?
- No, we won't be seeing her this time;
she's too ill to travel, my dear.

She'll stay in the hospice for Christmas.
They'll have hats and balloons, just like us.
But my darling, your granny is dying,
and she'd hate us to make any fuss.

We'll still have the presents to open,
with paper all over the place,
and even though everyone hates it,
I expect we'll play Chasing the Ace.

We'll still have the turkey and pudding,
and the tree standing out in the hall.
   But if Granny's not coming for Christmas,
   it won't seem like Christmas at all.

Found in the churchyard of St Botolph's, Aldgate,
one distant lunchtime sixty years ago,
and saved perhaps from second burial
less ceremonial than its first had been,
would Hamlet have mused on this? A finger-bone,
less striking than a skull but just as dead.

I keep it now and wonder  
what skill he had possessed, the one who owned it.
Was he a tailor or a silversmith?
a carpenter? a weaver? or (none of those)
a lowly labourer, or a sly pickpocket?
Was it a woman's finger, a high-born lady?
or housewife (working her fingers to the bone)?

Did that hand long ago once guide a pen,
inscribe long lines of figures in heavy ledgers,
telling the tale of profit or of loss?
Did it write sonnets? messages of love?
or thoughts to pass on to an unknown future?
I cannot know, but still this humble bone,
the nameless relic of a city's past,
may have some little life, if only for me.

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.

Long ago a king of France
-I don't remember his name -
when asked was it possible
to love two women
at the same time,
replied that he loved,
equally but in a different way,
burgundy and beaujolais,
and if he could love
two different wines
how could he not love
two different women?

For me, an inexperienced wine-taster,
I could not tell the difference,
but give me elderflower champagne
fermented from sugar, lemon and hand-picked blossom,
fresh, golden and sparkling,
or home-‌infused sloe gin,
rich, fruity, purple and mature,
and I would say I love them both,
equally but in a different way.

Yes, but does this mean I could love
two women at the same time?
Ah, that is a question
that I must decline to answer.
You see, I might tend
to incriminate myself.

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.

These landscapes I have seen;
- green hills, a winding river, and beyond,
another hill crowned with trees;
- a lake among pines where blue jays clamour
and a lone gull cries;
- the sudden view of a city of golden stone
and domes gleaming in the afternoon sun;
- an iron bridge in the mist
and a train crossing between mountains
veiled in layers of pure tones
like a Chinese watercolour;
- a shore where pelicans dive
into ocean rollers before they break,
releasing twelve thousand miles of energy;
- palaces shimmering in the air as their reflections
shimmer in the water they rise from.

But in my mind are other landscapes,
unseen, hardly even imagined.
Come and explore them with me.
Who knows what we will find?

If I seek your monument, it is only
everywhere.
The violet and the nightingale
and the rainbow all remind me,
even the wild strawberries, though they
happened long ago.
All are part of you,
being in that part of my mind
which is yours.
If I think about you, it is only
all the time.

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

The inscription on the plaque in St Paul's Cathedral to the architect Sir Christopher Wren – "Si monumentum requiris circumspice" – translates as "If you seek his monument, look about you."

Forgetting,
according to the theory,
is not something that just happens,
it's an active process.

Well, that's the theory,
but we all know, we don't always mean to forget.
Sometimes there are more important things,
or more interesting,
for us to remember.
And sometimes our brain does the forgetting for us,
without our wishing it.

The old lady wondered
why the car we were in was so big.
"It's a hearse.
We're going
to the funeral,
do you remember?"
"Whose funeral is it?"
"We're going to bury Dad,
your husband."
"My husband?
I was married?
Was he a good man?"

She had not chosen to forget
the life they had spent together.
Her brain had simply switched off those years
as if they had never happened.

Lucky in a way.
What would her life have been
if she had remembered
those seventy-three years
and had nothing to replace them?
Worse still, if she had had to start remembering
all over again?

All round my hat I wear a lot of badges,
all round my hat, for many and many a day.

A disc of abalone shell from New Zealand;
a jester’s mask decorated with four glittering glass jewels (Venice,
though we weren’t there for the carnival) :
the Stars and Stripes, given to me in New York
in the weeks after 9/11, when you could hardly move
for huge examples of the national flag;
three lions, for England;
a bull, for Spain, even though I hate bull-fighting;
a liner (Alaska Cruise,2000, but we've done other cruises) :
and a gold-coloured jet plane, for all the journeys we have made;
a small badge of a very large statue, Christ the Redeemer (Rio) :
the seashell of St James, with his special cross on it
(Santiago de Compostela, though we didn’t walk the Camino) :
a very tiny badge of the ****** of Guadalupe in Mexico;
and a shiny gold-coloured outline of a dove
(Carcassonne cathedral) representing the Holy Spirit;
King Kong, my biggest badge, appropriately:
a smaller-scale hero, Winnie-the-Pooh, a gift from my daughter:
a koala decorated in crushed opal (Australia) :
a stripy cat on a tartan ribbon (Edinburgh) :
a dolphin from the Azores, though we didn’t see any there,
(but we have seen dolphins, so it counts twice) :
a miniature cookie-cutter in the shape of a moose (Canadian rockies)  
– but it would make impossibly small cookies;
a toucan (Costa Rica) and a puffin (Iceland)
admiring each other’s beaks;
heroes of the Revolution: Chairman Mao, bought in Beijing:
the Hồ Chí Minh League of Youth badge (Vietnam) :
the star representing Yugoslavia,
though even when I bought it
Yugoslavia was no longer a country;
the face of Che Guevara, looking handsome and intense (Cuba) :
and not forgetting the daddy of them all,
Lenin, on a red and flaming star;
the Hand of Fatima (Tunisia) for luck;
and the Eye of Horus (Egypt) ,
because you can’t have too much luck.

And if anybody asks me the reason why I wear them,
they remind me of places – and people – that are far, far away.

You took yourself away from the crowd
to the dark sea's edge. Alone and silent
you stood watching the waves.
I could not know how big your thoughts were.
I only remember your eyes
and the night
and the sea.

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.

From the earth the stars
look like they could reach out to one another
and hold hands,
link fiery arms,
and share burning kisses.

But I imagine they're lonely,
just minute blinking lights to one another,
fires extinguished,
in a single breath,
flames dulled to nothing,
like pinched candles.

Can you feel what they do?
As they watch each brother die?
Not close enough to know,
not close enough to hold,
not close enough to save.

I have always known
that you feel it,

but now,
so do I.

When afternoons would ******
a shank of sun across the kitchen,
and dust would loop and swarm like dumb bugs,
and warring bedroomed voices
pinned me cruciform,
cheek moored against the cool wall,
counting silences to find the storm,
sometimes, the white frame of Hands with Bouquet
would graze my head, its knowable
art like an unction, its thousand
possibilities intact.

Two
hundred
ways
in Sanskrit
of saying
r a i n b o w
and among that richness one
that would perfectly describe
the magical light that fleetingly
shone from your face as,
tears welling in your eyes,
you turned to me
and smiled.

I admit it.
I blew you up.
No ill-feeling,
I just had to do it.

There you were,
so small,
so young,
so innocent,
and I blew you up.

I had nothing against you.
In fact I rather liked you.
I still do like you,
quite a lot,
but it had to be done.

You need to understand,
that photo of you was so tiny
I couldn’t even tell
if it was you or not.

So I blew you up
until you filled the screen,
and I could see that it really was you.
You looked so much better like that,
much younger,
but still you.

So I checked the colours
and saved it.
Oh yes, I kept the original too,
so that I still had what you had sent me.

But you must agree.
You were so small,
I just had to blow you up.

I hope you don’t mind.

The heat the sun created in the day
persists indoors into the night. I cannot sleep.
The full moon reflecting the sun's rays, modifying its strength,
now shines more coolly but no less clear,
and I, sitting outside in the silence of the night,
can relax in peace.

Then I catch sight of movement in your window.
You have switched on no light, but are illuminated
by the silvery moonglow, entranced, it seems,
by the quietness, by the peace
that has been brought to the garden.
And I in turn, entranced by your stillness,
your magical calm, can only observe
as you hum your secret to the moon.
Alas, the moment is ended far too soon,
but I'll never forget that lovely, beautiful tune.

Free spirit, you were never really "my" child,
though it pleased me to think of you so.
Only for a time you allowed me
to be familiar with you, share some of your life,
some of your feelings.
Now it is time for you to leave,
and I must not regret your going, although I love you,
not regret the letting go, because I love you.
Then the part of you that once, long ago,
imperceptibly grew inside my heart will stay forever,
and you can always be,
in any sense that you ever were,
"mine".

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.

(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 could say
   “Ni hao”
for “Good morning,”
and it was only polite to say
    “Xie xie”
for “Thank you.”

That was my limit
until, in a babble of unfamiliar sounds,
I heard the word, “**-murr,”
and then again, “**-murr.”
**-murr? I thought.
Do they have The Simpsons in China?
But it was only “back door.”

Later, struggling to board a bus by the middle door,
I heard the conductor say,
    “**-murr”
– and I could even hear the exclamation mark –
   “**-murr!”,
I knew this time he wasn’t talking about The Simpsons,
and I had a pretty good idea
he wasn’t a fan of classical Greek poetry either.

But I didn’t want to be left on the pavement
when he closed all the doors and drove off.
So I just squeezed in by the middle door,
as if it was all Chinese to me.

How can I tell you what is in my mind,
how can you know what is in my heart,
when I cannot express it?
The words that do come to mind, again and again,
words that are few and simple,
are not appropriate for the situation, only the feeling,
and even for that they are not enough.
Then I remain silent, or talk of other things,
and so do you, but whether for the same reason,
or different, or none at all,
I cannot even ask, nor could you tell me.
The words would only get in the way.

.
I cry out your name silently
over and over in my head
and hope that no-one will hear
except you.

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.

heroes should be recognised at birth
which would save them the incon
venience of a firstname
that nobody will want to use,as for example

Voltaire now there was a guy;
less than h a p
p y with françois-marie arouet
as a handle(and who can
blame
him?)
he up and invented his own name
he would have invented God too
if God hadnt already
existed

or take Beethoven who
for all i know
might even have been God

or then again Picasso(who justifies(more than most)
his capital letter)
he really didnt need
the pablodiegojoséfranciscodepaula
     nepomucenomaríadelosremedios
          ciprianodelasantísimatrini­dadruiz
that he was lumbered with from birth

ok it's easy enough to make
    f  u  n    
of people with flatfish faces
both
éyès
on one side iaskyou
!
but who can look at faces the same
since he drew them that way(?)
and if people don't (real
ly) look like that
some of them
   jolly
     well
        ought
           to

The trees are coming into leaf;
the sap is pressing through the wood.
Violets, suspending disbelief
in spring, reveal now one by one
flowers of self-defining hue;
while butterflies with purple sheen
on flimsy wings try out the sun;
the sky's a half-forgotten blue.
Brash celandine invades the beds,
covers brown earth with green and gold;
bold daisies dare to show their heads.
The grass puts on a different green
and grows apace - I knew it would
(when was it mowed last? I forget)
and tangled branches really should
be pruned, but I've not got the heart
to execute or amputate;
in this profusion, who'd be so cold?
Though some day soon I'll have to start
(my neighbours think I've left it late)
I won't rush in and then regret -
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

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

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 stay?
Their having been is what shall be left.

And when you are gone,
and I am no longer here,
we too shall have been,
and nothing can be quite the same again.

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.