The pots on the backroom table
Contain out of shape Money plants
Where neglect has transpired to
Let growth gather at the top
Green and succulent whilst
The stem remains dried out.

Decisions to throw away
Are repeated weekly
Destroying a life is difficult
The attachment overgrown
The atmosphere is winter damp
The pain woody and long.

Love Mary

When you tumble out of bed
Knickers round your head
You begin to float around
And the ladybird falls down
Onto a floor of soft brown.

Love Mary x

Our lives come and go like the blossoms on a tree
A story told by many voices
It cannot be conveyed with any accuracy
Beyond that of dates and time
For the rest remains a secret
Nothing can describe.
Neither plan nor preparation maps our path
For it meanders like the tributaries of a river
Into unknown clearings
Stopping short of perfection
Clinging to the goodness found
Loving where it can that night owl of wisdom
Belonging to a tribe of people
Who at the end pick up the petals
And put them in a drawer
Saying this was he or she
Who we came to know
Whose name in an address book
Brings tears to our eyes
This was a life.

Love Mary ***

The war memorial stood at the bottom of the hill
In the shade of towering trees, bordering
The graveyard.

A  pinicle of white marble
Above a patch of names
Inscribed on mottled granite
And opposite the sloping
Steps to the bay.

Was it James, his youth wasted on war,
Holed and shell shocked
Who marched passed
Twelve years before my birth?
Before this spot marked
A pleasure beach
And spades were
Brought not guns.

So to remember those
Brutalised from wars
Marking their place in this passing.
And to James
I hope you brought children
To build castles
In the sand.

Love Mary ***

Not know the cold that froze in heart
For blister it brought to thought its friend
For bare it spread the land to take
In ditches left lame a scream in pain.

Love Mary x

Let me take you from your bed
Kiss you gently on the head
Heap you to my willing breast
Fold you in loves tenderness
Though the night may still be dark
The house is cold with no fire
I never minded feeding you
Being woken all night through
In my nightgown I stood by
Watched the clock move the hour
Longed to have us skin to skin
Your baby hair and dribbly chin.


Love Mummy **

There is always a place and a time
To get back to
If only one could!
Where events, altered
One could have survived;
Chance conversations,
A casually read book,
Movements of oceans,
Chips in ones head,
A desire to be kissed,
A contemporary remake,
Lead to a disaster
At a later date.

Caught by one's Achille's heel
In a thicket full of trees
Climbing on a swan's back
In the middle of a breeze
Standing forever in that
Potential spot
Left open for a second
A dreadful plot.

Casting a fishing net into a pool
Searching for items thrown away
Too soon.
And I wonder if a bird's song
In a nearby tree
Could have brought me
Freedom and let me be.

Love Mary **

Pushing the half dozen sodden flakes of corn
Round the bottom of the Willow pattern dish
The woman wondered how she could endure
The continual daily struggle to exist and enjoy.

There was always Evelyn with her warm heart
And Florence curly in the sunlight smiling out
Two little precious gems conjured from a book
Always ready to give whatever they were able.

Love Grandma Mary **

We jumped in feet first
Slightly unbalancing the craft
Red it was, a catamaran with
Those pedals and oars, difficult
To steer.
My pink pinafore got splashed
And dad's beautiful face laughed
The pleasure of being a child,
Ruddy cheeks, generous mouth.
It was just me and him,
A boat for two, as we spun
Round and round trying to get
Started in a direction.

Out in the shallow sea we bobbed along
Only had half-an-hour before call in.
Our feet got wet in our shoes
And we smiled and smiled
I loved my dad that day
In his stripped top.

Love Mary x

Bought from Clements on a cold afternoon
A coachbuilt navy Silvercross pram
For my third and beautiful little lamb
And when she was born at six pounds thirteen
I wrapped her tight and placed her inside
She had long black hair brushed in a peak
And more lovelier a sight could not be reached
And destiny played out its days and more lovelier
She became each day and now at forty- four
Has four to love and tender and put in seats of cars
Not gigantic coachbuilt stars.

Love Mummy ***

On the grass you laid down your palette
Usually, white, two yellows, two reds,
Two blues and occasional viridian green.
From these you could mix every colour
You might need.
With sensitivity and a palette knife
You brought the avenue of trees to life.
It depended on mood or season of light
The temperature of day
The time must be right.
Sometimes limited colours
Helped to create
The surface's luminosity
Using yellow ochre
red, black and white.

Love Mary ***

To  Daffodills

Faire Daffodills, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early - rising Sun
Has not attain'd his noone.
            Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
                   Has run
But to the even- song:
And, having pray'd together,we
Will goe with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a Spring;
As quick a growth to meet Decay,
As you or any thing.
       We die
As your hours do and drie
                       Away,
Like to the Summers raine,
Or as the pearles of morning dew
Ne'r to be found againe.

By Robert Herrick (1591-1674

Love from Mary XXXX

This is my end
And I know it
Don’t want
To show it
But saying
Goodbye.

Love Mary **

I could have been so much more
One of those girls who was seen on stage
Dancing the red lipstick off the page
Chasing sparks out the window of love
But I died earlier than time allowed.
So goodbye..


Love Mary xxxxx

Small one, did you catch the ‘hello’ running
Between the Sycamore trees
And catch a winged seed head
As it floated down to breathe.

For the table is laid for supper
Garnished with all you gave
And I will catch you running
Running on quite brave.

Love Mary ***

Looking lovingly at a painting by Constable
With a slow moving stream in the foreground
And a man about to get into a boat,
Salisbury Cathedral in the background
Its magnificent spire rising to meet the sky.

In a hundred years will these monuments
To religion, power, weath still stand stately
Against the incoming tide of the new world
To transmit a meaning?
And if we be spiritual beings where can we fly?

Can we be welcomed, cared for, listened to
In a world lost in fiscal concerns, selfish, predatory.
And a chair to bear our burdens in the quietness
Of an afternoon light,
Carried by the sun through stainglass.

Or on a hillside be humbled by a simple cross
A clunp of earth filled with flowers.
Let us think why and what it is we need
So that those churches owned by power
Wealth and history become owned by us all.

Love Mary ***

All our Christmases.

Standing at the window when the snow falls,
Feeling the coldness seep in
As the ice builds up on the ledges
It is Christmas Day.
The street is white tracks and on hedges
Peaks gather like our festive cake.
Under the window laid out in names
Are the unopened presents.
The fur tree, tallest ever,
Lights the room with its fairy bulbs.
Robins and plastic angels twirl in the heat.
I wear my cream jumper and tartan skirt
To begin the day.

Love Mary ***

Separated from the outside,
The world of masculinity
And paid labour
The mother and child
Seemingly secure.
Only the sky, glimpsed between
Overhanging branches, lights
This secluded kitchen plot
Where vegetables are washed
And the broom sweeps clean
The tiled yard.
The space between diagonals
Creates triangles of intimacy
Here the little Dutch girl
Looks tenderly upwards
At the female figure
In white apron and cap.
The foreground is reversed
For this activity is a hidden
Place
Where the warmth of yellow
Echoes the harmony
Of a domestic idyll.


Love Mary ***

A single tree against a blue sky
A single tree
That is Me.


Love Mary ***

We never matched it together
But your waves were curly and grey
I flowed with golden heirlooms
******* in bunches that day
And we walked so slowly the road
Where we lived
The home that you made me
Was ever so good
Full of the love
Any child could need
Oh Mummy I miss
Your sweet perfume .

Love Mary **

A ball of prickles sheared close
A sculpture in a park
Yellow segmented flower
With opening bud
A harsh world as
Hard as any prickle
A phone call to a newspaper
Editor
A cry for help
Lies in the light
Organisation
No trust
May this world
Treat you all
Much better
Stars in the night.

Love Mary ***

Far out a small seabird called
Across the peaks and troughs
It was lost, laying out timely
Memories in its mind
Ones to carry carefully
In the dark night.
Beruffled and brave no longer
In the the harsh storm
Trailing its tail feathers
In an attempt to reach
The bliss of oblivion
And curl up forever.

Love Mary ***

A little boy read me his story
Written slowly and with thought
Listening inside his head
As the words he learnt to talk,
Saw his head intently bent
Earnest to get the right  scent,
Stopped here and there
Could he hear a cat's purr?
So the story became about
Two cats in a scary house
A nasty character masquerading
And spooky ghosties
Going through the ceiling.

Thank you Monty for your inspiration.
Glad you want to be a writer..

Love Grandma ***

I dressed  you daughter in smock cloth
It sewn with mother’s loving touch
A blue check white embroidered dots
And buttons, sashed will fasten back.

Bonfire Night .

Under night sky its navy soot
Circular spirals of movement
We children watched
As dad opened the box
Mum gave out chestnuts
And humbugs
In our long back garden.

A match took off
Sending shivering sparkles
Upwards in coloured lights
Then the falling to earth
To dissolve
Melting into the cosmos
As sugar in a glass.

Cocoa in a mug
Surrounded by love
This was a best day
Of my life.


Love Mary ***

Wide lapels and herringbone
Was what my parents wore
A few years following
My brother and I were born,
Married in a registry office
My Aunty and mother in hats
No flowery additions
Their love was that.

In my father's pocket
A folded handkerchief
Mother held a handbag
An umbrella just in case.

I never got to try it on
That grey suit of my mum's
Lived in the few photographs
After they were gone
The bungalow was sold
My brother took the suits
And dispensed of their souls.


In remembrance of my dearest parents.
Love Mary their daughter ***

Over his years he had collected then
Not being sure of their date or place
Finding them digging the thatchers
Seventeenth century wasteland plot.


Stone Age in style and shape combine
To give a sense out of today’s machine
Fashioned by hand to be implements
On a windowsill now like organic rocks.


Love Mary **

Falling plums.

I would sit for hours
Squelching the stones to
A deepness.
The birds had taken their chew
Yellow beaked blood stained .
It was difficult finding a clearing
To be comfortable.

I disliked the plum falling season.
The paving stones dirtied.
No one collected them
Always too few
Yet I remember the word Damson
In a labelled jam jar
Stiff and sticky on a larder shelf.

Love Mary Kearns

Along the line of shops at the bottom
Was a sweettie shop
Sunday afternoon and father fetched out sixpence
Whilst he watched the television sport
‘Go down to Martins and get a bag of chewy nuts,
Sherbet spinning discs and liquorice laces’
Put on my shoes and flew
There and back in a flash
Brother, dad, mum and I
Sat, ******, munched
Glued to the black
And white set.

Love Mary ***
.

Float me Abraham in my country’s fields
Where the white mice come forth in shields
And bargain with the great provider that
We may cup the day of peace without harm.

For in the time of sanctities the cloak glows
And we look to freedom in those fields.

Love Mary ***

A lane that connected two extreme differences
One a shabby, littered covered entrance
Where scraps of rope doodled round lampposts
And trolley carts became abandoned aliens
With twirly wheels from mechano sets.
The smell of discarded waste and ash
Made one hurry forth pushing bicycles
Starting the downhill roll leading to Lyles Lane


Covered in a green canopy of trees
The air fleeing past as we gathered speed
Up the steeps and along the flats
Feeling the freedom of escapism
The lane joined the outskirts of the town
With the sublimity of the countryside.
Pedalling on six bicycles.


Love Mary

When you were a little girl
I came to play each Monday
We had such fun as did Mum
Sitting at the covered table
Drawing pictures and writing poems
Cutting and sticking
Our hearts were glowing

We loved the dollies and the flowers
Cuddled up and played about
Barney came and looked around
To see if I had sweeties found
Milo in his pushchair
Dark brown eyes and softest hair
Always gave a smile to me
When I came and stayed for tea.

At your house I loved to be .


Love Mary

Thank you to Daisy ,Barney ,Milo and Katie , love Mummy ,Grandma ***

I remember the death of my grandfather
My head filled out the spoken words
There a man stretched out, sublime,
In an upstairs bedroom room,
Unable to breath, doctor called,
His family standing at his side.
This was 1957, I was five.
My father had gone to be with
A father he both loved
And feared, felt tenderness for
and pitied.

I stayed with my mother,
Saying "just because
I do not cry Mummy does not mean
I am not sad."
With my small child's hands
I made her a cup of tea.

Grandfather was a rough, tough
Man,
Always impeccably dressed
In white shirt and a tie,
He threw his dinners at the wall
Collected greyhounds
And raced them at the White City
They all died, all six.
Gave me a shiny half- crown piece
At every visit and a razored kiss,
He was a lamplighter, fifty- six.

I loved him
In a child's simple way
Knew his heart loved
But life was tough.
My father spoke kindly of him
"Poor burger" my grandfather said
When my father took on a mortgage.
Poor ******.

Love Mary x

I am spread out in my green dress
With the buttons updone
And listening to the music
That you played for my song
It is evening and wherever I be
You're all with me
My dear poets
I'm glad I found thee.

Love to my poet friends Mary ***

The words were deviously writ
With good hid well behind the line
And faithfully did fly the woods
To run the gauntlet and despise.

Love Mary x

Second daughter you were so kind
When your baby sister was around
How can I capture thee
No words are lovely enough to be.

Love Mummy x

The first daisy was your first flower
As if you knew not its name but its power
Caressing fingers found as the sun shone .

Love Mary
Grandma

There you are Evelyn with hair in clips and smiling lips,
Eating breakfast from the tip of a dolphin
dish,
With head on one side and gorgeous blue eyes,
You tickle the world with surprise.


Love Grandma xxxx

The first crimson rosebud appeared
In a garden made out of lovedreams
Given and built from deep intuition
Watched each day for the new growth.

Love Mary

My children, four children
Always little children
Be happy children
Under the Autumn sky
Mummy says goodbye.

Love Mary xxxx

Everyday we separate from sheds of skin
The crack in the drainpipe gets wider
The moon changes position
The rain is borrowed damp
And I depart from the first place
I ever knew,
You .


Love Mary x
For my Rog love Mary

My heart grows in gardens
Spread out the land
Roses magnificient
Some climbing some stand
The roses are David Austin
Cupped shaped layers of flounce
To touch they do drop
Becoming sailing craft.
The gardens are my home
Petals covering the ground
And my heart lives there
Foverver grateful for a hand.


Love Mary  xxxx

Christmas lights by Pickwicks
A variety pack of colours
With dancer’s skirts
Frilled edges, sharp.

Loose bulbs, unstable filaments
Twisted black flex
Two spare bulbs
And a flasher.

On and off, off and on
Different sequences
Alternative time durations
Reflecting our life story.

Love Mary ***

Forty years felt this land
Green
But how the  carrions caress
Its shores, pollution stains
In all the halls
Where hang the priveledged
Like bats in the light.
Without vision or right.

With cupped hands the meak
Hold out the remains of the
Saint's words, crying why?
And the challis falls until
Failing retribution they, too,
Break hour for the truth
For carelessness is unbearable
Sorrow.

Love Mary x

Lying  in the sunshine
I turn to you and smile
Across the busy ocean
Where the tables are
Beneath a blue umbrella
Celebrating beer
I hear you calling out
We're having fun here
Sipping Costa coffee
From a cardboard cup
I know you are a-hatching
Writing another plot.

In my perfect quietness
I whisper in the sand
Thank you for the knowing
The lending of a hand
Tides will change
And boats come in
But our friendship
Will always
just begin.
Love Mary ***

There were days of continual wetness
When the beach huts
Suffocated
Limiting pleasure
To mealtimes
And quick dashes to the
Sea.
Ice creams stayed frozen
In their wrappers
And craneflies buzzed
In the corner
Making the humidity
Irritated
After a fortnight
We were glad to go home
Next year was a long way off.

Love Mary x

You play so lightly pretty maid
If I touch you, what would you say
So near, I hear a heart beat
Feel your breathing on my face.

And the sunlight caresses your sleeve
At this beauty I barely breathe
My fingers creep towards yours
And you ignore me and do play.

I can feel you lift those fingers
Oh so slowly on the keys
And I want you there to need me
But you stare straight in front.

Now I am earnest in this warm light
And your black pinafore falls as a dove
Oh so soft is the velvet covering
Curled around you gentle love.


Yet do you not hear me in this stillness
Where the words go unsaid
Is the music your only love dear?
For my passion is outsaid.

On the blue chair I will sit you
Press open your knees
Find my fingers in your underskirts
Rub you tenderly with my sheath.

Yet you keep playing in the sunlight
While I hold deep my breath
And my panting is becoming audible
As I look at your *******.

Yet I fear this is useless as my ardour is strong
But for you pretty lady my love appears wrong.



Love Maryxx

Oh mother I remember you creeping
So quietly in your quiet slippers
On Christmas evening so late
After the street lights had gone out
Up to our bedrooms.

And holding red crepe bound net
Stockings filled with all that you had
Place these one at the foot of my bed
And one at the foot of my brother’s
Each one filled with a tangerine:-

A pink or white sugar mouse with
String tail and red sugar piped eyes,
Chocolate money, rubber end pencil,
A cardboard card of four tiny plastic
Baby dolls with stuck on dresses;

And a few other treasures to surprise;
A tinsel bauble, ribbons and slides,
A toy whistle and a silver crown;
My mother’s purse was never full
But her heart was and so loved.

Love Mary xxxx

Plastic caterpillars
Which came from Japan
All different colours
Can be held in the hand.

Peacock and Cabbage White
All with suckers and feet
Some have horns
Those you can’t beat.

Love Mary ***

BY EDWARD THOMAS

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed.


Such an incredible poem by this young soldier
Who died in FWW.