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144 · Apr 2018
The edge
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
That edge of the sea feeling
Barefoot where the sand slops heavy
And popping seaweed drapes knots
Slimey, slippery ribbons drifting
Along with our feet.
Stubbed toes bruise on rocks
And that sudden extra wave
Surprises, chasing knees
And thighs with bubbles.
Sun splinters through spray drops
Brown to golden streaks
Collect in our hair and eyebrows
As the evening slips
Into still waters
And we return home .

Love Mary ***
Totland **
144 · Dec 2019
Cold nights.
Mary Gay Kearns Dec 2019
These poems gathered together in
Harmony are my life in pictures
The thoughts, blessings, memories
Hours of pain and suffering put aside
For the love of those most dear and
Others new to me whom I share my heart
For I have not travelled alone on cold nights.

Love you all Mary **
144 · May 2018
Deliverence
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
In a hot room overlooking the football ground
I felt the pains filling my brain in reams
The sky held to blue all day and the sheets white
Then I pushed to see and someone ran the corridor.

The silver lift doors swung open and we separate
As your name I bounced off every wall, I shout,
‘Deliverance without my gentle shepherd, my love’.
You peep through green doors to a daughter born.

Love Mary
144 · Jul 2018
Pictures on my walls.
Mary Gay Kearns Jul 2018
I have pictures on my walls
Pretty pictures one and all
Painted by friends I know
People who love and grow.

Everyday I look at them
Treasure the heart within
Gives me a life to breathe
Pretty pictures for to see.

Love Mary x
143 · Dec 2019
Rounded.
Mary Gay Kearns Dec 2019
Your hands hardened by love
All the watering and wiping
Lifting loads up the steep stairs
The blue enamel bowl rounded
We are together stilled by ends
Tangled socks and the touches of
Long grey silver in the night.

Love from Mary xxxx
143 · Aug 2019
Not a drop
Mary Gay Kearns Aug 2019
There is not a drop of hope
All pages completely tight
Feeling it must stop soon
They all went to the party.

The moth eaten cat beams
At their return to number
Wall tapestry girl waiting
For an overdue love letter.


Dying is a miraculous gift
For the suffering confused
The freedom of the garden
Wooden trowel and sweets.

Love Mary ***
143 · Jun 2019
Sprouted.
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2019
The crooked heart sprouted a bark
So tough and so hard it had no leaf
The country folk took chisels sharp
And plunged them in quick and fast
To alleviate the damage carried out
By the evil of the crooked heart.

Love Mary x
142 · Jan 2019
Emotion.
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
Very naturally one believes that it is reason
Not emotion that rules the world.
But the truth is it is emotion
That spins ones days
Catapults one out of complacency
To produce and act in
Extraordinary ways.

Love Mary **
142 · Mar 2018
Camellias
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Brightest of the Spring blossoms
That in front of my window fill
These days with cascades of rosettes
On leaves like satin silk
And if I had within my strength
I would polish each and every one
So a mirror might be cast
Reflecting the noon day sun.
My Rose Red and Snow White
Bear out friendship's time
Sharing together what weather's blow
From raindrops to icey winds
And as April does appear
You once more turn to green
I look forward to the new shoots
Awaiting to be seen.


Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2018
Marie Thérèse Walter, an imaginative tale.

Marie Thérèse lifted up her golden hair
And placed a clip on the left to hold back a fringe.
She came through the city of Paris, in the hot sunshine wearing simple sandals
And a Summer dress.
           --------------------------
At the door of her lover's house she paused,
Wondering wistfully how he would greet her.
Would she find him laden with canvas
Impatient for her love or her pose.
He was an artist, fabulously famous,
Married, with son, to a noble woman.
She was his mistress at seventeen.
The thing from which he drew inspiration.
That moved her to tears.
                ------------------------
On a street in Paris whilst shopping,
Browsing the Galleries Lafayette,
They had met by chance in an instance,
Her face attacking his skin.
Tall, athletic and graceful,
A beauty with Grecian profile,
Fascinated, he was, by her movement,
The space between her eyes.

Unhindered by his pronouncement,
She offered to model there in;
And so began the beginning,
Of changes,
That altered art from within.
             ----------------------------
The price of art is expensive,
Its development claims many lives,
For Marie Therese it was lonely,
After Picasso said goodbye.
She lived with their daughter,
Maya, born out of love,
But ten years of giving,
Only made her sad.
After he died,
She knew, her time had come.
Knowing the world was empty
With his power gone.

Love Mary xxxx
142 · Mar 2018
Edges of goodbye
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Where when close to the wall
The edges of your hair
Almost touch an upturned face
Filling just the slightest trace
As if not a whisper was shared
Nor a flutter undisturbed
For the note is quietly played
And Schubert's subtle sigh,
Goodbye.

Love Mary ***
141 · Nov 2019
Padded
Mary Gay Kearns Nov 2019
I met them on the roadside
Silky black ,smooth ,padded
There were two,  gathering
In the hour before sunset came.

I felt the cold chill my bones
Festering the marrow to dark
Then it happened like a bark
Time to say goodbye to Silky
And Black the cats.

Love Mary. **
141 · Apr 2019
Farewell
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2019
No longer do I walk on the quiet land
Or watch the tree buds on Spring days
For I am lost to those things forever so
And am star dust to the earthly soul.

Love Mary xxxxx
141 · Feb 2018
Be thy still of heart
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
We all have to climb the stairs sometime,
To wave goodbye to friends,
To kiss the roses one last time,
And understand we can't mend.

Though tears may fill our hearts,
Many have journeyed before,
Laid down their possessions,
Quietly closed  the door.

I leave behind my treasures,
The things that made me, me,
The people that I loved,
And those that loved me.

Be thy still of heart,
Knowing you did your best,
Filled my life with gladness,
Right from the very start.

Find in the petals,
The perfume in the air,
Traces of a wonder,
I always shared.

Love Mary ***
140 · Feb 2018
A presence
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
Lady do you still sit in that leather chair
Where dreams are held
On paper screens
Did you know how often
Conversation turned
To that necklace
Below your face
And the downey baby
Called Grace.
On rainy days
Taken from a drawer
We saw a glimpse of
The yesterday
We never had.

Love Mary

about
140 · Feb 2018
Thank You Dad
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
It was hard telling him
Breaking the peace that was his world
If only it could be not this
But some other story
There was no choice
So with courage
She found the comfort of his lap
And with his love
He held his pregnant daughter.


Love to my dad from Mary **
140 · Apr 2018
Katharine
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Running fingers through nutmeg hair
You claimed the silky tree bark
Black ribbons in a sea of leaves
And a brown checked school dress.

Love Mummy x
140 · Apr 2018
The Fool
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
A painting, an orchestration
A trembling anxiety, enhanced
By chance.
No trace of description
A ratio in space
Flat on a surface
Embedded in spool
A mood outstanding
The sobbing of a fool.

Love Mary x
Each colour caresses it's neighbour
140 · Feb 2018
The juggling balls.
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
Daddy , daddy you can see I'm a girl
By my wonderful curls
When wearing a dress I look such a splash
Especially if it's in blue.
I know you like cars
But we've been playing for hours
And the juggling *****
Don't bounce anymore
Even the hoops are bored.

You call me Flimmy
I think I am a cat
But can't get through
The door flap.
The house is strange
With lots of weird names
And screens bright
With bionic mice
Whilst dinner comes in tubes.

But when you hold me tight
I know I'm just right
Growing up like you.


Love Grandma for Alex and Evelyn.
140 · Nov 2019
Lilies
Mary Gay Kearns Nov 2019
Will you wait by the lilies side
In your flowery shirt
Wait for me by the church
In the country road, casually,
And carry me home at last
Never, longer to be alone.

Love Mary xxxx
140 · May 2018
He painted my pots
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
A little white *** grew a blue smile
It sat on the shelf
Thinking for a while
Opened popped two blue eyes
With a bewildered frown
And inside a figure moving around.

So the painter propped him up against a wall
Deciding on position, balancing it all.
After many years sitting with him
Watching the paint brushes
Applying thin
The artist put down his brush.
Just sat and looked at Little ***.


Eventually the painting got sold
Found itself in an Art show.
A lady bought him to put on her wall
Did *** feel happy, I’m not sure.
He liked his owner who made him
So sad and small.

Love to Little *** .

From Mary **
139 · Mar 2018
Bearable bearings
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
At certain moments
All that you are stops,
Like the falling of plates
Crashing onto alabaster
A tingling, biting into walls
One is pricked, ****** sore.
Unable to find bearable bearings
In the harvest of despair.
It takes a very long stretch to
Get together a pair of shoes
And walk that first mile.
How many times does a person endure
Before becoming a chip of china,
So sharp it would ****.
For most the brain rearranges and
The pilot reignites
But sometimes , just occasionally,
One dies.

Love Mary ***
139 · Jan 2019
Silver tips.
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
Silver she was that tiny star
Far up in the heavens
Silver tips upon her shoes
And brighter by far
Through all the hours
A night-light in the blue.

Love Mary ***
139 · May 2018
Childhood accidents
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
Falling, slowly, effortlessly
Like a floating feather
Without wings, watching
Space interrupt
No hands to heed the
Speed
No one came to me
With ****** chin
Lifted soul
And ran
Finding the door ajar.
139 · Apr 2018
Crossing the water
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Oh tides you carry out your friends
From mooring safe into the night
Slipping between the row of buoys
Under the moonlight night.
Though it is late and time short
The stars are shining bright
And do not fear the open sea
Where Gandalf did take flight.

On the shore they stepped so light
Their gowns a feathered grey
And waved and waved as they depart
For the Havens far away.
So silently they cross the bar
As Tennyson spoke of too
To raise the currents in their wake
And slip slowly out of view.

Love Mary **
138 · Apr 2019
Cabled.
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2019
She gathered her gloves from top bookcase
Those fingerless ones knitted by a friend in
Grey and blue, slidding them along the rail
To keep her hands clean and warm, cabled.

Love Mary ***
Thank you Jackie Carrier
138 · Apr 2018
My Sweet Roses
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Oh my roses you bloom so gently
Turning your palest petals down
And the raindrops roll off you
But no words not a sound.

How I love you as your moving
My sweet roses taking turns
Holding out for each other
As the day twists you round.

Then to take you to my lips close
And your fragrance breath it in
Filling my soul with your perfume
From your stamens on my skin.

Now to evening and the light fades
Delicate roses you come down
Scattering all your tenderest beauty
Silent petals lay on the ground.



Love Mary ***
138 · Jun 2018
The little bubble girl.
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
The little bubble girl
Sat on the kerb
With her clay pipe
And took a breath
Deep in her chest
And blew
And blew
And blew.


And across the sky
The bubbles fly
Bright dancing globes
Reflecting light
A lovely sight
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye.

Love Mary x
138 · Apr 2018
little mummy
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
I think of you little mummy
When the snow gathers round your gravestone
Creeping up the sides of the white marble
Touching the words with its soft hands
Covering the overturned urn
As the last flowers lay like a fan
Uniting you and daddy
Under the lightest eiderdown.

Love Mary your daughter .
Christchurch Totland with the lamb sculpture on the front wall.
137 · May 2018
Stock Phrases
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
‘What shall I tell them?’
Asks a junior doctor.
‘Consultant ‘,
‘Old age’.
Can we accept this
Simplisticity?
Lying has become
Medical heaven.


Love Maryx
137 · Mar 2018
Drifting
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Dry and dusty the old man lay
Had not moved a vessel for many a day
Slept below the moonlight stars
Thought of his weath and fading power
Drifting, drifting the old man saw
Far beyond the cliffs and golden shore
Had crossed the marker made for man
Slowly he felt the dying man's hand
Deeper, deeper into silent sleep
The water green, the water deep
And then from the ocean he heard a call
A voice rang out from distant shores
There in his softly swaying boat
Was lifted, feet first, by a riddled rope
Laid in comfort in a cabin bed
Fed and watered, bandaged head
Nearer and nearer the headland crept
Restored this dry and dusty vet
To this world again and whole .
Grateful he was this poor old soul.


Love Mary **
137 · May 2018
Syrian child.
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
He holds the gun with crooked hand
Close to the sun in lonely lands
By fear encircled stands the child.
The blistered bricks about her land
A bulletin so breaks the sky
You gave the child no reason why.

Love Mary x
137 · Jun 2020
Half dozen.
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2020
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 **
137 · Mar 2018
Sometimes in the city
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
Where the birds never sing
You come across secrets
That you've never seen
And this is what I say
And doubt not my words
But finding you all
Brought joy into this world
You come from every race
And touch every space
Have wisdom in your bones
So I am never alone
Sometimes in the city.

Love Mary **
137 · Feb 2018
Scarlet
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
Under Scarlet lay
A letter written on a special day
Written by a loving father
To the mother she once had.
Every night she dreamed a dream
About a lady on a movie screen
With a teardrop in her eye
Waving softly a sad goodbye.

For beautiful Tasha who died at 30
A day after Scarlet's birth.
Love Mary
137 · Jan 2019
Farewell to you my loves.
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
I am going over the rainbow
Where the grass is green
And birds sing on roof tops
And all is brightly seen.

Love Mum xxxxxxx
137 · Dec 2019
A tasta.
Mary Gay Kearns Dec 2019
It has been months of misery stumbling on
Everyday even the effort of rising exasperates
I eat chocolate, peel an orange, open a surprise
For my last taste of a Christmas no longer enjoyed
But thank you for trying my loves.
Thank you for trying.
From Mummy Mary xxxxx
137 · Jun 2018
Everything
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
Everything just becomes things
Things to put on the shelf
Things to put in the shed
Things to take to bed
Pictures on your wall
Mats on the floor
Clothes in the cupboard
Jewellery boxes to store
When what we need is
None of these
But to be loved
And adored.
That’s all
But costs more
Than Everything.

Love Mary **
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
The Place Of The Solitaires.

Let the place of the solitaires
Be a place of perpetual undulation.

Whether it be in mid-sea
On the dark, green water-wheel,
Or on the beaches,
There must be no cessation
Of motion, or of the noise of motion,
The renewal of noise
And manifold continuation;

And, most, of the motion of thought
And its restless iteration,

In the place of the solitaires,
Which is to be a place of perpetual undulation.
136 · Jun 2018
It’s never too late.
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
I gave up writing letters when the frost set in
Having tied each bunch with coloured ribbon
So those clearing out could identify the writer
Before packing into bags for their final home.

Mother’s letters were always playful with a lot of
Funny drawings and a multitude of little sayings
There was often a five pound note for the children
And lots of kisses and hugs to each and everyone .

They came regular at holiday times when distant
Kept us apart and she and I felt unexpectedly sad
For we lived like each other, inside tins and things
Buttons and bows, flower pots, coffee-sponge cake.

I have her letters in drawers, inside books and cards
I have her glasses and blue case, last pair of shoes
A scarf where there remains the scents of The Island
The beach and sea, salty air and a jar of cold cream.

Love Mary to her mum xxxx
136 · Jun 2018
Loose
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
She stood at the window
Hoping for rain
The sleeves of the cotton dress
Loose
And her shoes muddy.

‘Why’, she thought,
Sitting down at last
Did the world have to be so
Forgettable
Loose strands of grass.

Love Mary
136 · Feb 2018
The Hollyhocks
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
I've been watching the hollyhocks for years
The tall stemmed, open petalled, plants
Colourful Mid-Summer blooms
Collected the seedheads
For others to spread
Across county and country;
Biennials so will take two years to perfect
By then my Autumn will be long gone
Leaving the bees to carry my scent
And the flowers to speak
Of a life well spent.


Love Mary
136 · Feb 2018
I Saw your garden.
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
I saw your garden
For the first time in months
All the perennials had
Trebled in size
The agapanthus, by the wall,
Put out many heads
And by the fence
The large poppies
And fluted penstemons
Flutter in the breeze
Which sways the hollyhocks
To and fro
On that same windy spot.


Love Mum to Victoria ***
136 · Jun 2018
Let’s Play
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
Let’s play dear brother
As we never did before
But with an understanding
Together once more.

Out in the garden
Climbing the trees
Drawing and painting
Just you and me .

Love Mary x
136 · Sep 2019
Forget about it.
Mary Gay Kearns Sep 2019
When you are old
You live on your own
Nobody cares
Just swears.

Ones clothes are untidy
Shoe soles flat
And all of the mirrors
Show a poisoned apple.

Love Grandma Mary xxxx
135 · Jul 2020
Relics
Mary Gay Kearns Jul 2020
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 **
135 · May 2018
Near the forest .
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
We took the road with crooked end
And followed out across the dawn
As rabbits set the branches back
Their feet soft oblongs down the track
And child of gypsy whispering words.

Love Mary x
Memories from everywhere and nowhere .
Love Mary ***
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Sixty-six years living in a country I respected
Never regretted it, admired, honoured.
Finished!
The treatment of the underprivileged
Is unstainable
The law allows ******
Of the innocent,
Cruelty to the old,
England has failure
Running through
The arterial map
Corruption explodes
Its ***** fingers
In the corners
Where they should
Show love.

Mary x
Poor Alfie and his parents .
We will all have our heads cut off soon .Mary x
135 · Sep 2019
Poems to write
Mary Gay Kearns Sep 2019
Stop it sister
Evelyn as a lady bird.

Love Grandma Mary xxxxxx
135 · Jan 2018
Life drawing
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2018
Van Gogh's models were the poor,
The peasants, hungry with grief,
Girls lost and lonely in misery,
The sewer for whom time was a thief.

Manet came from the classes,
His models passionately posed,
One controversial painting,
Naked and eyes not closed.

Delacroix had them writhing,
Like snakes in an arabesque,
Or standing there half- naked,
A banner wrapping their head.

Then we come to Picasso,
The woman and girls that he loved,
Painted with ultimate tenderness,
A child holding a dove.

Go back in time to the medieval,
Where models turned into saints,
And angels surrounding madonnas
Quietly came and went.

Today the life class is different,
Feminism has made it unclean,
And Art Schools practice the video,
Naked bodies now rarely seen.

But drawing from observation,
Is a skill perfected by work,
Letting  the imagination,
Creating a beauty that lasts.

Love Mary **
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