Sitting in this room with me,
Resting on leather seat,
Is the partner of my life,
A gentle man at peace.

I love you my darling
Roger from your Mary
XxxxxX

If I had been better made
You would not have been born.

Love Mary ***

Standing in the garden
Waiting for my tea
I played with the flowers
Games of you and me
Gathering all the petals
To make a baby's bed.
Scently, sweetly blowing
The roses above my head
Round and round the garden
My dancing feet would leap
Floating in my petticoats
The dress with the dainty pleats
In the dappled sunshine
Of a warm evening breeze
Just a little girl happy and free
Calling from the kitchen
A face with a smile
Tea's nearly ready
Your favourite
Cherry pie .

Love Mary for her dear mother Grace x

I close my eyes
And dip again
Feel the moments lie within
Move into space
Dressed in lace
The loveliness of your face.
I close my eyes and look again
What was imagined
At an end
Yet the glow
That you showed
I find it in the words we told.

In memory of Roy Orbison.

Love Mary

First and dimpled blessed babe
Born to me on an Autumn day
By my side in your cot
A tiny face, I never forgot
For a while I looked on you
Stroked your hair tenderly
On my chest you did lie
Like a crimson butterfly .

I will take care of you
Wrap you from the
Evening chill
In my arms
Or on my breast
My tiny blackbird, rest.

Do not worry I am here
Standing by the open door
Listening for each and
Every stir
The ******* of
A hungry girl
There never was
A day so fine
As when I knew
You were mine .

Love From Mummy ***

I never got out of my nursery rhyme books
Daffy down dilly is still coming to town
But wearing bright leggings and a plastic crown
Little Boo Peep has lost her sheep
But does not want to find them
**** Robin sings out of tune
But nobody tells him it is too crude
The three little kittens threw away
Their mittens and mother began to cry
And if your look in the garden
You will find Mary Quite Contrary
And Ted in a flower bed
They have forgotten their *****.

Love mad Grandma ***

Before you were mine
You looked after your father
Kept house for a man
Whose life was a disaster
His son, too, called John
Grew up to be a philanderer.
In a grey suit you worked
From nine till five
Thought each day
Could you escape
This noble role set down for you;
A sister you had
Married and free
Lived a life without much strife
So it seemed.
Then as it is the way with men
Who linger after the needs of women;
Frank, your dad,
Taken with a smile and money
Married and moved to the country
To live with Gwen and her mother.
Did he like it ?
I'm not sure
But laziness has its score.
At thirty you were not young
But beauty lay
In your dark and wavy hair
And eyes of hazel brown
That no longered frowned
For you married my dad
And I am glad
Before you were mine.

Thanks to my lovely mother Grace Emily Ayton - Robinson and to Carol AnnDuffy who so inspired me with her poem.

Love Mary ***


Love Mary
Glad to have you Mum

Two voices catch together
Round the kitchen door
Neither spelt out what
Love could be or try to
See.

Love Mary ***

So we let them fall out
You and me by the fire
From jumble sales
I’d been riding my bike
Rummaging through
Viewing everything that glittered
Tipped over, scrambled, opened closed boxes
Hot it was with coffee and teas served at three o’clock.
How we loved these times
Surprises from other’s shelves.

Love Mum

To do your best at chess
You have to wear a vest
With a picture of a score
Could you want for more!
A tie with a pin
Helps you trophies win
Now you have a drawer
With T - shirts galore
And shelves full of more
Momentos than you can store
Two hundred chess sets
For garden and shed
And a tray with a pattern
Given by my dad.


Love Mary **

She went in search of truth
As if it would be given up easily
For what it is worth
It does not succumb to questioning
But is bedfellow to lies
Which breeds on its passion.

And she watched them melt
Into each other’s arms
And all the tears she cried
Filled only a silver tea cup.

Love Mary x

So many times
I repeated the space
Transversing the content
With my thoughts
They never got fully digested.

I would wake, acknowledge another day
Face it diffferently but the same
Inbetween the bird  would sing
The day advance into Autumn.
The year begin to creep to its end.

Love Mary **
Love Mary **

Hugo you are an enigma
I see photos of you and your sister
On my iPad as I rest,
Pictures in my head.
Life seems to be fun
With your siblings
And your mum
Going out to the beach
Into the waves
Darting, leaps,
Another day it's climbing trees
With your Ruby at your heels.
In the woods where it is dark
You imagine many parts,
Costumes drapped across your chest
Delphi in a bright blue dress
Piggy - backs are all the rage
Laughs and giggles all the day,
Holidays are your best
Time to play and time to rest.
Like your grandad you do look
Clever with your reading books.
I see your picture on my wall
A young boy unspoiled;
Wish you many happy hours
And adventures to inspire.

Love Grandma ***

Vigo did it well with camera roll,
Dipping into dreamers' daze,
Capturing a warm and wanting glow,
The spectacle of deckchair rows.

Delicious dancing girls raise a leg,
The dipper glides a windy ride,
There is grandpa on his wheels,
Cavorting  between lovers' bows.

And  where were you on Sunday?
Underneath the bandstand clock,
Waiting for life to depart,
And the silence of the dark.

Love Mary **

Out in the garden is the place to be
Cutting and pruning the old oak tree
Edging the grass to where it should be
Hoping the sunshine will again be me.


Love Mary

Float those fingers across my mind
Do not dally in the sad alleyways
For we are always friends
And the dappled Maple
Has been our glade.

Mornings bringing shades of green
Flickering on our window pane
For we are always friends
And the dappled Maple
Has been our glade.

Love Mary **

How far do you have to go to get to the end of the world ?
A questioned I asked, with such naivety, when I was a child .
Of course I was thinking about distance, not space and time.
Neither of the travelling one has to do in ones mind to survive.

My mother told me the world was round and not flat
And I imagined walking its circumference in endless circles,
But how to cross all the blue dividing the land into shapes.
And if I got a ***** could I dig through to Australia and
How long would it take me and could it really be done?
Questions of physicality and gravity, the planets and moon.

Growing into ones twenties, questions become more metaphysical
About the meaning and purpose of our lives, the way we conduct
Ourselves, relationships with others and most of all falling in love
And that takes most of our middle years’ of thinking, so  when we fall upon late middle age with declining health, questions change.


In search of kindness we look to others, our neighbours, the community, the health service, a local church, reference books,
The internet to find answers to many unanswered questions.
And there on paper are numerous suggestion, diets , ideas but
Nowhere is there any real help, love or care.

Our questions become primeval, and when there are no answers
To desperation we ask WHY!  Realising how naivety led us along
An unprepared path and how happily we basked in that joy not
Knowing the real truth of how all our questions would be left
Empty. And now I need to know how best to die and no one knows.

Love Mary x

When you hear the first seagull
You know you are going to live
That a land awaits your calling
And humanity stood you strong.

Both good and bad a humanitarian
Responds from that place beyond
Where heart is moved into action
A courage braver than life’s song.

So others may continue their joys
In a freedom given back to them
Not in the hope of victories
But the glory of returning Peace.

Love Mary x

Give back the tree that stood by the gate
Casting its shadow to the south
Cutting hedges in half
Protecting the smallest of animals
From the hottest sun.

You have been a horizon from a silled room
A fragrance guided by light
Tomorrow's promise of another
And the gap left is a silence
Remembered when I cry .

The sea and its tides
That vanish and fade
Leaving acres of sand
Rippled and stripped

And when tide comes in
Filling bay to the brim
The people swim about
And the seagulls shout.

Love Mary x

On the platform as the sun rises
Bald heads crowd into carriages
Girls with glasses and painted lids
Hold onto iPads and ear phone hoods
A half awake baby feeds at the breast
Of a working mother hurriedly dressed
And scratch chews biscuits on the floor.
Meanwhile in the corridor of time
Millie lifts up her jumper
To show Tim her chickenspot spots
Now crusted over with calamine
No longer contagious.
Before entering Euston
The train waits ten minutes
At a red light.
And for the rest of the day
Nothing goes right.

Love Mary x

Evelyn floated in today wearing her yellow frock,
She looked like a daffodil being blonde on top,
Could not wait to see her toys the ones she left
behind,
Stones and shells and pretty gems small hands
Did find.
Played as perfectly as any child, her imagination
Flowed,
Put the little people in a boat and sent them
Off to row,
Rabbit jumped in, too, to join the happy throng,
Thank you sweet Evelyn for your merry song.


Love Grandma ***

I use to to call you funny boy
Because you made me laugh
With that wide smile
And cheeky grin
Red hair like a Cabbage Patch doll.

Clever with puzzles on the floor
Computer games you adored
Always shy when I called
School reports I could applaud.

All the teachers thought you bright
Gave you prise for your insight
But they did not yet see
The hidden qualities to be.

On your bike on the green
Travelling round with a team
Many friends you did have
Turned into a likely lad.

From that quiet and shy child
Something different did emerge
Clever , yes, without a doubt
But cared little for convention's shout.

Dyed your hair bright blonde
Wearing earrings wasn't wrong
All the teachers turned to see
Someone cheeky as could be .

To my funny boy, Kasper, love Grandma xxxx

Farewell to an idea
In a way
We are just this
Concepts, imagination and sound
You see me but I can't be found
I think I know who I am
But the I evades the me
Leaving a collection of hours
Somewhere between the stars
I lived a life with you
Happily we made a crew
In a random,spectacular Que.

Love Mary , Mum , Grandma xxxxxx

Hawthorn hangs like gossamer
May breaks into sun
Clouds raise the heavens
A new Summer has begun.

Benches line the walkways
Sounds tickle the air
The lynchpin of existence
Turns another year.

Florets of Mayflower
Meet the spreading green
Trees bend into motion
Children are unseen.

And we in our circle
Paint the world afresh
Making every boundary
A moment of caress.


Love Mary

He sat quietly in the parking lot
The unprotesting man
With a chess set on his knee
Radio four to please
And Beethoven spinning out the widow.

I flicked up my skirts and flew
Straight into the arms of Masaccio
Landing at the foot of his Madonna
And two angels.
The halo of the Christ child iridescent
Elation graced me, I thought
What marvellous balance
The position of these angels
Then gravitated down
To the unprotesting man
And knew this was love
In the highest .


For my Roger love Mary ***

A photograph captures  a heart ,
It is a sensation
A fixture in space
It tells a story but not of the sitter
Or scene that is taken
But imagination
The thrill of captivation
The concentration of inspiration,
So when you look at a photograph
It is the artist you see
Colliding with what could be.

Love Mary

Paper Bag .

In a cupboard above the fridge,
Containing dinner plates,
And useful letters,
Stamped with dates,
Was a shelf,
Deep and wide,
With hidden things,
Kept inside.
The cupboard had a door,
And a shiny latch,
Not actually forbidden,
To open that catch.

And so it fell on a Summer's day,
That mother peeped inside,
Feeling as she often did,
For the bag of sweetiepies,
And all the day she nibbled,
Tempted by the taste,
The nearness of the sweetness,
She could not erase.
By four o'clock she worried,
The bag was getting thin,
Better go out shopping,
To replace the toffees in.
And so it was that father,
With his generous heart,
Offered in the evening ,
The sweeties,
Without remark.

I too ate the sweeties but never let the bag get too thin.
Love to my dear parents Grace and Bill  from Mary **

Why If you could have did you not
Find in the Willow tree that spot
Where the light flickers on silver stem
Showering its wisdom on all men.

Love Mary x

I took my friend Sam to school
He did not know what to do
I sat him in a wooden chair
Then turned around he wasn’t there.

I crept out the classroom door
Scrambled along on all fours
Came to the water tap
There was Sam sapping that.

Love Mary x

A star sat on my eiderdown to dwell
And in delight it opened up its spell.

Love Mary

Private people you know the best
They leave out what is unintended
The bits of lives you never ask for
So free is this space that friendship
Flourishes unhindered to imagine.

Love Mary xxxx

Finding words that fit
And do remember all the hours
The first where we did met
And take my hand a gentle curve
Down a shady lane,
And kiss my brow under the bough
Where we use to be
And yet I have few words to speak
Of hands with strength to dear
But darling you are my tender one
Stay forever near.

Love Mary x

On a beach in silver
Sat the fair skin child
Sea bells on her feet
Pearls round her hair

Out came ‘tea-stain’
With his yellow cup
Offered fair one sips
Drippity drip, drip.

Love Mary x

Goodness is given in many ways
It could be a bunch of flowers
Or a telephone call.
Sometimes a text,
A trip down the shops
Remembering to remember
Something you once forgot.

For my daughter ,Elizabeth
It is a photo everyday
Of Bluebell her baby
In pretty display
She knows I love babies
Have since a child
This is her love
Given with a smile

Katie makes me dinner
Of rice and veg
Cooked on a Friday
In a big stainless dish
I keep it in the fridge
To eat day by day
Lovely daughter
Bless you always.

Alex and Victoria
Both have their plans
To get me Spring bulbs
And little animals grand
To decorate a garden
Designed by their mum
As for Rog a card will do
And the fact that he is here
Loving me still.


Love Mary
27/02/2018

He did not drink
But sat at the bar
Waiting for her potato
The one she had daily.

Their life, the pub, he.
The potato was a food
To alleviate the painful
He gave it with his love.

Love Mary ***

I tried to give you my beauty
Learnt at my mother's knee
Of Wordsworth and the grasses
The hilltops and the trees
I had a little garden
And hours of golden fun
Hands brown with sunshine
Our laughter could be sung.
Underneath an open window
A little girl swings
Swaying her new dolly
While the blackbird sings.
Pictures of moments
Are all that I am
I give you my beauty
I lay it in your hand.
I know I am not you,
Wanderer of the stars
You beauty is of a different kind
But the choices we made are ours,
Underneath the heavens
Looking at the sky
We met in the middle
And beauty was not shy.


For my Loving Roger from Mary ***

Would you believe it
One in the morning
Of a Sunday dawning
A couple of kids
Thought it might be good
To travel back along the tracks
(After all they had missed the last train)
"Scary ", I thought,
But at sixteen anythings fun
Even a death run.
In a Sunday dress and shoes
Meant for prancing not stony floors
With rats and that
Into the black
(And it was when the tunnels
Neatly bent)
Not a thread of light to be seen.
The lad in front
And I behind, trembling slightly,
But did not mind,
Watching for trains appearing blast,
Into the cut away hollows' cast
Many stations we did pass
Along the platforms quick and fast,
After about six miles
Just as the sun began to smile
We two, laughing, very tired
Saw the steps cut in the side
Up a steep and grassy *****
Through the churchyard
Like two ghosts,
Along the empty, silent streets
Hoping not to meet
A policeman on
His morning beat.
Home at last and into bed
Please don't do what I have said.

Love Mary

Thank you Roger for being such fun.Love Mary xxxxbig

When you break
Save me the pieces.


Love Mary **

Have we always been of a hostile kind
With battlefield egos too enormous
For sorry
And the soiled linen of deceit lies in black bags
Festering
And the good huddle in corners
Trying and trying
To find the beginning
Saddened I am at this now world
But perhaps it was an illusion
Selfishness lines our hearts
Not fur
And steel
Crushes our souls.


Love Mary ***

My good girl.

Shining brown hair with a hint of chestnut
Straight and silky and a sharp cut fringe
Sometimes in black beribboned plaits
Or two bunches showing your ears.
An elfin face cupped in my hands
Slenderly graceful you are still
You are my good girl.

Embracing life joyfully, you smiled
Through days of schoolwork
Touching the world with sunshine
Making all seem bright and clear,
Loving daughter, my first of three
You came to start our family
This is my good girl.

And yet you are many things
Other than my good girl.
You mind an encyclopaedia of answers,
Your heart a lover of nature,
A social activists,
You crochet beautiful blankets
Teach and make ceramic pots
And love to curl up with a book.

Love and thank you My Katie .
From Mum ***

Here comes Margaret, it is nearly four
Takes her all day, to get out of doors
Makes it to the park
A few hundred yards
And back again, slowly, within the hour.

As she returns, Roger sets off
Carrying a note book
And wearing a cagoule mac
A five mile walk, twice a day
And factual writing recording his stay.

Wind direction, southerly, position of the sun
Underfoot weather conditions
A man on the run
Ducks on the pond, birds in the trees
How wonderful it is and all free.


Mary has a black car and rarely walks
Since losing her husband she rarely talks
The pavements are a sadness
Carrying memories of happy times
Walking together on Sunday afternoons.


Pat, goes gently, her knees are bad
Many operations has got her this far
Stoic disposition she loves the flowers
Looks at the gardens for many an hour.

Walkers of the roadway, kindly, unite
Giving to each other love and insight.


Love Mary x

I remember the flee circus
At the time I was only ten
By sixteen I began to laugh
But don’t know what it means.

I think the humour very rare
It caught you in the armchair
Only elephants venture there
To make industrial underwear.

Love Mary ***

Sometimes out of the throbbing chaos
A voice speaks with compassion
And for a short while
One is lifted
Above the clouds
To where the blue
Is crystal clear
And the sun
A circle
Of returning
Appreciation.

Love Mary x

Summer has arrived,
I see you dancing in the rain
Outside a Soho Bar
Gorgeous woman
Humour sharp as ice
Heels longer than cocktail sticks;
It's five  in the morning
And your shopping
Food to start the day.
The train rattles
Jangling the wrist bands
You uncross your legs
Unlatch the carriage door
The children  are dressing
Bags scatter the worktops
You grab two hands
To walk the half mile
To school.


Love Mum **

I use to feel love would never die
That people were kind and never lied
Things always got better if you tried
And goodness lay at the heart of the
World.
But
Now I know
Love only sustains so much
And lies a commonplace touch
Trying only works for an army
Whilst evil fills many souls
Now I know.

Love Mary x

When I draw you I create both of us anew,
Your form fills my eyes and I am moved,
I take from you myself, and all my idiosyncrasies.
You are my voice calling its name,
I try to find what is beauty,
Through line and mark and scale,
I give this back to you as Love,
A drawing on a page.

Love Mary

No trespassing, the sorrows are mine
The seeing were blinkered and blind
It’s permanent, an indelibility, by star
Shimmering in the blackness of right.


Goodnight my loved ones.
Mary ***

A bird, not heard, flying high, some sky
Over meadow, above sea, see snow, landfill
So flap the palest of wing up lifted it sings
His secret only known is carried into flow.

Love Mary ***

What was it I found in those words
Spoken with such grace
Given under the lavender
And behind a privet hedge.

Was it that knowledge is nothing
And kindness flows down a path
And roses grow round doorways
And the truth lasts and lasts.

Love Mary ***