Paintings are not just for Reading.

You stare, asking why
What is going on here,
There are grapes and
Lilies,
With a skull
And two chairs.

True it can be read
We do all the time,
But stand and see
How the colours combine
Finding a harmony,
An untold rhyme.

The pink tip of that rose
Echoes in the sky,
Giving a painting
A sudden surprise
Which shimmers the greyness
In her shadowed brow.

If one moves ones eyes
Finds different ways
To enter this world
The artist has made,
You'll come to see
Paintings are not just for Reading.

Love Mary **

I sleep with all those disappointed
Who failed in fighting for truth
A funeral, a purging hurricane
My body a casket of flowers.

Love Mary x

I watched you today on FaceTime,
A new invention of hyperspace.
You were smiling
I wanted to join in with your playing,
What was it today?
A playmobil playground
And added dinosaurs
In red , blue and green.
You made them talk
Little words from your head.

Love Grandma to Evelyn.

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 ***

Delirious.

No one ever realises, knows,
Other than in retrospect,
The significance of their action,
How the years will mount up,
Spilling this moment,
Out across the foundation of their lives.

There I was delirious with happiness,
Seventeen and a bit and skipping,
Running in the dark,
To tell,
To tell someone my news.
Circumstance did not touch ground,
Merrily I was oblivious,
As the door opened to the crying of a child
I stepped in,
Announcing my news with a smile,
Trembling with fear of this,
Holding arms she gathered me in,
I joined the clan,
Fell into the limitation,
As she had before,
And thousands before we were even born.
Her mother smiled, another bit of guilt lifted;
I came from a good home.

As I left hearing my footsteps
On the wet streets and creeping into bed,
My innocence dissipated,
The next day, the beginning,
The reality took away that joy,
Leaving the news to be broken
To the grandparents of my
Unborn child.

Love  Mary

Thank you dear Roger for being the father of that child and giving me a good life.

In shop windows, reflected panes of glass,
There once was a woman walking,
In heels ever so fast;
Her shirts flowed outwards
To the breeze of a step,
Hair bounced upwards,
Silky with respect;
Inside a pocket
A tea bag and a chain,
Sixpence for the metre
To get her home again.

Love Mary **

Please does anyone know a poem
Called " TheWhite Page " or "The Blank Page" or
Maybe verse.
I think it may have been written by Wallace Steven
Or a philosopher.
It is a beautiful piece about the impossibility
Of capturing thought.
And has echoes of the sea and crashing
Waves at bottom of cliffs.

Please can you find it for me
Before I depart .
It says so much
And I need to hear it one
Last time.

Love Mary ***

Bobble hat and Terrance rat
Bought a flat at the back
Filled it up with tiny things
Pebble stones and fairy wings
They built some shelves
Made of wood
Cheaply bought
Without much thought
Stacked them up
Day by day
With their collection
Now on display.
Bobble hat was rather grand
So went shopping in a Harrod's
Van
The store detective very cross
When Bobble hat took a lot.
Under hat, behind the brim
Lots and lots of diamond rings.
Terrance rat was not impressed
Said your manners' a disgrace.
But off they went out for tea
To their local Busy Bee .

Love Mary

For Evelyn and Florence and all those who like to play.

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 ***

Sitting by the window watching the falling snow
Landing on your dustbin and the ground below.
Footsteps up the path look like a wiggly snake
Big ones and small ones and those ***** cats make.


Love Mary ***

In the bottom of the wardrobe
A pair of white patent shoes
With a gold buckle, glued,
You loved my shoes
Wedding shoes
In the bottom of a wardrobe
Made for two.

Our wedding day guest room
Small and neat
An almost empty wardrobe for
People to rent,
Ours was filled with one hanging shirt
A wedding day suit
And a plastic belt.

We slept in a bed
Which smelt of sea air
At breakfast we sat near
A gun man's chair
Eating fried eggs and soaky bread,
Then off to the beach
Streets ahead.


Getting sunburnt
All over our backs
Time to make, homeward tracks,
Out of the wardrobe came my shoes
Still as shiny, almost brand new
Put them on with a clackerty clack
Held you hand all the way back.

To Roger love Mary xxc

Words - Poem by Edward Thomas


Out of us all
That make rhymes
Will you choose
Sometimes -
As the winds use
A crack in a wall
Or a drain,
Their joy or their pain
To whistle through -
Choose me,
You English words?

I know you:
You are light as dreams,
Tough as oak,
Precious as gold,
As poppies and corn,
Or an old cloak:
Sweet as our birds
To the ear,
As the burnet rose
In the heat
Of Midsummer:
Strange as the races
Of dead and unborn:
Strange and sweet
Equally,
And familiar,
To the eye,
As the dearest faces
That a man knows,
And as lost homes are:
But though older far
Than oldest yew, -
As our hills are, old, -
Worn new
Again and again:
Young as our streams
After rain:
And as dear
As the earth which you prove
That we love.

Make me content
With some sweetness
From Wales
Whose nightingales
Have no wings, -
From Wiltshire and Kent
And Herefordshire, -
And the villages there, -
From the names, and the things
No less.
Let me sometimes dance
With you,
Or climb
Or stand perchance
In ecstasy,
Fixed and free
In a rhyme,
As poets do.

Its what in darkness gives light
So how to find a fountain
My wisdom now fail and withered
Be close to times that gathered
The wheat in gleeful arms to home.

Love Mary xxxx

Where is truth, does it exist anywhere?
This is what it is, broken strength.
Lonely, I hear you crying in the hall
Why?, you said,
And a box and a pair of shoes
Were delivered.

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

Jay is a handsome boy
With long dark curls
Reaching below his shoulders
Reminders of my other lads
His uncle Alex and brother Richard.
Grown in stature and understanding
Smart in striped shirt
Sitting in the sun
Under the Robina tree
I thought how far he has come.

Not my son but my daughter's
Unspoken hero of his age
Worked with seven other
Offspring to bring about
Some sort of change.
Made it to university
Computers he did choose
Compelled by an inner calling
Found a way
He is no fool.
Love you grandson
In the morning of your life
Hope you keep
That spark alive
And I will continue to be glad.

Love to Jay from Grandma ***

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 ***

Your heart is as soft as a bird's feather, downy
From birth
As gentle as the passing of a skirt
As it moves against skin
As kind as the wisest of people
When their heart is risen
Above all things
Son you are all these things
And I love you .

Mum xxxx

The boy with broken wings
Lost the ability to swim
Too far out he began to shout
But the current took him out.

Love Mary ***

Breaking into the garden shed
The children found a collection
Of old toys, so glad to see them
Washed and restored they play
Taking squirrel for a walk and
Putting up the old tent to hide .

Love Mummy ***

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

After the snow came
You stopped loving me
Disappearing up the hillside
Fading into shadows
Cast by the trees
It was a protection
From the gradual
Separation to come
I knew it was fear
That held you
When it should
Have been me.

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 ***

He was little rosy faced chubby child
On a green cushion in the garden
Near the new central heating chimney pipe
Waiting its silver form to be installed.

Your romper was an altered smoked dress
Its puff sleeves made you look like a girl
Banging a rubber toy you smiled in the sunshine
Your dad sat down near you, hopeful.

He disliked workman and home improvements
And the roses grew their heads haphazardly
Needed last years pruning to give shape
Tea I brought in mugs to this moment in time.

Love Mary

We met in the Natural History Museum
I was sure it was her.
Beautiful blonde hair
Cut Cilla Black style.
Her sister, too,
Who had lived in the flat
Above a sweet shop.
Now with two children,
The girl the image of Carol.
I did not speak
For fear of awakening the past.
Just left and took up my good life.

Love Mary ***

The tarmac a dotted carpet
A yellow orchard
Fallen seeds, tiny stems
Carry in the gutters a dream
Fertility in a crack of sand.

Love Mary x

Along the platform to the far end
And one reaches the reading room;
Edged out in reminders of picture rails,
Any painting long been discarded
For fear of theft or vandalism;
So here in the, cell like, tar- macadam floor,
Bracketed struts of green wood
Supporting any takers,
Most simply shelter from the rain,
Cloistered behind newspapers.

Occasionally, a singular type,
Drops the day's gaze for the page in a book,
Forgetting the sounding of train times -
Departures and arrivals;
At least there is 'no-smoking'
And the area kept clear of *****,
Makes this place usually locked,
Apart from inconvenient times,
When resting would not be beneficial.

The windows drip a grey sludge,
But if you drift off
All this is side stepped for the beauty of the page,
The running with the wind on the
Train stop.

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 ***

On a sunny day waiting for
The answer
About costs
A husband with cheque book
Looked out of the window
Of the reception area
Tha attendant looked out of the window
At this woman
Dancing,
Dancing along a low wall edging,
" Look at that woman,  is she drunk ?", he said.
"That is my wife"
Returned my husband's voice,
" She just has a playful personality."


Love Mary **

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

I saw you for the first time on turning,
Watching this magician ascend,
Flowing through the air on stilts,
My heart a beating cabaret.

Returning, I knew this my breaking,
And the sheets contain our bones,
For then you were still in the keeping,
But now in my arms I enfold.

Love Mary ***

When you break
Save me the pieces.


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 **

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

The tide came in and beached our feet
Surrounded then with sharps and stones
Our clothing wetted and sand filled
Long plaits dipped in the salty green.

The sea swishes and swirles its bubbles
Deep orche the slippery seaweed floats
Waves luxurious wigglets top the depth
Watch we did in awe and felt the swell.

Love Mary ***

Your learning to read my Evelyn
Its not easy at first
Starting are phonics to find
Then sight words behind
One must look and say
To end the day
And pictures help
The words be spelt
With memorial
Prédiction
A dog and a mat
And sleepy cat.

Love Mary **

Round about . For Evelyn .

He took me to the station
And put me on a train
never wanted to go there
So soon came back again.

In the land of jumblies
Where pink balloons fly
And snowdrops are yellow
I am rather shy.

Yes said the peacock,
We'll always let you in
As long as you wear striped pyjamas
And wave a fountain pen.

So when I got home
Went straight up to bed
To find all my animals
And wrap them round my head.

A nonsense rhyme for Evelyn love Grandma  ***

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

Love Mary ***

The tree stood in its shadow
Branches leaning slightly left
Surrounding field stretching
Green acres  of sun bright
Shapes against a cloudy blue.

Stone dry wall built to last
Marks out the foreground
Of sparkling citrus breath
Emptying of all bird sound
To the movement of a lens.

Love Mary ***

The London road is tree lined
Privet hedges and brick walls
With cast iron railing half way.

You stand mouth down turned
Yellow plastic butterfly in hand
In your ‘no added sugar stripe’.


A heart dripped out of you at the
Red painted door and Geranium
Moving is hard to say goodbye.

Love Grandmaxx

I held you up to the stars
And they shined on you
I showed you the wind
And it slipped around you
The snow made an igloo to keep you warm
And love reached you
In my arms .

For my darling husband love Mary ***

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

Love 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

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

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

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

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 ***

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

Fooling about on a rattlesnake
The sand slipped quickly by
Nobody noticed the cliff face
Only the boy and I
With rings on our fingers
Wherever we Stroud.

Me and the jam and dodger
Were never really aloud.

Love Mary xxxxx

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