On the longest road was our home
At the top where the road flops
Bending slightly to the east
From pebbledash to brick clad
This bend left our sight undone
Could not see when Mum did come
Round the corner in her coat
Carrying all the food she'd bought
Gentle corner I loved your curve
Gave us time to put away
Prepare ourselves for all to come
Especially the comfort of our Mum.

Love Mary **

I think of this bench
In the shade of two small trees,
Surrounded by roses,
And in Winter their thorns
Spike the damp earth.

How will it be years hence,
When children sit
And women knit,
Some at lunch, finding
Peace looking at the sky.

I put it there for you and you and you
So that its comforting presence
Is a reminder of our days
And your tomorrows
In this garden I loved.

Love Mary xxxx

Between ‘Call the midwife’
And ‘Dark materials’
Lies my world
A world of reality.

Inhabited by great empathy
But mostly indifference,
Cruelty, liars and vacuous space.

It, this world, has been deteriorating
Continuously for thousands of years
Through greed, selfishness and destruction.

If tomorrow ever rescuers the day
Let it be bright with love and sorrow
And children play in the long grass.

Love Mary **

Daisy Mau is up and down
In and out and round and round
Beautiful as a red- lipped child
Brown eyes under a feathered brow.

A humour that is humankind
A heart of passion and fur- lined
Wanders through a poppy field
Crimson sadness at her heels.

Sensitive to all her days
Cradles honour on the way
Daisy May your sun shines bright
Treasure it and hold on tight.

Love will find you,  no need to seek
The world will open, and not be bleak
Hand in hand the years that pass
Will lead you on to touch the stars.

Stay awhile and sit by me
My darling Daisy you'll always be.

Love Grandma x

The sprouts got pushed to the corner
Hidden under knife and folk
The roast beef in a paper napkin
To the bin I slide
Ate all the carrots, the potatoes
And Yorkshire pud
And the pudding was scrumptious
Just the way it should.
Christmas blessings
To all who do not
Have much to eat
This difficult year.

Love Mary **

So many ways of writing.

He read me a page from his diary,
Stating his comings and goings,
The movement of the moon as
It disappeared at dawn break,
With wind direction, north westerly,
The days shopping list of groceries,
His meals and walks in the park,
The washing and cooking;
And succinct statements about
Mary's health.
At the end I thought how beautiful
Writing with so little but saying
So much more.

For my Roger
Love Mary xxxx

Unassuming beauty
A manner quiet as May
Gentle in her kindness
Grateful in her ways
A life lived in Caring
For those that she loves
Undemanding peace maker
Saviour to the cubs.

Love Grandma Mary ***

Looking down into silence
Where there is no return
Remembering sensations
loved and affirmed
The hundreds of hours
I stayed by you side
Resting my head
Where you abide.

Take me with breaking day
In a casket of green
A single pink spray
With leaves to be seen
Choose early Spring bulbs
And your checked shirt
Then whistle a tune
Try not to be hurt.


To Roger love Mary
Sorry I had to go .***

I have to be brave enough
Not to mind being forgotten
For most days.
To no longer be a card on a shelf
Or a phone call away
Letting others' days
Be their own
Unhindered by sorrows
Or sad memories
Or burdened by my wanting
To be carried around
Like a honoured trophy.
This has to be my last gift
A real gift of love
Which says be free
Of me and all that I was
Because your days
Are another time
And have their splendour.
Goodnight my dearest
Children, goodnight.


Love Mum, Mary

Throwing my coat across the classroom
An impulse brought on by over enthusiasm
for an idea.
Landing on the teacher's desk
I still had no fear.
It was then I realised that
People were powerless.
Now at sixty five and infirm
I realise just how much.

Love Mary **

Evelyn and Mary and Janet,
Florence and Anna and Grace,
We're six little girls,
Inhabiting a different space:-
Evelyn born in London,
In 2014,
Mary south of the river in 1952,
Janet came from America, Florence
Somewhere in Stroud,
Anna rather special,
And Grace an eldest child.

To be continued .

Love Mary ***

Whilst away for a few days
He bought a book
Was thinking she might like it,
And on the Tuesday as welcoming
Her in, he handed it to her
And so in his heart it begins.
She did not know
He loved her in this way
Until oneday
Their hands touched
So gently at a goodbye,
The streets were dark
Her car parked,
But slowly after
Many months
Of watching
The slowness went
And they said 'Hello'
Properly
To let each other
Know.

Love Mary **

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

Mary Rose I loved you
Such a magical shop
Up the stairs of wonder
Residing at the top.

Love Mary x

How to get there, that place of pity
Where others really mean theirs
Instead of fumbling like a demon
On stain glass and missing the boat.

Hope fell out the window of waste
Those who are fortunate can scream
But the rest stripped naked near die
Empathy is an old fashioned word.

Love Mary **

We had a  game on a train
Two stops far enough apart
For art .

Love Mary ***

The little girl
Who wondered
What
Other people did
With elastic
Bands.

Love Mary ***

When words don't do I say them still
They seem quite blind but that's unkind
Lingering around the room
Not landing in the heart
But by some gentle frame
That cannot bear them to be heard
These words I need to share.

And on and on all through the night
These words lie in me failing sight
I lift them up to tired eyes
Hoping for some surprise
But again and now I hear the words
That cannot be heard even by a little bird.

Perhaps only a few can hear my words
And bear the truth
And so I put them on a shelf
As cards that can be read someday
When the words are strong
And you no longer vulnerable
They can speak.

Love Mary x

The Lego Boards.

I remember the day when everything was perfect,
The children quietly playing before tea,
And no expectation other than the togetherness
Of warmth through a window pane.

The Lego boards stretched out in a line,
Travelling the length of two adjoining rooms,
Houses, bungalows,a mansion and windmill,
Dotted with flower heads to make gardens.

I sat at the sewing machine in the sunshine,
Making a flannel gym slip for Katharine,
Lucky came in and purred against me,
Meowing for the rattle of her biscuits.

This is a life to value, where privilege
And contentment reign from simplicity,
And happiness found in human contact,
Captured in time and with love.

Love Mary xxxx

Under the damp and darkened skies
The smell of Autumn begins:
The leaves of the deciduous trees,
begin to fall,
Dew forms pools in the cobwebs,
The days get cooler and flowers,
Change direction,
Moving backwards,
They begin to close,
Preparing for the dormant period.
We ,too, know the shutting down,
When slowness creeps into our souls,
And energy leeches out from within.
Let this time be that of reflection,
A tidying up of a life,
And all bitterness or sorrows,
Allowed their freedom,
For what is it,
But to be polite.

Love Mary x

Malisa lived in a one room flat
In a tower block
Two beds and a mat
This was a truant day
Later the school board
Man showed my forged
Letter.

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

Evelyn has got new shoes
Does not know what to do
Do not feel like her socks
So Evelyn took them off.


Mary x



Happy 1st  Birthday Darling
Granddaughter, big hug and kiss
Love Grandma x

Oscar, so it's  Summer,
School ends for lost boys
And errant masters, alike,
Skipping out the doors
Books still in cupboards left
Football shed untidy
With lost socks
And punctured *****
Old paintings
Cling to the walls
Flapping blue-tac ends in
Open window jam wind.

So what will you do
In the holiday, grandson?
Write me a poem
Of your own growing
Make it strong so it belongs
To tradition, whatever that
Means from your perspective.



Look forward to it ,Oscar
Love Grandma
Second version .

love Mary

It started out with innocence
At the hour of ones birth
And nurtured, by parental love,
It is gently dispersed.
Until words cannot be used
Or deeds given out
Without the magnitude
Of history laden down
With a curse.
So now I cannot speak or move
For fear of being misconstrued
Of standing on another's toes
Honesty and truth twisted
As a *****
Right and wrong swap places
At every interface
For mankind named these things
Only for itself and this sacred race.
So wretched soul that I am
A voice lost in smoke
Watching as others
Puff cigarette ash
In what, once was a face.

Love Mary **

Every time you berate me
You show how little
You have learnt in this life
I feel sorry for you
That wisdom did not
Find you but love did.

Love Mary xxxx

There is no justification
And those who do know it
Their mouths are blasphemy
Their hearts unclean.

Love Mary ***

She lost her son did my friend Pam
Took her with him in his arms
His possessions in the garden shed
His words and gestures in her head.

Met her often we’d talk of him
How handsome the boy, clever within
She spent her days collecting litter
Bits of silver paper from the gutter.

Went to Art school to sooth her pain
Painted the same picture over again
Found in an image reflected in glass
That boy, her life, in circles of light.

For Pam and Stephen.
Love Mary x

Kisses weren't apples
But the feel of liquid
Holding on to time
Stretching out desire
To the end of completeness.

Love Mary

You float across me
As evidence that you are not mad
Hating the dependence bar where you eat
I am not that spider you nurture
Just a plate of cold ironies.


Outside the running fakes you
Into a daily ritual of bliss
I lie flattened, blind, deceived
The buttress of my heart stapled
You float across me.

Love Mary x

Let me go back to the then
While what is still fresh
And this year's Spring bulbs
Hold so much of trust.

For now there will not be
Celebration in a vase
Where stalks float in water
And a ribbon is tied.

Of a card carefully arranged
And a kind thought bought
Never again will this be
True of you or me.

Love Mary x

How to live as yesterday
In a perfectly natural way,
Every word that fills the page
Each concept that does engage
Imagination's highest thought
Is my yesterday's wrought.

Love Mary

Please forgive me for leaving
It was not meant to be
I really did not want to
Had so much more to do
All the people I learnt from
Those that I loved
I'm sorry I had no choice.

Love Mary ***

When I am water
Lost in a winding stream
Filled with fishes tails
And rounded golden rings
Remember as you sit there
Beside a river bank
Holding hands with another
Or on solitudes fine bench
That my hair lines birds' nests
My labours gave you life
And your love gave me friendship
As do the clouds up above.

Very kind of you but please this is too generous.
Staying indoors for the remainder of the winter.
Catching up on books waiting to be read.
You too must look after yourself.
Hibernating!
Love and best wishes
John


Love Mary

Ten minute walk.

From the bungalow to the beach it took ten minutes,
Up hill and down lane passing the Catholic Church,
A small country primary school and row of council houses;
Then at the crossroads by the Post Office, selling sweets,
With Turf Walk to your left and hotels on the right,
Began the steep decline, to the sound of an incoming tide.

Once a year, this first day of The Family Summer Holiday,
Shievering with excitement, buckets and spades in hand,
Wanting to run, to find last year's spot of sand and water,
The seaweed and rock pools, boulders and clumps of clay,
The joy of an eternal return, the comfort of familiarity,
Where play had ceased and foot prints been washed away.

IOW ,Totand Bay by Mary x

Little bird you gave me your world
In a piece of Christmas tinsel
From an abandoned pine tree
It showed how unnecessary
Are the human words.

Love Mary ***

When feet needed no support and found brambles fun
Slid down the ravines in the local park
Forested for nuts, collected leaves to float under bridges
The stream fresh with fish.

Those hours of sunlight when time ran out energy's burst
Slipping into tomorrow with new adventures
The heart beating its chest.
For only now in my infirmity
Can I see how the time sang
And was mine for a while.


Love Mary **

My Daisy

From a tiny ball,
I always felt you weep,
Silently,
Whilst your heart broke,
Clutching disappointment,
In your small hands,
Spreading out the jewels,
Of your wonderful tears,
And never letting go.

Love Grandma ***

Sometimes it has to remain a secret
Forever.
My very dear Aunty had a lover
For over forty years.
She was never named to his family.
After her death he had only me
To share her memories.
He was very lonely for a long time
I did my best for him
Keeping in touch
Seeing him at Christmas
Going to Art Galleries together.
I am grateful for the twelve years
That I got to know him
Differently from my Aunty.
When I die he loses all contact
With anyone who knew her
And him as partners.
Sometimes it has to remain a secret
Forever.


Love Mary ***

The grass cut winter short
Fog frozen on the briar
Parables use to be told
In the fields far below.

Taking the long way round
As coldness turned to frost
Finding that our hearts do melt
As a whistling stirs the throat.

Love Mary

Evelyn was here today ,
With the toys she did play,
Found the shell,
With the mother of pearl,
Thought that rather pretty,
As well.

Being two there's lots to do ,
The world is full of all the new,
Using words to explore,
Holds the Lego she adores.
Flies the fairies round the room,
Time to go; Oh! so soon.

Love Grandma Mary ***

Four strange people stand in a line
Pulling funny faces, turning a blind eye
I wonder who they are
I never knew
Lived on a hillside
In a cottage or two.

One played with sarcasm
Used it every day
Thought it very clever
Was in a strange way
Its significance unimportant
Could not even see
That lies were filling the holes in the wood.

The fool was insatiable
For all things combustible
Black bags outside
Always ajustable
There was psychedelic wallpaper
In rolls everywhere
The cats repatriated.

The crazy optimist thought it true
Played with cheque cards
Lined up in a que
Always in London
In spite of themself
The trousers too expensive for size.


Lastly the collector of funds
Father been a road sweeper
Could do lots of sums
Sometimes this wandererer
Found on a map
A paradyn for contagious frogs.

Four strange people stand in a line
I think I knew them better from behind!

Under the orange blossom,
Sat my mother and I,
My hands flat and smooth ,
Her's cracked and dry,
A simple band of gold,
Shone in the sun,
Oh I loved these moments ,
Oh I loved my mum.

Mary

SUMMER'S END.

The skies have been overcast,lately.
Draining the flowers of colour,
Bringing Autumn varieties adjacent
To August stock.There is a tiredness
In the stormy winds, a dusting of dry leaf.
We bring water in cans to restore
The last of this Summer's glory.
And hope for just a few more days
When one can bask in the blueness
In ignorance of Winter's call;
With the months of indoors
When perfumed air is gone.
The dampness in spider's dew
Replacing our Summer song .

Mary

Somewhere in my mind,
Was something to be found,
Not on the surface,
No digging would surround.
It came out of nowhere,
As I passed the glass,
Peering at a turquoise stone,
A golden broach it did enhance;
It was my mother's moonstone,
A family heirloom,
Embellished with gold filigree,
And attached by a chain.
The Islamic pendant,
On display at the museum,
Sent me backwards on a journey,
To discover you it seemed.

On the way home I thought of Proust,
Tasting the Madeline, tea soaked,
The pleasure it did give me,
To remember times past,
And the fingers of Mother's hand,
Gently do up the clasp.

Love Mary **

Holding tight to mother's hand
You peeped into my room
A face touched by angel's grace
And rounded like the moon.

Dressed in gathered netted skirt
And bodice pink and brown
You came to see your grandma
With your opened arms.

The contours of your shape I felt
A kiss as quiet as snow
You loved me in my rosy bed
And did we play just so.

Delphi of the ancient world
You are a modern child
In your eyes history speaks
Of wisdom with a smile.

Kind and gentle , soft and bright,
Grandma's lovely , golden delight.

Uneven.

The flag stones were uneven,
So on wet days there was always a chance of slipping .
Even more when it snowed.
In Summer the grass grew through
And daisies,
Occasionally a hollyhock took home
Outlandish in comparison.
Once cemented in place
By a loved father,
In a garden filled with roses
And a Syringa tree.

Love Mary xxxx

The white garden was a cascade of purity
In the Summer months.
Against a background of red brick high walls
Surrounding the right side of this ornamental
Repton designed geometrically ordered song.
Resting together with the freedom of wildness
So to experiences nature in all its loveliness
Dropping pennies in the old wishing well,
Circling the gothic fountain of Cupid’s love,
Until, at last, the slatted wooden gate opens
Surrounded by hanging large leafed ivy
Into the forest where I must go and you
Must stay.

Love Mary x

When you make
The wrong diagnosis
Through lack of time
Or too much expense
Or did not want
To be home late
The patient
Not to your taste
You could not
Be bothered
To go on
Make the last link bond.
Remember they are someone's mum
A daughter or son
Grandparents to a child
And think again
And be inspired.
For if you don't
The repercussions
Will create
A culture of hate
All through
The place
You advocate
To practices
Far and wide
And other peoples
Lives.
So don't misdiagnose
Use your intelligence
And grow.

Mary