Sixpence could buy you a lot
A plastic doll from Woolworths
Crayons and cut - out books
A pair of socks
Packet of curby grips
Box of handkerchiefs
Half a yard of lace
Cheap lipstick
Flannel for face
Pears soap
A remote boat.

The counters of Woolworths
Were stacked with joy
Something for all the
Boys and girls
Suspenders for mother
Shaving stick for dad
And packets of sweeties
That we all had.

Love Mary x

Mum dreamed she was an intellectual
Well read and well versed
Mum dreamed she was a lady
Her behaviour never adversed
Mum dreamed she was beautiful
The prettier of the two.

She dreamed she married her sweet heart
But that could never come true
She dreamed things always got better
But they did not as the years passed
She dreamed there was an afterlife
But at the end that did not last.

Mum wanted children to be by her side
Those she did get, Richard and I
Mum wanted to be loved
More than anything
She found it in a gentle man
That he did bring.

Mum thought of her rose - garden
The one up the hill
The one she built from optimism
I know she sits there still.

Love Mary. **

A brown, barren ploughed field
A flock of birds above
Scattered dots in a patch of blue
On the wind the monks’ voices
Echoed from past days
Worshipping at the simple chapel.

Love Mary ***

I will speak with you dear friend
Though my heart aches
And all our beauty offends
This state of disintegration.

For my love carries to the end
Its bruised fruit
Resting down upon a table
Where we shared.

And every brush stroke
Stole my eye a surprise
And I never cried for sorrow
On that wooden chair.

I will speak with you dear friend
For if this be our last time
Let the apple and the pear
Bear the departing hour.

Love Mary

The little bank by the stream was wet
Wet with the tears of ages, of centuries
And the children came with
Their sailing boats
To watch the ducks
And eat blackberries
The years past with daffodils
With Wordsworth
With Giselle
Until the end of time.

Love Mary **

I simply can't, though,
Through all the words
In this world
Convey what it is to die
To say goodbye.


Love Mary **

I slipped from all formal means
And cast my heart to sea
In a little sailing ship
Just the size for me

Decorated in tiny stars
And bluebells on the bow
I travelled all the merchant seas
And came back in an hour.

Love Mary ***

I do not want the flowers to know
That I am dying
That never again will I see their petals form
Watch their leaves from a window
Fluttering in a rainstorm
Please don’t tell them that I am dying
Never let them know.

Love Mary x

Two builders at my door
Mending the brickwork,
The hardwood board
That’s kindness for sure.

Tenderly I watch them point
With lovingly made cement
A tradesman’s gifted skill
Thank you Charlie and Bill.

Love Mary ***

Reading to her Ducks and Swans
Remembering our morning chats
Somehow we had grown together
Sharing our likes and questioning.

This child radiated such intensity
I felt her spirit entering my spirit
Yet I knew by ten she would have
Outstripped my imaginative life
Would there still be love to hold.

Love Grandma Mary x

Ruby I can hear your helpfulness
In every word and breath
Quietly you look around
Find  a mission to make sound
Quided by an inner thought
To make the way less thwart
In your silent cares
The needs of others
Always there.
A pleasure to have around
A lovely girl good and sound
Understated child
You grow more beautiful
By the hour.




Love Grandma for Ruby

She always walked behind them
As if they did not belong
Embarrassed by their age or greyness
Somehow
There was no heart for holding hands.

But now their space emptied from this world
A silence where a kiss could be
And she wished for all those hours back
So she could walk again with thee.

Love Mary x

Being of an outward mind I do myself pretend
That babies are Easter eggs and rabbits silver men
And white chocolate elephant and shiny ducky doo
All travelled on the sleeper as part of the night crew.

And when they got to Dainty- hop took a private plane
Flew across a poppy fields but they'd turned quite strange
Down they dropped with a flop, lay round under a tree
Suddenly came a swamp of bees and stung them quietly.


Although the world can seem quite flat and tortoises slow
One never knows what direction the north wind doth blow
So gathering up thought for the day and putting it in a sack
The family of chocolate friends took a speedy train back.

Love Mary x

Those knees touched the edge of my skirt
That one my mother made with elastic
And an embroidered trim in blue gabardine
They were pre -adolescent,
Bony and sculptured ******* sticks.

My hair fringed like a Rosebud doll
Bent under my mother’s wet fingers
To make it turn so to clip eyebrows
The rest lay like golden fleece on back
Of the broderie anglaise white blouse.

At eleven my underwear was still cotton
And socks white on Mary Jane shoes
I said little and hugged my many dolls
Loved best to stroke our black and white cat
And roll about to the sound of The Beatles.

Love Mary

I have learnt to expect nothing
Content on the pillows with my
Failing eyes and intense thought
We were made remarkably simply
So in the end just dust drifts down.

Love Mary

When you come into this world
Surrounded by so much love
Welcomed by your family
With kisses and hugs,
I am sorry I can't be there
To see your darling face
Or know that newborn baby
Scent that lingers after birth.

To watch you have a first bath
Those tiny limbs that splash
And take a brush to your hair
Stroke the roundness of your head,
May the flowers be your friends
The trees shelter you
And know that I love you so
Even though I missed you .

Love Grandma Mary xxxx

Watford to Euston a twenty minute slot
Passing from countryside to brick block
Passed all the bridges and graffiti on walls
Passed the art that turn heads if they will.

Sometimes a stopping of the short train
Ten minutes to wait then hasty again
Down through the outer tunnels, fine
Into Euston platform just on time.

Love Mary ***

I will be there for you in the days that follow
Do not worry, my son
For when you take each child's hand
You're holding mine too.


We'll walk in the park in the Summer
I will be there, my son
Life is a repeating pattern of smiles
I am always your Mum.

Love Mum x

That warm patch of earth under the damsons
Where nothing grew but children’s feet prints
Reached high for the odd black fruit showing
Sqealched between fingers the stalk snapped
And a mouth opened to taste the sweet wines.


Love Mary

Manet in his final days painted
Flowers.
A collection of the most beautiful
Living gestures and gratitude
For his life.
Sixteen small paintings
Of cut flowers in vases
Sorrow's tears falling
As petals to the table.
Already cut, these blooms
Await their own slow demise
And seem as a metaphor
For Manet himself.


Do this for me, I ask,
Watch each flower as it opens
Know it is there
To kiss away
The tears
Of goodbye.


Love Mary ***

Cranberry and Sickert.

Cranberry the caterpillar and Sickert the snail,
Went for an adventure in the woodlands one day,
It was early Summer and the leaves bright green,
The trees swaying, gently, in the light , warm breeze.
When out of nowhere they saw a girl
Blonde as sunshine ,with clips in her hair,
They stopped to ask the girl her name
And very quietly she did explain,
I am Evelyn from fox-moor  way and here is my sister with whom I play.

They all gathered sticks and built a house,
It took a long time , they did not rush.
And then there was time for tea, and juicy leaves for Cranberry,
Evelyn told them all her news, her days at playgroup and the zoo.
At six o'clock it was time to go , journey backwards to find their homes.
It had been a special day, to find Evelyn and Florence in the woods that way.

Love Grandma Mary ***

I watch the footage on iplayer
Hear the voices scream out
See the injured bleeding, dying
A strip of land between Egypt
And Israël- owned, desired

Then I see Brunhilda
secretary to
Gobbels talking
About Evil and injustice
About there being no god
See the Second World War
Footage.
I think of the meaning
Of having a home
And despair at
Humankind

Love Mary

So here I am like a cartwheel
With the green dress today
As my hands touch the pavement
And my legs arc away
Then I float through the skyline
Reach the ground and display
All the joy of a tightrope walker
Upside down on a Summer's day.

Love Mary **

We say we do not know our purpose
Only that it is the right thing to do
Providing providence in its pursuit
Any fear we will confront and conquer
So said the wise child and the white bear.

Thank you for your genius Philip Pullman.
Love Mary

I never found that secret word
To explain their ways to me
It stumbled on every step
And all the places a maid could be.

The reason for this misunderstanding
I really do not know
Somewhere in the trajectories
It bent itself to ‘no’.

Oh how this yawned my heart
To be misunderstood
A whole life of searching
And left as firewood.

Love Mary ***

The beer glass empty
Time to leave
My arm  slipped gently
Around your sleeve

The day remained the same
Nothing did we say
Just walked to the station
The usual way.


Love Mary

I can’t touch you for you are history
I can smell you, sense your hair
Lift your lipstick and cream jars
From an empty dressing table
In my imagination.

The tricel dress slips to the floor
Its colours bright as Aztec silk
The belt black plastic still looped
Holds what was your warm form
I scrunch the fabric to my face.

Love Mary ***

Harvest forgiveness while still fresh
Do not let it setter to rot in box
Rememember the calling came at dawn
The heart once peeled stays skinless.

Love Mary x

The sun blisters the sky
Seagulls brittle the air
We scorch under towel
Watching the sea glisten.

This is a world with you
On the sand soaked love
West Whittering in May
The best always stayed.

Love Mary x

It seemed like the pink rose
Would stay out forever
Swaying over the path
In the damp December air.

The garden was in disarray
With a multitude of debris
Left from Autumn
Green covering of growing.

But the pink rose did not tire
Sought in its shrivelled  beauty
The thirst of the rain fall
And moments of crisp sunshine.

Love Mary ***

Take from this
All that you want
Do not struggle or stride
Lay down the relics of us
Let you be guided by time
Back to peace and possibilities.

Love Mummy
***

Blow hollyhocks blow
Send shivers down
Those hairy spines
Quiver in the sunshine.

Welcome the busy bees
The wayside walkers
In the scarlet breeze
While you stand still.

Love Mary x

1.

In Springtime I recall the lilacs sweet scented
Growing up the right hand fence at the bottom,
Of a rather overgrown and swayward garden.
Each flower part of a composite bloom, opening slowly its tiny
Trumpet like stamens from where the bees suckled
Filling their back legs with yellow powdered nectar
Which made honey for sandwiches at teatime.

2.
On my way to infant’s school I would clasp
Handfuls of sweet cherry blossom petals
The tips of each petal turning brown in the sun
My shoes covered as I kicked heaps of this candy floss
Pink tissue paper along the road as I thought about school
And the day ahead, in my brown Clark’s leather sandals.

3.

The smell of the scrapings of new potatoes floating
In tap water in a blue polythene bowl in our scullery
And on my mother’s cracked, dry and sore hands
Ingrained with the dirt from compost and soil.
I loved these hands rough yet gentle to stroke a face.




Love Mary September 12 /201

I was your bridesmaid but don't know you now
In orange satin gown with circles that went round
I stood near your side in your white wedding dress
But I never knew you in that church where flowers rest.

Though only a child in lace edged gloves
Carrying a white bible given with love
And wearing the crucifix a gift with shoes
I stood and waited for the lady I never knew.


I still have one glove made of lace
And the leather bible in its plastic case
But I never knew you and soon I'll be gone
Thank you for letting me share your song.

On the back of a green sleeve
We tackled the holes
Mum and me
He came to the door just as before
But nothing changed
Exception remained
I felt the impossibility.

Love mary

“Play it like music”,  James said.
Slamming himself into an armchair
The boy took another ride with despair,
“He criticises everything”.
I cuddled him with my words
“It was very expressively played
I like it that way”.

All the years he had tried to please
Fitting in with people’s demands
Braving himself.
He admired his stepdad
Accepted and understood
Affection was not easily shown
By those damaged themselves.

His mother found a lover to hold her
The boy laughed thinking life a joke
Respect faded.
At least James he thought clever
A strategists, of sorts.
Peter was so loving to be flimsy
Like the soft cloth on the door.


Love Grandma xxxxx

There is no longer a Sycamore tree
With its variegated, sap green leaves
Bringing a fluttering in the Sringtime
A steady, shady, dream filled breeze.

Our road was accustomed to rows of pairs
To keep each company year on new year
One Winter frost was bitter, time had come
For a friendship to be severed, lost and gone.

A tree outside a house is a very special joy
Waking each morning to the sound of birds
Now only in my photographs can I recall
The splendour of this object standing straight
And tall.

Love Mary x

Oh so white you helliborus
And leaves of grassy green
Spreading stems of delight
And snowy open wings.

Love Mary ***

He made his own garden from the words
Planting the raspberries that she gave him
The two roses, red and white now strong
And an Acer reached a height of ten feet
In the middle an oblong grass lawn grew
Edged with daffodils and crocuses to multiply
A few pots blossomed with a variety of plants
And the fairy of love and charity stood watch.

Love Mary xxxx

We part but meet daily
In everything that moves
The caterpillar and the cranefly
The fairies with dainty shoes

So what I laid out for you
In times of greatest best
Will always be before
As you get redressed

Don't look in the mirror
You will not find me there
But in the books I've chosen
And plant pots here and there


I sleep with the dollies
The ones from long ago
And all those you gave me
With your love to show.


To My lovely family
Love Mary ***

I just wanted a friend
To be there at the end
Someone kind and thoughtful
Who knew how to spend
Those last precious hours
Holding my hand
Showing me that
They loved me
Please understand
I just wanted a friend.

Love Mary xxxx

The full blood count was up
The oxygen level edging down
We saw the last scans results
Tears dropped
The radio went off
And the curtain flickered.

Love Mary **

It might as well be
So tangled is the web
Nothing surprises
Never knew endings
Could be so brittle.


The battle to see
Simply broke me
Drained, isolated
Ruined, blamed
Such an awful shame.

Love Mary

Bonny Child

What shall I teach you
My Bonny child
The history of England
Written for our hour
The places I visited
Are but few
You will do better
I'm not in the que
All that is good and wholesome and true
These are the words I'd tell to you
Yet as I speak them and watch your heart grow
I know there is something you ought to know
If we do our best there is no guarantee
That life will be splendid
Happy as can be.
So what can I teach you
My Bonny child
What words of wisdom
Can be your flower
All I can say
Is I'll be by your side
Put myself second
Give you a smile .

For Alex , Tasha and Evelyn who do it well .

Tearing thorns from coat
I found hidden amongst
The winter fabric a broach
Slightly mellowed by age
And the stone a shiny blue.

No one knew its origin outside
An old cigarette tin with rust
And the smell of cough candies
That belonged to a mother’s love
Returning home I was not alone.

Love Mary **

The tree has swayed its top branches
For over a month, gusty June weather
Tired we all of a wet and windy month
Colder than usual, we are intemperate
The roses in cerise, peach and heritage
Tolerate this climate of ours but not us.

Love Mary

It grew out of me like a sharp thorn
Put railings around my door
Allowed me to get into cars
Not stopping for me,
Set fire to a patch of green,
Throw books from open windows
And never consider, that
Inside
A poet resides
Where rules have
To be
Smashed to escape.

Love Mary x

The sea quarrels with its maker
Twisting and turning
Hunching heaps of gravel
Onto the dry sand.

Life fights out its dignities
***** and hand
Leaving trembling
What was given and planned.

Love Mary

When life was simpler
Than today
We lived it in
A different way
When visiting a friend
Or someone new
Always took a posy too.

Mother would, kindly, ask
If I minded doing a task
Gathering flowers
with perfumed scent
Trailing ferns to decorate
Make a bundle of delight
As a token
Of friendship's sight.

Into our garden
I did went
With my scissors
Slightly bent
Chose from all
the pretty plants
A stem or two
From every branch
A bouquet of delicate blooms
On this sunny afternoon
Bound them up with silvered foil
A ribbon tied into a coil.

Showed my Mum
The lovely bunch
Kissed me with
A tender touch
Found a vase
To rest them in
Until the time to begin
Dressed in best
Coat and frock
With Mother ready
We did knock
What a joy it was for me
A happy face to see.

Never forget that simple life
When giving posies
Was so nice .

Love Mary xxxx

Holding his small brown hand
Collecting the coat on a coloured peg
We walk the Cherry Blossom Tree way
He has a work book in his fingers
A satchel and drinking flask on his back
We talk and sing as the road bends
I love you my first grandson.

Love Grandma xxxx