Daddy got ill whilst making a cake
An Easter cake for Easter Day
He bent his tummy and said ouch
And to the hospital had to go.

His family was very worried
To see sick daddy in pain
His appendix had to come out
Outside it began to rain.o,

At ten o’clock they wheeled him down
To pop out his grisly tummy bone
Sewn back together neat and bright
He was soon to be driven home.

For days his poor throat was ever so sore
He could hardly talk
All swollen down the Ulvula
Could not but mutter a word.

Evelyn said she would take great care
Of her daddy whilst he was sick
Gradually his throat got better
And he began to talk and do tricks.

Love Grandma, Mum.

Down the isles of wooden trestles
Set out in a quietly painted hall
The children look for the familiar.
Things, lost, things from loved sets
Pieces remembered and missed.
Clutching small change and a bag
They roam, searching the emptying
Surfaces in the hope of recovering.

Some children are selective buying little
Only the important objects that inspire
An unusual fossil, book on ammonites.
A collection of perfect My Little Ponies.
Then the scrambler children who stuff bags
To overflowing with excited assortments
Picked almost at random for a chance
Their to be explored strewn across kitchen
Table with an audience of friends.

There was always a late arrival just as doors
Were about to close and tea hatch latched.
As crowds diminished, looking became easier
Finding that magic dropped on the floor.

Love Mary x

How beautiful the hours between
You and me when our histories talk
Now you flourish in your evening
And I find the country girl cutivating
The fields of youth’s treasured times.

Love Mary xxxx

The wind it blows, cold.
Or southerly lightly with warmth
That comforts the soul
Fixes clothes to knees and teases
Those holiday boys or dreamers
Marilyn did it best on skyscraper
In black and white we sigh
How lovely a sight
We all can admire.

Then in far off lands
The wind it tumbles things
Pulling down mountains
Fracturing streams
It hinders the finding of people
Its  brutality knows no ends.

The quiet wind I love the best
That whispers round corners
Sways the washing on the line
Filling pots with seeds
And rocks the cradle in the tree
Until the baby sleeps.

Love Mary x

The grass yellow topped wet winter
Separates forming trodden pathway
Between overhanging bare branches
A child might squeeze cautious now
The damp clings like crystal pearls
Through we peep.

Love Mary ***

If I was to wear a bikini
Red and orange it would be
With elastic underneath my chest
And below my waist certainly.

I’d pretend the settee was a diving board
And the armchair a ship on the seas
And travel up and down the stairs
With my long seaweed coloured hair.

Love to Constance from Grandma

Xxxxx

Never found you in the daybreak
As it splintered, separating sparks
I stayed, waving at the end
With nothing to give but
The cold Winter heart.

For all the days I lived with you
In our house under tiled roof
And leaded light windows
Making oblong shapes move
I so very much loved you.

Mary xxxx

Holding the Summer you would play
In the close like a horseshoe
Where garden gates met
And a garage stood beside a hedge.
After four when school had closed
There you all gathered in this close.


Love Mary

We live in a territorial state
Where doctor’s receptionist
Wear chainmail and carry axes
To save guard their sovereigns
From interference.

Responses  sound like an offensive
Battling against imprisonment
I am polite, ask kindly
Tread lightly.

I am a poor, weak patient
I pay for your services
We are unequal as I am ill
You are healthy and fit.

What has happened
To make you so unkind
Disrespectful, blind
Your turn will come .

Love Mary .

Stop it sister keep bending your toes
They will be all crooked don’t you know
Where are you shoes, silver like mine?
And pink socks with bows at the top
Stop it sister keep bending your toes.

Love big sister .
Xxxxx

A birthday to remember

Today I'm three what a surprise,
We're all going for a ride,
Off to the find a secret place,
Filled with colours, a landscape,
Inside the halls are brilliant lights,
I can walk and run about,
Mummy follows close behind,
I can even hold her hand;
Then there's music from a band,
All is wonderful I do expand;
Now it's time for home and tea,
Daddy made a cake for me,
I watch the candle as it blows,
Another birthday and so it goes.
Thank you all my family,
For taking care and loving me.

Love Grandma for Evelyn ***

Evelyn whispers to her plastic cats
That they are all girls
The boys come in sheep and piglets
And hide under cardboard, gravelling.
She likes to crunch the kittens into
One section of the many
In the title play case
“Kitty in my pocket”
That I bought her.

Love Grandma ***

‘It was my borage’, said the woman
Seemingly in extreme surprise
That he wanted it.
It was their Wedding Anniversary day
Thé 21 st of May
Forty nine years ago
As usual peace
Smiled on
In the fridge.

Love Mary ***

I couldn’t tell you why
Not here and now at least
You would never understand
Could not understand.
The structure of our thoughts
Make such complexity impossible
The greatest sadness is that our lives
Are lived out in such perverse ignorance
All that we remember is the apartness
How we bind ourselves in love to lies.

Sorrow is like the shattering of glass
Broken biscuits in tins
The howl of the workhouse
We as frail as a bird’s wing.

Love Mary
Xxxx

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 **

The cave paintings show us
Art and imagination
Are essential to our being to our health.
To our ability to empathise with others
To be able to show joy in the world around us.
Without our imagination being used we
Create a world of violence , inhumanity
And cruelty.
Just the way it is going today .
Bring back art in schools
For the freedom of our people.

Love Mary ***

Thank you Anthony Gormley
For your programme .

Love Mary ***

Ate holes in my heart
It was humble in the way
Quality without exuberance
Maintains.
There was a slight flap at the bottom
Below which showed your tanned
Stockings and low heeled brogue shoes.
You left my house after tea to be home
Before nightfall where my father
Would meet you at the bus stop.
Your greying hair cut short in waves
Peeped from under a headscarf.
I walked you to the path where
No longer were you in sight
As you turned a bend onto the
Main road to catch your bus.
At this point I felt every texture
Of your tweed coat, its solidity,
I longed to hide inside and get
On that bus returning with you
Forever.

Love Mary **

Her name is that
Of past hours
From days of power
And magnificence
When marble busts
Were cast
To satisfy
The desire
For eternity.

But this little beauty
Will not end her days
In  lofty halls
With locked and barred doors
The dust settling on her hair
For she will be suspended
Captured and rendered
On all the screens
That can be seen
From phone to
The Internet
And global websites
Printed texts.

Her name is Delphi
Youngest child
Full lipped star
Hair falling long
Over her arms
Eyes dark under
Arched brows
Peachy cheeks
Tanned skin
In the princess dress
She loves the best
From Asda or Primark.

To my lovely Delphi of the dollies love from Grandma xxxxx

Although I wore my best wings
Which took me as fast as light
And though I ran trembling
All through the night
Even if I called your name
I knew you could not hear
The distance was too difficult
More than any words.

So taking from my back
I put down my wings
Picked up a flower
And we began to sing
Saw in this beauty
All that you were
But just could not
Get to you, anymore.

Love Mary x

Out of the door past the flowering Camelia
And barely bursting rose buds
The white hellebores with their
Down turned eyes
And swaying narcissus
I run to catch them all
As they scatter the road
With their dancing
Tripping in and out of rhythm
With each other
Throwing ***** across
To catch,
The wind gathers them up
To the park entrance
Our lovely park
Green with many trees
I reach them at last
We float down the avenue
Linking arms with
A child's pleasure
We are here
All together
Forever.

Love Mary **

Happiness is hairy legs
And a crimplene skirt
Cheap sandels on a patch of sand
Favourite sky with its clouds
Egg sandwiches and cheese
A mackintosh to sit upon
An old sunhat
The peace which is this day
Uninterrupted love.

If I ever stood at the bottom
I got no answers
If I went to the highest
I got no answers
I met  with cruelty,
Indifference,
The dregs of human reasoning
Spread out on a conference table
To be dissected,
So the verdict
Went to the powerful
And the frail
Dropped in a ditch
To be washed by ***** rain.

Love Mary x

Take the meadow walk
Where briar and roses meet
And blackberries travel
And little children’s feet.

Where the ground is dappled
And the sky is bare
Letting bits of sunlight
In, here and there.

Love Mary ***

The journey made together
was  from unusual parts
Not described in travel journals
Or found on catalogue displays

Listening as it did to hardships
Courage and the wings of a dove
Sweeping the gauntlet of choice
Honour and the white stars above.

Love Mary ***

Where did it come from that perpetual silence,
Hanging in the air becoming thought,
The birds knew it before the dawn calling,
And embracing lovers touched by a first kiss,
Perhaps in the waiting there are moments

Love Maryx

Poor little lies
Why do you start
Getting in the way
Of truth’s beauty
Sitting in people’s mouths
Sticking to teeth
Eating away at freedoms
You are loved irresponsible
And used increasingly
Breaking trust
Destroying integrity
Poor little lies
Can’t always hide.

Love Mary x

Daisy got up early
Just as the day began
Clipped in her earrings
Combed her brown hair
Put on the clothes
At the bottom of the bed
Looked in the mirror, quickly,
Then went and got fed.
The breakfast room was cosy
All the family there
They all shared cornflakes
Burnt toast in the air
Then time for coat on
And run up the road
Working for the people
The ones she does not know
A good person is Daisy
Found what she's about
Writing gave her a mission
To fight others' plight.


Love Grandma ***

They dipped in Serpentine with shoes
The leaves of Autumn sail side up
And children, four, remember now
In pleasure, wind swept, hair filled days.

Love Mary xxxx

Let winter be me in harvest fairy breast
No dipping of moon to touch the sky
For undo I can’t the flower and bud
And shallow in my journey do fly .

By Mary ***

My last try to tell you
Far out I touch your hair
The greyness bleeds into mine
Long fingers dance the computer
How can you know
As you sit I wonder
Thinking your game
How can I tell you
I am sorry that I have to
Go.

My love nestles your neck
Your forehead my table
Under each ear our lives
I am sorry
How can I tell you
Goodbye.

Love  Mary ***

Oh my pretty one you sit so still
Not a wiggle or a shuffle
Even in the chill
Your coat is red
Hat white fur
My baby bunnykins
The miles we saw.

Love Mary x

We sit together collecting,
Gathering out thoughts into
A permanence that will last
Stroking them as we neaten
Each flat with our kisses
They hold our beginning
And roll up our end
For though we were
And evermore maybe
I must go
And you must stay
To look after the garden
That I made.

Love Mary ***

The Footfalls of Memory



Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.

By TS Elliot

I took the left path where hydrangeas grew and sleepy primroses under woods edged shady trees.
The empty stream ran quietly dry
With grass cuttings piling high.
If one peeped, would find tiny creatures of delight.
To cast a sparkle here and there, a delight.
So on tip-toe, with sandels bent
Up high I reached to take
The plastic fairy as she twirled a pirouette
In a theatre made by chance.
Reflected in a silver mirror intwinned with ivy branch
A mottled foal tends his dreams and Chrismas robin chirps.

My brother took the right hand path where thetrees grew fruit
Ripe berries from the gooseberry bush bulged their prickles
Dangling from hawthorn now a cowboy with a hat
Looking for his fellow Indian with the yellow back sack.
Sheep gather in a hollow, dark, protected from the sun
And Mr toad, now lost of paint, has turned a bit glum.

And so we leave our woodland friends and travel up the *****
Winding round the rose bed and goldfish where they float.
Then up we climb, the middle route, to jump the pruned clipped
Hedge.
The lawn divided in two halves, a contemporary taste.

Now we're nearly at that place where if one was to turn
Could see down across the land
To the sea and sand.
Of all the beauties that I've known
Nothing beats this Island home.

Love Mary x

We fell about laughing as if it was yesterday
Scraping the tea stains from the sink
With glorious soapy bubbles.
Handsome returned from his park walk
Holding his diary like a black bible
Going over the weather details
As any diligent meteorologist.
By now the sun had risen to its peak
Giving out heat to two blind mice
Sitting together on a waste bin
Unable to sing as their batteries
Now lay useless inside.
Dinner was salad and fish
Followed by a bag of chocolate raisins
In hard to open cellophane.
It had not always been like this
But now only the essentials
Of posting a letter
Took over time .


Love Mary xxxx

Somewhere out in the countryside
Two roses are waiting to bloom
To put out their green leaves
On bright new stems.

Later as Summer warms flower heads
Sumptuous colour will spread and spread
And make a scented spectacle
Better by far they have their hour.

Love Mary ***

No we won’t go
Not to the island
For there fair flowers
Left early
And what was
Never is again
Or ever shall be.

Love Mary x

Flowered cotton smocked dress
And winter’s cerise woven coat
From Top Shop with its cheap belt
And front covered zip encased me.

As did your long arms and pink shirt
And together we stood at the bar
My heart lips of wine and your mouth
And you filled with brown beer.

Love Mary x for Roger.

The war memorial stood at the bottom of the hill
In the shade of towering trees, bordering
The graveyard.

A  pinicle of white marble
Above a patch of names
Inscribed on mottled granite
And opposite the sloping
Steps to the bay.

Was it James, his youth wasted on war,
Holed and shell shocked
Who marched passed
Twelve years before my birth?
Before this spot marked
A pleasure beach
And spades were
Brought not guns.

So to remember those
Brutalised from wars
Marking their place in this passing.
And to James
I hope you brought children
To build castles
In the sand.

Love Mary ***

Optimism and pessimissism
A binary opposition
Unsuited to this world
Must change our way of thinking.

Use needs to be more particular
More sensitive
More refined
Find a better word kind.

Love Mary ***

Everyday you kissed me goodbye
In your blue candlewick dressing gown,
The cat rushing out of the door
In his hurry for freedom.

A peck on both cheeks and a spoken phrase,
Always remembered till this day,
"Rather be late than the late",
I waved back till you closed the door.

Love to my Mother ,Grace Emily Westbrook.***

Our lives come and go like the blossoms on a tree
A story told by many voices
It cannot be conveyed with any accuracy
Beyond that of dates and time
For the rest remains a secret
Nothing can describe.
Neither plan nor preparation maps our path
For it meanders like the tributaries of a river
Into unknown clearings
Stopping short of perfection
Clinging to the goodness found
Loving where it can that night owl of wisdom
Belonging to a tribe of people
Who at the end pick up the petals
And put them in a drawer
Saying this was he or she
Who we came to know
Whose name in an address book
Brings tears to our eyes
This was a life.

Love Mary ***

The Camelias think it is Spring
One white bud ,two red
Daffodils lift a head
And the aconites
Shower a golden ring
And yet last years hollyhocks
Still in leaf ,promising flowers.
The skies are overcast
The air damp and crisp
Inside my window
I notice the change
It is January 2018.

Love Mary **

She was that child of my son’s
Facing me each morning
Two hundred miles distant
Through a glass screen iPad
To start the morning hour.

Asking me her, grandma Mary,
‘What shall we talk about now’
Alex’s voice. Shouting Reading
So  she spoons breakfast cereal
And turns the pages of Peter and Jane.

Bouncing about in the early lighting
Against a wall of coloured drawings
On a blue wooden chair with aprons
Filling that loquacious mouth to the brim
Using uncommon words in her speeches
And cuddling ‘Rainbow’ her stuffed rabbit.

Love grandma Mary

I know a little girl
Who lives down a lane,
In a house made of brick,
With white window frames.

She is waiting for her sister,
To be born very soon,
Someone to play with,
She'll be over the moon.

Her name is Evelyn,
Mary, Janet Granger- Kearns,
Quite a long name,
To remember and understand.

Evelyn loves her Piggles,
A soft cuddly pig,
She takes him everywhere,
He is ever so good.

A little girl of sunbeams,
With a halo of gold,
Someone oh so special,
She always says 'Hello'.

Love Grandma **

We watched the black and white movies
The old ones from the thirties
With Gregory Peck.
His favourite was
‘South Pacific’
And he would whistle
‘Some Enchanted Evening’
As he came home up the lanes.

Love Mary

When you tumble out of bed
Knickers round your head
You begin to float around
And the ladybird falls down
Onto a floor of soft brown.

Love Mary x

I could have been so much more
One of those girls who was seen on stage
Dancing the red lipstick off the page
Chasing sparks out the window of love
But I died earlier than time allowed.
So goodbye..


Love Mary xxxxx

Not know the cold that froze in heart
For blister it brought to thought its friend
For bare it spread the land to take
In ditches left lame a scream in pain.

Love Mary x

On the grass you laid down your palette
Usually, white, two yellows, two reds,
Two blues and occasional viridian green.
From these you could mix every colour
You might need.
With sensitivity and a palette knife
You brought the avenue of trees to life.
It depended on mood or season of light
The temperature of day
The time must be right.
Sometimes limited colours
Helped to create
The surface's luminosity
Using yellow ochre
red, black and white.

Love Mary ***