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Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
I wonder if I said nothing would you know
Could my name be drawn out along a lane
Cut- out stencils for an autograph
Hardened plasticine creating the frame.

Maybe the more that is said, the less heard
So sit beside what is not my poetry and
Remember in the grains of time what I am
All that is ordinarily attributed to a friend.

Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2019
He was in the garden
It had been a long time
Pulling against the weeds
His elderly mother in a chair
Reading the newspaper.

The woman watched on
Pallid in the light
They helped each other
It was Spring, bulbs out
The news was about Brexit.

Love Mary
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
I will meet you in the rays of light
At the edge of the outer most galaxy
And there we might recognise each other
in the cosmic dust
And in quietness love again.

Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Aug 2018
On a stage in the middle of a wood
Stood a young girl who knew she could
But as it happened she did not
Pushed the young boy
And he got off.

Now when it’s dark
And the owls do hoot
You won’t find this young girl
Out in the woods
Even though she could.

Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
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
Thinking about Wallace Stevens
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
Hand in back of my dress
We wandered over the forest
The grass dried and sandy
The evening slowly
Terminating the sun
A yellow globe above the flats.
I thought of home alone
No telephone
And Ovaltine mixed with your love
Your smell of tobacco and *****
And oh those first *******
Taking me out of myself
With desire.


Love Mary **
My first year with Roger.Love Mary ***
I was over 16
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
Evelyn flew over the sea
In an aeroplane above the blue
To a place she never knew
With a plot and his crew.

She went to see her family there
Amongst a land green and fair
To kiss and hug those she loves
Bringing her smile the little dove.

Grandma Janet, Uncle Jim,
If there's time go for a swim
Crawling with Grandpa is such fun
Next year I'll be able to run.

Saw a lighthouse, the crashing waves
Mummy holds me against the sway
Someone takes a photograph
Be back soon it's been a laugh.

Now it's time to go to bed
Fly over the ocean sleepy head
Back to daddy and my toys
I bet he's waiting that naughty boy.


For Alex from Evelyn and Grandma ***
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
We climb the downs with outstretched arms
The heather long and heady in,
The scratched and battered dung filled breeze
And wool and sheep spread o’er the land
And yet in hope this day breathes still
With tortoiseshell on mountain hill.


Love Mary x
Over the Warren
Mary Gay Kearns Nov 2019
I met them on the roadside
Silky black ,smooth ,padded
There were two,  gathering
In the hour before sunset came.

I felt the cold chill my bones
Festering the marrow to dark
Then it happened like a bark
Time to say goodbye to Silky
And Black the cats.

Love Mary. **
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2018
PAINTING PICTURES.

I spent my last day
Looking at pictures
Paintings of a friend
We tried to decide
What was finished
And found it hard in the end.

How long does one continue
When a subjects found
Does one plod on regardless
Or learn to live underground.

Love to Ian for his friendship from Mary ***
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2018
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 **
Mary Gay Kearns Oct 2018
Truth

Autumn and her berries come

Bringing warmth oh fire crave

Embers to the summer gone

A vision life takes
Mortals look for free

Tomorrow green on green we see

Not a dream
TRUTH
This was written by Pam for me .Love and thank you Mary xxxx
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2018
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 **
Mary Gay Kearns May 2019
I suppose parties could be fun
Dressed up all prettily by Mum
Present in hand here we stand
On the front step
Like in the Ladybird book.

The door opens into Jane’s world
Hand over your coat to someone.
Down the linoleum hallway,
Into the front room of delights
Dropped handkerchief on floor.

Two cut - out books for party girl
She’s opening my sparkly cat card
The one with a feather and pearls
The paper piles up on a chair
Susan’s mother announces tea.
Mary Gay Kearns Aug 2018
I went with a numbness, and sense of doubt
Dropped at the doors of strangers
But pleased to have been asked.
We all gave our presents to the birthday child
Watching the discarded paper fall and the pile
Fill out the large cushioned arm chair.

Not coming from wealth my present simple style
But always liked, it appeared, much as any other;
Coats taken and placed upstairs.
A quick glance at the other children’s party attire
Mine often a cream jumper and tartan pleated skirt,
Brown leather Clark’s sandels, sensible.

The chocolate game was my favourite
Eating with knife and fork,
As many pieces as able, real fooling about.
Then there was musical chairs that
Put me in despair, as some one always out
And lots of standing about along the wall.

Not very good at general knowledge so forfeits
Left me in tears.
But Oh! for pass the parcel
Always fun had here.
Then to the tea table we went
With eyes bigger than tummies.

All that blamange and strawberry jelly
Sparkly fairy cakes with silver *****
Discarded plates of uneaten sandwiches
Crusts scattering the floor, dropped,
Lastly, milk chocolate fingers galore
And a tiny decorated craker to take home.

The End

Love Mary
I did not like parties much.
Mary Gay Kearns Aug 2018
The rustling of girls in nylon underskirts
And shoe buckle in bejewelled highlights
With presents so wrapped and tied bows
For bolero in angora to complete the show.

Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
The passageway joins here and there
It combines today with yesterday
In a sequence of time
Changing forever the future
Letting in light and warmth
A union of sorts without speech
Walked quietly both ways
Frequently and without thought
But now stopping in the middle
Opening an uncertain promise
Where a dream could be made.

Love Mary **
Mary Gay Kearns Dec 2018
Shades of green and a lichen fence
Leafless bushes embrace telegraph
Triangular factory roofs make hills
In the patch of lavender’s sunshine.

And two paths, worn grass journey
Of favourite places returning home
Break into the emerald field of love
Where our walking brings strength.


Love Mary ***
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
We are but patterns
Made at a certain point
Our love and desires
Are patterns too
No different than
The leaves on a rose stem
Or spirals on a shell
When a pattern is disrupted
The organism dies.
But what is created by love
And empathy remains
Like poetry, music, painting
And literature to be experienced
As patterns
Love remains in the memory
Of those we loved
It is simple really.

Love Mary xxxx
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
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
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
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
***
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
And there it was at the top of her heart
Filling all the chambers where she lived
Those days in the war when emptiness
Called everyday reminding the beating
That it had nothing to do but to wait.

And it never came that  peacefulness
Carried in the pocket of her dress
With the flower stem of lavender
And a peach stone of foreign hope
That just soon the sun would open.

Love Mary ***
For all the sorrows of this world and those that wait.
Love Mary *** inspired by film Suite Françoise
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2019
The grass yellow topped wet Winter
Separates forming trodden pathway
Between overhanging bare branches
A child might squeeze cautious now
The damp hangs like crystal pearls
Through we peep.

Love Mary ***
Mary Gay Kearns Dec 2018
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 ***
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2018
Penguin and Platypus

Penguin and Platypus put  on their hats and coats,
Took the train to Manchester to find themselves a goat,
Found themselves, in the middle, of an orchestra playing Bach.
Asked to join the fiddlers, to give them a second chance.

After the rain clouds dropped in for tea,
Decided that the goat was now nowhere to be seen,
Inside  Lyons Corner  House had hot chocolate and cream.
Caught the train back to Stroud,
And ran home across the green.

For Evelyn and all those who are gorgeously mad.

Love Grandma ***
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
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 ***
To my darling love Mary
Mary Gay Kearns Dec 2018
White legs enter the sea
As Icarus falls from the
Sun baked clouds
His feathered wings melt
And then disintegrate.

The day is clear, calm
Not noticed as he falls, silently,
Into deepest waters of bay
All busied themselves
The light craft sails on.

The fisherman’s line stretched
The shepherd gazes at the sky
The bowsmen drives his horse
And birds spiralled overhead
Sailing boats bob in blue.

This is how it is in the land
Where no one is noticed
Brueghel and Auden knew
The hardship of reality
A sad perpetuating song.

Love Mary xxxx
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
No longer frilly
Abandoned buttons and bows
Took to wearing breeches
And baseball shoes.

Now she’s having a baby
What will that do
Change our young Lily
Into two.

Love Grandma ***
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
A line that announces the heart
And stays embedded in lovers
Pale yellow dressed girl breathes
Leaning across blue hyacinths
And wildness tornados the night
As silkily she touches the moon.

Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
No one faced it as Picasso
With such an honesty
Baring the truth of
Simply wearing out.
His last portraits,
Full of anxiety,
Eyes laden with fear,
But at least he had it,
That creativity,
To give each day a point.
And what he left us all
Was more than beauty
But the humanity
Shared by all
To take us safely
Home.

Love Mary x


Love Mary ***
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
How do they come
Our own special words
Put together by thoughts
Flowing unsure
Are they a childhood
A nurtured mind
Where words
Are our playground
Or leave us behind.


Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Jul 2018
I have pictures on my walls
Pretty pictures one and all
Painted by friends I know
People who love and grow.

Everyday I look at them
Treasure the heart within
Gives me a life to breathe
Pretty pictures for to see.

Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2019
Startling though love is
Coming in the back door
When we know so little
Tied our hands together
On a pink collared shirt
Round a neck went arms
To take that first sweet kiss.

Love Mary
Mary Gay Kearns Sep 2020
Plastic caterpillars
Which came from Japan
All different colours
Can be held in the hand.

Peacock and Cabbage White
All with suckers and feet
Some have horns
Those you can’t beat.

Love Mary ***
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
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 **
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2019
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 ***
Thank you love Mary ***
Mary Gay Kearns Jul 2018
The words were deviously writ
With good hid well behind the line
And faithfully did fly the woods
To run the gauntlet and despise.

Love Mary x
Felt it needed slight alteration to make the beats into a tetrameter.
Love Mary
Mary Gay Kearns Jul 2018
The words were deviously writ
With good hid well behind the line
And faithfully did fly the woods
To run the gauntlet and despise.

Love Mary **
Felt it needed slight alterations to make have correct beats .Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Sep 2019
The pottery shop at Freshwater
Glassworks at Freshwater
Touching glass
For Nuska
Mary Gay Kearns Sep 2019
Stop it sister
Evelyn as a lady bird.

Love Grandma Mary xxxxxx
Mary Gay Kearns Oct 2018
I use you like an old tool
Something I can turn over
***** in tight so you stay
After I have moved off.

You fix what is left of me
Tied down, knotted silk
A binding of age and beauty
My hair, still plaited, remains.

Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Jan 2018
Poetry is my friend ,
It lends to me a library,
One unknown and unread,
Untutored there to be said,
A simple line or many verse
Discovering sentiments
I can converse.

Love Mary ***
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2018
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 ***
Mary Gay Kearns Mar 2019
It may take years for poetry to be acknowledged but when it is
Great truths unfold that leave one tremulous with beauty and
Awareness so great that the world turns in disbelief.
Somehow there are no other legistrators of the truth for all are
Selfinterested and infested.
So dear poets write for humanity that your words touch those servants of change.
Altering understanding
To the reality of nature’s innocence and the wickedness of
history and humankind.


Love Mary xxxxx
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2019
It may take years for poetry to be acknowledged but when it is
Great truths unfolded that leave one tremulous with beauty and
Awareness so great that the world turns in disbelief.
Somehow there are no other legistrators of the truth for all are self
Selfinterested and infested.
So dear poets write for humanity that your words touch those servants of time.
Changing understanding and open minds
To the reality of nature’s innocence and the wickedness of history and humankind.



Love Mary xxxxx
Mary Gay Kearns May 2018
What do you do with my words
Stretched out upon your ceiling
To find in them meaning heard
What do you do with my world’s
I hear your words in mine
Conversing and dancing
Chasing each other across the globe
What do you do with my world’s.

Love Mary x
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
I remember the death of my grandfather
My head filled out the spoken words
There a man stretched out, sublime,
In an upstairs bedroom room,
Unable to breath, doctor called,
His family standing at his side.
This was 1957, I was five.
My father had gone to be with
A father he both loved
And feared, felt tenderness for
and pitied.

I stayed with my mother,
Saying "just because
I do not cry Mummy does not mean
I am not sad."
With my small child's hands
I made her a cup of tea.

Grandfather was a rough, tough
Man,
Always impeccably dressed
In white shirt and a tie,
He threw his dinners at the wall
Collected greyhounds
And raced them at the White City
They all died, all six.
Gave me a shiny half- crown piece
At every visit and a razored kiss,
He was a lamplighter, fifty- six.

I loved him
In a child's simple way
Knew his heart loved
But life was tough.
My father spoke kindly of him
"Poor burger" my grandfather said
When my father took on a mortgage.
Poor ******.

Love Mary x
In memory of my father's father ,Chester Road .ff Ladbrook Grove
Mary Gay Kearns Jun 2018
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
Mary Gay Kearns Feb 2018
Summer meadow you are calling me
The red poppies standing as swaying trees
Heads of corn tall in the light
My dress shimmering white
I have the picture in my head
Also in my album bed
For this day of moment's power
Etched upon a life-time's file
In the shade you came to me
Held me up so I could see
The love you had and let it be
In the meadow wild and free.



For my Roger and a wonderful day we spent in Essex.in 1968/9
Essex with Roger **
Mary Gay Kearns Apr 2018
Open university  'Civilisations' poster is free on
0300 303 5303

Love Mary x
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