Toughened glass

Women like me

Still around

You just can't see

We pick up names

As we go through life

Daughter Mother Sister Wife

Our role is often mapped and clear

Then we get to fifty and disappear

We want to shout I'm over here

We're not glam, we're not glum

Just somebody's mum

A little bit shopworn

But we did our bit

We brought up the kids

Took a whole load of sh*t

So please don't ignore us

We matter too

Just you wait till it happens to you

And it will!

Tofu tofu
it just won’t do
the box is pretty
with its dragon stencil
but it looks and it tastes
like it rubs out pencil

You cannot possess a soul

Force it into chains

Crush a spirit and take what
remains

Make a slave

Own it from the cradle to the grave

You can use cruel ties

But you cannot bind

Freedom of the mind

Original thought

Cannot be bought

We are the fallen
bereft of life
but filled with music
we sing with a speeding bullet’s zing
our lyrics the crack of splintered bone
a symphony written for us alone
in the land where all are supposed to be free
so much then for liberty

Creatures of the mind

Searching for freedom

In  the misty space between dreams

They don't hunt

They farm

Sewing fear

Harvesting panic

Do not fret the climbing shadows on your wall

There are darker shadows in your head

And they are real

I think I will go to the sea and listen for a while
to the roar of dark ill tempered waves and ravenous black backed gulls , ceaseless circling gods who scan the beach, hopeful in search of any offerings given, trying to outdo the wind with their endless calling

I think I will go to the sea and watch the sky,
the shifting clouds a pencil sketch as yet unfinished,
a symphony of graphite  grey and mellow umber tones,
smoothed beneath some restless artists hand

I think I will go to the sea, to feel the wind on my ears
the sharp sting of blowing sand, frozen skin nettles
as I shrink into my scarf, a futile knitted bastion against such savage elements

I think I will go to the sea, but not today!

What is beauty
If you see it with your eyes
and I do not share with mine
is it any the less beautiful
for being yours alone

A Butterly ***** its wings

Warm air stirs

Clouds rise

Temperature drops

Rain begins

Seeds move in the earth

Dry rivers fill their bellies

Landlocked fish dance to the sea

The ocean moves

Cool air stirs

Storms rage

Clouds appear

And somewhere

A butterfly ***** its wings!

Margaret's hands are small and white
they will never hug her mother
or feel a lovers hand squeeze hers
never play piano like her sister Maud
or wear a wedding ring
not any of these things
Margaret's hands are marble still
each dove at rest upon her chest

Grief is a room

It has no doors

No one can join you

For each of us has our own


You sit in the centre

On the hardest chair

Wondering how you will escape and join the world again

Leaving the sorrow behind


You take the sadness with you when you go

It is a burden all must carry

You will learn to manage the load

One of the many rocks we must bear on our journey through life


One day you will leave

The walls will know when it is time

You will see the crack of light under an exit you never even knew was there


Do not fear it

Embrace its protection

This room

Is a womb

That intimate space

Inner sanctum of the discarded sock

That empty coffee cup

You meant to take downstairs

Borderland between light and dark

A place of extremes

Joy and love and sometimes fear

Where we can truly be ourselves

At our most vulnerable

When we close the door

We switch off,

The clock hits pause

We sleep,

Defenceless

Against the monsters under our beds

And the ones inside our heads!

In the year of missing kissing

it was masks for simple tasks like queuing for bread

ditching foreign travel so we all stayed home instead

we swapped hugs for elbow rubs and waves from afar

coffees in the car instead of drinks with a friend

oh the fun of this year

Will it never end?

Irish aer
brings the sweetest rain
from the bluest sky
which fills her streams
of brackish runs and rills
and paints the green
on lush and fond remembered hills

I cannot say is miss you
well not every day
life moved on, and took me with it
carried with the tide
and weathered by waves
you stayed as you were
as you will always be
safe and dry on the shore
but you cannot dip your toes
or dance in the sand as I have done
feel the sun on your back
or the wind against your face
for you the race was too quickly run
all over and done
before it had really begun

Gathering sky,
heavy folds of white and linen grey
wrap the day,
tight in a nettle scented breeze
a blanket with no escape
song birds call, sharp to each other
hidden in the hedgerow
where the cow grass grows
thigh high by the gate,
pierced by spears
of meadowsweet and celandine
and so we wait to look for rain
allthough the weather may turn fine
who knows which way the season blows
in British summer time

You were always the fruit tree
new light of promised hope in spring
sweet pears within the summer of your days
the flowing wine of a full ripe season
and when autumn came
it reached with shadowed fingers
to pluck you from the wall
you stood alone against the wind
while we your living leaves were scattered
root and branch, stripped base and bare
it was then we watched you fall
there was heart in you my friend,
you gave your all

When I am gone
think of me often
for I will be a butterfly free soul
a forever spirit of the air and wind
dancing among the flowers
in endless summer

Mycelium hair
frames her lovely face,
arms flung wide
in silent embrace,
fingers float
lilies uncurled,
peaceful she floats
slipped from the world

Grief is a sea

A lonely place

First comes the shock

That slap in the face

It tells your brain

You can't take the pace

Leave the pain for a while

Drop out of the race

Sit on the side

Watch the world go by

Numb and chilled

Too stunned to cry

It will be too much

When Reality hits

Let's take it slow

Face the news in bits!

The waving wheat in Picot’s field
is burned to yellow sand,
a harvest tide of buttered rain
salutes the combine’s hand,
one last defiant gesture
before the cut and fall,
bowing at the reaper,
who comes to scythe us all

I liked the way sounds jumped into place

Gained their own pace

Made a poetry space

All their own

An exclusive zone

Where words, like flocks of birds

Made patterns in the sky

I used to wonder why

They only danced for me

And nobody could see

Peaceful, I protest against this morning,
grey and wet and dull, not fit for larks
I demand a change
no, I command the sun to shine
rise and get you out of bed
and give us something else instead
I like this not
any decent summer day should start off fine
and then continue hot

Birds have no shape,
they are everything
and they are nothing
wind and rain and trees
the scent of the breeze
tall dried grass
seeds which land
on full and fallow ground
an ocean heart that beats within us all
the sound of nature’s call
whatever the future holds
when shadows fall
and footsteps are dust
there will be birds

My sly and stalking beast

Which jumps and catches unawares

Grey light from within

A candle dimmed

Hidden from the world

Exhausted heart

Of half remembered dawns

******* slowly

On the fog

That is myself

I cannot feel

Until I cut

And bleed myself  

A path of living words

To follow to the light

Close the curtain
stem the night
feel uncertain
light the light

What makes a country?


A nation


A state


What seals your fate?


An unbreakable tie


Of course you can lie


Say you come from elsewhere


No one will care


But deep down inside


You know you can't hide


No matter how far


Or how fast


You run


Your tribe


Is inscribed


On your soul


A part of your whole

The crown of thoughts that once did sit upon my weary head
is gone, fading gently into the distance
only the impression remains
vague marks of what I used to be
the other much more consequential me

Someone let her out
She slipped away
and never quite came back
although she had a key
each time she went I used to find
she left a bit of me behind

What is left is a badly knitted gift
A thing unravelled
Full of holes is what you get to see
The tattered remnants of the shrinking woman that was me!

Creeping frost

Cold and hard

As charity or jewellers knives

Which melts and quickly turns to flame

The *** that boils

Magnesium hot

Phoenix bright

Cold tears

Sticky with regret

Which sooth and calm

Balm for the soul

Beneath the skin

And healing can begin

Fiction causes friction

An untruth uttered and whispered, gets muttered

It grows until it throws  a shadow on the truth

Fake news screws and skews what we see

In a deception of perception

A false perfection

Losing reality

In a flood of banality!

Faded linen
which smells of straw,
and a shift of corn
in the back of a drawer,
is all that is left
of the girl next door,
she stayed a while
from June to September,
and left fresh berries
to help us remember

Victory wine can be  divine

A taste of defeat is not quite as sweet!

Whatever you choose to put in your glass

Finish it off then let it pass

Cork the bottle and shut it away

Drink the rest another day!

Smooth

Sometimes round

Sound as a pound

A chamber for nesting

For sitting and resting

Awaiting the call

An egg has it all

What am I ?
not wind nor rain
nor endless rolling sky,
I am not sea
or green and falling land
not trees nor beach
nor endless shifting sand,
not sun, not moon, not stars
so help me now,
to understand
if am fish or beast,
or calling bird which sings
which part am I
or maybe I am all these things,
as for why I came to be
or when or what or even how
I do not know
but call me nature
just for now

In the eye of a fly

The world rushes by

They see it all trippy

And fractured and zippy

As if they were high

Not sure why

Perhaps we should try!

The winged things

Feathery worries

Ills of the world

Released furies

Moth like

Tearing holes in the future

To feed their ravening savage mouths and starving offspring

A plague of stinging hornets

Free to fly and drop their bombs of despair where they will

And yet beneath this hateful cloud

Lives hope

Crushed but never defeated while it lives

Yin to the vile Yang

Fluttering slowly behind

Always there until the very end

A tiny crumb of comfort

Oh Pandora

What did you do?

The profits of crime

Are not half as sublime

As the wages of sin

So jump right on in!

Skylark falling
victim of the wind
waiting in the grain
begin and start your song
ascend across a blue and open sky
fly, as if your tiny heart would break
skim those fields of yellow grass and waving wheat
sing of all those things, which make a bird complete
soar, ignore the dark and waving ocean's roar
play in full your simple sweet and lovely tune
so loved by those of us who went before
speak skylark, use your summer voice
please stay, say you will return once more
encore