There was an Old Man of Vienna,
Who lived upon Tincture of Senna;
When that did not agree,
He took Camomile Tea,
That nasty Old Man of Vienna.

I slept with the thought I would never quite sleep
When my mind works the night-shift, and my thoughts flit and creep
From the back of a wavelength, to the edge of the steep
Steep
Steep drop at the edge of my cup of steeped tea.

Sleepytime camomile
My whole life I've been wide-eyed
Asleep.

Take me to the Rookery with its many paths
A tea house selling refreshments in pretty glass
Three striped lollies covered in chocolate beads
Biscuits and sandwich are all that we need.

The garden was set out, in brick oblong beds
Raised from the ground and divided by hedge
Many bush roses, of the older kind, smelling of
Cold cream and sweet camomile.

There was a terrace with steps leading down
To a sunken garden where the roses reclined
Hanging over arbours, pink , white and cream
And other perennials added to the scene.

This place a haven at the top of Streatham hill
Does anybody know it, it might be there still?
My daddy took me often on a Sunday afternoon
To ramble in the sunshine, and play at my will.


Love Mary x

My hands are trembling more than usual,
so I have altered my coffee to a camomile tea.
I administer everything as if it were medicine;
a chemist punctuating his day with
guilty cigarettes and vague homoeopathy.
It's all *******, I know-
but whatever gets you through the day...

In the season of advent, my fingers are bitten
down to the quick; throat seared with
half-functioning lighters and fragile matches;
I can scarcely operate either in this state.
The fairy-lights turn the high-street to a runway.
But all I see are charity shops
interceded with bookies and coffee houses.

This home-town exists to keep up my interest
in finding some purpose. A path to eventual escape
from all of these old bonds and ties,
pinning me down with memories of ***,
and all of the street-names I have learned by rote.
*I'm treading water here-
living in the comfort of a sink-hole.

i.
He told her
That mathematics was too
Sombre.
Too, too
Linear
To be poetic.

She said that
He had only seen himself
In a mirror,
A reversed hologram
Of his external self
Burned into his retinas with
His subconscious filling in the gaps.

But she had seen him
The rays reflected straight off him
Into her eyes;
Not some half-assed reflection
Off some silvered surface.

ii.
She said that
His jawline was
The ***** of a curve
Pencilled on a graph sheet.
His candlewax skin
A wavelength
Quantifiable on paper.
His spine
A number line with
Dashes, to show real numbers
The set of which was infinite.

She said that
A Fibonacci sketch was
A minimalist rose,
A post-modern bouquet.

And that
The reflected pale morning sun
In a half finished cup of camomile tea
Was a cardioid
With fixed coordinate values on the axes
And an algorithmic tangent.

And he
Was a negative infinity
A paradox not sorted under
Quine's classification system.

iii.
She had
Recorded his heartbeat and blood pressure;
Measured the distance between his lips with her own;
Tried so hard, so very, very hard
To put him down in a numerical form
And write him off as an equation.

But all she could say was
That he was more
Than the sum total of his meagre parts
And that she
Was his reciprocal value.

Where the white land is green and young
but the songs still mourn

for generations gone
in the mists of waiting

on the mountains across
where life is hard and old

where the fireplaces always burn
marmots raise their noses

by the elderly sitting there
picnicking and painting

the creeping broom and the round table
beyond the camomile fields

on the mound behind the heather walls
and the fern hedges in the narrowdale

that still are waving there on the helmets
of drowned iron soldiers

I muse about life and I eat
chocolate at the camel river

Today no mists on the hill
where once stood the Lion Fort

There's a peculiar feeling about emptiness.
Like hundreds of misshapen rocks
Have all been carelessly dumped
Into the cavity which should hold
My red, pulsing heart.
It's not obnoxious
Or tangible,
But it lurks somewhere right beyond
I love you
And I miss you
And I don't care.
Like termites slowly devouring
An old pewter coffee table
Left on the corner in front of a tall
Decaying townhouse.
The legs slowly deteriorate,
Revealing their soft fleshy wooden insides.
There's no warning sign for this kind of
Isolation.
No tell tale symptoms
Or home made remedies
Of honey and camomile.
Flashing neon lights
Flicker and fade into the
Heavy night.
And symmetrical posters
Don't illuminate the pathway to loneliness like they should.
Instead,
It just creeps up on you when you're least expecting it,
Between casual conversations
And vulnerable moments of passion.
You can't stop it,
Or push it into a corner
The way you can with guilt
And premeditated promises.
It's too disfigured to be shut away in a symmetrical closet
Or empty dining room.
It's the absence of understanding,
The congested feeling in your lungs
And heart
And stomach,
That comes when you suddenly realize
No one understands.
It's unpredictable in that way,
The sudden realization,
There's no telling when it will spring upon an unexpecting moment,
And devour the innocence of longing.
But when it happens,
When your whole world feels frozen,
Stagnant and stuck between the cracks of reality,
And covered with a thin veil of dust
And failure,
When your throat is dry and chalky,
Full of almost there sentences
That dance in the chaos of your desperation,
You'll know.

~ Triggers ~

The smell of nail polish
High heels on a hardwood floor
Movie kisses and love scenes
The smell of perfume
Hair spray and flowered soap
Orange blossoms and chocolate
Ocean waves and a crackling fire
Gasps, giggles and high pitched laughs
Silk sheets and brass beds
A breath, a touch, a kiss in the dark
Waking up naked, camomile tea
Roses, roses and more roses

All of these things bring joy to my heart
Make me feel like my body and mind aren't apart
Make me long to be someone that I've never been
And give me a reason to wake, and imagine I can

by Lj Mark 2015

I

Mr. and Mrs. Discobbolos
    Climbed to the top of a wall.
  And they sate to watch the sunset sky
  And to hear the Nupiter Piffkin cry
    And the Biscuit Buffalo call.
They took up a roll and some Camomile tea,
And both were as happy as happy could be--
      Till Mrs. Discobbolos said,--
      'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
      'It has just come into my head--
'Suppose we should happen to fall! ! ! ! !
        'Darling Mr. Discobbolos

II

'Suppose we should fall down flumpetty
    'Just like pieces of stone!
  'On the thorns,--or into the moat!
  'What would become of your new green coat
    'And might you not break a bone?
'It never occurred to me before--
'That perhaps we shall never go down any more!'
      And Mrs. Discobbolos said--
      'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
      'What put it into your head
'To climb up this wall?--my own
        'Darling Mr. Discobbolos?'

III

Mr. Discobbolos answered,--
    'At first it gave me pain,--
  'And I felt my ears turn perfectly pink
  'When your exclamation made me think
    'We might never get down again!
'But now I believe it is wiser far
'To remain for ever just where we are.'--
      And Mr. Discobbolos said,
      'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
      'It has just come into my head--
'----We shall never go down again--
        'Dearest Mrs. Discobbolos!'

IV

So Mr. and Mrs. Discobbolos
    Stood up and began to sing,
  'Far away from hurry and strife
'Here we will pass the rest of life,
    'Ding a ****, ding ****, ding!
'We want no knives nor forks nor chairs,
'No tables nor carpets nor household cares,
      'From worry of life we've fled--
      'Oh! W! X! Y! Z!
      'There is no more trouble ahead,
'Sorrow or any such thing--
        'For Mr. and Mrs. Discobbolos!'

Is she like Calypso
in The Camomile Lawn,
knelt down and speechless
by the fire, resembling
Jennifer Ehle so closely,
as the camera lingers
at her being naked as a jaybird,
and quite comely at that?

Or is she perhaps
more like Felicitas
in Flesh and the Devil,
a dead ringer for Greta Garbo,
who brazenly encouraged
illicit love and rivalry, only
to go quietly by falling
through thin ice?

Sometimes the siren's call
is more a winsome variation
in its silence.

I like sipping
camomile tea.

The smell reminds me
of happy days
in my grandmother’s house
when I was free
of worries and fear
and full of joy and hope.

Drinking camomile tea
reminds me
that anything is possible.

A mug of camomile tea is best accompanied
By the gloam of a late summer's day and
The distant bleats of young sheep,
I find. Peace lies between
Two silhouetted trees, black
Against a blueish sky.

She wears an old fashioned shawl
laced wool of camomile
flecked with seeds of apple pip brown.
Wading shin deep with stork length legs, though lacking all brittleness,
she hems the thirsty sand line of shore
that's forever sipping foam
and swishing froth from the sea's diaphragmatic shifting.
The drag of each stride breaking
v's in their wake
all too soon dissipates
only to be replaced
with every surge and **** and lull.
She recites a poem as she treads the shallows
Hardly a whisper above a whisper
Blending lullaby syllables with the rhythmic surety of the tide.
Every word a billowed sail
carrying the craft of verse upon ripples and surf
back to the memory of one long lost across the sea.

"You've climbed a few mountains during your time."
Says the obnoxious ad
Given by some financial management company

I've climbed no mountains during my time
Content to wander and lie about in the valley
Drinking camomile herbal tea

Eloquent, being lost
On lanes familiar with the dust.
I can not spot
The flower shops i fostered in the past.

Except the rooms of stained glass
I narrow eyes to see
How time will doom the camomile
How ruthless life can be.

But I will kneel
Reciprocate the corpse of once a growing stalk.
For it's the only way.
For we must talk
Before it's time to leave.

Drown my sorrow in cups of tea
The only place I want to be

The overflowing heat
Melts away my fears
Only for a moment though
Until the cold sets in
Adheres

Anxiety can crawl back in
Hidden in the snow

Unnoticed

Alone

I feel alone


So I make another cup of tea
Alway in my favorite mug
You see
My body craves routine
It sets my mind free

Camomile, mint, jasmine, chai
Whatever the flavor,
Always by my side
I promise I will savor.
The moment my anxiety was shoved
Outside

Surfer Grandson Smoker
Manager Traveler Father
Daughter Cook Teacher
Mother Reader Lover
Trainer Son Painter
Volunteer Exhibitionist
Santa Claus
member of a fishermen club
tomorrow
or you name it
if you still have air

we left ourselves outside
alone with these explosive days
blind witnesses
have buried their faces
into the desert of time
the concentration of pain
remains a universal constant
the world is a helpless arena
of master plan illusions
what shall I become
or what shall be consumed of me?

and these rupture faults
body-dynamite against ego-dynamite
culture crushing nature versus
nature crushing culture
the soul famine
in the book
of unknown faces

we were all just enlivened cells once

while we feast in our blood
the discreet continuities
remain hidden
identity encapsulated
in the wave length
of supernovas egos

poetry is left with this
apparent nonsense
camomile turns into laughter
and the pride of butterflies
deserves better

this rhythm consumes us
faster than the speed of dreams
the speed of thought
the speed of forgetting
how our mothers
were never healed

to be or not to be simple
that’s a question

“It is myth that God questions us. God is Pure Consciousness, reflecting mistakes & well doing. God guides the Soul’s evolution. We face Him-Her when free from garb. To stand ***** is to know that we learnt our lessons, completed our soul contract with Divinity, graduating onto next rung, into a progressive mission or completely merge into Oneness.” GhairoDanielsQuotes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Death is a best friend
she visits often to dissolve old cells
tweak dioxyribonucleic acids  
carrying silver sword and bamboo pipe
to draw breath, pointing to moon
caped in indigo velvet with hood
her whispers are silent breath on
white linen pillow

I invite her to sit on my bed
she admires an octagonal quilt red
removing her cape, accepting offering
of camomile tea, her eyes smiling hollows  hyena, warrior, eagle, dung beetle
all at once, elegantly slow she settles
closer, ******* my ears, cold breezes
ripple down my legs

With sidelong glance she asks :
“So what is your claim to fame ?”
I reply : “I know not a name. Fame is
a shadowy flame, an orange-purple
one flickering to become lame.
All the same, I claim to be the highest
version of what Source intended
nothing more, nothing less.
This is free fame, oxygenated.
That is my game, if insane, let it not
be a shame, or a blame.”
Smiling, she asks next : “How have
you helped fellow humans ?”  

I reply : “With Pluto Sun squared as
a dominant in my Chart, I undertook to
integrate escaping gloom into Light for
Self and others. As God granted Ketu
long periods of rulership over my form
I pulped Self in backwaters, where
angels fear to tread, to be a Presence
for fellow humans.”

Her hollow eyes with high cheekbones
move closer to my face. Sipping from floral teacup, fingers spindly, she asks :
“How ***** will your spine be before
THE ALL ?”
I reply : “Not as ***** as when I practiced kundalini and hatha yoga, though I detect
zero regrets, bereft of debts, slate clean
as an uncooked bean.”

Laughing, she replies that Divinity
will be pleased with my use of poetics
whispering : “Know that your spine will
revert to 21 years when I draw your
breath into mine, to gently carry to
Divine. You will sway on your way
into a ringlet bay of rosy everlasting days.
17 more good cheer years, hear my Dear.”

I watch quick footsteps across the
garden path. A thoughtform follows
slender caped back : “My claim to fame
is to be what ****** desires me to be  
~ Co-Creator of my own destiny.”

Next time Death visits, I will word it this way.

______

*[new poetic form: L&N : Letters & Numbers]