Summer Visitors

Summer Visitors

Late afternoon aerobatics
Swallows in swoop and dive
Dip and dash, sparkle splash
Then gone, flash of white, tails streaming

We watch the show exuberant
Free to view spectacular,
Summer visitors, shared use of pool
Then gone, flying south, Autumn leaving

Changing child not full grown
A month in the sun to be free
Running wild, woman-child
Then gone, future calls, leave us grieving

30th July Hounoux, for Lily

Stillness at Noon

Stillness at Noon

Watercolour mountains today
Smokey blue tiering to Payne's/ dove/ chalk/ grey
Where horizon tints the sky
Chinese backcloth mirage floating
But vibrant in the foreground
Palette knife thick Van Gogh in oils
Cezanne shimmer in the noon day
Scorched stoned in the sunlight
Vines, pines, hill-side marchers
Sunflower battalions obedient
Turning eyes right sun bright
Earth rust-baked, dry dust-caked
In silent heat throbbing
No movement, be still
The landscape's surviving
Conserving its forces
Holding its breath in the fierceness of noon
Sending a message, a balm for the spirit
Feeding the soul, in the quiet
Be still

28th July 2009 Hounoux

As Good As it Gets

As Good As it Gets

When does it get good? Child's
Question innocent to the clown
Cuts to the quick and the core
Comic genius deflating, air escaping
Shrivelling balloon
Chance of laughs reduced to nil

Play novel movie much recommended
All London is talking, cutting
Edge, sure to shock, last word
Litterati, must see, have to be
In the swim and the chatter and
(Whispered) When does it get good?

Hold it there, childish question. Life
Love family home, choice
Of carpet, colour matching, perfect
Picture, all achieving
Good enough/ could be better?
Is everybody happy, smile now
All together, here's the moment
Seize it, breathe it, just a thought
What if this day- pick a day, any day
Is a present as peerless, as good as it gets?

27th July 2009, on 6.40 flight out of Gatwick to Toulouse, for Jenny and Clare with love

Reading Rossetti

Reading Rossetti

I knew a man, a poet, once

Complained his muse had fled

Pram in the hallway he confirmed

The enemy of his art

I caught his wife's ironic glance

As she heard his sad tirade

Egg and bacon, daily life

No food for poet's soul

I thought of him, this long time gone,

Reading Rossetti verse

Brother and sister both

Dreaming of other worlds

Rejecting the life quotidian

In search of the life ideal

But different poet, different art

Some mine from the harshest seam

They speak of squalor, war, disease

Of human weakness, turgid grind

No gilded lilies, blushing rose

Brighten their manuscripts

Each to her own, yours to discern

How will you nurture the muse?

Far from the crowd, or thick of it all

Hymning the sea or the town

Rural or urban, mystic or real

The poem's a voice, a passion, a dream

A part of your life but all of your life

The poem, the poem's the thing

Brighton 23rd July 2009

The Gold in the Sky

The Gold in the Sky

Brighton, trudging homewards, as ever uphill

Dusk just beginning to spread fingers

Draining the city's colours to monochrome

The seagulls' ceaseless chorus inevitable

My thoughts on daily things, supper, weight of shopping

I chance to look westward and upwards

In the sky a glorious work of art

Is forming as I watch, stunned still, I watch

As lozenges of gold spread on the horizon

Spread over cloud banks, dove grey dusky pink

Turner I think priceless masterpiece painting

Adored by the masses, great treasure of the nation

But here, democratic, free to view

One night only, to have not to hold

Attracts few admirers, eyes in the gutter

Heads full of clutter, the daily the worry

Stunned still, watching, I give thanks

For the chance of a glance heaven upwards

For a glimpse of the treasure, the gold in the sky

July 21st Brighton, another poem past midnight

Companions

Companions

I talk to Dad each morning

In the frame beside my bed

And then there'll be another word

When I catch geranium's crush

Or smell his summer greenhouse

In ripe tomato vines

Mum on the other hand

Pops up amongst the flowers

When I'm dead-heading annuals

I hear her daily chat

Encouraging the busies and petunias to bloom

Of course she's also in the kitchen

Where she always reigned supreme

No doubt she finds my Yorkshires

Are not quite up to par

And roasted Maris Piper

Lack a certain fluffy crunch

Another loved one leaving

Is remembered every hour

Grandfather clock is chiming

As it once did in her hall

And also in her tapestry

She speaks of what she loved

Creating things of beauty

Adornment for her home

So mingling with the living

The ghosts still have their say

An arm of consolation

A shoulder for a weep

A word of exhortation

Come on girl, get a grip!

It's good to have them with me

They make so few demands

Their traces and their echoes

Still a comfort in my life

July 16th 2009, autoroute Castelnaudary to Toulouse

After Work

After Work

No deadlines no start times
No bleating alarm
No dragged from your bedtime
Reluctant awake time
No one to be waiting and tapping his watch
Inspector to grade you with shaking of head
No parent to glower and lodge a complaint
No tests to be taken
League tables to dread

All of it gone as you walked out the door
The emails the phone calls the forms to be filled
The in tray now empty, the urgency fled
As you walked from that life time
And out of the door
No Orpheus glancing, a new life before
The future a jigsaw without a design
A digital game where the choice is all yours

To sleep with the owl or to rise with the lark?
In town or in country, engage or retreat?
No statement of mission no template to fit
Organic, responsive, create your own life
Write personal guidelines for what you have left
Tomorrow’s tomorrow, who knows where it ends?
One day at a time and guided by love

Some idling some laughing
Some serious some play
Making a mark in a garden or home
On canvas on paper with brush and with pen
Mindful of others, attending their needs
Less of the left-brain and more of the right
The mission the vision the ethos shall be
One day at a time and guided by love

Hounoux 15th July 2009

Poetry Reading

Poetry Reading

Immersed in Plath and Duffy
Swimming in frightful depths
Learning to breathe and go with the flow
To race with the currents
Or paddle becalmed
Swallowing fear, in over my head
Down where it’s dark and monsters may lurk
No one to guide me, fighting the fear
The thrashing and splashing
The panic, the pain
Trying to breathe and to fathom the flow
Trusting the poem the rhythm the verse
To rock me to pull me to whirl me in pools
Where willows hang weeping
Silver flash leaping
In depths and in shallows
In babbling and roaring
The sounds and the words and the rhythm all pounding
Bearing the feelings the thoughts and the message
Trusting the poem, the poet, her voice
Exhausted, uplifted, will not be defeated
I’m learning to breathe and to go with the flow

Hounoux 15th July 2009

Alchemy

Alchemy

Why do you do it?
Never got it myself
Had to read some at school of course
But what's it for?

It's a bit personal isn't it?
Shuffling of feet
Averting of eyes
I mean, feelings and so on
Best left unsaid?

I had a look at one or two
But no, no comment
I'm busy and -
Blushing pink
Awkward pause-
I'd really rather not

You have a way with words
Me I was more one for maths/ science/fill in the gap
Defensive now. We're British!
I mean, feelings and so on
Best left unsaid?

Let's have a go then
What is it for? Maybe for
Bottling memories, for painting the scent of a day
Or for giving thanks for the sharing and the wearing
Of a trouble or a smile
Or again for writing out grief
Releasing the bee's sting
Or for happiness, playing in words
Or provoking a laugh or a tear
Finger-tip hanging, death-defying
For staying alive and for being alive

So there's joy in the creation
Sweat in the polishing
And oh! the reward in the sharing
Calling to another soul
Across separateness and silence and selfness

Myself I think it's magic, alchemy
The new rock and roll
Roaring and whispering, dancing and weeping
It fills my head

And my wish for you, dear reader
Is that one day
Questions and complexities and abstruseness
All put aside
It may speak to you
And you may hear its sweetness

Hounoux July 13th 2009

Linda's Cinquains

Linda's Cinquains
Honey
Bees, lavender
Flowers busy pulsing
Dance in and dance out, factory
Workers

Fig tree
Fat fruit hanging
Leafy shelter and shade
Fly in and fly out, foragers
Blackcaps

Garden
Scarce swallowtail
Humming bird hawk moth too
Fluttering in fluttering out
We watch

Hounoux 11th July 2009, for Linda who shared her knowledge

As Two Galleons

As Two Galleons

Stately as Joyce Grenfell
We glide across the pool
Heads on high, hair kept dry
Onward the ceaseless chat

No ruffling the water
Barely a low-key splash
Not ladylike to strive
Seamless the ceaseless chat

We talk of birds, of swifts
Swallows which dive and swoop
Butterflies and hawk moths
All in the ceaseless chat

Gently now we exit
Tiptoeing up the steps
Friends apart, catching up
Loving the ceaseless chat

Hounoux July 11th 2009

My Consolation Girl

My Consolation Girl

I'm proud of you my daughter

Our special child since birth

Our sunshine after sorrow

And youngest baby girl

I'm proud of you my listener

So wise beyond your years

Your gift of intuition

A burden and a boon

I'm proud of you the mother

The best a boy could want

And student, sister, partner

Committed to us all

I'm proud of you the joiner

Who runs the race for life

Not quitting in the bad times

Sweet blessing in our lives

I'm proud of you my daughter

Since moment of your birth

My never-fail supporter

My consolation girl

5th July 2009, Brighton, for Rosie after she ran the Race for Life 10km

Thumbprint in the Sky

Thumbprint in the sky

It's just a chalky thumbprint

In wide and dizzy sky

A vestige of an echo

Of the Queen who rode the night

A whisper veiled in chiffon

Where once Diana blazed

Or harvest orange wonder

Which stopped our hearts amazed

But still in summer dazzle

The child can feel the pull

Small finger points, he's running

The magnet pulse is full

No time for sea or sand

Or sun stood overhead at noon

His world reduced to single thought

The moon he cries, the moon

4th July 2009 Brighton

Sometimes

Sometimes

Sometimes

Because the words are marshaling

Vibrating in the wings

Lining up for Highland Fling

Or statelier Gavotte

Raising their arms and pointing their toes

Feeling the rhythm, ready to go

To carry the surge and the joy and the dance

Will of their own and on to the page

Galloping now, what beautiful sight

On to the page with never a slip

Will of their own and given their head

Dancing together in reels round about

Creating the patterns the meaning the form

All to the beat of celestial drums

Out of the air and on to the page

Tumbling and sparkling heady with life

Taking a bow, glowing and proud

Sweet poetry's here, delivered entire

July 4th 2009 Brighton

Before the Rains

Before the Rains

Half-naked you

And me in lightest summer wear

We creep along the shadowed walls

To blessed urban park

And there I flop

Exhausted on the dusty grass

Where feathered vermin pigeons peck

Delighted you explore

You eddy forth

Small tidal child, and where you run

The smiles erupt on every side

Brighton Pavilion lawns

You've found a step

To challenge you, you jump and jump

Then suddenly you're running back

With love my sunshine boy

Brighton 4th July 2009

Monsoon Moment

Monsoon Moment

Ah! here at last

The thunder and the rain

So gutters and drainpipes run

And all night long the garden drips

The roads and windows wash

Dire thirst upon the land is slaked

The dust-dried town relieved

And cool at last

Beneath his sheet

The little boy can sleep

Brighton 2nd July 2009