Christmas 2010

Christmas 2010

Anxious for ice
For slip and slide
For accidental crack and smack
For ringing tills
And monumental unpaid bills
For how the hell to beat the sleet
And now the tympani of hail
Sudden as stones against the panes
For best-laid
Confidently made
Plans for gathering kith and kin
Trains motorways and planes
Taken as read, google-mapped
The many miles, no problem
Swift as Santa spanned
As we the festive folk
Christmas getters and spenders
Assume assume consume
The world to be turned
Justice spurned
For this is our will and our way

I seem to recall
A baby born, simple
Unadorned
Something stated stark
A star illuminates the dark
Meaning and message long long lost
As eyes in the gutter
Anxious for ice
The loveliness shines unseen

December 18th 2010, Brighton, for my faithful followers, Pam, Jude, Gill and Jenny, with love

Lily's snow

Lily’s snow

She wished and wished
And watched, praying for flakes
First flutter goose down
Pillow burst flock and flurry
Merry the fall the dance
Silent from starless sky
A spell a spell
A secret spread
Blanket to muffle the land
Then sheen and shine
As diamonds dazzled
Scattered shards
Splintering and crack
Jack Frost with ice at his fingertips
Turning the world to white
Winter night
When the Queen of the Snow flew by

2nd December 2010, Brighton, for Lily with love

Once beloved

Once beloved

A poem from a grandchild
Letters to condole
Small jewellery with love bequeathed
Sand slipping out of hand
The photographs that fade and curl
Clothes to a charity shop
Tears and years
Blurred, forgotten
Who still can hear the laughter echo
Feels the absence, presence
Essence
Someone missing
Once beloved?
What became of all the loving
Such a force could light the world
Once the candle was extinguished
Only smoke in circles rising
In the air the scent of loss

26th November 2010, Brighton, I.M Joyce Mc Donald 1.11.1920-25.11.2007

So some of the words will sing

So some of the words will sing

So some of the words will sing
Solo, ring clear as cut glass
Not spun in a metaphor, craftily wrought
Just born to poetry
Crimson for one and cinnabar
Caramel, willow, cloud.
Swallow or swift, swoop and glide
The moon in all of its phases, sickle to
Full, luminescent
Crescent
Humming bird windhover kingfisher, dove
Indigo nacarat mullein
Dimple/ dapple/ skitter/ shatter
Freckle and speckle and shard
Dragonfly sheen, shimmer
Translucent gleam
Shingle shale cockleshell
Curlew sandpiper crane
Thrift in drifts, sea pink
Anemone
Weatherboard patina
Glimmer and glow

So lovely the words will lilt
Rinse and ring, golden shower
Pouring like skylark song

November 21st 2010, Brighton

All of the stitches dropped

All of the stitches dropped

Across the sky white lace
Would grace and trim a giant’s table
Swoops in filigree
But fragile as a spider’s web
How lovely the linking each to each
Spun together held as a whole
Cocooned, father to mother, brother sister
Circling hand in hand
Weaving the warp the weft the spell
An incantation
Let the magic hold
Spin together, whole, cocoon
Circling hand in hand
Not fractured and torn
Worn thin, infirmity and time
Unravelling
All of the stitches dropped

15th November 2010, Brighton, for J B, a stalwart daughter

Danse macabre

Danse macabre

In pouring rain
Poppies with pins
Remember remember
Eleventh November
Jaunty upon the lapel
A clash a splash of red
Among the sequins
See the dancers twirl
Sunday’s sombre-suited
March to muffled drums
Silent seconds, stop
A pause in the danse macabre
Then as you were, resume
Whatever comes to hand
Grenade or rifle, bomb or sword
Or failing all, bare fists
Bear arms
Prepare to lose your limbs your eyes
Your life
Dulce et decorum est
The bloody awful lie
Pro patria, appallingly
To die

12th November 2010, The Drive, Brighton

A metaphor to pack a punch

A metaphor to pack a punch

'Twas Lear the king
And not his wiser fool
Who truly showed no wit no skill
At reading people
Discernment, good from ill
The daughters with names like diseases
Favoured, whilst the meek and the mild
Youngest child
Not wishing to self-promote
Not able to fawn or to dote
Cordelia, he cast into darkness
Till too late and dead, the dread
Never never never, lost forever
Not possible to be more wrong
Judgement call and choice
Too gentle, soft her voice
But still his words- self-pitying
Too late his error seen
The hopeless dad, out of touch
Giving too little, demanding too much -
Still his words ring true
And resonate, four centuries late
The gasp the wince the worse than any pain
It's plain, ever will remain
How sharper than a serpent's tooth
It is
To have a thankless child
The bard as ever timeless, wise
To push and pull, fierce/ pierce
Of anguished family ties
A metaphor to pack a punch
Glove to solar plexus
Well said, hammer hit
Fit, nail's head

8th November 2010, The Drive, Brighton