Said as simply as any words
Means so much that is unheard
Tells a story in one line
The nature of which is undefined.

Hidden meanings, secrets kept
Hopes and dreams around you slept
Youngest daughter plan your day
So that love is here to stay.

Meet each Sunday in a special way
Be not lonely in anyway
Fill the time with gentle hours
Your value is in your power.


Love Mum **

In a garden that edged the farm
With cast iron railings as a fence
And windy plants that claimed the bars
Stood a little girl.

Dark her hair and dark her eyes
Against a short and checkered dress
There she was with a birthday cake
On a table on the ground.

Bigger than she herself
This cake two tiers high
Decorated in scalloped lace and yellow
Piped flowers.

Pretty little daughter of mine
Though only two
You smiled away with gladness
And I, so loved you .


Love Mummy x

Meeting off the road where grass doth grow
Not far from the number ten bus stop
We together unsure of what
So I stretched out on this bench
The night was dark and wetly damp
You in your new boy clothes
Handsome but already chose
I didn't want to marry you
Or even spend much time
Just for half an hour or so
Sweep you with my arms
And so we tip-toed round the hour
Stroking things we should not
Until the street lights began to fade
Then, separately, we left that spot
Goodbye was not necessary
We never came again
Knowing this was not
Lovers' knot
But just experimenting.


Love Mary

Let me take you from your bed
Kiss you gently on the head
Heap you to my willing breast
Fold you in loves tenderness
Though the night may still be dark
The house is cold with no fire
I never minded feeding you
Being woken all night through
In my nightgown I stood by
Watched the clock move the hour
Longed to have us skin to skin
Your baby hair and dribbly chin.


Love Mummy **

On the longest road was our home
At the top where the road flops
Bending slightly to the east
From pebbledash to brick clad
This bend left our sight undone
Could not see when Mum did come
Round the corner in her coat
Carrying all the food she'd bought
Gentle corner I loved your curve
Gave us time to put away
Prepare ourselves for all to come
Especially the comfort of our Mum.

Love Mary **

Dry and dusty the old man lay
Had not moved a vessel for many a day
Slept below the moonlight stars
Thought of his weath and fading power
Drifting, drifting the old man saw
Far beyond the cliffs and golden shore
Had crossed the marker made for man
Slowly he felt the dying man's hand
Deeper, deeper into silent sleep
The water green, the water deep
And then from the ocean he heard a call
A voice rang out from distant shores
There in his softly swaying boat
Was lifted, feet first, by a riddled rope
Laid in comfort in a cabin bed
Fed and watered, bandaged head
Nearer and nearer the headland crept
Restored this dry and dusty vet
To this world again and whole .
Grateful he was this poor old soul.


Love Mary **

There is always a place and a time
To get back to
If only one could!
Where events, altered
One could have survived;
Chance conversations,
A casually read book,
Movements of oceans,
Chips in ones head,
A desire to be kissed,
A contemporary remake,
Lead to a disaster
At a later date.

Caught by one's Achille's heel
In a thicket full of trees
Climbing on a swan's back
In the middle of a breeze
Standing forever in that
Potential spot
Left open for a second
A dreadful plot.

Casting a fishing net into a pool
Searching for items thrown away
Too soon.
And I wonder if a bird's song
In a nearby tree
Could have brought me
Freedom and let me be.

Love Mary **

Where the birds never sing
You come across secrets
That you've never seen
And this is what I say
And doubt not my words
But finding you all
Brought joy into this world
You come from every race
And touch every space
Have wisdom in your bones
So I am never alone
Sometimes in the city.

Love Mary **

Without tenderness the world dies
For it is the only emotion
That prevents evil
It is the most powerful
Incorporating compassion
But not intellectually based
Coming from a deep sense
Of the fragility of things.
Unfortunately it may be selective
In fact usually is
And as such weakened
By virtues of taste.


Love Mary ***

The impossibility of doing or saying
Anything.


Love Mary **

It started out with innocence
At the hour of ones birth
And nurtured, by parental love,
It is gently dispersed.
Until words cannot be used
Or deeds given out
Without the magnitude
Of history laden down
With a curse.
So now I cannot speak or move
For fear of being misconstrued
Of standing on another's toes
Honesty and truth twisted
As a *****
Right and wrong swap places
At every interface
For mankind named these things
Only for itself and this sacred race.
So wretched soul that I am
A voice lost in smoke
Watching as others
Puff cigarette ash
In what, once was a face.

Love Mary **

Evelyn floated in today wearing her yellow frock,
She looked like a daffodil being blonde on top,
Could not wait to see her toys the ones she left
behind,
Stones and shells and pretty gems small hands
Did find.
Played as perfectly as any child, her imagination
Flowed,
Put the little people in a boat and sent them
Off to row,
Rabbit jumped in, too, to join the happy throng,
Thank you sweet Evelyn for your merry song.


Love Grandma ***

When you break
Save me the pieces.


Love Mary **

In the bottom of the wardrobe
A pair of white patent shoes
With a gold buckle, glued,
You loved my shoes
Wedding shoes
In the bottom of a wardrobe
Made for two.

Our wedding day guest room
Small and neat
An almost empty wardrobe for
People to rent,
Ours was filled with one hanging shirt
A wedding day suit
And a plastic belt.

We slept in a bed
Which smelt of sea air
At breakfast we sat near
A gun man's chair
Eating fried eggs and soaky bread,
Then off to the beach
Streets ahead.


Getting sunburnt
All over our backs
Time to make, homeward tracks,
Out of the wardrobe came my shoes
Still as shiny, almost brand new
Put them on with a clackerty clack
Held you hand all the way back.

To Roger love Mary xxc

At certain moments
All that you are stops,
Like the falling of plates
Crashing onto alabaster
A tingling, biting into walls
One is pricked, ****** sore.
Unable to find bearable bearings
In the harvest of despair.
It takes a very long stretch to
Get together a pair of shoes
And walk that first mile.
How many times does a person endure
Before becoming a chip of china,
So sharp it would ****.
For most the brain rearranges and
The pilot reignites
But sometimes , just occasionally,
One dies.

Love Mary ***

As her feet left the ground
She found the tree
So positioned that its asymmetrical
Form filled out all her yearnings
For perfection.
Above, as she climbed, casting
A little shadow on the grass below
She thought how much beauty
Had been made by just this one thing
All on its own with only the sun and rain
And changing seasons for company.
It was her tree, it had found her
Lying, in her pram
Its leaves giving protection
To her heart, their movement
Taking away all fear.
Since that time she had returned
And thought of the wonder of
This tree, standing alone,
As she did now on the edge
Of wisdom.


Love Mary ***

In the middle of nowhere Evelyn thought,
Starting somewhere where time had stopped
And yet still it did not end like the Zoo train
With its certain length and specific destinations;
She clambered over memories, digging deep
Then it came that feeling where joy inhabited
And a warmth glowed up to join together
The parts that she had missed and not known;
The chair had been vacant, but for a few toys,
Scatterings of pleasures taken when not vacant,
She loved this turning over of her small hands,
It had been grandma's chair bequeathed to
A little girl loved so much the wind ached
And the clouds sobbed at their separation.
But the chair with its shifting images
Was where love resided, safely,
And Evelyn found what she needed
Cherishing that which remained.


Love Mary x

Then she realised, as we all do,
That to be free she had to give it up
Give away the beauty that clung to her
The perfumed roses filled with bees
From the splashing pools of water lilies
And move to somewhere more hidden
Where what mattered was not life itself
But giving it away
Slowly and gently
Letting the seabirds
Carry her clothes far out
Over the gold
Where all that playing had gone on
And shells gathered
Open oneself and throw
These shingled things to the sky
And not worry anymore
Just let it go.


Love Mary **

In the quiet of the evening she plays to him
As the light slips into mellowness
Creating that peace before dark
He loves to listen as she rocks him
Wraping him in the beauty of her world.

Her fingers take up this time of day
Filling the room with lost emotions
Embracing, as she does, his tempo
This union of friendship which is theirs
Held together by bars of notes in a room.


Love Mary ***

Light falls softly its mellow tints
Caressing all that is touched
A girl in traditional Dutch dress
Holds back her tears ,and,
Placing finger tips
On the keys she begins to play
A quiet melody.

We cannot see her sadness
For it is hidden by position
So she cries in silence
To the mirror above
The rectangle of answers
And to her left a young man
Watches, without a word to offer.

Love Mary x

You play so lightly pretty maid
If I touch you, what would you say
So near, I hear a heart beat
Feel your breathing on my face.

And the sunlight caresses your sleeve
At this beauty I barely breathe
My fingers creep towards yours
And you ignore me and do play.

I can feel you lift those fingers
Oh so slowly on the keys
And I want you there to need me
But you stare straight in front.

Now I am earnest in this warm light
And your black pinafore falls as a dove
Oh so soft is the velvet covering
Curled around you gentle love.


Yet do you not hear me in this stillness
Where the words go unsaid
Is the music your only love dear?
For my passion is outsaid.

On the blue chair I will sit you
Press open your knees
Find my fingers in your underskirts
Rub you tenderly with my sheath.

Yet you keep playing in the sunlight
While I hold deep my breath
And my panting is becoming audible
As I look at your *******.

Yet I fear this is useless as my ardour is strong
But for you pretty lady my love appears wrong.



Love Maryxx

Have we always been of a hostile kind
With battlefield egos too enormous
For sorry
And the soiled linen of deceit lies in black bags
Festering
And the good huddle in corners
Trying and trying
To find the beginning
Saddened I am at this now world
But perhaps it was an illusion
Selfishness lines our hearts
Not fur
And steel
Crushes our souls.


Love Mary ***

There in a garden with flower beds
Laid out with a patch of green between
And old pink roses smelling of cold cream
Spread out in an oval ring
Asparagus fern blows in the wind
Sending its red seeds into the lawn
The birds sing in a damson tree
And I sit upon a rubber tyre swing.

So I recall those warmest days
When there was nothing but play
And the quietness of those times
When my mind was mine
Never went away.

Dear little girl in your simple dress
Lying with the sun
Watching the shadows move about
Their shapes cast on the ground.
Finding only what was good
Under the prickly gooseberry bush
And ants and snails to watch all day
With fondness and respect.

But time and peace end in ways
None of us expect
But the Beauty of those years
None of us regret.


Love Mary ***

To those who lied to me, continually, and to save face
I do not give them forgiveness handed out on a plate
May they in times of trouble
Remember how they called
And bleed their hearts out slowly
And be sorry for their score.

I cannot change the powerful
Those who hold the cards
I am only weak and vulnerable
No longer have my hour
So after all the struggle
It was all a waste of time
No one ever surrendered
Not an inch of their
Grisly barb.

Love Mary ***

I want to tell you about our cat
He was big and fluffy, like a furry floor mat
Moved from a house a few yards away
Adopted us and came to stay
Our big, fluffy, tabby cat.


Use to sit on my mother's knee
Kept her warm as warm could be
He had big paws just like a lion
Could give you a scratch if got alarmed
Our big, fluffy, tabby cat.


And though we all loved him
His temperament was fierce
Kept those paws ready to pounce
Snarled and hissed given a chance
Careful we were of that cat.

One day we noticed Fluff could not see
Kept banging his head on the garden tree
No longer could find his dinner plate
Now we knew it was getting late
For our big, fluffy, tabby cat.


For days and days we all did cry
No warm patch where Fluffy resides
In the garden under some flowers
Where the Spring bulbs grew scented hours  
Lies our very dear, Fluffy cat.



Love Grandma Mary **
For all my grandchildren

Sitting by the window watching the falling snow
Landing on your dustbin and the ground below.
Footsteps up the path look like a wiggly snake
Big ones and small ones and those ***** cats make.


Love Mary ***

When I look at a painting
A woman I see
Reflected in the glass
Standing behind me.

Little Dutch girl
So plainly dressed
In white frock and apron
And cotton cloth cap.

Feet made for walking
The hard cobble streets
Hands that will carry
Provisions bought.

A life of simplicity
Quietly led
With homemade toys
A wooden  dolly's bed.

You hear stories from
Maids in the house
Kitchen mischief
And musical mice.

When you're a woman
What will you choose
A life of domesticity
Or another route.

Love Mary ***

Separated from the outside,
The world of masculinity
And paid labour
The mother and child
Seemingly secure.
Only the sky, glimpsed between
Overhanging branches, lights
This secluded kitchen plot
Where vegetables are washed
And the broom sweeps clean
The tiled yard.
The space between diagonals
Creates triangles of intimacy
Here the little Dutch girl
Looks tenderly upwards
At the female figure
In white apron and cap.
The foreground is reversed
For this activity is a hidden
Place
Where the warmth of yellow
Echoes the harmony
Of a domestic idyll.


Love Mary ***

Dotty was a beautifully coloured dragonfly with four wings
And a  long slender body,
She was made by Evelyn on the coldest day of the year
When the ground lay under two inches of snow
And a southerly wind blew flurry flakes of whiteness
Into faces and down fronts of coats.

All the way home Evelyn held on to Dotty
Protecting her from the bad weather,
Until she was safely on the kitchen table.
When you make things your heart wants
To share so Evelyn thought of her Grandma
Who she knew would just love to see Dotty.

Now in 2018 there is FaceTime a magical device
Allowing one to speak and see pictures of
One's family and friends,
So Evelyn asked her daddy if she could
Show Dotty to Grandma.


Grandma heard this ringing in her room
Coming from her iPad.
Who can that be she thought and went to see?
And there was Evelyn with Dotty
" I wanted to show you my dragonfly
That I made at playgroup this morning".

Well Dotty was beautiful with her painted wings
And Evelyn flew her round the room for
Grandma to see.
This made Grandma so happy and they both laughed
And talked and then Evelyn showed her Bagpus on her
Own iPad and Grandma and Evelyn both sang
The mice song.

It was only a short call and soon time to say goodbye
Evelyn said "you have made me very happy "
And Grandma smiled in her heart all day.

Love Mary ***

I have to be brave enough
Not to mind being forgotten
For most days.
To no longer be a card on a shelf
Or a phone call away
Letting others' days
Be their own
Unhindered by sorrows
Or sad memories
Or burdened by my wanting
To be carried around
Like a honoured trophy.
This has to be my last gift
A real gift of love
Which says be free
Of me and all that I was
Because your days
Are another time
And have their splendour.
Goodnight my dearest
Children, goodnight.


Love Mum, Mary

A little girl sang to me today
Sweetly and with care
She knows everything
About kindness
For that she has been shown.
That love nourishes the world
And is an armour against evil
Dear child stay bright
Displaying a gladness
And truth for ever
Love you Evelyn.

Grandma Mary ***

Harriet and Hastings and two red robins
Arrived  one morning, unexpectedly,
In an Amazon cardboard box;
Tapping and pecking and scratching
They got out from all that cardboard
With a hop, skip and a jump.

It had been decided, by others, that
Their home would be near a lovely
Old Flowing Plum tree
Nestled between pink Cranesbill
And a variegated **** with mauve,
Candle flowers, in Summer.

Now in this garden lots of other folks
Lived sharing a small plot of land
Filled with shrubs and evergreens
Which included two Camellias, one red,
And one white, a climbing clematis,
******* with string, and Winter aconites.

Hustling for their patch was Danny duckling,
Samantha snail, Flippity frog, Tweeny owls,
Penelope pigeon, Woolly sheep and a few others
Often hibernating, sporadically, or out for the day.
So the new comers slowly got to know all
The inhabitants of 16 The Gardens, Watford.


Love Mary xxxxx

Maybe in the fields where the mice run free
And the flower stems reach two feet high
Where the air circulates in the sky
And the soil is devoid of pollution
Only here is there a chance
Of  miracles.


Love Mary **

If I ever stood at the bottom
I got no answers
If I went to the highest
I got no answers
I met  with cruelty,
Indifference,
The dregs of human reasoning
Spread out on a conference table
To be dissected,
So the verdict
Went to the powerful
And the frail
Dropped in a ditch
To be washed by ***** rain.

Love Mary x

Your heart is as soft as a bird's feather, downy
From birth
As gentle as the passing of a skirt
As it moves against skin
As kind as the wisest of people
When their heart is risen
Above all things
Son you are all these things
And I love you .

Mum xxxx

Let's write a story
Where shall we start
Who will be the characters
What will be their parts?
I like fairies, you like cars
Dragons are plentiful
In these parts.
Get me Galadriel
The beautiful queen
And Aragon so handsome
Maidens just swoon
A couple of hobbits
To sing a merry song
And we'll find an adventure
To go travelling on.

Love Mary ***

I recall a day in Summer
Many years ago
When my life was about handstands
Done in a row
Fingers stretched out
Pressing the ground
My legs went upwards
Splaying about
Dresses floating
Catching the wind
Pigtails all dangling
Needles and pins
Staying steady
Was hard to begin
But eventually mastered
The handstand thing.


Love Mary ***

Please forgive me for leaving
It was not meant to be
I really did not want to
Had so much more to do
All the people I learnt from
Those that I loved
I'm sorry I had no choice.

Love Mary ***

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

Lady you stand at the end
Where entrance meets daylight
Under the red brick archway
Between the buildings,
A white cap hides your hair
And the Dutch costume
Is of yesterday.
Silhouetted in geometry
Your profile senses thought
Far out in the distance
Where hopes and dreams reside.
You are as ancient as humanity
Womenkind contemplating
Their singularity,
Waiting for time
To eclipse this solitude.

Love Mary

From Pieter De ***** The Courtyard Painting
National Gallery London.

I will follow you
Down the alleyways of your mind
Lying under your sun
Meling into dreams
Left behind by a shadow
We are loves words
Floating in time
The adventurers of space
Touches emblems, enshrined
Never let it be said
We didn't care
For every fraction of day
Held together
This man and this woman
Looped by a golden bow.

Love Mary

For her Roger ***

We define people by their shape,
How they sit upon a chair
Twist as they turn to go
Open a door
Place one foot before the other
Cross over legs
Slouch or sleep.
These idiosyncratic behaviours
Are the way we fall in love
Remembering an ear or nape of neck.
My mother was a number eight
Softly outlined with loose curls
And a retrousse' nose.
Shape is how I came to Art
Moved by a silhouette
Roundness of heads
The downturned oval
Elongated by position.
Art is shape in love.

Love Mary ***

Goodness is given in many ways
It could be a bunch of flowers
Or a telephone call.
Sometimes a text,
A trip down the shops
Remembering to remember
Something you once forgot.

For my daughter ,Elizabeth
It is a photo everyday
Of Bluebell her baby
In pretty display
She knows I love babies
Have since a child
This is her love
Given with a smile

Katie makes me dinner
Of rice and veg
Cooked on a Friday
In a big stainless dish
I keep it in the fridge
To eat day by day
Lovely daughter
Bless you always.

Alex and Victoria
Both have their plans
To get me Spring bulbs
And little animals grand
To decorate a garden
Designed by their mum
As for Rog a card will do
And the fact that he is here
Loving me still.


Love Mary
27/02/2018

Looking down into silence
Where there is no return
Remembering sensations
loved and affirmed
The hundreds of hours
I stayed by you side
Resting my head
Where you abide.

Take me with breaking day
In a casket of green
A single pink spray
With leaves to be seen
Choose early Spring bulbs
And your checked shirt
Then whistle a tune
Try not to be hurt.


To Roger love Mary
Sorry I had to go .***

If I could leave behind Beauty
In whatever form that may be
The fall of light across a curtain
An apple on a pear tree
Putting together
Moments  of minute grace
Privileges unspoken
Things that only I can grasp
Then to this world I was not useless
But like a fallen Autumn leaf
Beauty in its structure
Though its life maybe but brief.

Love Mary ***







Love Mary

White shoes in bottom of wardrobe - wedding Roger remembered
The bridesmaid at 14
Elephant and Castle
Stretched out chewing gum
Top diving board
Lamppost
Arthur
The green badgie
Transparent
Answer to John
Sitting in the car next to you

Aunty you were like poetry
Missing out the boring bits
Brimming over with flowers
Telling stories of distant hours
Your hands varnished in cerise
Up close, like wisteria, hung
The softest of black curls.

You made the simple day
Unbelievably lovely
Crystal earrings caught in the light
Cake eaten with a silver teaspoon
The world was magically composed
From your colourful robes
And I would sit at your feet.


Love Mary x for her Aunty Elizabeth

On the platform as the sun rises
Bald heads crowd into carriages
Girls with glasses and painted lids
Hold onto iPads and ear phone hoods
A half awake baby feeds at the breast
Of a working mother hurriedly dressed
And scratch chews biscuits on the floor.
Meanwhile in the corridor of time
Millie lifts up her jumper
To show Tim her chickenspot spots
Now crusted over with calamine
No longer contagious.
Before entering Euston
The train waits ten minutes
At a red light.
And for the rest of the day
Nothing goes right.

Love Mary x

It grew out of me like a sharp thorn
Put railings around my door
Allowed me to get into cars
Not stopping for me,
Set fire to a patch of green,
Throw books from open windows
And never consider, that
Inside
A poet resides
Where rules have
To be
Smashed to escape.

Love Mary x