No trouble with you

No trouble with you

Write me a funny one you say

Something light-hearted with a smile

Some humorous words to lift the day

My mood's been low this little while

No mention then my dearest friend

Of gratitude for all you do

The emailed messages you send

The only one to bother, you

For writing thus might make you cry

My poems touch you, that I know

But if they're sad you wonder why

Detecting sorrow's undertow

Instead I'll dwell on foolish hens

With you upon the fence in hat

Fragmented dosi, made for friends

And husband's 'Your bum's big in that!'

He's only telling like it is

Plus other faults, he knows them all

The trouble with you dear is this

You really don't know how to fall

In truth that's just not what I see

More for me the helpless laughter

Both of us bedecked in saris

Or teachers behaving dafter

For me there is no trouble with you

Just things to love and make me smile

I'm proud that we're alike, we two

My special friend across the miles

Brighton June 30th 2009, for Pam of course

Before the Weetabix

Before the Weetabix

Side by side on Brighton sofa

We're sitting with pencils poised

We talk of themes and opening lines

Of some that gush and some that don't

When plumber's needed to unblock

When words don't flow just drip and spurt

Then suddenly you're on a roll

Dashing it down, your latest work

Whilst mini-poet in the room

Makes spider marks across my page

And talks to seagulls and machines

So love's declared and sorry's said

In poetry and soggy kiss

In anguished cry to thoughtless dad

And all before the day's begun

With cup of tea and Weetabix

June 28th 2008 Brighton for my fellow poet Lily

The Prattle Ceaseless

The Prattle Ceaseless

Great! I thought alone on a train
Just time to set a poem down
But reckoned without the prattle
Ceaseless, Brighton to London town
Michael Jackson's dead- What a shock!
Fragments: appalling Ryan Air
Americans you talk and talk
That's Monty Python to be fair
But god, the funny men spoke truth
Just love your English this and that
Bombay daughter loud on India
So on and on the fractured chat

Wordsworth's tranquility? No way
Tower of Babel in carriage eight
Give up the fight, snap shut my book
The words will come, sooner or late
When lo! Upon my inner thigh
I sense a warmth is spreading out
Starbuck's cup quite overflowing
Culprit neighbour emits loud shout
Dabbing in panic, sorry so
Sorry. I stare at darkening stain
Slice of life played out this Friday
Moving stuff on Railtrack highway
Crowded Brighton to London train

Brighton 26th June 2009

The Scent of Afterwards

The Scent of Afterwards

Sudden out of nowhere
The shocking news arrives

Time's stricken rope is severed here
Snapped threads will never meet again
The clock will not run backwards
Though begging would have it so
Anguish's scorching arrow
Just zinged right through the air
And scored a loud bullseye
Twanging Never never never
Like mad lamenting Lear

Now ever all the livelong days
Will wear the scent of afterwards
Dreadfully and always
Quite other than before


Brighton June 25th 2009

Dear Ghost

Dear Ghost

Lucy
My grandmother
Unspoken childhood's grief
The void she left in legacy
Too soon

Her laugh
Echoing still
My only memory
A lovely life not shared with me
My loss

Dear ghost
In stories told
By those who loved her so
Beside me as I strive to be
Granny

Middle of the night, 24th June 2009, Brighton, for us her six- now only five- grandchildren

Brighton Cinquains

Brighton Cinquains

Blue skies
Brighton, Bondi
All the same, I'm not home
Enmeshed in others' tangled lives
Lonely

Smiling
Your nose crinkles
No more kisses granny
You say, sun dancing in your eyes
Love you

Daytime
Fairy stories
Television programmes
Serving up salvation with tears
And smiles

June 23rd 2009 Brighton

Earthworks

Earthworks

Sculpture
Serpent in coils
Morphing under moonlight
To palest crescents stacking on
Red clay

Moon sets
Leaving star show
Nocturnal brilliance
Of stellar meadow all above
I gaze

Landscape
Goldsworthy's art
Ephemeral often
Sentinels growing organic
Timeless

June 22nd, after reading Saturday Travel Guardian article on Goldsworthy's Provencal project

First attempts at Cinquain form after correspondence with Chris Stones