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

Hidden Dragons

Hidden Dragons

Five minutes in the park
Maximum, for her to make a friend
Boy, girl, age no barrier
Chasing, spinning, swinging Pied Piper
She leads they follow her
Real talent for friendship evident
Easy child equable
Natural mediator, she plays
More childlike than her years
More diplomatic than her peers

From her birth delighting
With the simple brightness of her ways
But trouble now beginning
Sudden sadness, puzzled she confides
Childhood glow now fading
Darker moments surely lie in wait
May she keep her own light
Burnished, in her daily dragon fights
As letting go we prove
Our love, and strong in truth she grows

The Levels Park, Brighton, June 22nd 2009, for Lily

Love in the letting go

Love in the Letting Go

The cord is cut at hour of birth
Mother and child now two
And yet I know, how could I not?
That though the child’s set free
His selfhood now allowed to grow
Unfettered, watched with love
Still all her days, till dying breath
She’ll feel connection’s tug

So prove your love by letting go
Encourage him to walk
But though he cross the world entire
And take beloved wife
Become a father, give his heart
Watch his own son in awe
Still all your days, till dying breath
You’ll feel connection’s tug

June 16th, 2009, Hounoux, for Hayley, bravely letting go...

Betty's Song

Betty’s Song

Not for you the poet’s angry raging
Though many now departed, homeward bound
Empty chairs resounding left to toll
In sad reversal of childhood’s glad game
And where six friends together, laughing, sat
Just two of you, quietly, now remain
You, boss of the world, dear matriarch still

Choose life it seems your daily intention
No time to lose complaining of neglect
You make the calls ,bid lonely souls to dine
And grateful family, friends so gladly come
Whilst each morning, evening, afternoon
Advice and listening eagerly is sought
By children keen to keep you in their loop

Loving and giving the length of your days
A Friday’s child perhaps, woman of strength
No lavender lady sweetly silent,
Formidable monarch, reigning benign
Ayatollah another wryly smiles
Still welcoming the light, each day dawning
Now cataract cured, your crossword awaits

Born too soon for female liberation
Choices for women then all depending
Upon a father’s, husband’s, brother’s whim
So grammar school place was carelessly denied
And not for you career nor mark to make
Endless juggling, grim fight to have it all
Yet small life, local life, honestly spent

When young I fear this model I disdained
But older now such certainty is fled
What is it gives a life some added worth?
How spend the dash dividing birth from death?
I salute you still reaching out to others
Careless of self, extending friendship’s hand
Outward looking, living right to the end

En route to Brive la Gaillarde, June 15th 2009, for Betty Ballard

The Straw Men

The Straw Men

Somewhat eccentrically attired
The old guys slouch in midday sun
Dress casual you must have said
And be prepared to work outdoors
In every weather, summer long
But peace and quiet guaranteed
And oh! the breathless view!

Epouvantails they call you here
But you don’t look local to me
No Gallic shrug nor Gaulloise butts
Though where you stand the garlic grows
And mange-tout and haricot vert
A potager without a doubt
And oh! the breathless view!

At night, I wonder, do you creep
Off duty now, down to the lake
Where botoxed carp all lippy swim
And watch the ripples widening
By orange light of floating moon
And oh! the breathless view!

12th June Bordebasse, Aude, for Gill, artist and creator of the Straw Men

Second Childhood

Second Childhood

Once digging to Australia
Seemed well within my grasp
And squeezing scent from roses
An easy trick to work
I dreamed of tree-top living
A bed beneath the stars
And sprouting wings and flying
Was what I most desired

For life at three-foot level
Quite changed my point of view
Caterpillars, daisy chains
Fat worms and acorn cups
The quest for four-leafed clover
Fuchsias in fairy dance
How many spots on a ladybird?
The stuff of childhood days

And now at last, a granny
Again I sit and watch
Small butterfly fanatic
Chasing between the peas
And I consider questions
How best to house a snail?
And creep into the fig tree
To share a cup of tea

11th June Hounoux, for Lily and Luca and Zach

Held Fast by Roses

Held Fast by Roses

Held fast by roses tangled, run amok
I think of Dad’s more military show
And me in yellow frock, hand-smocked by mum
Saddened by mush, where rosy scent should be

So, picking raspberries just before tea
I see her, younger still, that fifties girl
Cramming the lovely fruit, and pea rows too
Eye-height, just tall enough to lose her in

The guileless child lives in the hour, filling
Sweet memory’s store, potato treasure-trove
Unearthing. Digger, discoverer
Eating the peach to the rough-ribbed stone

10th June 2009, Hounoux, for Jude who cherishes childhood

Weeding for Mr Wordsworth

My bet is Wordworth never had to choose
Between The Prelude, polishing a verse
And ditto with the silverware
For Dorothy was ever there
And Mrs W did the chores
And kept away the tiresome bores
And Eliot though he measured spoons
Evenings, mornings, afternoons
Still when he heard the sweet lines forming
Despite mad Vivian's rage and storming
Put down the love song set to shock
With tea and toast, J A Prufrock

In my head the poems come and go
Echoes of Hopkins, T S and Co

No Porlock stranger snaps my thread
Just thoughts of weeds in strawberry bed
For though the garden lovesome grows
How soon the careful measured rows
Of bean and pea and such delights
Have lost the battle and the light
Whilst I, unminding, grope for rhyme
Careless of world enough and time

In my head the poems come and go
Echoes of Hopkins, T S and Co

And so it is for artist who
Loses herself as artists do
In oil on canvas, gone for days
Down the labyrinthine ways
Striving for colour, tone and line
Whilst others talk and sleep and dine

So yes I'll choose creation's birth
Echo of heaven heard on earth
Sweet wonder that keeps the stars apart
Dancing with angels, the poet's art

June 8th 2009 Hounoux, for Gill and for Susan

Gardeners' World

Gardeners’ World

Chocolate Cosmos, Moroccan Broom
Eleagnus, clove-scented Pinks
Honeysuckle and sweet Rocket
Fragrant catalogue thrown open
A perfume feast before our eyes
Drugging our senses on a Friday night

Then Islington Eden, sudden
Bursts upon the screen, such excess
Making us laugh out loud and cheer
The lovely gardener, smile so wide
Contagious, a technicolour
Poem, magical on a Friday night

5th June 2009, Hounoux

The Tortoise, the Snail and Me

The Tortoise the Snail and Me

The vigorous trio smartly
Step it out, briskly through the fields
With Santiago shell to follow
And me, as foreseen, bringing up the rear

Wild orchids, look! are scattered here
And every shade from blue to purple
Countless nameless wildflowers bloom
Come on, I’ll help you, lagging in the rear

The sound of bells is coming near
Ha! here they are, the bleating flock
Stemming our onward march, we’re caught
In their tide, and no-one’s in the rear

This truly is the last ascent
You say, repeatedly, and laugh
See, Mirepoix is up ahead
And ever thus from childhood, in the rear

June 6th 2009,Hounoux, for Pam, who walks with me

Starbucks Poem

Starbucks poem

Darting into Primark
Picking through the rails
Half a thought for bargains
Half for rich world greed

Here’s a cheery chugger
Care to save a life?
Quickly sign this paper
Gotta rush to Mac

Learn of make-up mystery
Concealed those aged cracks
Costs to save a face but
Difference made today?

Starbucks Brighton, February 25th 2009

Sugar Granny

Sugar Granny

Standing in the fudge shop
Warm and sweet
Back to childhood smell and taste
Mum at the stove stirring
Experimental balls dropped in water
Exact moment for beating, as
Crystals form and fudge crumbles

All my life at special times
Mum melted boiled and beat
Poured in a tray, set it to cool
Then marked the caramel squares
To pack in a tin, these for me
For sister, niece, for son, tokens of love

Standing in the fudge shop
In from the cold with Luca
I tell the Fudge man mum’s story
And hear the tears beneath my voice
I could never learn the trick I say
We let mum’s gift die with her

In the heady butter sweetness
Luca is asleep at last
My granny gift is peace for his mum
It’s only love and sugar
In whatever form it comes, so
Mix it pour it, share it, pass it on

February 2009, Brighton Wai kiki moo cow cafe. For my daughter Rosie

The Wild lies waiting

The Wild lies waiting

Along the jagged margins of our land
The Wild lies waiting, giant thistles
In the van, advancing over the hill
Silent on grandmother’s footsteps it creeps
Making a mock of all your toil

You turned your back whilst Spring rains fell and fell
No gardener there to tend the careful plot
And savage weeds will always win the fight
No contest where the tender seedlings grow
Though glorious poppies make us smile

A meadow’s high where orchard lawn was planned
On wildflower bank coarse grasses careless blow
Heedless of measured rows and grand design
How soon your work is overthrown, wilderness
Moving back in to claim her own

3rd June 2009, Hounoux, for Andy, the conscientious gardener.

>
A poem Before Breakfast

Early morning call, palest dawn creeping
Another grandson, arms held high for freedom
Time to start the latest day
To share the wonder, new eyes
Bright with promise of delight

And all day long he’s running back and forth
Between his loved ones and the world beyond
Lost in his moment, ardent
Explorer, poet, comic
Lovely boy, we watch in awe

21st May 2009, Hounoux, for Luca

Just Two More Sleeps

Just Two more Sleeps

Just two more sleeps before we go
Two more raisin toasts in the sun
In the morning whilst Zach staggers
Or giggles, shouting at Grandy
Their own language of fun and love.
All things must end, separation
Looms and casts its shadow backwards
On us all, tingeing final days
Hours, moments pouring out of hand.

Shark nets at Neilson Park, walking
To Tamarama, Wayamba
Weekend, goanna in the gums
Shutter clicked and saved, remembered
Pictures and feelings intertwined
Joy of the family gathered
In Adelaide, Yackandandah
Friends, Melbourne and Armidale too
Flat whites, gelati, Igloo Zoo
Masterchef dishes cooked with love
Together laughing and baking
Past midnight, for our special boy
Starfish Penny at Chowder Bay

Magical summer shared with you
Preserved in poems, photographs
Drawings, in the eye of my mind,
Will warm my heart, in winter’s cold.

Sunday 26th April 2009, for Dan and Hayley

Life in the Present Tense

Life in the present tense

Decaf skinny flat-white
Twice, in the noise and chat
Of families, friends met
In the Sunday café
Speedo’s, North Bondi Beach
And me, thinking, alone

Of 'Time to say Goodbye’
Sue, gone too soon before
The wonder of Freddie,
And others, now leaving
Fate having chosen them
At random, I suppose

As flies to wanton boys
All lottery and chance
Or god playing dice, eyes
Blindfold? Choose for yourself
Philosophy of Death
Life in the present tense

No rewind button or
Fast forward, how it ends,
Here and now all we have
To light our way, living
To avoid if only
That saddest word- regret

May 3rd 2009 Speedo's Cafe, S Bondi

Lily's Song

Lily’s Song

I saw this morning, Morning Glory
Indigo splashing on Bondi wall
Memory’s eye clicked and locked it in
Saved with same, convolvulus climbing
Rampant over Keralan hillside
Blue as the picture book butterflies

Lone traveller, my poem drops on
Boarding pass, Quantas to Coff’s Harbour
Through ten shades of blue where ocean ends
And sky begins, remembering Pied
Beauty, Hopkins’ Glory Be To God
Astonishing quite my schoolgirl self

I think of Lily, beloved child
Each morning’s sun and evening star
Growing in beauty, her spirit free
In a French landscape, to soar and fly
Grounded in love, a fragile blossom
Still, tightly I hold her in my heart

April 19th 2009, on the morning flight from Sydney to Coff's Harbour

No Boxing Kangaroos

No Boxing Kangaroos

Labram’s hill, Yackandandah
Early morning sketching
No boxing kangaroos
But birds glorious in technicolour
Crimson rosella, lorikeets
Honeyeaters, nature’s gaudiest on show

End of summer autumn tints
And fearful drought’s dire signs
Tall trees felled, grass burnt brown
Victorian landscape in Indigo Shire
Our English friends at home here now
Welcoming us, visiting your new lives

Gold rush history, cottage
In the country township
Speak of settler hardship
Flat whites on The Bakery’s sunlit porch
A forest walk to Woolshed Falls
Then stunned by sunset over sacred rocks

How much you have gained, making
This move, from crowded streets
A world away, England
To blue skies land, with space for all to breathe
For boys to run and spirits grow
Freely, wild and lovely, Australia

For Mandy and John, April 2009

Dreams from my Father

Dreams from my Father


Lunging through grey waters to Kangaroo Island
Southern Ocean’s jewel, last stop Antarctica
I think of time and place and separation’s pull
And journeys made in tears and hope


My father an ambitious Scot set forth one day
With never a backward glance nor grief for family
Dreaming, I suppose, of making his life anew
But stopped abruptly, meeting love


Another now turned sixty settled long ago
To raise a family where eucalyptus reigns
Beneath the Southern Cross at night, his world upturned
But yearns for England’s soft rainfall


Tread softly now for baby Isaac sleeps and dreams
His doting parents present joy and future hope
From the Solomon Islands, England, Adelaide
Forbears travelling, meet in him


6th April 2009, Ferry to Kangaroo Island

Rain on a Tin Roof

Rain on a tin roof


Rain on a tin roof, Tintagel fifty seven
You said, in a drizzly roadside cafe
First stop after the Twelve Apostles
And I stepped in through memory’s window

Or a taste will do it, Proustian Madeleine
Like Heinz salad cream on Little Gem
I hear Arlott’s rounded Hampshire vowels
But you’d have the score and last man in

Pineapple mayweed, Stratford, my cousin Ann said
Smell- we sat among patches of this
In Primary playground, threading chains
And I remember too, shared sweetness

Some moments- Cuban missiles, terrified to school
My father’s news, Kennedy is dead,
Mandela walking free, Obama
In village India- will stick fast

But by the Southern Ocean, sketching Monkey puzzle tree
Strident local accents in the air
I wonder at memory’s lottery
Choosing what is lost, what will remain

March 23rd 2009, Bell’s beach, Great Ocean Rd.

Weekend at Wayamba

Weekend at Wayamba

On the lawn’s margins a blue wren
And his dowdy mate, farthing birds,
Patter and bob, cock heads and fly
Friday at four, we’re home to Wayamba

Angophora said Rosie, not gum
Stringy Bark Iron Bark Grey Gum
Peeling to glorious orange
Countless giants under deepest sky blue

A place of story book wonder
At the end of the trail, tin roof
Half hidden, verandah spread wide
For shelter and shade, for peace and retreat

You toil in your garden with love
For this land, teach me of wattle,
Eustraphus called wombat berry
Fruiting bright yellow like the robin’s breast

We walk and we talk, stopping here
To pull up fleabane, a war
Without end on the forest floor
As distantly the clever lyre bird calls

Mice in the cupboard, goanna
Lumbering by, Zach’s on the roam
So we’re all keeping watch, old friends
Together under Australian skies

See what you started, dear friends
Worlds away that April Sunday
Children and grandchildren, our lives
Together, we give you thanks and our love


For Rosie and Donald, 30th March 30, 2009

For Jodi

For Jodi


See you here now, twelve years on
In your stripey sun hat waving
With stroller and Daisy and Mae Rose
Smiling as you walk out of our past
Another country where you
A girl, I a working mum
Passing, as I left our school you came
But instant friends across age's divide


Traces of you left behind
Words in my notebook, photo smile
So both of us not quite forgotten
As babies were born and oceans were crossed
A magical moment in
Melbourne's blue skies city square
Touching our lives together again
Lost and found, my special Facebook friend

Melbourne 20th March 2009

Summer Hypnosis

Summer Hypnosis

A little boy stands outside the circle
Feeling the drone, two three, drone again
Of Breton pipes in summer heat
And mesmerized, he shifts and sways
Caught up in the rhythm of the dance

So now I, mother of the boy
Witness that same hypnotic charm
Pulsing through circling salsa drums
Calling to child of my child
Seducing sleep in Bondi sun

March 15th Bondi beach for my son Dan

Picturing India

Picturing India

First spread the canvas with cow dung
Wet, to shine
Now with chalk make a Rangoli border
Pattern echoing pattern in terracotta and white
Next hang garlands of jasmine and roses
Deep pinks, acid yellows that nimble fingers swiftly tied
Have jacaranda and bougainvillea spill exuberant
Oranges, shocking pinks, a million paper butterflies
Splash here a field of bright green paddy
Women in saris, bent gracefully at the waist, toiling
Before the sun grows hot.

Cast shadows from fanning branches
Under the elephant legs of coconut trees
Paint the crowded road, a slow cart lurching
The bullock pair with matching horns
Decorated for Cow Pongal
A hen fussing her tiny cream powder puffs
Scattered in the dust
While on a straw hill the flashy cock struts
Here’s a whole family on a bicycle, baby fat brown legs
Poking from mother’s sari, and a yellow auto putters by
Brave in the monstrous crush of motor lorry, bus and bike.

And now the village weekly market
Tomatoes onions brinjal plantain garlic
Spread in the fly-specked sunlight
Small round lemons and limes in heaps
Green bananas still clustered on the stem
Picture postcard shots amidst the squalor
Rubbish gathered and scattered, people and dogs scavenging a life
Crow upon crow upon crow lordly squawking
Winding through the scene, pencil in five strange figures on bicycles
In stately procession past fat gaudy Ganesh and his puja gifts
Add the flash of white-toothed smiles, hands raised in ‘Vanicum!’

Frame upon frame snapped and stored in the mind’s eye
Precious memories held in the heart
Until we come again.

K V Kuppam February 2009 For 5 on a bus pass in India

I will put in my box

The Magic Box

I will put in my box
Raghu grown-up and greeting Pam in English
Balaji taller, more gaunt, with a black beard
Suresh mature and full of wit and sparkle
I will put in my box
The tiny beautiful mother serving us a feast
Banana leaves, crossed legs on the floor
And their delight at my ‘kunjum Tamil’
I will put in my box
Swarms of small children ‘What is your name please?
Photo please, one more photo'
Garlands of acid yellow and purple flowers
The men showing off their speed weaving and India versus England cricket
I will put in my box
The beautiful girls who are the story behind the One Candle
The mother with new wet Mehndi hands
And her fat baby boy, woken to a sea of strange faces
I will put in my box
‘ Happy Pongal’, decorated cows, chickens riding on a motorbike
Rangoli colours and temple racket through the night
Balaji’s dead friend, his sadness and his quiet help with Brian’s bike

And the walls will be made of our attempts at each other’s language
With in each corner a candle of love across the cultures
And all of it wrapped in their gratitude for a chance at education
And our delight at the chance treasured and cherished


K V Kuppam 15th January 2009