I'VE SAID IT ALL

I think I've said it every way
Within the bounds of prosody.
I need no words for what I say.

You are my night, you are my day,
My orchestra, my melody.
I think I've said it every way.

You mould my life; I am your clay,
You bring to life the poet in me;
I need no words for what I say.

You built the world in which I play
And filled my tercet rhapsody;
I think I've said it every way.

My life reflects your sweet relet.
I'll sing my silent psalmody.
I need no words for what I say.

The sun, the stars could not portray
The dotted ‘I', the cruxiate ‘T'
I think I've said it every way.

I need no words for what I say.

From Stanza Chance by Bob Griffiths

WHISPERING

Whispers.

In the grass
Silent snakes
Rustles make

Fill the space
Emptiness.
Turning head
heart misled.

Whispers.
Breathing hard
Where to run
All alone

Shadows form,
Reaching,
Wispy fingers roam
chilling to the bone.

Whispering.
Body numb,
Breath in ear
A presence near.

Mind whirling
Sensing,
Blood flowing
Spirit knowing

Whispers.
Quiet night.
Moon beaming
Soul screaming

Nervous steps,
Break in run
Panic flight
closing sight

Whisper.
Whispers
Whispering

Frightened.
Alone.
A place unknown

Surrounding me.
Shapes.
All that I can take.

But
Whispers
Whispering

And I am here alone?

Whispers.

From The Hour Glass by Sarah Collett

Today I feel like starting a new track,
In the morning, I feel slower and can't stay back,
It seems an age since I felt like sleep,
The last time was when I earned my keep,
This hospital is my present blessing,
When it comes to the cure, there must be no messing,
On the ward round I will talk of weight,
And how I must fill out and satiate;
Maybe I should be content to knit.
When my war is finally won,
There's no shaky feeling when I walk or run,
I'll go and travel, maybe my story unravel
In the new book of prose which I now compose.

From Hope to Defeat by Rhona Johnston.

WHO CARES

Last night, I shampooed my hair
with boiled animal skin
and coloured my lips with whale fat
I perfumed my wrists
with the sex of civet cats
Shaved my legs in pig acid
and smeared my cheeks with lanolin

I went out to eat horse's hooves
and a leg of a lamb that screamed
for ten solid hours last week

This morning, I had a headache
so out came willow's bark
that causes birth deformities
in household pets
Had it been discovered today,
it wouldn't have made it to the shelf
But since it's been around for decades

Who cares?
From a Pillow Book by Dr. Yvonne Eve Walus


"To learn philosophy is my desire,
And medicine and mathematics too,
I'll study law, and aiming even higher
Theology will master through and through.
For pastime I'll have painting and the lute,
Fencing and dancing." So I talked away,
Imagining how I should taste such fruit
When quitting France in Italy to stay.
Fine talk and vain! I have, instead of pleasure
Endured much pain and trouble, and have thrown
Away my youth and health, becoming old.
So often does the sailor, seeking treasure,
Return with herrings but no bars of gold
From an unlucky voyage like my own.

By Joachim du Bellay, translated from the French by Lady Reine Errington

Marie, awake, get up, you lazy thing,

Listen, the lark is trilling high above,
The nightingale, can you not hear him sing
Upon the thorn his plaintive notes of love?
Once up, we'll walk upon the grass all wet
With dew, and see your lovely rose bush there,
All over buds, and we will not forget
The pinks that you have watered with such care.
Last night remember how you pledged your eyes
That in the morning you'd be first to rise;
But at the dawn I found you there reposed
In deepest sleep, your eyes still firmly closed.
So! So! I kiss them, and your nipples both,
And that will teach you, love, to keep your oath!

By Pierre Ronsard, translated from the French by Lady Reine Errington

THE CHOSEN ONE

Gwen sat at night
and dreamed
but not with idle hands

Eleven-plus at school
she passed the scholarship
but "Education is wasted
on a girl" her father said.

So - out to work at fourteen
giving up her pay
at each week's end.
And most nights, after dinner
she was allowed
to darn her brothers' socks.

From ‘Blinkers Off' by Jean Frances


YOU CAN BANK ON IT

PEOPLE ARE MY CURRENCY;
for balance, I stay in credit.
Periods of stringency I can weather
if assured of an emotional dividend.
With you, I had a steady standing order.
But now
the account has lost the attraction of high interest,
with the pressure of a run on demand.
That woman has bankrupted us.
I must seek a new investment
when a sound trust can be found.
I crave a merger
not a take over bid.

From ‘Catch Me if You Can' by Sue Fincham

PACKING AWAY THE SUMMER

Each year I pack away the Summer in a trunk,
put them away these Summer things:
the swirling frock I wore beneath the perfumed stars,
the green bikini and the white sand beach,
the dunes and green umbrellas,
the cream chiffon, that day in Menton,
the skirt I trailed through Florence,
the slanting sun, the turquoise waves.

And here's the cotton skirt that lolled in the long grass-
that's where the wine was spilt. The flimsy tops,
the denim shorts, the gaudy beachdress
that posed, the espadrilles that flip-flopped
through the sand.

Put them away, these Summer clothes, this butterfly wear,
that flutters in the sun, that brushes against brown legs,
that comes off easily.
Put them away
with Summer
in the trunk.

From ‘Signals in the Dark' by Sylvia Downes

REUNION

I took her ashes to his grave
and propped the box against the tomb
then left them in the sun and silence
knowing perfectly well it was absurd
that she was only cinders and the bones
and that no spirits whispered there behind me
strolling out of earshot. Then I returned
and kneeled in the wet grass and kissed the stone
and put her plastic coffin in my satchel
my fingers in his hollow name
and said, "we three, again, alone,"
and left, the rucksack on my shoulder


From ‘Augmented Seventh' by Gwyneth Hughes

But were the dim star to tell the sun that it's grown faded
And darkness to say, "O, daylight, your flash is indistinct."
And the earth to vie to outsoar the heavens
And the tailing comets to make sport with the pebbles and dust,
Then, O, death be my guest, since life is unbeloved,
And you, my soul, take firmly since time is a jesting fool.


From ‘Desert Anthems' translated from Arabic by Talaal M. Omer

CLOUDS

Last night you saw,
etched against a fat moon,
an icy mountain towering
above the sweet-smelling bush
outside your window.

"Mum," you cried,
"look at the magic!"


From ‘Travels in the Antipodes' by Jaqueline Crompton Ottaway


Moonless winter night. . . . . . . . . . .
Stars like bees on tight shut flowers,
Petals indigo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


From ‘Bees in My Bonnet' by Isabella Strachan


'Tit for Tat'

The eminent surgeon, Sir Peregrine Pratt, broke down at a garage near Gwent.
When the wily mechanic looked under the lid, Sir Peregrine knew what he meant:
'Dear me,' said the garage hand, 'doesn't look good. It'll cost you a packet no doubt.
To get to the seat of the problem I fear, I shall have to whip everything out.'
Months later the garage mechanic felt ill and so off to the hospital went.
They said he'd be under Sir Peregrine Pratt, and he knew straight away what that meant.
'The prognosis is dreadful.' Sir Peregrine frowned as he prodded the poor man about.
'It'll cost you an arm and a leg, I'm afraid, for I'll have to whip everything out.'


From ‘Recitable Rhymes' by Alan Millard


'Forget Me Not'

Forget me not,
She wrote in the sand,
For my body is sailing
To a far-off land.
What I'll find there
I haven't a clue -
But my task must be
To search for my spirit,
And return to these shores
My body bound with it.
A map I lack,
So I may lose my track.
If I do, then remember one thing:
I have loved this life
Despite everything.


From ‘A Web of Cries' by Pamela Bakker


'Gulf of Mexico'

I sailed slowly
to the mouth
of the river
and shook off my
fears
at the Rigolets,
I keep sailing south
until I lost
you once again
in the Gulf
that has forever
existed between
the two of us.


From ‘The Sea and Galilee' by Brian Federico