A Small Collection of Poems

November 5th 2017

Waking up to more bad news

You only move because the baby needs your milk,

or it's time, gone time, for the dog to be walked,

or your bladder signals fullness.

You only hear the last vibration of the church bell's hour,

or bass notes as the cleaning truck corners away,

nothing of the ping to remind you to phone your Dad.

You only see the blooms that need dead-heading,

or the mark left by a long ago red wine spill,

or cloud invading that morning's sky.

You not only cry for Nice,

for the injured, the bereaved,

you cry for your helplessness.

Westminster, March 2017

The people who won't be going home today

are people like you and people like me.

This morning they checked their emails,

read another chapter of their book,

bought a coffee to go and, wrapped against

only the March wind, chose the pavement.

The people who ran towards the blood

are people like you and people like me.

This afternoon they took off their coats

to pillow an injured man's head,

blew their breath into a dying women,

put their palms on pulsing wounds.

All these people walked from the south

or the north, they were willing to cross over

and look east and west towards the other side,

the side with plenty of places for more bridges

if people like you and I make the space. 

The two poems above were published in I am not a Silent Poet,  read more here https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com

January 7th 2017 

In fog

there are fewer lines to follow,

no place else where

other people live.

The smell of fog is full

of your own breath and

your ears hear you and you.

After a while the blanket

becomes a parcel and people

live in a pared down world.

Poems from April 2015's Write a Poem a Day writing and other places 

Only some of our journeys are planned 

He was going the coming way 

the driver explains and I’m sure 

my grumped-up face shows  

that this is no reason for two vans 

to be parked on my drive.

He who was going the coming way

arrived as the website to report 

my lost bus pass crashes 

which is why I’m at the window

during the swapping of parcels,

feeling as if I’m coming and going  

having tried to transfer credit 

from my also-lost Oyster card 

to a new one which now tells me 

I must wait twenty-four hours 

and nominate a station where 

I can prove I am who I am,

and touch in on the card reader

but I can’t because tomorrow 

I shall be going the coming way.

More than one degree

January

pull on hat

wrap around scarf

think about a fleece

button up waterproof

find welly socks,

clean tissues, gloves, 

throw logs on fire 

cajole dog from fire

knock mud from boots

squeeze feet into boots

clip on lead 

walk

July

slip on flip-flops

clip on lead

walk

Poem in which I reach the last page 

The conclusion of a good book 

finds me in need of a map

of how to travel once 

the diversion of its plot 

reaches the last full stop.

I don’t have this trouble with 

a no though road, I turn around, 

head for its  openness, or the end 

of a film, where the gap 

between me and the screen 

takes the measure of my footsteps,

and I can part very easily from 

the final picture in a gallery 

but after that good book has

held my hand, say, in the waiting room, 

middle seated over Europe, or between 

three and four in the morning,

after I’ve stowed the characters in my pocket,

worn the story as an extra layer when 

I need to shop, swim, clean my teeth,

when, after all of that, I turn 

the last page, close the back cover, 

put away my bookmark,  I want 

to give that good book a slap

for leaving to cast its spell on someone new.

Wisteria

I breath in your spring musk 

from amethyst bracelets, clockwise 

branches, a trunk thick with age.

Vinca major

Your bursts of purple spread their surprise 

through the garden: your winding twine

finds places I've yet to discover.

Asparagus

January, I bathe you in hen-house straw

April, I pick your green shooting stars,

roast for ten, take them soft to my lips.

Men who called my Dad Jack

If our phone rang after six it was always the Works for Dad,

if it rang before seven I could go with him, she’ll stay in the car, 

he’d yell, slamming the door on Mum’s worry bead phrase:

John, whatever you do, don’t let her get in the way.

I never stayed in the car, I went where the heat of the kiln

reached my face, waiting until my skin stretched to a crackle, 

my eyes grew gritty, my lips were cooked before retreating 

to where the grindy groan of metal on metal was a lullaby.

I squatted under the Office stairs out of the way of the footprints

made by hard hatted men in unlaced boots with hands and faces

like Mr and Mrs Baker’s in Happy Families, men who’d lived 

in the village all their lives, had local wives,  Cement Company

men who’d took Dad’s instructions and showed him the rocks 

where Paua clung, the beaches where Flounder could be caught

with a nail and stick, lent him nets so we had our portions of whitebait 

at Company picnics we shared with them and their Kiwi families.

A poem in which I think of things that have woken me up

first train

rain

cold air

cyclist's voices 

noisy brakes 

burnt toast

infant cry

toddler yell

child's scream

cockerel 

magpie 

sparrows

bad dream 

wind 

waves

kisses

opening door

closing door

door bell

snores

silence

sunlight

your last breath

August 2014

I’m only asking

Will you open the coming year

like splitting a ripe pea pod, or

 will it be more like opening

your hand for the small change?

Will you slit it like a letter

sent on from an old address,

or fiddle it, like a child at a scab

that itches at the edge?

Back then

Sneezes and a runny nose meant Dad

would buy my cold for a ha’penny,

the fairies would leave sixpence

in exchange for a tooth

and there was chocolate money

in the toe of my Christmas stocking,

Grandma’s silver thrupp'ny bits were

stirred into the plum pudding,

and I saved my pennies so the pounds

would look after themselves.

On that day

it was as if someone had raised 

a baton, perhaps, after one tap 

on the shine of a birch trunk, 

to signal to the daffodils 

open your bosomy mouths

begin your golden songs 

the stage is yours to fill.

Con brio, con moto, con spirito.

Cantabile at roundabouts

opera in hedgerow and verge, 

melodies from tub and patio

  - notes of spring in crescendo.

And even though the magnolias

processed in garden after garden

and the evening's bloody sky fell 

into flooded fields, and even though

I watched a wren and robin

ignore each other by the pond,

tonight when my palms touch,

I say Namaste to the Narcissi.

Out there  

a car door slams, someone

changes from first to second gear,

one more thump on the pot-holed road,  

another rattle of a flat bed lorry. 

There’s idling in the waiting,

the release of brakes 

- phew, phew, phew

the diesel pull of the school bus,

bass notes from a delivery van,

a suitcase rumble over the pavement,

reversing beepers beep, a horn sounds

 - out there. 

A flavour of my poetry from the autumn of 2014   - I hope you enjoy

More than two and a bud

In the time it took to drink my morning cup of tea 

I learnt how the deathwatch beetle got its name, 

the effect of a fish and chips diet on the eggs 

of eider ducks, the plight of the crested ibis,

what it's like to cross the floor, who might do this,

the dates of the El Salvador civil war,

that Syrian cuisine includes roundels of roasted meat, 

deep fried dough balls, upside down chicken,

someone paid seven thousand pounds 

for a Tracey Emin sketch and women’s football 

is a sell out at Wembley because it fills the gap 

in the market left by the tedium of the men’s game.

local hero

I need to cross your palm with plastic 

- this from the man at the front of the queue

who needs a six month appointment 

but he might be on holiday then.

I've got no idea - replies the girl who's next

when asked which dentist she sees, maybe 

it's the hygienist, suggests the receptionist 

cradling the phone - caller, please hold on - 

she offers me the card reader, rips off a receipt, 

finds a date next May to suit my diary, 

says how can I help you to a silent line. 

Fully Dressed

and sitting on this red chair,

I’ve handed in my yellow form 

I might be called by the man 

in green scrubs, or not, because 

I’ve walked from A&E minors

and anyone from A&E majors

will be trollied past me,

past the sign piso mojado

wearing fewer clothes than 

when they fell or their heart 

stopped, they have tubes

going in, tubes coming out, 

they are escorted by staff 

in blue  scrubs: I can wait.

Matisse’s media 

inspired by The Cut Outs at Tate Modern, 2014

Gouache

with ink, 

with crayon,

with watercolour 

and charcoal 

with graphite and drawing pins 

on wove paper, 

cut

with long bladed scissors in right hand,

and pasted.

Mounted:

on board, 

canvas

on coloured paper, 

white paper.

Printed silk

Oil paint

Glass

Signed, dated in pencil, charcoal, chalk or ink.

Call to Prayer 

I ignore their warnings about 

how difficult it is to go back.

I am here, the plane is descending, 

folding around the mountains that edge  

this city’s geography, snaking to a stop 

along the unchanged runway, and

since I know that it’s difficult to go back.

I rest before I cover my head with a scarf, 

find my way to the dry river and hold

hands with all our yesterdays along 

Zand Avenue. When the muezzin calls 

I’m ready to stop going back. 

Body work

She squats on the top fence rail

a model of poise and calm

while I practice half lotus 

in the upright position - my foot 

unsure of its ledge, my arms 

in prayer position, almost

a match for hers. I fix my gaze 

on her open hip elegance, 

watch the air raise her fur 

into a host of silver wands,

as I breathe into the balance.

she springs to the newly planted bulbs. 

An afternoon walk

We meet at The Percy Arms and turn right 

into the past: a swing bridge, train tracks

alongside Gunpowder Mills - ruins where 

the chemistry of damage once reigned,

We read the lists of accidents and tragedies, 

of inquests at The Percy Arms when 

saltpetre, charcoal, sulphur were mixed 

by Royal Letters Patent for delivery to the Tower.

And that the common dormouse breeds 

out of danger in the shelter of these relics.

July 2014

Four new poems for this blog ... some local geography and two that reflect events early in 2014 ... enjoy. 

How we spent the day

None of us remembered what time

we began the walk from Mauvezin,

or how long we lingered

in air full of drains, by the sloping

roofs of Le Lavoir de St Cère.

Three, maybe four kilometers later

we passed a Roulette, murmured to the horse,

exchanged greetings:  Bonjour, ça va,

and next a village  - clean, unpeopled,

street lights too red for our liking.

We rested, a few minutes, maybe five,

at a flat heft of tree built to seat

at least twenty for communal lunch.

On our return le chemin à pied took us

along side the back and forth of butterflies

black and white, copper, blue,

a dragon fly, a red squirrel, the weight

of an owl lifting body and wings.

And all the time hedge, tree, and bramble

kept us from the sunflowers, spread

like golden throws over the land,

from a field of plants we failed to name,

and look, here, rusted iron railway fences.

We stopped to listen to bird song,

refrain, response, repeat, repeat

stopped where branches, heavy with mirabelles,

swooped like the sleeves of medieval gowns,

their edges jeweled  -  garnet, topaz, ruby.

It’s four fifteen when we return

to vacant streets, the Café Printemps,

two citron pressé and a café au lait.

The Village Shops

Should you want to buy local, turn

right at the traffic lights,

opposite the Golf Club,

past the flinty path to the allotments.

On your left, set back as if peering

at passersby, is the Post Office

where an apology that you can’t tax

your motor vehicle there is posted 

by a stand of saucy birthday cards.

Next door, ladies in curlers wait

for their shampoo and set to dry,

then comes the hardware store 

- purveyors of all things useful

if only they can be found.

The Bakery gives discount to students

and one mince pie to carol singers,

the Grocery Store collects old clothes,

sells organic chocolates, potatoes with eyes,

 stays open when everything else has closed. 

Outside the Butchers a defibrillator waits

for a cardiac arrest: inside what was alive

is displayed in chilling finery, lamb cutlets

with frilly hats, steak marbled with fat.

That’s all, after that you reach the pub.

Coast to coast

Invidious wet seeps into our lives

there’s talk of dredging, sandbagging, 

 - more is coming, saturated ground

we’re showered with bulletins

 - cattle sent to pastures new,

suspended travel, island homes

floors levitate over standing water

suspended travel, island homes

 - cattle sent to pastures new,

we’re showered with bulletins

 - more is coming, saturated ground,

there’s talk of dredging, sandbagging 

invidious wet seeps into our lives.

#lovecurling

First the squat to read the ice  

 - straight, heavy, keen,

we need to know the tee-line weight

to get one on the button

 - a peel over the kizzle kazzle

skip has the house in sight,

tucks her right toes under,

glides to a kneeling lunge,

delivers the rock down the line 

 - bring it in, on the broom  

sweepers with their besoms

dash crab like down the rink

guard the shot, brush for curl

leave for speed,  freeze

 - split ‘em, nice rock, weld

This poem was my guest book entry at the end of my week at my sister's cottage in Wales. It was during the Hay Festival and, yes, the poem was inspired by my reading of Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries and discussions at Festival events.

In the year of 2014, during the month of May

Places:  Old Hemly Hall, The Hay Festival, and environs

Players: Andy, Beverley, Marilyn, cows, birds, bumble bees

Purposes: entertainment, enlightenment, gardening, stillness

Saturday 24^th

In which the queue to enter Wales becomes a talking point, Andy cleans the windows to afford the cows a better view of us and Marilyn continues her reading of The Luminaries by the fire.

Sunday 25^th

In which there are discussions of privacy, collecting and the diminution of the humanities, two men in raincoats play the Kora and there is a difference of opinion about the necessity of parking on the verge.

Monday 26^th

In which bindweed, nettles, and dandelions are piled on the bonfire, gooseberries, sugar and water find themselves together in jars and Andy reveals the proportions of flour for a well risen loaf.

Tuesday 27^th

In which yoga is practiced with mats and dowel, we remark on how the cows scratch on wire, the fluffiness of fledging blue tits and the shape of trees, cycles are readied for more coastal miles and Marilyn learns of the universality of othering.

Wednesday 28^th

In which the unforgiving nature of a slate floor causes embarrassment, Toni Morrison speaks wise words and we sit under starlight as the interaction between poetry and pain is illuminated.

Thursday 29^th

In which Beverley recounts not losing an earing in the bath, a Humming Bird Moth stabs pink flowers for food, Andy prepares a bed for leeks and nestles the strawberries in straw while Marilyn sews with buttons and beads. 

January 2014

Posting poems or prose, or I guess, anything, on your own website equals publication so choosing what work to show here is a challenge. Once posted here pieces are ineligible for submission elsewhere or for entry into competitions.

Other pages feature the poems I’ve written about our renovating the house project on the basis that there are very unlikely to appeal to either print or e-magazine editors and its good to share them with my family. 

On this page you’ll find a melange of my work, presently mostly poetry, and often poems that have ‘appeared’ elsewhere, some printed on fabric.  There are brief introductions as you move down the page; the first poem is long and has been regularly rejected but as you can read someone liked it. The other two were written on Poetry School Online Courses, to order, so to speak and its difficult to know where to send them so putting them here for my website readers seemed a good idea.

Enjoy and commenst welcome.

I went to school with measles

Mum said if you still feel bad after break

ask to lay down. Instead

I did games in big knickers

and because there are children

starving in India I drank the warm milk

and the toilets had no paper so I held on

until dinner time and as we walked home

Mum said, what a morning I’ve had,

the baby’s teething and I’ve still

got to hang out the washing.

I sit by the fire, Mum feeds baby

and we watch all the strawberry jelly dots

blossom into proper spots.

I can’t eat my dinner even though

it’s liver and bacon and mash with gravy,

so I have to have the thermometer.

She flicks it, flicks it, open,

close          gently        careful

what’s in there’s poisonous,

then what will we do.

I’m holding with my lips,

which is hard with a runny nose,

the big hand has to go two places.

Mum squeezes her eyes at the tube,

and does her push up sleeves thing

which means something’s wrong.

The baby’s crying, he needs changing,

Mum wraps me up in our best blanket

‘cause I’m getting hotter and hotter,

and gives me a bowl just in case.

Now Dr O’Mahoney’s here. Well, Mother,

bed for that one, calamine every hour.

The sheets are freezing but after

the dabbing I can put my cardi on.

I do the front spots while Mum

hangs out the washing,

I have to pull the cotton wool

so it’s just bigger than a penny.

Mum shouts careful with that bottle,

I’ve no clean sheets ‘til this lot’s dry.

I’m in a cave but the day’s still here,

 if I want I can have my nightlight on.

Dad says what’s this all about,

little spotty dick  - he does good dabbing

‘cept now my hair’s all stuck together

and it’s going to hurt when Mum brushes it.

I’m in the cave with night outside,

then more day, night, day, night. One day

my eyes stop stinging and its coming back time,

like when we went to Devon.

First there’s the going, I went to school

on the going to have measles,

then there’s the having  - the holiday

or measles and now its the coming back

when I mustn’t rush about. I watch the baby

while Mum’s upstairs and listen to Housewife’s Choice.

Tomorrow I’m having a bath to see if

we can get rid of the calamine crusts that way.

Mum says she’ll find some needles

and cast on stitches for me to learn knitting,

Then we see what little fingers can do, won’t we,

how about a scarf for dolly. Soon

I’ll go to school without measles.

Mum say’s I don’t have to drink the milk,

she’ll give me some paper just in case and if

I feel sick I’m to tell them to phone her.

AS said ... quite wonderful - it made me cry!  I'm not sure if you want your readers to cry - but I did.  It was incredibly nostalgic and stirred up so many memories for me.  I can always remember my little brother going to see a new baby at one of our neighbours - and he came back full of confidence saying she was going to be called Calamine Lotion !  - actually it was Caroline Lucy!!  (He had just had chicken pox)

But the warm milk, the no paper in the toilets, the whole 'being ill' thing and mercury thermometer - my goodness - you captured it all so well

Lauds

My heart sinks, and a dreadful darkness clouds

my mind: what will the weight-loss god display,

have I lost or gained,  ounces, maybe pounds?

I do so dread that she will make me pay

for chocolate,  lemon drizzle cake and wine.

I place my feet upon her icy throne,

pull in my core and beseech once more

all pardon for my greed to this divine

ensemble of plastic, glass and glossy chrome

that reigns imperial on the bathroom floor.

Opening Night at The 1066 Gallery

I think, with some certainty, that if I asked

Madam Mayor her policy for dealing with the beggar

who spreads his blanket over her constituency,

her reply would resemble what I would want to hear

if he were my brother –which, of course, he is.

If I asked about her strategy to help the habit

of smokers on their break from cleaning

her Chamber, or ways to support lads

skateboarding to truancy, the pregnant teenager

selling candy floss to people only interested in history,

I’m guessing her answers would be practical rather

than rhetorical, that frankness, sincerity, integrity

would thread her reply like the town’s name

infiltrates souvenir sticks of rock  - icons of what

the Curator calls, this tacky place

where, right now, he is asking Madam Mayor

to declare this Fine Art Exhibition open.  

I’m also guessing that you’ll question my certainty.

Well, you can’t see the way her shoulders don’t pretend

her chain of office is anything but paste,

you can’t hear the pride that slips unbidden

into her speech, as she admits knowing nothing about Fine Art,

doing a Google search for info on the artists,

tells us that being mayor is not that different

to being the teacher she once was except there’s more

cracking of the whip and how her Mother

 sent a good luck in-the-elections card

one week early. You’re not here when

she suggests that now she stops talking

and we look at the work on the walls. 

If you want to bet on the incontestable

then put your money on that beggar

being on the pavement this time tomorrow

unaware that his black and white image

 bears the red dot of someone’s prosperity.

 - sometimes I write poems as a gift ... .

Wedding tide

For Beverley and Andy, 2009

Mid-September we gather,

their families, friends,

to witness and celebrate love.

Love that curled to spring,

travelled through summer,

meeting silver autumn.

Here for a rite of passage,

as tides come, go,

dunes shift, sand settles.

Together to bless

with love and joy

their new shoreline.

- for Anne’s 70^th birthday book

To Ann 

This could have been a limerick

-there was a dear lady of Bookham -

at one point it tried to be a sonnet

-to me, fair friend, you never can be old -

but Chelsea, Shakespeare, The Globe

 and bridge wouldn’t fit into five lines,

and a passion for writing and reading

refused to be trapped by iambic pentameter.

So it became an ode - not one singing the praises

of a nightingale, or waxing lyrical on a Grecian urn,

these couplets ring an August peal to celebrate

your wit, your kindness and your courage,

bringing warmest wishes of love, joy and ease

in your season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

- a poem for Ann, at a tough time in her life

On Sunday

I will cook you an apple pie:

I’ll join the flour with the fat

to make some crumbs of comfort,

and blend a paste with tears

you dare not show.

I’ll mix the dough with memories

chosen for their joy, and cool

my hands to stop hard facts

from building you a wall.

Rest now and relax.

I’ll peel and slice the fallen fruit

into weeks and months and years:

crescent moons with their place

in your future: over-lapping, touching,

not alone.

You’ll need to wait while

it bakes, and even longer while it cools,

so take this aperitif of patience

until

it’s yours to slice, take the knife,

direct the blade the way you want to go.

Elsewhere on this site you’ll see posts and photos about my quilting ... the first poem here reflects my experience at a workshop, the next was on a block in my sister’s 60^th birthday quilt and the last is the label of the quilt I made with a friend for a mutual friend's 70^th birthday.

Dancing the Line

Outside, a muntjac deer, her coat

shimmering like wet clay, picks her sunlit way

through snow fading from the soft edge of hard.

Inside, its time to show and tell our pieces,

to ask  - which pattern, which thread?

We spool silk, cotton, trilobular fibre

over fabric, consider curls of matt, glossy,  

same and shifting colour lines:

question,    disagree,      play.

Next we air doodle, letting the trace

whisper to our mind’s eye, then, pen on paper,

we repeat: ripple stipple, border feathers, loops,

writing their twists, turns, and pauses

into our muscle memory before we needle-draw,

back and forth across stretched sandwiches

-top, fleece, backing. We are dancing the line

to the thaw’s soundscape, stitching across

bears paw, log cabin, blocks and strips

of cloth, sewing buds of scallops, mussel shells,

hearts,  side stepping to shadow one,

then another - creating quilting blossom.

Outside the buttercup moon lights

the leaves, trees, paths, free from snow:

in its gaze we turn towards home.

Reach Back

The road past our house still curves up from the beach,

at the end of the garden, scrubland replaces sheep.

The hill winds around all the same hairpins,

busy now with produce trucks, second homers.

The wharf squats, unchanged: fishing trawlers, yachts

where barges shipped cement from kiln to mixer.

Reach for a book from the shelf, damp-dust

its top edge, turn pages pale as toast.

The characters resemble neighbours

who moved away years ago, the plot murmurs

like a sticky valve, the spine is a little bent.

Marilyn Hammick 2010

Creation

We are in the Kaffe Fassett bazaar of pattern, fabric and yarn,

gazing at quilts, coverlets, throws slung up, strung out,

showy and set to inspire. One of us says

let’s make Ann a quilt for her birthday.

What do we need? A design that can be finished

in a very short time, one we can work on together.

We think about fabric - what are Ann’s colours,

what size would be good, a square or a rectangle?

We layer some pieces from the depths of our stash,

group one with another, decide, change our minds,

perhaps this for the centre block, that for the frame.

We move it all into the light and start again.

Its Friday: one of us cuts, one of us sews, Radio 3 plays

while we iron, England surprises with sunshine and wickets,

a very kind person brings biscuits and tea.

And at Pimms o’clock, we have a wall of blocks.

That’s Amore, Arnold sings, as we dance the design

 - dark and light borders, fussy cut centres that only go

one way, short and long sides that have to rotate -

over there, no, try the left, how about sideways ...

Blocks become rows, most seams meet up,

a little unpicking is needed before its ready

for quilting. We add wadding and backing,

stitch the layers together, create loops, leaves and kisses.

Lastly, the binding: four mitred corners, tuck in

the edges, write these words for a label

To Ann, with love and in friendship

25^th August 2013, Sue & Marilyn