Black Notebooks Given In A York Hotel December 2006

They gave me black notebooks.
A present for my birthday,
The ivory pages were soft
And ready to receive.
The pen in my hand was insistent.
Black notebooks
To record a time of change.
And those who gave them
Would not meet again.
They knew it then for the first time.
And the covers of those black notebooks
Became a mourning coat
For opportunities not taken.

I’ll keep my songs

The house of green leaves
Is tumbling now.
The breeze
And time
Turn all to dust.
Then comes the broom
To sweep away
Even a whispered memory.

But, I am hollow
Like the oak.
My murmured echoes
Deep inside.
No besom touches
Such a spot.

I’ll keep my songs
For my remembering.

Hear Wendy read the poem; Link to the MP3 file 

Bird on a cliff

On the ledge, a small bird totters
Then steadies itself with newly feathered wings.

Will it know when it's ready for flight?

Somewhere in my brain, a word forms
Slips out between half opened lips, not fully fledged.

Down drops the bird into an echoing silence.

Will you be there to catch us, that bird and me?

You asked me what makes a relationship?

I said I didn't know.
A peck of time perhaps, mixed with a little liking
And a very large pinch of salt.

And what of love?

How should I know?
I'm plunging down this cliff and hoping you'll be there to catch me.

The Wind Moans

The wind moans
And the dragon flies.
His breath is all consuming.
It sears the throat
And her soft flesh.
Till she is lost.
Forged into something else.
Fused by the heat.
Not old, not new,
Not here, not there.
Suspended.
Till time and the dragon
Put her down.
Leaving her chilled,
All ashes and alone;
Long to remember.

January Day

A greasy afternoon;
Grey and dirty,
With grimy shadow-clouds,
Like unwashed sheets,
Monotonous in monotone.

A phlegmy cough
Of a day.
Unclean and uninspiring.
All grainy smudges
And things rubbed out!

On reading the papers

 “There is a primal appeal in seeing your foe kneel before you and die for those with ethnic or sectarian inferiority complexes.”

I read the words

And burn with fury.

I despair.

Those piercing, patronising, carefully chosen, words,

They devastate,

They numb.

So there we are then,

You, the tyrant, rapist, bully,

Crying out in exaltation;

“I hurt you. Now, I feel OK!”

That’s alright,

We have the words.

Those terrible words.

Those damned and damning words,

So easily read.

The women left!

Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I grew up in the 50s and 60s and I heard many stories of women who lost their men in the first World War and how they suffered.  My aunt lost her "young man".  She never spoke of it and she never married.  There was no one to marry; a generation had been lost.  But the women who had it hardest were the widows of "other ranks" who were left with children to care for and little or no support.  This poem is for them.

And we the women left
Make lives for ourselves.
Brave women we,
The women left.
Like flotsam on a stony shore,
We shouldn't be here.
Discarded parts!
Our seasoned wood
Has gone beyond its season.
But still we scrub and clean
And make our knuckles raw
With all your dirty laundry.
If not, who'll feed our kids?
Brave women, we
The women left.