ELEMENTAL:

Where those windswept seasons of the silica´d dunes,                             

Where the gold autumnal gowns of the iced clad moons,

Where cold winter fists of those southern climed Junes,

Where Pan plays his horned pipes of the green forest tunes,

Where old winter Druids chant, & toss their ancient runes,

Where old men & babes lose their minds, kites & red balloons,

It´s where all fly & disappear over the ocean´s rampant fumes.

It´s the lashing drips of the grey & wailing tear-dropped rain,

It´s the slow drops rolling down spring´s crocus´d window pane,

It´s where the pale frowning sun peeps with misguided distain,

It´s where the mistrusting promise of the moon´s ebb & wane,

It´s where rivulets into rivers & streams run down into old lanes,

It´s where the witches dance their dilly herbs into dizzy domains,      

It´s where the chanting, spelling & magic disappears in old refrains.

The hardened, white, silent & iced winter frosting, glazed in snow,   

The air is quiet, nothing moves, nothing breathes, all so still & slow,

The birds stilled, silhouetted upon the painted sky as they fly & go,

The waters, frosted & icy, stopped in their tracks & no longer flow,

The beasts deep asleep in mossy caves & leafy, cold stony hollow,

The tiny creatures, every little one, buried, dreaming, dark below,

It´s where little seeds stay, under the earth & starts slowly to grow.

Suddenly, exploding & bursting in its golden glory, out comes the sun,

The gilded orb causing all creatures to wake, yawn, stretch, scuttle & run,

Birthed, peeled, cracked, shedding & all ready for new life with all its fun,

The earth awakening, waiting for new shoots to emerge, appear & come,

Out into the open, every one, breaking through old cobwebs, winter spun,

That strumming heartbeat of a new summer, throbbing like a beating drum,

Heralding rebirth, paying homage to new life, welcoming each & every one.

HUMAN CONDITION:

The creaking, shuffling, wobbling & bumbling,

The expulsion of air from orifices grumbling,

The dribbling idiocy of those slips, rips & blips,

All those secret unseen places losing their drips,

The scaling, the balding, the yellow-hard nailing,

The gummy toothless mouth burbling & wailing,

 All coming apart at the stitching & sewn seams,

I´ve come a long way since first birthing´s screams,

Ageing barged in so fast & then suddenly it arrives,

Yet we manage to linger & a little longer, we survive,

Through this life with its batterings & left over scars,

Disappointments & love life that marks & then mars,

The upping´s & the downing´s & the run round’s too,

The hard graft & at times, the unemployment queue,

Marriages, divorces, widowhood, the births of our kin,

After many disasters & not knowing where to begin,

Slipped up, tripped up & zipped up, that´s what we are,

When life comes to an end, we are really just on a par,

What does it all matter? It´s all now been, gone & done,

In the end, we´ve never really lost & never really won,

When you realize we all eat out of the same worldly bowl,

Then I just thank God for the promised eternally living soul.

GEMS:

Flying from the hard baked & old unforgiving earth,

As earthbound hummingbirds released & given birth,

Myriads of colours & hues in rainbowed flinted gems,

Stones for ladies, for queens & maharaja´s sewn hems.

Greens of the earth, hardened, sharpened in forest glades,

Emeralds, pea-peridots, beryls, sea-wave turquoised jades,

Chrysolited shades, sunny champagned & citrined yellows,

Made into rings, given in marriage by poor lovelorn fellows.

Amethysts, Sapphires, lapis lazuli, blue skies made out of glass,

Meandering like streams through chrysoprasic & olivined grass,

Tiger´s eye peeping through night at the dark eye of the ebonite,

Each vigilant & each at the diggings, ready & so prepared to fight.

Rich rubies, red-jasper, rosed garnets & deep wined bloodstones,

Revealing above earth´s scabby crust, their dripping bleeding bones,

And from the ocean´s saline & dripping tears, the opalescent pearl,

Held within the oyster´s hands, unhusked & ready to open & unfurl.

Opals suckled from the very bosom of the silky, milky mother moon,

Decreed by the Goddess, the Gods & the power of the ancient runes,

Crystals & zircons, disguised in their clarity, not being what they seem,

Defrocked in their natural beauty for lying, not being what they deem.

Daedalean veined diamonds, dodging man´s probing, digging & blasting,

Revealing in the sunlight, sorely blinking, winking & forever more lasting,

Rocks, stones in pure carat, champagne, rose, pure white, & cold iced blue,

Reluctantly showing their faceted faces in jewels & in rings that tightly woo.

The shining gems, stones & crystals, blasted from deep, dark grasping rocks,

Unearthed in pebbles, lumps of cloying clay, muddy solid & reluctant blocks,

Merely to sate man´s appetite & woman´s vain, grasping, & egotistical greed,

Yet still offering to those who heed, the spiritual energy of the earth we need.

MORPHING:

O.M.G. - The strain of it all, it´s all such a terrible old stress,

Trying to fit into that beautiful, tight & neat, little black dress,

The one with the thin straps that gets lost in the shoulder fat,

Between those folds, the mounds & those little bits that flap.

Sprouting hairs escaping from rampant brows, nose, ears & chin,

Those red & purple veins that run from hip, thigh & knobbly shin,

Those flippy-flappy back-boobs & no, I don’t mean little perky tits,

But appendages, sticking out between all the wrong uninvited bits.

The bunions, wrinkles, the double-chins, the jowls & dimpled belly,

Running amok like dripping incontinence & very wobbly melting jelly,

Teeth that fall out, or ones that stay in, all ochre, browned & stained,

Fat bulging fingers & toes, sorely arthritic, knuckled & redly inflamed.

Old sixty-somethings, sporting harem pants, trout-pouts & silicone tits,

Waddling so fatly, as if in nappies not changed & still so full of the shits,

Faces not moving, extensions, veneers, eyebrows permanently drawn in,

It´s all so uncomfortably unaccommodating & all held together with a pin.

We may weep & sob, sadly bleat & wail, but ladies, not all is totally lost,

We have allies out there girls, if you search & scratch under all the dross,

We have collagen & injections of poisonous Botox to stuff & fill us all out,

We lift, we stretch, fill in, fill out & we can even achieve a fishy trout pout.

And then came lycra, for the young & the old & surely a girl´s best friend,

Encased & en-sausaged, now we can all strut, pose & we can now pretend,

That we look like all those skinny models gliding along that Paris cat- walk,

Just as long as we don´t dare breathe, don´t smile, frown & even less, talk.

When I was a kid, my mummy just used Ponds cold cream, powder & rouge,

Floral crimplene, nylon & rayon, a little cardie & a very sensible pair of shoes,

A curler or two in the front of her head, just to preserve her hair´s gentle wave,

Diets were never mentioned & the curves were what all men wanted & craved.

So strutting out & about in extensions, lycra, false eyelashes & my very red lippy,

Telling my arthritic, high-heeled bunions to move it, get going & please be nippy,

But when I get back home & shake it all off, like a deflated airbag I´ll happily be,

And I´ll let it all hang out, to hell with the world & I shall be happy just being me.

SIMPLE LOVE STORY:

They met on the bridge in the frost of the dawn,

And with first glancing sight their love was born,

While she walked her dog with his arthritic gait,

He fishing, casting his line with the morning bait.

Only the two & the dog in this misty & early morn,

Eyes meeting, slight smiles & the old dog forlorn,

She dropped her glove as she sauntered slowly by,

He picked it up & offering it back to her, said a “Hi”.

He wooed her & danced her beneath sweet moons,

Through two chilly winters & as many warm Junes,

Then came the awful rumble of those distant drums,

Calling all young men to war & to bear nation´s guns.

Off he went, leaving her with a kiss & a broken heart,

 She felt her life had ended without a chance to start,

The letters came, then they dwindled to one, then none,

Then she heard he fell, was the victim of the enemy´s gun.

She was told that he´d been shot & that now he was dead,

Time went by, then later, another man she reluctantly wed,

The babies came, they were loved & then her children grew,

Widowhood arrived, the years grew wings & away they flew.

One morning, she took yet another dog for yet another walk,

Another old dog, the only true friend to whom she could talk,

Across the crumbling old bridge, two of them ambled & strolled,

As the early frost of the dawn came down, softly swirled & rolled.

She dropped her glove, retrieving it with difficulty, she slowly bent,

But right before her stood a grey haired & a very stooped old gent,

With a grotesque face that was burnt & scarred enough to appall,

She knew straight away, “It´s those eyes now that I distantly recall”.

That love rekindled was there again, it had never ever really died,

With his injuries & ugly face, to her all had hidden the truth & lied,

All those wasted years, in a flashing minute, melted & flew away,

They both knew their love would never die & was now here to stay.