Mary, Queen of Scots

I wasn’t seduced by you
in my youth, despite
glamour, romance and tragedy.
Elizabeth was my hero:
brave, intelligent Queen
who wrote poems, loved pirates.

But in Edinburgh,
seeing that grim black rock
overshadowing your palace,
I thought of a 17-year-old
fresh from the court of France
with its dancing and dressing up.

Myself, I thrilled to Edinburgh
and the great rock –
yet I almost understood.



[Poem #62]

Shared 20/9/2020 with Writers' Pantry #38 : Ominous Times at Poets and Storytellers United.

Twice Bitten

You have gone
into the dreams of night.
On Halloween I read
your message of goodbye.

Last time you left
no message.
My silly heart broke.

This time, scrupulous,
you kept your promise:
no more unexplained
vanishing tricks.

You told me my fault
and only then
cut all contact.

This time it hurts less.
Although I forgave
I never went so deep again.
What you had done once….



[Poem #61]

Arrival

Her face in trance
gravely serene, eyes closed,
caught in this photo
is the same I saw in vision –
the woman my friend would meet
within the year. Spiritual,
I told him, also dynamic.

A year to the day he writes,
'We fell in love quickly.'
Black hair, I said; brown skin.
And here she is
kneeling in ritual –
scientist and shaman, I learn;
mischievous, compassionate ...
prophecy fulfilled.



[Poem #60]

Brief Encounter

In the waiting-room
a baby wailed,
held to his mother’s shoulder
as she stood at the counter
her back to the rest of us.

He was bald and pale,
swathed in white.
The huge sound of his distress
shattered the air.

I sent him a beam of love
across the space.
Immediately his cry stopped.
He raised his head,
looked straight at me,
held my gaze and smiled.

Shared with Writers' Pantry #40 at Poets and Storytellers United, 4 Oct. 2020.

[Poem #59]

My Extra-Terrestrial Friend

Did you find a physicist?
Not many scientists here
do telepathy!

Our meditation group
reached out,
found you orbiting;
couldn’t begin to grasp
what you had to impart.

No ‘little green man’,
your projected image
was long, columnar,
non-humanoid …
and yes, green: bright
as if lit from within.

I guess you went home
when your two years were up.

You were friendly and fun.
I liked you.



[Poem #58]

Ursula Le Guin

A Wizard of Earthsea
was my first fantasy novel
(Alice more classic than genre;
and, not raised on Narnia,
that still unread).
Ursula, it was you
who gave me this way
of entering dream and dimensions:
writing with grace and wit,
imparting the ways of magick,
moral dilemmas, growth.
I was very young,
though not so young as your hero.
He — you — taught me
how to develop character.



[Poem #57]

Karuna Mayi

At Healers’ Day
I cleared your past life:
Hermann, tortured for witchcraft;
healer then too (herbs, alchemy)
I your acolyte.
This life, your Reiki Master.

                ******

Millennium meditation
you stood: angel,
arms outspread
holding the energy.

              ******

The last time I ever saw you
I wanted to say, ‘Love you forever.’
The words rose in me
but seemed too final, so I said,
‘I’ll see you again.’
I expect so.



[Poem #56]

Canadian Poet

Pearly girlie plays with words,
sounds, meanings, structures
and arrives at intriguing
revelations or conundrums
that always go deeper
than you might first expect.

Work different from mine,
which is plainer.

I don’t have to be the same
to appreciate the juicy flesh
of a poem bitten into and tasted –
thrilling to its savour, inhaling
the lingering memory,
running my tongue again and again
over satisfying texture.



[Poem #55]

Prisoner Poet 3: The Suicide

After 26 years and more,
more years than your life,

I can remember you
with joy exceeding sorrow –
though, as The Prophet suggested,
they’re sides of one coin:

always some tears,
a swift pang.

When your death was recent,
it was anguish to notice young fun –
pinball machines, amusement parks –
you might have enjoyed

if not for a youth in prison,
if not for your final escape.



[Poem #54]

Milk Baba

I remember Milk Baba.
I saw his face tonight on TV,
but I recall the encounter in Nepal
at his small room opposite the Shiva temple
with the children surrounding him, peeping out.

A simple life. Then we find
he is learned, an acclaimed scholar
of that great scripture the Ramayana,
corresponding with people all over the world.
Thirty years of only milk, he says, made him pure.



[Poem #53]

Patron

You watched over me.
Adults were trustworthy then.

I liked our conversation, still do;
realised only slowly
others didn’t perceive you.

When I was 43, a magician friend
introduced me to his mentor.
You! So I learned
your name and identity.

Giver of writing, patron of poets,
great magician yourself.
And my friend; somewhat fatherly.

I’m told you are most correctly
named Tehuti, but I call you Thoth.



[Poem #52]

At the Book Fair

At the book fair
for self-published authors

my table was next to hers.
Happenstance?

We hardly stopped
talking and laughing.

She’d written her own
spiritual adventure

prose shining like poetry
in a hall of atrocious verse.

She was Crone, skinny 81,
wool cap around her ears

a light festoon of grey curls
embroidering her chin.

Age, she understood,
had made her whole.

We were sisters at once,
magickal.



[Poem #51]

Dancing Partner

Looking back I see
a thin, slightly nervous boy.
Then, I saw tall, dark, handsome
and sophisticated. I was 17.

My friend’s party.
He, new in that crowd;
me, home on holiday:
each, to each
a glamorous stranger.

They had Buddy Holly’s
latest record, Rave On,
played it over and over.
We danced. The night was warm.

But Buddy died and I
flew away, back over the sea.



[Poem #50]

Former Friend

She latched on,
I observed, to several
instant best friends.

I accepted.
So few could share
my 'spooky stuff'.

And there was her daughter,
who came this time, we knew,
to learn from me too.

Later she offered
to share a house;
it seemed kind.

By then she’d suffered –
which made her cruel
I learned.

She under-estimated.
I am soft,
not weak.

I don’t revisit
nightmares.
The end.



[Poem #49]

A Student, Years Ago

'Please,' she begged.
'Let me take it and make a copy.
I’ll bring it back soon, promise.'

I was reluctant, but
she loved it so much. Who was I
to refuse her respectful request?

Never saw her again
nor the big card from my wall
depicting the Green Lady:

Mother Gaia, crinkled old face
wise and cheery under her hood,
her smile knowing

I can still see her.



[Poem #48]

She Read Her Poem

I was lost in the beautiful words,
drifting away on them;
did wonder vaguely at a subject
with resemblances to me –
but only when others
asked, 'Did you like that?'
I emerged from reverie.
'It’s about you,' they said.

Lean, vigorous, white-haired,
she rode motorbikes in Thailand;
makes poems that experiment
with sounds, images, meanings:
witty, metaphorical, deep poems;
sometimes poems so lovely
I lose myself, carried away.



[Poem #47]

Returned Traveller

Hates Australia
land of his birth and growth,
hates Holland
land of his father's ancestry;
holds dual citizenship.
Travels as much as he can
on all continents, preferably
far from his first country.

Now he's back, in limbo,
waiting a call from elsewhere.
I wonder if he'll find himself
strangely at home
as time passes,
or will he confirm
that he's still at odds
with his own people?



[Poem #46]

My Student's Wife

Her dress is bright yellow
the colour of joy.
The metallic insets
around its neck
sparkle, and her smile
lights her whole face.

When she tells
of their new home,
what it means to them,
I see a shyness
but she speaks anyway
slowly, finding and sharing
the truth of her heart.

I think this kind, clever man
has chosen well:
a true jewel, shining
and very valuable.



[Poem #45]

Post-script: They parted some years later ... and eventually he found a new life with a new love.

Best Friend Not For Long

Big loud girl,
you took shy me
under your confident wing,
taught me things
my parents never did.

Walking home from school
you yelled at a group
in different uniform:
'Catholic dogs
sitting on logs'
then suddenly stopped
before the shouting back
and the stone-throwing could begin.

'Oh, it’s my little cousin Bevvie'
and threw your arms around her.
Even then I saw
the irony
and your oblivion.



[Poem #44]

Aunty Amy

Ugliest woman
I ever saw: stout
with mottled skin,
plain-faced even when young
in those severe photographs.
Sometimes I looked away
not to puke.

She was still the favourite
we all begged to visit;
Grandma’s spinster sister.
Grandma had seven kids,
21 grandchildren. Aunty Amy
belonged to us all.

Now my sensible shoes like hers
make me smile. Past eighty
she read everything,
loved gardening
and us all.



[Poem #43]