Clouds

As the clouds grow bigger over my head
I sit down, watch how the spectacle floats,
the shades changing from snow to those of lead,
watch faces transform into jumping goats.

I write on white spots in fadingly blue
that are taken by the wind over sea,
watch them grow, to grey and black towards you
where my words will be raining, endlessly.

The City

On a big screen
placed on the wall of the Carriageworks theatre
the people of Leeds can see the Olympic torch
as it is carried and welcomed with cheers
throughout the region.

The square is empty though.
Just a Japanese man and me
have taken seat on a bench
and we watch the golden owls of the Civic Hall
watch the screen without a blink.

He knows a nice haiku about owls
if I am interested
but just when he starts, in Japanese,
rain is starting to fall.

I listen, get wet, more confused
when he wipes tears from his eyes,
I seek for shelter.
Golden owls, the screen
and the homesick tourist remain
on the Millenium Square,
belonging there.
The City.

Still me

The hotel’s bathroom mirror tells me all.
So much I didn’t know about my body.
When did this happen?
If this is true,

this living image on the wall
and it must be, then I am not

the person whom I thought I was.
I am definitely new,
differently reflecting
in that looking-glass
and shivering.

I go outside,
with this new image in my head.
There is a different, golden light.
Strangers’ eyes now recognize me
differently, but still as human
(I am somewhat relieved).

A new life is beginning.
I still am woman.
I still am me.
See me.

It’s there

Detect my hidden love for you,
look for it, dare to find,
it is not hidden all that well,
just peek over my fence,
kill all the dragons,
call me by my name.
Open me. Just crack my shell.

Skin be between our flesh,
words come between our thinking.
I cry through layers of grief
and my sound is smothered by
what culture asks of me.

Find me through layers,
dig deeper and search well
in mazes, and in mist
and everywhere,
and like you do,
I shall. I shall,
and find, as it is there.

It was not love that died

Had we known love before
then I would grieve now
for its loss.
Had there been openings
in doors shut,
in conversations,
then there would have been sadness.

Had we known love before
to share, without grieving
other loves,
we would have made it
passed the boundries
of mere acquaintances
and passed the treshold
of uneasy sex.

Though there is sadness
because there seems nothing here
in this rained over grave
but a hollow coffin.
And grief allows itself to barge in any time
anyway.

ps this poem was inspired by a poem I read a while ago but I don’t remember it altogether and I also forgot who wrote it lol. I just remembered bits and pieces.

Drift wood

The North Shield piers let go of me,
two arms, a hugging like farewell,
as we sail on into the sea
and England once again
is over, soon to be a memory.

As in a last hasty embrace
the piers stretch out for me
while drift wood finds its way
from river Tyne to sea.
Maybe the wood will wash ashore
the island where I live.

A raindrop moves down over window glass,
the waves are all that we can see.
The ferry now is on its own, the Sun appears
above a sudden deep blue sky
and standing on the deck
I close my eyes after the last goodbye.

There are no such things as sea gulls / Love Leeds

http://www.valleypressuk.com/books/nosuchthings/ 

Hi everyone, I am in Leeds now after a really fantastic 2 nights stay in Bridlington. I have eaten spaghetti with twelve poets and publishers (yes we were 13 there at the table, but in 2 sittings…) in the house of a lovely lady who organized a poetry festival and whom I met in a church where she did a reading. She read some of my poems there too! Just imagine! It was the first time I ever heard someone read them aloud, in real English and all! And in front of an audience! She then invited me, showing me around several readings, (it was a hectic day) but although that was very impressive, and I mean hospitallity wise, most important: Belfast Davids new book There are no such things as sea gulls is out! It is a bright covered, lovely example of what a poetry book should be like. I enjoyed reading some of the poems on the way from Brid (lington) to Leeds  (thank you for the lift, David!) and tonight is the second launch in the Carriage works  theatre at 19.30, so if anyone can make that reading, I think it would be a good idea to go!  🙂

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Love Leeds

They wear black as if going to a mass funeral but my guess is they are not. They look too chipper and ambition is in their young eyes. They walk swiftly between the courthouse and the railway station, unaware of my feeling of guilt, that I play hookey here.

Like the players of my national football team that so deserved lost the game last night, they are individuals, all with a goal in their future. They look determined and so is their tred.

Just when I start to think they must be hardened lawyers, in spite of their age, one of them bumps up to a man of lesser fortune, who tries to sell a paper.

She puts a hand on his shoulder and I am sure she says: Sorry love. Then she moves on, the lady in black. On the face of the man stays a memory of better times, and he needs to blink when reality kicks in again. But she made his day, she called him: Love.

Just a poem that I wrote as I think of this morning when I did my walk through the centre of Leeds. “Live Leeds, Love Leeds” it read somewhere. I added “Leave Leeds”  as I just went through my ankle thanks to strange sidewalks. But the black dressed lady and the paper seller made me see this busy city differently!  🙂 I hope no one is offended, but I shall have to wait to comment on the  rest of your comments to the previous poems as some one else wants to use the one pc here too  🙂 Till soon!

Company

There are moments to be alone with.
They knock on your door in the early morning
and keep you company while you drink your first coffee,
in warm sunshine,
or walk with you across a deserted beach
while the sea is silver.
They show you the beauty of the dead bird’s feathers.
Those moments are friends that come and go.
Invite them more often. Make them feel welcome.

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ps 13-6-2012 I shall be gone for a bit, I am very happy to go to England again, climbing Flamborough Head, checking out a poetry festival, attending some readings in Bridlington and Leeds and the book launch (2 times) of David Agnew’s new poetry collection, “There are no such thing as seagulls” with beautiful poems inspired by Whitby. Looking forward to it all 🙂 and I hope to be back online in about a week or so.

Robin’s nest

When Sun sets over sea
and grateful light is spread,
the sky’s still blue or grey
a hundred miles more West.

There was a certain bird
that followed every beam
till such fatigue set in,
then found a ship to rest.

It had no sense of fear,
as sailors let it stay
and sail for hours on,
to travel on its quest.

And when that bird then sang
so far away from home
it made the sailors dream,
that’s when their life was best.

When Sun went down at last
and darkness was around
the bird flew up again
to go back to its nest.

For months it came and went,
a welcome passenger.
The shipmates loved the bird,
to hear it, was a fest.

A day the ship got wrecked
and lives were lost at sea.
The bird, that washed ashore,
had now a bleeding chest.

The Robin stayed on land
and lost its joyful song.
Sometimes it wants to find
the waves and where they crest.

When Sun sets over sea
and Robins watch the sky
it’s where their thoughts have gone:
the sailors whom they blessed.

Near Whitby on the Yorkshire coast is a place called Robin Hoods’s Bay. So I decided to make a little legend 🙂 .

Sea meets ocean

There are seas with names
but no one knows where they become oceans,
their waves move on
crossing that imaginative line.

We whispered each other’s names
we have moved from sea to ocean;
you became a bit of me
and I’m a piece of you now.

Our shells will wash ashore beaches
to join many others,
all proof of the silent fusion
that happens under the surface.