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My Poems of the Month because....
Ascension Day
I can‘t I shan’t sleep
I’m tired as hell
There’s a fizz in my veins
It’s the warning bell.
I must say goodbye
To all that I’ve been,
Ta Ta and farewell
To all that I’ve seen.
I’m leaving today
for a higher place,
I’ve done all that I can
for this Human Race.
So Arravedecci!
Sure I’ll see you again
Just take the changes
Make happiness not pain.
The Family
Holiday
No lie ins for a week, there’s a beach outside –
Waves that need jumping in, castles to build.
‘It’s your turn.’ ‘no, yours.’
Who’s holiday is it?
The children are screaming again-
Tears and ice-cream before breakfast.
Sun streak hair against burnt pink skin
‘Mum you’re hurting me.’
‘You forgot the calamine?;
A day on the boat brings vomiting,
Sunstroke and later, copious diarrhoea.
‘Well why didn’t you bring his hat?’
At what point do you get to listen to the waves?
‘Sit down love, look at the sunset.
I‘ve got you a glass of wine.
I’ve put the kids to bed.’
Did that happen?
‘How much did this fucking holiday cost me?’
Same again, next year?
Or shall we go somewhere different?
Unavailably Yours,
I will always love you,
But not in A Celine Dion way.
I will carry you, like another organ in my body.
I know what is possible.
To care and not have
To cherish but not touch
To want but just look
To need but not share.
I will make do with caressing your face
with my eyes, keep my hands to myself.
My imagination locked, jailed between my ears.
I will always love you,
But not in A Whitney Houston style.
You will travel with me as my hearts luggage.
I know what is not possible.
And when we are old
I shall hold your hand
Stroke your fading hair
Lie next to you and tell you,
Of all the times that never happened
In those years that left us behind.
As real as the reflection, in my rippling bath water.
God’s Birthday Voice
As I lay submerged, semi floating in my bath,
I heard a voice telling me –
‘Sophie, you can have everything now.
You do have everything.
Let go of all you try to own, for you have it already.
A house as much as a blade of grass
A lover as much as a husband
A car as much as some bread
Money as much as energy
Beauty as much as truth
Love as much as air
Joy as much as pain
Now live, love and be as happy as you can.’
I rose to the surface, broke the tension,
Breathed out and understood, this truth to set me free.
I wondered if Joan of Arc’s ‘voice’ had sounded the same,
Or was it more like the one in
Lourdes
?
Or too similar to Walt Whitman or William James to be real?
Carl Jung would have known, maybe it was the collective unconscious?
Or Jung’s voice? He did die on the day I was born.
Novelty Clause For Mrs Gable
If I was ever to marry Clarke Gable
(admit it! being Mrs Gable would be fun,
for a while)
But, even the fanciest of marriages lose their gleam,
In duties trial.
Playing with his ears
Might while away some years,
Discussing his Lorretta daughter
Might make me think I oughta.
I’d listen sympathetically about Carole Lombard
I know he took loosing his screwball hard,
But hearing his teeth clink out each night
Would make his smile less fun, less bite.
So no matter how much I’ve always wanted him
Like my red bicycle, chrome novelty wears thin.
I’d have to demand release,
Paris
, or
Rome
for a stay.
‘Look Clarke, I’m not leaving you, I just need to get away.’
Mr Sturges Is My Kind Of Guy.
Or The Biography of a Bum
A poem in salute of
Preston
Sturges
Press,
Pressed
Pressed on?
Preston
? What kind of mother gives that kind of name?
What Kind of man is called
Preston
?
The kind that breaks rules, regulations and rigidity,
But not in a, shout you down sorta way.
Laughing he plays around with boundaries, tattoos, plays, nightclubs, diesel engines and rouge.
Writing and redirecting all the goalposts on the Boulevard.
Sure there’d be fights, but I was never a real plate-smashing-redhead.
Boy did we laugh at those pics of you…Screwball crazy.
Trussed up like a gal, tunic dancing with Isadora Duncan
(Singer, gravely watching from the sidelines).
I’ll say we laughed, not so much with The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, but dress me up like The Lady Eve, change my shoes Mr Sturges.
Then, hear us roar along Sullivan’s Travels, McCrae and heart in hand,
All the way to The Palm Beach Story and back.
The aristocracy of beauty, the Triumph over Pain,
All Hail, My Conquering Hero.
Does Bukowski know what love is?
In Homage to Raymond Carver
By Sophie Parkin 2008
Don’t tell me that you love me,
Don’t tell me about love.
Don’t tell me what, you want to hear
And expect right back a radiant cheer.
Lips were meant to kiss not split,
Hands to hold not punch or slap
Feet to stroke, not kick and tear.
Tongues to lick, not spit or sear.
Don’t tell me that you love me
And don’t tell me what you think
Please don’t tell me that you care.
This bleeding heart cannot share.
I could tell you that I love you.
I could tell you what love is,
If we drank enough to paint the sky
Will they still appear like flippant lies?
Lips weren’t meant for lying.
Eyes weren’t meant to cheat,
But these are things that I have learnt,
My heart once singe’d is black and burnt.
Please don’t tell me that you love me
I could tell you a thing about love.
I can’t tell you what you want to hear,
You’ve missed this boat, bad time, wrong year.
Reason’s I never Married- Robert Mitchum
Sophie Parkin
We could always start with his wicked smile.
Drive on to the diamond glint in his eyes,
Before arriving at his voice of mochalato brown.
That could whisper and soar to bury you underground.
Bob was different from other men.
Though some called him 2-Dimensional, or Black & White.
Women showered in his Charisma.
Men enquired after his sex appeal
(After he laid his dick in a roll, covered in ketchup and asked
who’d like the first bite.)
He was always a smoker a drinker a gambler.
A hell raising train riding hobo from a boho mom,
Worshiping Whitman, never writing poetry as fine as
The way he glanced at Ava in The Killers.
Of any late night dive in any town, Bob would be there.
Of all the bad choices, the worst was a Winner.
A film by Michael Winner.
But that’s no reason not to marry Bob.
Too much of a macho man for me? Maybe,
But he was always married to Dotty.
So You Think You Know What You Want, huh?
You think you want to fall in love
Feel the drill of unholy desire,
‘Oh, it’s been so long
let love sweep me away.’
You quietly, incessantly, daily pray.
Have you forgotten the ravages that storms leave behind?
The terrors, tears and traumas
of what lies before us?
Because life is worthless unless you feel,
Something, to tell you that you are real?.
And now that you’ve collected all the butterflies and pain
A contentedness of peace is what you wish to regain.
But too late. Too late
you jumped over that ledge
Your fingers are barely,
clinging to the edge.
Never Turn Down A Party/ Or Rules For Life
(for Chris Stewart)
‘Sophie -Never turn down an invitation for a party’,
He said.
‘There you might meet your fate.’
Your unknown future drizzled over a plate.
Always go, to play the wheel of chance,
It’s there in the air, the spin of the dance.
At the bottom of each glass, and at it’s rim,
That will leave your cup overflowing.
‘Never take the prescribed route of predictability’,
He said.
There on the unknown road or place,
You’ll have a chance to win the race
Look within the surface for what is true,
Not what people say, but what they do.
Everything is not, as it always appears
Unshield yourself from those layers of fears.
I have been to lots of parties on many full moons’,
I said.
‘And I have yet to meet my outstanding fate.
at parties that I turned up too early, or too late.
Maybe I fell in the dark, got invited to the wrong type
But isn’t fate always in the right place and light?
All my life I’ve shaken dice, to watch them fall
Perhaps, I watched too closely to ever hear the call
‘Maybe chance/fate is not at parties but in all parts of life?’,
I said..
I unusually disturb my plans in odd ways
To notice better the blossoms that stand out in May.
Try to be funny, kind and trust in all that I do
Stops you whining on about feeling blue.’
‘Be nice, be thin, have daughters,. he said, 'You’ll live longer.’
‘Live the right kind of life, happier and stronger’.
Dizzy For President
In 1964 John Birk ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie, jazz trumpeter, ran for President of the
United States of America
.
John Hendricks(of Hendricks, Lambert &Ross) wrote his Campaign Song called – Vote Dizzy
Which went something like –
Want a good president that’s willing to run
Vote Dizzy Vote Dizzy
Want to make politics a bale of fun
If you want to know where it really is
Vote for democratic Dizz
This is my poem –
‘I Was The Only Choice For The Thinking Man’
If Dizzy had become President
He would’ve opened wide that door
Plenty of BeBop filling the floor.
Democratic Dizz would give Offices away
Malcolm X Attorney General
Miles Davis, Chief of the CIA.
Vote Dizzy. Vote Dizzy
If Dizzy had become President
We’d know what life was for
Charlie Mingus would be made, Officer for War.
Dizzy said, there’d be none of that
he’d have to learn to manage peace
All war and fighting would have to cease
Vote Dizzy. Vote Dizzy.
If Dizzy became President
All trumpets would be B’hai bent,
If John Birks Gillespie, had become US President.
Politics would be groovy, Ray Charles, head of Congress
Unity for all mankind, And every girl in a beautiful dress. Vote Dizzy Vote Dizzy
If Dizzy had become President
Coltrane would be there instead of Ms Rice
And Mr Parker making sure everyone ‘played’ nice.
All nights would be Scat in
Tunisia
,
America
would be
Cuba
’s best friend
And global warming wouldn’t ever, signify the end.
Vote Dizzy Vote Dizzy
But you didn’t think – Vote Diz for Pres
You got Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Bush,
Wars around the world, and nothing left to push.
‘I thought I’d run to promote change’, he said.
‘Change The White House to the The Blues House.’
Too late, too late, now Dizz is dead.
‘A’ Train Terminates at Oval.
Or, what you don’t want to hear
He’s never going to stay.
I know this feels like pain
Like a haunting refrain.
He’s not one to stick by
Like Carmen’s words or, Ross’ tunes
He’ll be gone faster than the A Train goes
He’ll take you lower than Billie’s Blues.
He’s never going to stay.
He hasn’t got that bebop track
Where he can’t help coming back
To wistful sighs of favourite keys.
No plaintive heart yearning
Old, ‘I love you Porgy’s’, romantic dream.
It’s never going to be what it seems.
He’s never going to stay.
You’re just a convenient date.
When there’s a choice to make,
Between The Devil and The
Deep
Blue
Sea
Don’t you know he’s blowing some other’s tune?
No point singing, ‘Say it Isn’t So’,
When he'll always be the first to go.
He’s never going to stay.
And you won’t end up together
All harmony like Louis and Ella.
You could wait you’re whole life through -
Dunking donuts Putty Putty Cement mixer.
You’re not Fat’s, Your feet aren’t too big,
But the ‘A’ Train terminates here baby – You Dig?
Does Anything ever frighten you?
(For Brian Patten)
Dear,
I'd like to feel myself fearless,
But I read a friends poem today
Realised he is 50 and still has no answer to love.
I talk with my 90 year old friend who says,
there is no answer.
I chat with my friend, all of 6 years old who says,
love has no reason.
I check my letterbox again and,
Finding it empty, see
I too have run out of excuses.
Games that Eric D Berne never played.
(Eric Berne founded Transactional Analysises his book Games People Play was first published in 1965)
When we were together
We never played Scrabble, Monopoly or Twister.
We could’ve played Backgammon, Chess or Darts.
But Hey we had more than enough games to play -
Like - Slammo that door.
Or - You’ve Been Bad, That’s Why I’m SO Good.
And that old favourite - Lets Get Drunk (and Pretend it Never Happened)
On rainy days we enjoyed - No But How Much Do You Love Me?
And the Classic - I’ll show you mine, If you show me Yours ,
Usually followed by -You show me your Back and I’ll show you Mine.
Ah, the bliss of those days of emotional torture
Through all the games
The up’s and down’s, the in’s and out’s, beginning’s and end’s - How could we win at Connect?
We never had a Cluedo, Of how to Mastermind, The Game of Life.
We were too busy playing Go For Broke, and ending up Kerplunk
I Fell.
It was an ordinary kind of accident
A normal type of day.
Nothing remarkable to be seen
Hey folks, just look away.
There is no blood spillage here
It’s a simple type of break.
It can happen to anyone, anytime.
Don’t stare for goodness sake!
I was minding my own business
Playing the Green Cross Code.
I didn’t look. then mish and mash
As I fell into the road.
I might look hurt and shaken
But it’s not that big a deal.
It happens to hearts every day
A fall, a crash, a jump back up
To ride again, on the spinning wheel.
Popular Christmas Solutions
This time last year
I was packaged in kisses
Tied up in embraces
Wet fleshy wishes.
This New Years Eve
I go to bed quite alone
Am happy with the space,
Oh I don’t moan.
Another one will come along
Another to fill his place
But what’s the point in going on?
guess someone has to populate the human race..
New Page
I wish I wanted you,
The arms, the legs,
Your face, close to.
That palpable need grew out of my gut
But the garden gate,
Is very much shut.
To be excited at the thought of you
Is something now
I couldn’t do.
I wish we could start a brand new page
Open another golden cage
To be in love,
is freedom itself
But quite frankly, I’d rather be left on this shelf.
Misappropriated Funds( jan 06)
For Elizabeth David and Fiona Skinner
You see, you can believe
That you love someone,
That they love you.
And years can go by and do
Go by, filled with just you two –
(‘Alone is Bliss’)
Obviously there are times,
That are harder, than the rest
When you know you should leave.
Or, it’s some calculated test
Can he really, be the best?
(And you stay).
Can’t he be as happy as you are?
Find gold when he’s lost in your eyes?
That sex with you is magical.
Doesn’t he even realise
You’re a goddess, undisguised.
(I don’t think so.)
And you so brilliant, extraordinary,
Beautiful, clever, funny, sweet.
And it’s not enough, you’re too too much
Just playing the mildly oblique.
You don’t make him feel unique.
(How could you?)
So maybe you didn’t really love him?
All those dividends paid each year
Or maybe it was you, you didn’t love?
Is that what you didn’t want to hear?
Consumed by an over riding fear.
(‘But darling really. He’s not Our sort’)
Distance
For Jessica Ward.
My head is full of love poems
Every foolish metaphor and platitude.
I worry what you’d think of
Each, carefully, chosen, word,
How you’d feel about my attitude.
And you, hundreds of miles away across the sea.
Then the phone rings, ‘It’s me,
Is it too late?’ A voice falls, and falters..
‘She’s dead. Jessie died this afternoon.’
I was waiting for this call, yet nothing alters,
You still, hundreds of miles away from me.
And Jessica cackles rudely in my head-
‘Oh go on, for God’s sake Sophie, get on with it!’
We leave our bodies but not the earth
Her brave warmth and kindness cling
Her fearful wit and joyful laughter sit.
Lost, yet more, than hundreds of miles away, free.
An Ocean View
Love comes in waves
It can hit you in the eye
Knock you on the head
Slide at you from the side
Wallop you stone dead.
Love, comes in waves.
Love comes in waves
Washing you salt clean
Drowning with it's force
Blinding with it's science.
Running you on it's course.
Love, comes in waves.
Love comes in waves
Though droughts may appear
The horizon can steal the tide
And qualm tinted memories
Can camouflage and hide,
That love, comes in waves.
Love comes in waves
And you have seeped into my conscious
Woven into my hair
Burrowed under my pores
And my heart has no care.
Love, comes in waves.
Love comes in waves
Usually it’s a surprise
A pleasant kind of shock
But I have been whip-lashed
And my heart has been locked.
Love, comes in waves.
Love comes in waves
And I broke the cardinal rule.
Turned my back on the sea
Never saw it coming,
The ocean drowning me.
Love, comes in waves
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