Category Archives: Life

Church

January 15, 2022Life, philosophy, poem, Poetrychurch, exmoor, Life, philosophy, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Moorland lurks in my soul
skies that bleed rain, seep mist
slant slopes that yearn for sunlight in winter
twilight danger as sharp branched trees close in
a dance with the lowering sky
someone once said it was my altar
my shadow a church spire across bog

Been there, done that

December 18, 2021Life, poem, Poetryage, feminism, Life, poem, poetry, sexism, womanThe Cheesesellers Wife

Don’t try to name me by your names
I will not play any of your games

I’ve lived with your chaining fear
but I have always had ambition
won’t accept your conditions
I am a free, sustained idea

I am universe, scientist, mother
once you tried to cut me with wolfwhistles
now you imply I’m useless gristle
always someone you do your best to smother

Don’t try to fit me into your little world
because I rise high, little man
won’t bow to your sexist demands
this woman has her soul unfurled

Bored Relics

December 4, 2021Life, poem, PoetryLife, museum, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Bored relics loiter at street corners
hiss sexily at passers by
wanna look at some history?
they ask

Bored relics broke out of the museum
looking for excitement
didn’t realise that there is none
in this small town

Our main excitement is the museum
with all its lovely old relics
now it’s even more fun there
we can view their smashed cases

Bored relics start walking down the road
craving life and joy
we are all in the museum
having found it

Wearing down the years

November 17, 2021Life, poem, PoetryLife, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

A disconsolate shadow
haunts my ears
whispers deep into my skull
who are you?

Like my Father

November 13, 2021Life, poem, PoetryDad, father, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

I cannot run like my Father
his swift grace beyond
my stuttering pace

I have a temper like my Father
and that need for perfection
but I’ve mastered each

I love like my Father
immensely, extravagantly
wholeheartedly

I smothered my art like my Father
unlike me, he trained at art school
we both eventually came back to it

I have sought adventure like my Father
sailing, climbing, travelling
longing for sun, sea, mountains

I long for a splendid future like my Father
spaceships and aliens

I cherish nature like my Father
walking, seeing, immersing myself
in glorious life

Pink

November 10, 2021Life, poem, PoetryLife, Masculinity, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

One year all the museum shops had them
the usual puzzle in a complex world
erasers inscribed with As.

Arsenic and its atomic weight
never any other elements
no oxygen for breathing or fluoride to strengthen teeth
just death on bright pink.
That autumn everyone had one in their pencil case you said
at school , no one knew whose was whose.

The pink never bothered you
it would have fractured the fragile toxic masculinity
of many men, the kind that now collects large knives
protection they say.
Do their makeup laden wives feel protected I wonder?

The rain it doth rain

November 1, 2021Life, poem, PoetryLife, poem, poetry, rainThe Cheesesellers Wife

It is raining on the common
The horizon all around
Glows with bright sunshine
While here the sky frowns

Missed

October 20, 2021Life, poem, Poetryautumn, Life, loss, moonlight, poem, poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Early frost whitens the morning
All I’d hoped to do this summer
is now lost in autumn’s darkening.
I cannot sleep, am adrift, a thousand miles alone

but moonlight fills my heart

Seed Guardian

October 18, 2021garden, Life, nature, poem, Poetrybiodiversity, hope, Life, nature, poem, poetry, seed guardianThe Cheesesellers Wife

I joke that he is now a bean counter
as, indeed, he kneels to count his beans
small white capsules of DNA
strung up on life giving proteins

He needs to send a minimum of two hundred
to a seed bank upcountry, for these beans are rare
a variety that may die out soon if not cherished
grown, saved, stored

A variety that may feed us when times are hard
but only if we keep it, saving for a rainy day

For Tony, who is a Seed Guardian for the UK Heritage Seed Library. The crops we rely on for food need to be diverse so that diseases cannot totally wipe out our food supplies , but agrobusiness concentrates on only a few varieties.

For Earthweal