by Pam Crane
There is too much pain
To put into words. I weep
For broken China.
(17/5/08-5 days after the Szechuan earthquake)
Broken promises -
The pied piper of Szechuan
Came for your children
(18/5/08-6 days after the Szechuan earthquake)
Sweet girl, sleep softly -
Rock pillows, concrete coverlet
Be my lost embrace
(18/5/08-6 days after the Szechuan earthquake)
Break time, the end of lessons,
No more school.
Screaming.
(18/5/08-6 days after the Szechuan earthquake)
May '08 - crunch time.
Walls fall, roofs and men cave in,
Little lives aborted.
(1000s of children lost in Szechuan,
the Commons pass the Embryology Bill. 19/05/08)
The eye of Heaven
Sees you, mean strawberry thief,
And the drowned thousands
(18/5/08-a fortnight after the Burma cyclone)
Threatening thunder
Red mist blood on the carpet
The clash of antlers
(Men at war - Oct 2nd 2008)
Thursday - Betws train.
Snow printed, child pacified.
Haiti in ruins.
(14/01/10 - solo excursion to get snow out of my system;
Quake mag 7 Jan 12th wrecks Port au Prince killing
tens of thousands)
The 42nd
Mother's Day without a card
Or a daffodil
coma - I'm inside
my locked home, not answering,
waiting for daylight
(6/06/10 - after Richard Hammond & Stirling Moss
compare race-car crashes)
too hot and too high
only time runs out - what’s left
burning and crying
(Fire at Pudding Lane 1666 - 2/07/2010)
interviewing pain
in 17 syllables
safer in prison
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FOR THOSE LOVED AND GONE
Strangely configured
My parents' old furniture -
Continuity
(13/12/2013 looking around my room)
No more blue snow
Next to people who loved him
Our fox chose to die
(A melancholy month - I had to cut down our old Ceanothus;
and the fox I used to watch running at night curled up under
our Fuschia bush by the lounge wall and left this world
without a sound.)
'Zach's back!' Joyous the
Conference of Star-Fathers
We cannot attend
Old hands breaking the
Last of the Ospringe bayleaves
Pavarotti died.
(6/9/07)
Sidereal Mars -
My splitting head, the bombed plane,
Your tears on my phone
(Lockerbie bomb)
Stretchers passing me;
Young blood runs with mine in a
Theatre of war
(Royal marines bomb)
American friends
Hang in the Kentish air
Healers are coming
(M2 coach crash
Eleven a.m.
Mourning yesterday, today stops
I have just started
(House-hunting 12 Sept 2001)
Under the carnage
A front page ad for the car
Soon closing my road
(M6 tragedy -Weekly News
Thursday October 23rd 2008)
The grief of children
Heart-breaking.The naked trees.
The wreaths. The black cars.
(The Funeral, November 4th 2008-
Our Lady Star of the Sea-Noon)
The spirits who made
These bodies beautiful are flown
We weep over bone
(November 6th 2008)
Led to the last seat
I stood by your side; your grave
Received my red rose.
(Fr Frank’s funeral)
No-one remembered
It was my fun friend who died -
I have stopped singing
(Janet, departed)
We walked, and smiled...
In Folkestone tunnel my husband
Picked up your pieces.
(My dead poet)
Rewind time - the friend
Distraught, steps, the broken head -
God, give back Nancy
No telegram -
Among the ashes
Only her plastic smile
(Ann Crane died at 99)
Immaculately
Turned out now in watered silk
At God's beck & call
(Stella's ashes scattered in Duddon Valley
Sept.04 - 30/09/04)
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BOXES - 19 SENRYU
Boxes everywhere
Closed, open, inside, outside
Empty, full of air
Inbox outbox mail
Pillar to post redacting
Filing shredding us
Think out of the box
Where you can cut to the chase
And other clichés
Beware of the box
Lest sprung free grimacing Jack
Give you a heart attack
A box on the ear
Damaging but in the groin
Saving your lunch box
Junction boxes or
Box junctions - you enter them
both on pain of death
Serve your penalty -
Finally out of the box
Hope springs eternal
Into the black box
Secret thousands of Xes
Kisses or crosses
Orange in the rocks
Not human debris this time
Witness the Black Box
Box ... box ... box this lap
Don’t kill the lollipop man
Win from the pit lane
One green Ferrari
Parked F1 Hybrid never
Leaves its box
At the theatre
Poor folk sit up in the Gods
The Queen in a box
Raising the Tempest
Needs a taller Prospero
Fetch an orange box
Get on the ladder
Choccy-box cottages tick
Box after perfect box
In your Jewel Box
Nothing to match the cluster
Of heaven’s diamonds
Shoe-box cigar-box
Gift box squirreling treasures
Nothing is wasted
Next to the toy box
A dressing-up box - watch out
For teddies in drag
Without the one man
In the box trains crash queens die
And no Dr. Who
In front of the box
Watching your world go by - soon
You will leave in one
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VIEWS FROM THE PATH
O Lady - sapphire
Amid birds and bells - hold high
Your golden thunder
(Madonna del Sasso 15/7/01)
In thrilling palms, live
Lightning carries the holy
Word down God's mountain
Thunder over Lake -
Men, fireworks, no sleep. No sleep!
Dawn storm! God's are best!
(Locarno 15/7/01 .... dawn)
Gold Sun God, O laugh
out loud as you net the heart's
highway with free light
(Atenolol for G! ... 8/9/01 21h40)
Mountain Seraphim
Hymn in opalescent fire
A Holy sunset
(Menai Strait, spring 2003)
Th
e storm of Heaven
So flooded my spring with Love
Even the Sun drowns!
(week of prayer for Christian unity)
Man whose skin fell off
Under the scourge of karma
God whose skin fell off
('the boy whose skin fell off' CH4 25/3/04 9h00 pm)
The Passion
Beaten back across
Time raw passion bred of life
Dyes history red
Beyond the gate his
Blood spatters a rising moon
The world shatters
Sunset bloody moon
Crosses out Love, all square now
Until the next time
Skinned alive, the Lamb
Imploring me beyond sobs...
I cannot save you
Gospel
A few red letters
Weigh down millennia with
Clarifications
A few red letters
Millennia
Of footnotes
Christmas is over -
Supermarket hot cross buns
Scent the New Year
A tear falls.
A pearl forms.
A prayer rises.
Five lines in the blue
At C sharp the Sunday sun
Feast with an octave
(jet-trails over Holy Trinity
Ascension Sunday 23/5/04)
Whether to join in -
Murder in the Cathedral
Salve vagina
(29/05/04-10 yrs of women priests @ Durham)
Even a whisper
Rings too loud. Hushed by Cuthbert
Our old lives steal back
(28-29/5/04 Durham Cathedral)
Only God is perfect.
Now I know why
I never finish the wall-papering
Rosslyn in the rain
Lightning indoors, magic lace,
Beauty & breath caught
In my old habit
Sitting on warm stone to hear
The Word I gilded
(Lindisfarne Abbey 2/6/04)
So near my old cell
Tears well for another wake
Disturbing the lake
How will Mind create
Heaven in our image without
Murdering the world?
Butchered Judas tree
Kiss goodbye to your cold crown.
Have I betrayed you...?
(pruning Forest Pansy 22/11/08)
Cybele's lion
Wounds me Once Felicia
Offered violets
(28/3/09 - after dream on 24/3 showing me
past life, followed by Web research)
Vast lawns? Cropped heather.
A cell, not gold. Bright foxes.
God's dance in my heart
(12/04/09-big dream c.07h30 )
Trapping the Nightmare,
Naming it, I nail its rage
To Love's mighty Cross.
(20/04/09-big nightmare - Pluto Asc, etc.)
Wheel to wheel
God's fingertip from Adam
Inseparable
Years of ecstasies
Then you arrived and I stopped
Writing poetry
Having Aspergers
Isn't the end of the world:
Invert selection ...
Every living soul
The perfect inflorescence
Of one bud of God
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SNAPSHOTS OF A CRANE'S LIFE
A man goes whistling,
A woman without tea; numen shines,
House-light is happy.
(21/12/1971!)
In a cheesenet trapped,
Twelve little dark fishy things -
Their name escaped me!
(Anchovies at lunch)
Nettle-fume that curled
from webs has met its Angel
in an opal Heaven
(Ospringe garden 14th August 2001)
Low-slung sun, god-gold
I.D. disk swings in my eyes,
Aten remembers me!
All my life I was
A winter child; my spring comes,
Full moon melting snow
Why, why, why? -
Swale & Wales
Pam Pam Pam!
Red May
Her second brood
My two duvets
Under my toes
The new gravel
Last year's begonia
Seaside G&T
''Listen - a cuckoo!''
It is two o'clock
Looking for heaven
I move, and dream of moving
Mountains and thunder
(12/08/04-after Keswick)
Under my window
Chattering, laughing, fighting
People and sparrows
The pink taste - rosehips,
luminous quince, clear bright beads
of pomegranate
Under a full moon
My frogs croon - our dreaming doves
Mourn transfigured loves
Wet cave, frog peeping,
Elephant washing - my pool,
My piece of heaven
Song
Of a light plane -
Summer high
My garden Buddha
Crowned with a summer goldfinch
Now I can meditate
Our friend's funeral -
One butterfly in the sun
And purple flowers
(29/06/04- Gillingham)
In the twelfth autumn
Preparing quinces; the breeze,
My mother's perfume
(October 14th 2004)
Autumn.
My hair is falling.
Nearly sixty-two,
Bemused by bone, dying stars,
Dumbfounding I Am
All wrapped up -
The first winter drifts
Whiten the hall floor.
At sunset, grateful
To have been part of this brief
Human miracle
Spring tinnitus - rain
over lunch, plans, muzak, all
Falling on deaf ears
Cold May, clouts not cast;
One experimental rose
Amid the bird scraps
Painting the Chapel -
Yet another Monday gone
Without Tai Chi
Drowsy rituals -
Scrabble, Astropocket -
Unread magazines
Am I eating soap?
Goat's yoghurt and strawberries
This odd June evening
Bluebells! eleven
Under my quince - the loved Sun
Blessed with a halo
(23/4/08-another sun rainbow!)
Wind off Great Orme's Head
History streams old eyes blue
As the Med in May
Just resting is good -
Horses nibble each other,
My costume waiting
Quince blossom, moonlight
I wait for his late white car
Ghostly, a seagull
Forty-four summers
Remembering your birthday
Forgotten pictures
(Rob sends my old prints!11/5/08)
Blown Ceanothus
Blackie is after my worms
Digging in blue snow
Down by the dead pool
Faded confetti - half-term
Pantomime wedding
The Sunday service -
Norman on organ, young Daz
On coffee machine
(8/6/08 @ Costa Coffee)
The dark is lighter -
Despite the mask, my skin
Feels silver with birdsong.
(3/7/08-a night poorly with no sleep)
Beside my window
The clutter of people's lives
Passing at sunset
(Holyhead train 21/09/08)
> Yesterday's breakfast
Haunts me - Yes, it's time I fell
In love with toothpaste!
Out in a hailstorm
Birds scattering seed. Indoors
I spill peppercorns
Two more tiny lights
And all the stars of the Plough
Burn in my bedroom
(Electrics on standby 26/11/08)
Saturn Ascendant.
Frost, Vick - too late for garlic.
I can't hear my clock.
(miserable with the 'man-flu' 30/11/08)
Even in the sun
Prom white with frost, a new year
Crunching underfoot
(1/1/09-a week sub-zero by the sea!)
Diamond bare twigs
Full of nithering starlings
Nearly my birthday
(Hard winter - 15/1/2009)
I miss fluffy snow
Knee deep, still, muffling wheels -
I want my world back
(Unsatisfactory winter - 22/1/2009)
Unmoved by mountains
Theme-park snow, too far to touch
Winter is hearsay
(Unsatisfactory winter - 22/1/2009)
Brief reunions
Two leaves caught in an eddy
Floating and drowning
(Feb.15th 2009 - not heard from her)
My glorious wife
The golden face of my son
Histories later
(24/2/09 - mask of Tutankhamen
in fancy dress window)
Spinning a light line
I catch you with your bright tail
Plunge into your sea
(8/3/09 - conversing with RevPeter)
The light on the Orme
In my garden sapphire snow
Homeward donkey bells
(30/05/09-lovely holiday week!)
Early shift. First bird.
Still the blue lights, men searching.
My feet are freezing.
(12/09/09 at my window with cameras
from 04h45 for 2 hours:
Two fire engines & three police cars
at our crossroads. A firebug.)
Peeholes in the snow
our poor eyes puzzling head
and the heart dancing
(26/11/09 - migraine. Did Mum have it too?
We are so alike.)
So loud through my wall
The voices of the neighbours
Who never hear me
(21/12/09 - after 11pm trying to sleep)
Saturn square Pluto
Black ice on the road black ice
On my winter road
(22/12/09 - Ceres/Neptune under siege –
swine flu and a Nuisance!)
That suspenseful joy
Of not quite seeing the sea
Salt on a railing
Inside I am five
Crying to print virgin snow
The sea stole from me
(12/01/10 - the whole UK is snowbound except us.)
dancing with fiddles
Joyously stamping chiming
rhyming with fiddles
(Fiddlers Bid at Theatre By the Lake
Easter Sunday 4/4/2010. Ecstatic!)
Ageing I run down
More in my charging cradle
Than this well-worn palm
(8/06/2010 - don't do evenings any more!)
Pruning - a loud car;
Their red balloon bounds by me.
Square Mars, Aries Moon.
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1ABOUT PAM CRANE
Pam has been a poet since she was seven years old; it was only when she joined her local Writers' Club that she found she could also write short stories.
She has been a Christian astrologer for most of her life, is well known in that community, and is the author of two books plus many articles in the Astrological Association Journal (for which she compiles the regular Cryptic Crossword.)
You can find her website at https://revpamcrane.weebly.com.
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