Poems

Mongolia

Mongolia.   Frozen stretch, wasteland, grey-black mountain ranges. Cold. Dirt road crawling like a wounded serpent Through brown hillocks. Tiny hamlet.  Black.  No sound. No movement. Nothing lost. Nothing found. Heavy horizon lumbers beyond The rocks.  Jagged.  Rounded.  Brown, grey, more grey, Mean little shack, old truck, icy air, solitary bird A miniscule speck, its […]

Posted 12 years ago

The lover

  Cloaked in the raw night air you came, Stepping through the doorway of my day. Who said to draw back the curtain, love, And reveal how naked we lay ? There is no right nor wrong to this, The ebbing tides of such lust. Mantled in the morning sun you go, Weeping, and so […]

Posted 12 years ago

The Old House

  The Old House This tumble-down old house spoke to me In the dark, As I lay sleepless in my bed, Listening to the silence. Through the cracks in the windows and doors Whistled the weeping of ghosts Of generations of great-grandparents And aunts and uncles Who died in the bed where I lay. Across […]

Posted 13 years ago

Six Words

Six Words There are six words someone once said to me That cling fast on my mind; Whispered tenderly on warm breath in the night:- “I hate you when you go…” Beethoven had filled our hearts that night, Music we had spoken of, and serious things We’d laughed at. (He said one hundred other little […]

Posted 13 years ago

Do You Remember ?

  Do you remember holding my hand? Walking together Thru’ our own dreamland, Laughter playing in our eyes, Love riding in the skies And piercing our Hearts? Do you remember lying watching a Bird fly? Do you remember crying when I said Goodbye? Do you remember? Do you? (published in teenage magazine 1970s) Catherine Broughton 

Posted 13 years ago

Diary date 2001

I’ll look you up when I get to Heaven. I’ll see you then. Maybe I’ll come on all fours. Perhaps I’ll climb. Could be it’s steep. Or wet. I don’t know. But I’ll look you up when I get there. You see, some people have wings and they can fly. They can fly. But I […]

Posted 13 years ago

if, one day

  If, one day, when you have your sabanas blancas wife, When looking at her wide child-bearing hips, Her work-worn red hands, her narrow lips, You should think of one of your very first loves, Remember me kindly, Remember me kindly. And if, should you think of me, And remember a night when I cried […]

Posted 13 years ago

My Sister – Anthea

  Sometimes you dip your fingers into The holy water of our childhood. You flick a little toward me: take these, A benediction A blessing A recognition of who we once were In another world by sunny seas. Sometimes faded thoughts cross your mind, Like a bird flitting through the grey sky. You glance behind […]

Posted 13 years ago

I Can See (the old soldier)

  I can see With my old rheumy eyes Right up through those stars Reflected from the skies Throughout the deep seas Of all the years gone by. I can see Far clearer than you’d know Beyond the fathomy water The days long ago Of war and friends and fields And tennis on the lawn. […]

Posted 13 years ago

I am Tired of Gecko Poo

I am tired of gecko poo on the table, And on the cooker, the shelf or the chair. I am tired of doctor-flies and ants And mosquitoes everywhere. I’d love to hear English rain, And feel the breeze in my hair Wafting down the Downs in Sussex To the seas of Brighton there. I am […]

Posted 13 years ago

Books now available on Amazon:

A Call From France
French Sand
Kefani: An African Childhood
The Man With Green Fingers
Saying Nothing