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Best Poems Written by Mary Braithwaite

Below are the all-time best Mary Braithwaite poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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I Have My Doubts About Its Shape

This poem is written in the sonnet form,
And yet I have my doubts about its shape
Though nearly to that structure it conforms
There may be holes where nightmare faces gape.

It looks and speaks just as a sonnet would
And talks of metaphysical concerns.
Do we conclude, as poets and readers should,
That in our schizoid age we cannot learn?

For humans may be decked in clothes of wolves;
And lambs be dressed in lion’s fearsome furs.
Thus, sense is tricked and problems are unsolved.
Landscapes etched, yet details seem quite blurred.

It looks like one,it feels like one,it speaks;
Yet from these words, does human feeling leak?

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Grief Is Fear

No-one ever told me grief was fear
Or did they speak but I refused to hear?
Like cancer, blindness,  suicide and hate
The words  describe the folk of foreign states.

Vigilant and wary as we weep
We feel the loss of God and then our sleep
The world  no longer has a solid  floor
The foot is hesitant, the head is more.

The rudeness of  old friends can hurt like knives
They rush to tell you, you are no-one’s wife.
Though we know we  must meet God alone
The status of our soul is overthrown.

And yet we  see new visions and new ways
Lying with the worms , as beetles gaze

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Sacred Spaces

The spaces once held sacred are destroyed
Like Salisbury plain where sheep could safely graze
Now for soldiers use and practice Wars

The Bedouin who inhabit deserts cry
The Negev is no longer a free space
The places for creation are destroyed

Before the birth of Christ, they wandered by
Their little tents and camels no disgrace
Deserts are for practising new Wars

To shepherds and their flocks we say,Good bye.
The land is used for shooting, so debased
The places for creation are destroyed

The Lamb of God is fined and unemployed
Search for peace, be treated with distaste
Deserts are for practising new Wars

Of the Spirit, is there any trace
As the Lord God turns away his Face?
The spaces once held sacred are destroyed
Now for soldiers use and Final War.

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

The Buttercups Have Gone

The fields that once held buttercups are gone
Giant furrows pattern that  long land
Made by huge machines   whose time has come

Precise as  old account books , now forlorn,
As  moving as are waves on desert sand
The fields that once held buttercups have gone

Nothing human-sized remains untorn
Nowhere for dear  lovers hand in hand
Killed by huge machines   whose time has come

But young folk do not court, they hurry on
Annihilating what we elders understand
The fields that once held buttercups have gone

All too rapidly our world’s undone
To the deserts of the heart we’re sent
Dragged by by huge machines   whose time has come

Can no passion change the way nor lend
Creative means to pacify  and  mend?
The fields that once wore buttercups have gone
Ground by huge machines,death times have come

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What Matters

Affect matters more than numbers do
Reason without love ,so blind to ends
Rational means were  used to kill our Jews.

Searching  Europe’s “haystacks” for a clue
Reason makes its wondrous,  obscene blend
Affect matters more than numbers do

When Belsen was relieved, who bought the glue?
The bones of  suffering  dead  might,did offend
Rational  calculaters  tortured Jew

Was Jesus rational,  what the end he knew?
See his mother Mary, weeping,kind.
Affect matters more than numbers do

By the Christians, Jesus was abused
His brothers and his sisters barred, disdained
Factories were used to gas his Jews.

How  to see what matters in the end
Hate outweighed by Love, controlled not blamed
Affect matters more than numbers do
Rational  calculations ,G-d, oh G-d, Jesu.

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Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

The Nomads of the Heart

The Bedouins, refugees from other times
The places were they live are still the same
But other people founded States and took
The deserts where they roamed ,ancestral nooks.

Ther little tents of black on the hillsides
Have not changed from Mediaeval times
But now they are like flies, unwanted guests
Who will know the tremor in their breasts?

Cruel is the heart of humankind,
The Commandments spat on daily by men blind.
The Bedouins of our spirit need to be
Allowed their space, allowed their deserts free

Nomads of the desert,Jesus Christ,
Nomad of the darkness in our minds

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

The Verdict

Three days before the end,he lay quite still
Could barely speak nor breathe not eat nor smile
I sat alone and swollen was my heart
I knew by  inward feelings, soon  we ‘d part

At home were waiting  frozen ready meals
Quite suitable to my own freezing feel
He  gazed at me and tried to speak some words
“How will you manage,sweet”, I barely heard.

The grief I felt ignored by day time nurse
And from the Sister, came demonic curse.
Exercised in Re Hab  until dead
And even after that, cruel words they said

Resuscitated,  left in peace in bed.
He lasted 19 hours .The verdict: “Dead.”

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

The Love Imprinted On My Heart Is Gone

The face imprinted on my heart is gone.

It faded slowly so I did not know

My heart is blank amd nothing lies thereon

The face imprinted on my Heart is gone

I do not feel the love of anyone.

This common loss affects us like a blow.

A metaphor,a simile,a pun.

My mind is blank its images have gone.

My heart is mine alone the love of none

Like a candle flame my love burnt low.

My mind is faded. Now I know no sun

Underneath the rivers silver

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

Panache Again

Oh,dear,I’ve got panache again.
I suffer to please ancient men.
I dress in red gowns
Intermingled with brown.
Flamboyant and   in fashion, I am.

 

It may be genetic,of course.
So I refuse to feel guilt or remorse.
e world is so sad
We may all go mad.
And that would be very much worse.

 

Panache is not wrong,anyway.
Self confidence is good,so they say.
Wear a cap with a feather
And a coat of real leather.
I’ll sell you all mine on E bay.

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

Worms All Mixed With Flowers

One day with my own self, such peaceful hours
The inner seas make music as they roll
And in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

The rain comes down in cold but gentle showers
Desiring  to  give moisture to all souls
A symbol of  the value of quiet hours

In Northern hills we looked for  Durham owls
They hunt by day to keep their bodies whole
While in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

My loved one was a native of those towers
Highcliff Nab and Hasty Bank  called home
My days with him a-wandering there for hours

As he died , deep in my heart I howled
I held his hands, remembered , paid the toll
While in the ground the worms digest  the sour

Lying in the heather  we had roamed 
May God  have mercy on his  homing soul
Now I enjoy   in reverie our hours
Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers