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Best Poems Written by Frances Johnstone

Below are the all-time best Frances Johnstone poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Frances Johnstone Poem

The Ballad of Mary Morgan

Two hundred and three long years have flown
  Since you swung in Gallows Lane.
Now only two rough and mossy stone
  Memorials remain.

And one recounts the sin and shame,
  The ignominious death,
The bastard child, the guilt, the blame,
  Judge Hardinge's righteousness.

But the other recalls your suffering;
  Its gentle words intone:
'The one among you without sin -
  Let him first cast a stone.

But why did you take the knife, Mary,
  Out of the kitchen drawer?
Your baby just wanted a life, Mary,
  And you asked for little more.

Did you take the knife to cut the cord?
  Did you panic when first she cried?
That wailing everyone ignored?
  The blood you tried to hide?

When they dragged you out of the tiny cell,
  After a winter in Presteigne gaol,
You shivered and stumbled and nearly fell,
  Your fear too great and your heart too frail.

But no-one watched you cross the street
  To the place allotted for retribution;
Your hair flowed over the winding sheet
  They'd dressed you in for your execution.

And no-one watched as you hung and swung,
  For the law was not well served that day.
Was Mary Morgan fair and young,
  Silenced by one who'd led her astray?

They thought so when they cut you down,
  And claimed your body as their own;
Your legend lives on in Presteigne Town,
  Judge Hardinge's grave long overgrown.

Details | Frances Johnstone Poem

The Voyage of Pytheas

Pytheas was a Greek who journeyed to Britain in the Fourth Century BC and 
discovered the link between the tides and the phases of the moon.

At first I followed the setting sun
To the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea,
Turned past Iberia, northerly,
And set my course for Albion,
	That fabled, misty land.
Through rolling breakers off Gaul’s west coast,
Full of sea monsters and floating weed,
We sailed, but what amazed me most
Were the tides that fell – the sea’s retreat,
	The vast expanse of sand,

Which twice a day the waves laid bare,
Then covered with rolling surf again,
Fierce enough to scupper a light corsair
When the skipper’s a lad from the blue Aegean,
	And used to a flat calm ocean.
Still north we sailed into cold and gloom,
Hit ferocious gales off Finisterre,
But as we sailed I became aware
That the tides were linked with the riding moon,
	And planetary motion,

And the waters wild would increase their pace,
To be greatest when she was at the full,
Lighting our path with her round white face,
Exerting her gravitational pull,
	From her silent, starry realm,
Or after the monthly, moonless dark,
When that slender sliver first appears,
Slipping so tenderly out of the clouds,
To guide a lonely Aegean barque,
	With a frightened boy at the helm.

We docked at Zennor late that year,
To trade for tin with the Cornish Celts,
And I asked if there was a temple near,
To honour the moon that had brought me here,
	So safely across the sea.
They knew about tides, those Cornish Celts,
Who lived their lives by the pounding waves,
But they thought they were caused by the Great God Lugh,
The Shining One who rules the days,
	So they wouldn’t listen

Details | Frances Johnstone Poem

Becoming An Atheist

It doesn’t happen all at once,
But with the measured tread of rational thought;
Shedding the comfort blanket,
Embracing the cosmos as it is
Without the wishful thinking,
Cleansing the intellect,
Sharpening the senses, the forensic faculty,
The spirit of enquiry.

Perhaps it’s sad to toss away old certainties,
The homely prayer learned at your granny’s knee,
The rituals, empty now, emotional attachment
To music, candle-light and incense
Which sanctify and justify medieval stones,
But the rewards by far outweigh the trifling loss.

The universe is enough, dynamic, terrifying,
Chaotic, but moving to the music of
Molecular synthesis and disintegration,
Attraction and repulsion;
Worlds growing and shrinking, over time scales
Way beyond imagining.

And you’re a part of it! You’ve won
The greatest lottery in life by being born!
Enjoy! Exult
In the excitement of another spring,
In friendship, love and babies,
In the power of life itself.

Details | Frances Johnstone Poem

What Is a Spirit?

Does spirit just consist of breath,
 That natural inspiration
That starts at birth and ends with death,
 A lifetime's animation?

Each spirit lasts a certain time,
 Its precious share of being,
A span so fragile yet sublime,
 So very quickly fleeing.

Eternal life is troubling,
 To rational minds, deluded,
As, taught by Nature, everything
 Must end, ourselves included.

But spirits will keep right on growing,
 Even as aging bodies fail,
And learning, understanding, knowing,
 Remain life's peerless holy grail.

Spirit's a smile, a thought, a dream,
 A deepening friendship treasured,
A book, a song, a stray moonbeam,
 Too precious to be measured.

Details | Frances Johnstone Poem

Resurrection

A being bent on plunder stalks the land
Death is his name and death is what he wields;
Rebirth no rational mind could understand,
Our living flesh to cataclysm yields.

Our future he convincingly destroys;
The cold earth beckons as our future home.
The end for all those golden girls and boys
Is to be one with decomposing loam.

A million atoms back to earth decay;
Our resurrection’s in the gentle rain.
The grass, the leaves, the pleasant light of day,
In breezes and in dew we’ll live again.

Here is our one true home, our mother Earth,
So will we die and so attain rebirth.