Home » Poems » Best » Mary Braithwaite » Best Mary Braithwaite Poems

Best Poems Written by Mary Braithwaite

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

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

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?

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

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

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

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

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

Teenage Daydream

I’m a bohemian girl
I wear my hair in curls,
I wear maxi skirts
And denim shirts.
I wear long earrings
And black stockings.
I like folk songs,
And pierced tongues.
I like Wittgenstein,
And Melanie Klein.
I had psychotherapy,
But it was given to me free.
As I am so interesting,
And so infinitely trusting.
My unconscious mind
Is an analyst’s find.
I have such wise dreams,
On intellectual themes.
I see all my lives
From new perspectives.
I was an Egyptian Queen,
Feeling extremely mean.
I loved Mark Anthony
His touch was a symphony
Written by Schubert,odd,
Because Cleopatra was long gone
When Schubert composed his songs
And his symphonies too.
So time has got all curled up,
Like a snake in a drinking cup.
Now I have woken again,
I want that dream all over again.
I want a Roman Emperor
To be a sexual tempter.
I shan’t mind at all,
If I hear him call.
I’ll be excitedly glad
When my hormones go mad.
I’m a Bohemian girl,
I’ll make any man’s hair curl

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

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.

Share this:

PrintEmail
Save

Details | Mary Braithwaite Poem

They Chuckle In the Wind

The empty canes of raspberries hang low

Red maple leaves are mashed up in the mud

Nature seems to hover by death’s door

Animals and humans drained as whores

No feeling ,no green sap,no flowing blood

The crackling canes of raspberries hang low as

What can we say un-cliched, metaphored?

At dawn the sun will burn despite the Flood

Nature did not force us through death’s door

Can the death of God mean this and more,

Though love and hate are fractured, life is good?

The chuckling canes the berries sang below

Can a life with heart not be restored?

End retaliation, understand

Nature did not wave us through the door

At the edge of Europe are no hordes

Jesus is more small than any bud

The crackling canes stored laughter in their cores

The remnants of the foxgloves in the wood

Wave politely . even seem to nod

The raspberry canes, the honesty know more

Nature ,light and darkness, affect stored

S

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

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.”