MITES AND OTHER BITING THINGS

Mummy-like I sleep atop my bed,
In sheet-shroud hemp, to save me from the mites,
Which creep inside my app' and feast the night
On flesh and fat,

And now retreated undenied,
They wait unseen, my sweet-oil limbs,
To tap my blood from top to toe,
While I in dream am numb to flow,

Maybe they sink into the nap of duvet, pillow,
Or some gap between the legs and wooden slats,
Which gather dust and harbour gnats,

And, once so fed they rest for days,
Before prepared to guzzle and gorge
The nectar of my honeyed veins,
Again the cause of so much pain,

So, whether these unsightly blotches
Come from micro-mite or other biting thing,
I hope this tight bound swaddling sack
Will keep me safe from next attack.

Jane Sharp 2004

HAIKU ON COCKTAIL HOUR

At Latino Bar
Beneath the October moon
We sipped fruit cocktails

Knowing that too soon
The bewitching hour would come
And splinter the spell

I had in my head
A tune which tinkled softly
Like Tibetan bells

Τα Χρώματα της αγάπης

Πάρε το χέρι μου
και οδήγησε με στην άκρη της νύχτας ,
εκεί όπου άρχισε η σπίθα της ζωής
και θα δούμε τα χρώματα
που βλέπουν μόνο οι τυφλοί .
Θα πάμε ένα ταξίδι ερωτικό
μέσα στο σκοτάδι,
και θα χορέψουμε
με τις κόρες του ουρανού .
Οι καρδιές μας θα γεμίσουν
με χρώματα από τα μάτια τους,
τα χρώματα της αγάπης.
Θα συναντήσουμε μέσα τους τις νότες των αστεριών ,
όλες τις ώρες θα κρατήσουμε τη νύχτα,
όλες τις ώρες θα είμαστε αγκαλιά για πάντα .



English translation - this is not a poem just a straight translation but it seems to work OK

Take my hand and lead me to the edge of night
Where began the flash of life
And we will see colours
Only seen by the blind,
We will go on an erotic journey
In between the dark,
And we will dance with
The daughters of the sky,
Our hearts will fill
With colours from their eyes,
The colours of love,
We will meet inside the notes of the stars,
All the hours we will hold the night,
All the hours we will be an embrace

Jane Sharp
August 2010

WOMAN GODDESS, FLOWER OF THE GODS

For my friend Jill, on her 60th Birthday

I met you when you were most vulnerable,
Held together by nature’s resin,
A pink peony, all fluffed up and fluttering
In the wind of catastrophe,
But you were saved
By an unmoveable resilience to change,
And bolstered by friendship,
Turning the past into a beautiful album
That you kept close enough to be a comfort,
Yet far enough away to remain untouched,

And you became the woman goddess that
Was not afraid to say:
This is how I feel,
This is who I am,
A multi-petalled peony with hidden nymphs,
Enjoying the fragrance of the sunshine,
Enjoying the magic of the moon,

And taking all those broken pieces of heart,
You glued them together again,
Not wanting to discard a lifetime of love,
Not wanting to throw away
Remembrances of heartache,
Knowing what a heart was for,

Unbridled you galloped through the meadow
Freeing yourself from life’s bonds
A flash of glass on a sun-lit mountain,
Shining at the edges like the afterglow of day
Knowing that your fingers touched the stars,

Now, serene and brightening our presence
You sit amongst friends, almost too many to count,
In celebration of being that child of the universe,
That you and we, know you are,
That goddess woman, who has traveled life’s journey,
And learned life’s secret lore,

And, like the nymphs of the peony,
Your mischief continues to delight the Gods,
Bringing them to the brink of laughter, the brink of tears,
Filling their hearts with wonder at your power,
As they hold and protect their irreplaceable flower

© Jane Sharp 2010

VERSE FOR FUN!

TOUR BUS DRIVERS IN CRETE

When bus drivers trough their spaghetti
They don’t use much etiquetti,
They shovel it in, dribbling oil over chin,
And grow more obese and more sweaty.

While looking for no-show slips
I came across other odd bits,
And to my surprise they were quite a large size,
Now I wonder which driver they fits.

There’s a driver, we all call him Elvis,
His head is much bigger than pelvis,
But if inches you seek, though it may take a week,
His wick, they do say, more than 12 is.

When a driver is ready for action,
He proves to be quite an attraction,
For he has the right gear with an exit to rear,
And firestone with just the right traction

There once was a driver called John,
Who polished his bus till it shone,
He rubbed it each day, and some they do say,
That its lustre is second to none

Most drivers I know are quite calm,
They wouldn’t do anyone harm,
But the language they spout when they curse and they shout
Reminds me of Animal Farm

Some drivers with long legs you’ll find,
Are usually most courteous and kind,
And, truth to tell they’re as sexy as hell
Especially where legs meet behind

Some drivers they drive with no fear,
The highway they’ve made their career,
Like knights of the road they ferry their load
As though on some far planisphere.

When a driver says ‘taka-taka,’
I think of a man with on knacker,
He’s usually Greek and unwashed for a week
And the answer I give is, ‘Malaka.’

There once was a driver called Josh,
Who said jolly-dee golly-gosh,
I’m sporting a tash and I’m ready to flash,
But I can’t find my old mackintosh.

O Manolis offered a bed,
In the rear of his bus, he said,
But I looked at his kecks and I knew he meant sex,
So I told him I’d rather be dead.

At the water park drivers will drool
At teenagers just out of school,
And some of them long for a tart in a thong,
Even though it’s against the rule

A tart with a bare posterior,
Thought she was oh so superior,
But her pink cellulite was a terrible sight,
And it moved like an old spring interior

Have a good summer all you reps out there. I've done that, got the T-shirt!

A CRETAN LOVE SONG

How nervously do dance the fingertips
While playing out our love on every string,
And to our hearts they bring, with rhythms soft,
A happiness that wefts aloft, and weaves
Such intricate harmonious chords that feed
Our bodies, till so stirred our blood becomes,
And so absorbed inside our loving, that
Nothing exists beyond the rush of now,
Except perhaps the whoosh of Angel’s wings,

And picking up the pace swift lyra bow
States loud intent to seal the instant of
Our falling, urgent so we don’t forget
The very moment, nor the place we met,
The sun so bright it blocks out every sound,
Every worldly gibe, until the shadows
On the damask hide in a shift of leaves,
That set cicadas rattling the olives,
Like a chorus of crones trying to sing.

Quietly in its last refrain it slows,
The melody now fixed, the bow content,
Each note recalled, reeled in, the work complete,
Its spell forever etched within our feet,
Magic perfume scents the air around, and,
We, ecstatic, whisper wine soaked kisses,
Listening to the pound of each others heart,
Hypnotized by song, not knowing the hour,
Only blue eyes: blue eyes and a longing.

Jane Sharp
9 July 2010

PHILOSOPHY

Stuff keeps dropping down the crack,
into a dark abyss of black
nothingness, where it rots and splits
in decay, leaving only bits
of matter, and images that haunt
the niche behind my eyes, and taunt
me with forms I recognize, but
cannot reach.

I have in mind the gap between
my boiler and my stove, which seems
to lay in wait for unsuspecting
prey, ready to gobble up each thing
that strays, unbalanced, from my grasp,
a noun in decline, where fast
it joins forms predestined to
become unknown.

It was a sausage, cooked and fat
that fell most recent down the crack,
over the edge and through the grid,
like a burial at sea it slid
into the deep, where now it finds
its rest, and what it leaves behind
is pure geometry,
thought, at its best.

Jane Sharp 8 March 94
Edited April 2010

MUSIC TEACHERS

Music teachers come in all shapes and sizes,
Like dinosaurs, they are thin at both ends
And fatter in the middle,
They come in a mixture of genders,
An assortment of ages,
And they peer,
As teachers do, over your shoulder,
As though seeing the sound you make.

They can be plump old-maids - not quite nuns -
Middle-aged puffs with dripping fingertips,
Down-at-heel school masters with good imaginations,
Would-be sergeant majors, forever tapping their batons,
From a podium,
Euphoniums growling um-pa-pas
Screeching Stravinsky strings,
And cymbals missing that one chance,
To smash the silence,

And their peering goes on,
Relentlessly,

Miss (Sister Bernadette) Ogden,
Had a mission,
To refine country girls,
Recorder on a Monday, raffia lampshade-making Thursday,
As if farmhouses needed the cows piping in,
Or, raffia lampshades, come to think of it,
My descant filled the gap between 3.30 and teatime,
It was a chance to get out of milking,
But ‘London Bridge is burning down,’
Did not impress my bible-bashing dad,
Who liked to sing ‘We plough the fields and scatter…’

Before I had time to master hymn tunes,
Miss Ogden went to live with God - they said,
Leaving her little cottage full of raffia lampshades

Mr Haygarth was tall, thin, and fussy,
He had a double piano-stool
And a ‘naughty pussy’ called Tibby,
He peered over my shoulder, wagged his arms,
And pursed his lips to say, ‘Oo – dear - mistake,’
Like a pantomime dame (he’s behind you),
My Dad said he thought he was a bit queer,
It made no odds to me,
Until he ran off with a senior boy
From the grammar school,
Leaving Sonata in C, unpolished

Sonata in C played on my rescued-from-the-rubbish overstrung,
Two notes in every octave missing,
Didn’t impress anybody either
Dum, thud, dum, dum, thud-dee thud, Thud,Thud, dum…

It would have stopped there,
But my parents had entered ‘the mission’
And found me another teacher,

Miss Hall was a serious mistress, (so my Daddy said),
With a grand piano and a metronome,
She corrected my sloppy performance,
And drilled me into accuracy,
While peering incessantly over a red fan
That she closed to hit me with,
Whenever I made a mistake,

It was a miracle I passed exams,
Thinking of ‘naughty Tibby,’
Expecting a fan on the wrist,
Playing scales without a ‘ray’ or ‘soh’
And finally, I lost the will to ‘thud’,
Wanting to rip the felt out of my Knauss
Hating the sight of my Adler,
And wishing I could make a raffia lampshade,

Mr Michael Murphy, Catholic, with three kids,
And a head full of organ music
Tried to teach me harmony
But teenage hormones and Bach didn’t mix,
No matter how much peering he did,
And I began to loose sight of the plot,
The title,
That ‘thing’ that I was ‘to be’,
In my case, ‘not to be’,
When I grew up,
A music teacher,
I began to like Michael Murphy more than Bach

My Dad stopped my lessons and blamed the Pope,
He said Murphy was the devil in disguise,
Meanwhile my best friend had just won first prize
At the show, with her raffia lampshade

Mrs Gillian Ruddick, short, plumpish,
Happy graduate,
Cambridge Cap and gown,
Came down the street singing, ‘The hills are alive…’
A knowing twinkle in her eyes,
And a fan tucked into her handbag,

I should have clocked the look,
I should have recognized that pernickety smile;
That dinosaur stance;
The way she peered into my hands
As though hearing trapped melodies

And now I’m back in the chair,
Or on the stool, as it were, (not double)
With Mrs Gillian (on a mission) Ruddick,
Hell bent on extracting the bad wisdom
That I grew up with,
Drilling and filling-in the un-refined gaps

I am loving every single minute
Mrs Gillian Ruddick extraordinaire!
Not a hint of a raffia anywhere!

Jane Sharp
9 March 2010

Notes: Knauss was the name of my German Upright piano.
Adler was the make of my descant recorder.

FUNERAL DAY

Where does life lead but a hole in the ground,
Where a sand-silt mound or a concrete tomb
Give just the right amount of room, to sqeeze
A wooden box inside, where lay a bride,
A bridegroom, or a child, someone's mother,
Uncle Clive, a colleague or a friend who
Died, now dried and packed with lillies and silk,
Dropped into the earth to rot and decay
Leaving only the memory of a voice,
And the sadness of a funeral day.

EVENING VISITOR

Stopping the light from pouring through my door,
He was a silouette against the sun,
Like De Vinci man holding wide the jamb,
And it took me a while to realize
The form, the personna of Vasilis,
Ill? Drunk? Whichever it was his hold good,
Mumbling incoherently to the wood,
But quiet, gentle, nothing offensive,
Nothing good, and nothing I understood,
At first I thought him lost, but I was wrong,
He knew the reason, it was in his head,
The gathering of limbs was incomplete,
As his foot crossed the thresh to venture forth,
Offer of hand would have been impolite,
So I pulled a chair into his path, and
He sat a good hour trying to tell me
His wife had left him, she had gone before,
I think mine was the only open door.

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

As it is National Poetry Month you may like to take a look at my poetry blog (see links). If not here is my poem of the day:

Conversation with a Parrot
"Tell me about God," said the parrot, who had heard people talking,
"He's a creator," I said,
"A creator?" said the parrot,
"Yes, he made everything," I said,
"He?" said the parrot,
"Yes, he made me and you," I said,
"He made me?" said the parrot,
"Yes, you," I said,
"You?" said the parrot,
"Every inch of what you see, God made," I said,
"What you see, God made," said the parrot,
I had to agree - he was a very smart parrot!

Jane Sharp

PEELING

Lulled by the rays of a September star
In a surreal haze of 'out of body'
I joined your paternal trestle
To drink cold beer and set the world to right
Your women were in and out of the kitchen
With pots, like handmaidens
Tottering about to your every call
That is, until the potatoes arrived - two sacks
Then you moved
Eager to prove strength rather than help
But help it was
And like dead pigs' innards, you spilled potatoes
Onto the grass ready for your women's knives

I swapped sides to join three generations of peelers
Once of a day I wouldn't have wanted to be so cast
But there was a certain comfort in sqatting
Knee to knee, engaged in the task of peeling
Besides I didn't want the bloody work
Of butchering the lamb
Nor the sweat of heavy iron cauldrons
And cylinder gas
And it made a change not to have to listen
To your brash vulgarities

Peeling was such a sympathetic way
To bring me closer to your family
It was almost worth the hand cramps
To win approval
But it didn't win me over

Later at the celebration, when you danced
And sang, and laughed with your brothers
I, in female sobriety was a marooned astral
Hating all that segregation.

RESURRECTION

RESURRECTION
Sigh Messiah
Agony of cross
Howl out your heart for death
Echo of shadows

Cry rusty nail
Let twisted minds drown,
Let the blood of slaughter
Steep Calvary

Weep moldy wood
The stench of decay
From hacked bodies of war
Cracked sin-stained skulls

Sting shiny blade
Slice a crimson cull
Splatter gut-gore carnage
Barbarous tribe

Burn torch of night
Illuminate sky
Flood putrefied badlands
Oriflamme dawn

Rise in the light
Snake-cast left behind
Smooth peach in the garden
Resurrection

Jane Sharp
12 March 2010


This is the same poem written in a different metre

RESURRECTION (TAKE TWO)

Sigh, Messiah, agony of the cross
Howl out your heart for death’s shadows to fall

Cry rusty nail, and let twisted minds drown
Let the blood of slaughter steep Calvary

Weep moldy wood with the stench of decay
From hacked bodies of war, cracked sin-stained skulls

Sting shining blade, and slice a crimson cull
Splatter gut-gore carnage, barbarous tribe

Burn torch of night, illuminate the sky
Flood putrefied badlands oriflamme dawn

Rise in the light, the snake-cast left behind
And wait, smooth peach, for the resurrection

Jane Sharp
12 March 2010

Aunt Martha's Lenten Quest.

Aunt Martha's Lenten Quest.

A Yorkshire Poem By Jane Sharp.

NUMBER 1 POEM IN GREEK (with a few mistakes I am sure).

ΟΤΑΝ ΜΠΟΡΩ ΝΑ ΓΡΑΨΩ ΕΝΑ ΠΟΙΜΑ ΣΤΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ


Όταν μπορώ να γράψω ενα ποίημα στα ελληνικά

Θα μιλήσω για τα καύσωνα τα καλοκακίρια
Όταν κοιμάμαι το απόγευμα.

Θα μιλήσω για τους κρυούς χειμώνες
Όταν η μυρωιά του καμένου ξύλου με ακολουθεί.

Θα μιλήσω για το φθινόπωρο
Όταν οι αγρότες φαίνονται κουρασμένοι.

Θα μιλησώ για την άνοιξη
Όταν αναπνέει ο Θεός ζωή σε όλα.

Και Θα σας πω πως νιώθω
Όταν κοιτάζω τα αστέρια
Στο φωτεινό ουρανό,

Πως νιώθω οταν ακουώ τα πουλάκια
Στην ψιλή μαρκίζα,

Πως νιώθω όταν αγκαλιάζω τα δέντρα.

Και θα σας εξηγήσω γιατί είμαι ερωτευμένη με την Ελλάδα.

Εν τω μεταξύ θα καθίσω στη σκιά,
Οι λόγκες των ακτίνων το ήλιου
Με θυμίζουν τον Αχιλλέα.

Jane Sharp
September 2008

JACKSON POLLOCK?

Jackson Pollock passes by in sleep
A name I keep on my lips
Till morning,
Not knowing who he is
Or why I want to meet him.
He spills out roughly over my dry tongue
Into consciousness,
And even as I stretch and yawn,
Thinking daily things,
My mind brings forward
Jackson Pollock.

So I open a window and ask space for an answer.
Had I come across the name in conversation?
Had the information flashed across a screen
Surreptitiously hidden from me
To be revealed in dream?

Could it be that Jackson Pollock, in death,
Was left splashing the universe with his colour?

Was he yet weaving snaking lavender threads of pure emotion?
The unfettered Jackson Pollock.

It is no surprise to find the man
Behind the name had, in life,
Trapped something of his genius on canvas.
Chaotic scenes of brilliance woven
Like Aztec visions of hell
Transcendental spiders’ webs within which a part of Jackson Pollock remains visible,
Captured like a snapshot American Indian.

Three names were in the dark but only one remains a spark: Jackson Pollock.

I wonder, will someone in some other time awake with my name in their head?
Are we ever dead?

ODE TO A MARKETING WHIZ

Oh soft the sweet computer calls you by
And flirting bids you sit for hours on end
'Clicking on' and 'keying in' which I, shy
Of talking by machine my right defend
To play Sudoku, watch TV or sew
And silently do pass my day (and night)
Alone, widowed by a whiz whose bloggin
Pays for my homely comforts, don't ye know!
And though I'd love some male attention, right,
Nothing beats a profitable 'log in'.

Jane Sharp
Lonely Poets' Society

A HEART THAT'S AS COLD AS STONE

(I wrote this song in the aftermath of the split between G and me)

It doesn't bother me that you hurt me so
It doesn't bother me I'll just let you go
It doesn't bother me that you told me lies
It doesn't bother me that you criticize
And now you're all alone
A heart that's cold as stone
And crying in the dark.

It doesn't bother me that you loved and lost
It doesn't bother me that I pay the cost
It doesn't bother me that I burnt my hand
It doesn't bother me it's just a ripple in the sand
And now you're all alone
A heart that's cold as stone
And crying in the dark.

No more dancing in the summer sun
Two hearts that now will never be as one
You locked me out and now you're all alone
With a heart that's as cold as stone.

It doesn't bother me that you locked me out
It doesn't bother me now there is no doubt
It doesn't bother me that you lost your way
It doesn't bother me our love was easy thrown away
And now you're all alone
A heart that's cold as stone
And crying in the dark.

No more dancing in the summer sun
Two hearts that now will never be as one
You locked me out and now you're all alone
With a heart that's as cold as stone...repeat and fade...

FLYING HIGH

It's like this,
Yer flying along in the middle of nowhere,
'Cos the sky is full of nothing and 30,000 feet is a long way up,
When outside yer see a man in a top hat peddling for all he's worth
On a bicycle.
That's strange, yer think,
And because nobody else sees the guy (or at least doesn't let on they 'ave),
Yer think, nah, couldn't 'a' been, and continue reading the in-flight mag
Which 'ad been so boring as to cause ye to look out the window in the first place.
All the same, yer think, that guy was mighty real to me, and ye look around
To see if anyone else is looking 'disturbed'.
Yer don't want to say anything 'cos yer
Know it's impossible for a man in a top hat to be cycling throught the air
At 30,000 feet.
And anyways yer don't want people to think you've 'ad an embolism.

He was wearing yeller trousers too,
But he weren't a clown, at least I don't think so.
He were just 'sit-up-and-beg' enjoying the ride.
I could tell he were enjoying the ride 'cos he 'ad such a 'gleeful'
Smile on his face.

I can't believe no-one else saw 'im.

I look out the window again half expecting to see some of his mates
On the same track,
But no,
No such luck.
And now I feel sort of privileged to 'ave seen 'im,
A bit like descovering some rare botanical thing in the 'edgrow.
There's loads o' times yer the only one that notices these things.

I wonder where he was off to,
That chap on the bike, 30,000 feet up, in the middle of nowhere.
It could just 'ave been a weekend thing,
People do all sorts o' crazy things on a weekend.

Ye', yeller trousers... and a blue shirt...

Must 'a' been a Chelsea supporter!

The Rudiments of Musical Knowledge

I was all a QUAVER
As he WALTZ'd me a-ROUND,
Then he changed the TEMPO
And we TANGO'd to the sound,
It only took a MINUETTE
His FLAT was very small
And I bowed out, RALLENTANDO,
Before the curtain call.
The PHRASE he used was simple,
STACCATO and quite BASS,
And I gathered from the DIATONIC
Look upon his FACE,
That I'd better ALLEGRETTO
Before he made me stay
To REPEAT FROM THE BEGINNING
In some other RHYTHMIC way.
I CODA stayed, I CODA,
But I JIVE'd off to the BAR
And COMPOSED myself a moment
With an iced TONIC SOL-FA,
TRANSPOSED I felt much better
And called a METRA-NOME
But as I fumbled for my KEYI heard his dulcet TONE,
He said don't worry I'll be BREVE
And then he PAUSE'd to REST
He'd SCALE'd the stairs in DOUBLE TIME
And had to BEAT his chest,
The moment was CHROMATIC
But his TIMING was just right
And when he said "Let's TIE THE DOT"
I had to PLAY BY SIGHT,
My KEY became quite MINOR
As we stood atop the stairs
And I ACCIDENTAL-ly dropped it,
Not altogether fair
Because he had to CROTCHET down
And whilst on bended knee
I answered, AD LIBITUM,
"Yes," in PERFECT HARMONY,
The change in me was MAJOR
My SIGNATURE became
An ORNAMENTAL sounding SHARP
A quite AUGMENTED name,
We learned the RUDEMENTS quite fast,
DUETS were slightly naughty,
He TRILL'd me then and TRILL'S me now,
Although he's well past FORTE.