Life (a poem)

Our life's a web
a web we weave
as we dance our life.

Our dances are our own
some set to music
some to films or written words
most to love and ideas
- a few, even to ideals.

Our webs are all unique
some love one
some more, one after the other
or a few at once
and others are alone.

Our webs are all special
they all glisten and dance
in the winds of life.

(c) Kayleen White, 2008

Our field (poem)

I knew how to plant a field,
so I did, for another,
on the promise of a share
and something to barter for now,
something to feed me and mine
keep body and soul together
and clothe and shelter us.

And the other was pleased
- happy at all our field grew,
so he gave me a little more,
another field,
and some dirt to add,
and promised a share
- lesser, but more to barter now.

And I toiled in the other's fields
plied my craft for their gain
- and my family and I,
for didn't we have more to barter now,
while we waited for our share?

And the other was pleased
- happy at all our fields grew,
so he gave me a little more,
more fields,
more piles of dirt and fertiliser
- manure, some called it,
to mix and add,
for lesser share - but
more
to barter now.

And I toiled and toiled,
and thought of my family,
and all they could barter
- and looked at the mountains of dirt
one called overtime,
another called paperwork,
yet another called loyalty,
and from my closed in plot of earth,
I looked at the sky shrinking away,
and called my field,
the place I plied my craft,
my grave.

© Kayleen White, 2008

A dance (poem)

Twist and sway and work
Arms and legs and body
Glide past that peak
Savour this rhythm
Exult!
As we go
Round and through
and maybe over or under
and I allow myself
to be overwhelmed
As I dance the dance
of the sea.

Use arms and legs and body
To guide this craft
This thing of beauty craft and wit
Through tossing mounds
Of dancing water
Water all moving
To and fro
Lift up there
Dip down here
We court and flirt
Each with the other
We three - no, we four.

Exult in body and mind and soul
As Goddess the Wind
Strokes wave and boat and I
Caressing here
Brusque and dismissing there
Laughing at tumult
As wave or boat or I trip or fall;
This
This is glorious nature
A matter to be lived with
A dance to be loved
- but not mastered;
Never mastered.

© Kayleen White, 2008

Death's new door (poem)

Sorry: the formatting has been bloody lost when I added the Content Warning - on several posts, and I don't have the time to fix them all so I won't fix any.  

I wrote this late one night while taking a break from the vigil from my mother's bedside (we shared this duty, so all could have a break from time to time, or tend to our daily duties). It was sribbled on some paper towel, which I've been worried about losing ever since ... I thought I knew death The sharp, sudden of accident the noisome grasp of illness the gentle fade of great age even the violent brute of war, or cime through lives gone past through intimate sharing of medium's tasks through touches from others lives and deaths I thought I knew death but this this death I knew not. Mayhap the nigh unimaginable disbelief of the condemned as their hour approaches comes closest - but they they go in good health. They know not the gargling breath the pause the long, long pause when watchers hold their breath and will to breathe then the twitch the unnerving twitch and one more gurgling almost strangled breath This door they nor I knew not. But no, I do know this door now For I am witness to it I, and my fellow watchers Sitting, conversing sharing the task of holding our dear one's hand this death we share, as witnesses. Share in awkwardness do we talk and make this place light in celebration of life? Or mope show sombre respect. This etiquette we know not. But know we do Our one shared love Our common respect For this dear one Who touched us in so many ways This love We know through even death. © Kayleen White, 2008

My stupid, stupid heart (poem)

Carrying on the theme from my last poem ...

My stupid, stupid heart
Haven't you learnt by now?

Half a century of pain and battering and scars
and still you turn me into a teenager?

You won't listen to logic
- she's too young
- you WORK with her, for God's sake
- you already love another
What's wrong with you?

Logic.
YOU won't listen to logic?
Who's logic?
Mine?
Yours?
Theirs?

Mayhap that's the truth of it
- the logic's their's
- they're the one's who say
who and when and how you can love
they,
with their stupid, stupid rules
that love must fit
before it's permitted.

They,
with their scarred, scared minds,
clinging to the comfortably small,
They're the ones who do the biggest scars of all
on MY intemperate heart.

She's not a logical choice;
I have fights to fight before we can be
(if she'll have me - we've not even talked on this
and she goes away soon);
But the fight of the rules of the small
Is one fight I can do without.

My poor, poor heart,
Keep falling in love for ever!

© Kayleen White, 2008

Love: a mourning (poem)

Sorry for this, but I have to get the pain of being stuck in a monogomous relationship with a polyamorous heart off (out of?) my chest. Life stinks at times, and - as some of the characters in the film "Imagine Me and You" say, nothing wrong has been done by anyone, but at least one person (me) is still hurting. Badly. I can think of many reasons why this attraction should never exist, or should not be acted on (it hasn't - so far, anyway), but it exists on my part, and SEEMS to exist on the part of the other. O to have been born in a more enlightened age ...

Love ...
Requited or not,
Forbidden or free,

All forms
Can cleanse and heal
The rent asunder heart,

- or not.



New soul
Face, form and heart,
Has now taken mine,

Requited,
But it cannot be,
So healed and hurt am I,

in this love.



How to be!
We work together;
We are years apart;

But it
Can not be denied,
This magnetism,

only enacted in dreams
until this rule-corsetted world
opens to let hearts be one.

© Kayleen White, 2008

Dignity (poem)

I undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit, of course :)

Please also note that I check only occasionally for comments, so if you make any, please be patient.

This is another poem written during the vigil at my (adoptive) mother's passing - one more to come yet.

Kayleen White

Dignity
Tho' body and tongue may loll and drool
There's no dignity lost here,
In this place, tonight
- how could any think such,
When this spirit's light
Outshines body's blight!

© Kayleen White, 2007