The Poetry of Jane Johnson

Jane Johnson has raised five children without ex-husband's help, back at college doing Music & Technology. Writes poems, travelogues, stories and articles. Interested in health, healing, science, religion, art, philosophy, nature, creativity, the coinci-dance of this world, this life, this beauty within.

A Torn Moment

Do you hear the roar the motorbike makes
As it rips Time apart in our day?
It separates Future from all of our Past
As it unzips our heart on its way

It stops conversation and communication,
Makes thoughts pause and flicker, wink out...
It demolishes dreams and is not what it seems
'Tis the Trump Call, the last Angel shout

Then, silence in Heaven for half an hour
For a season, an Aeon, thought stills...
Just for a second Eternity beckons
Enlightenment opens, heart fills...

Then up starts the chatter, the noise and the clatter
The World resumes waking once more
Threads of thought shatter, they no longer matter
For nothing's the same as before...

Circles

This is a thread on the theme of 'round'
The Earth who is circular, also the G-round
Our Planet is S-p-un around the Sun
Whorled world whirled while we're all unwound

This is a theme on circles and cycles
On spinning plate halos and archangel Michaels
On whirring wings wearing and weaving the sky
As small rotund children ask 'Why?'

Look at the Day spin the Moon spin the Night
Our eyeballs, round pupils, letting in Light
Look at the year spinning round Father Sun,
And Galaxies spin, around Universe spun.

The alchemist's stone; flax spun into gold
The spinning wheel thread, of a yarn, a tale told
The whirlpool like clockwork, the spiral of sound
The matrix of movement - everything's ROUND!!!

The spiral Nebula sweeps out her arms
Floating evanescently with all her charms
Her substance expanding,
To embrace understanding
The Depth of the Diva soothes Spirit and calms

The Point of Power in the Endless Now
The Heart of Eternity Here showing how
As the One Point expands within Virtual Hands
One Loves' consummation,
One Heartfelt breath, 'WOW!

Gypsies

As children when we went out to play
The clapping game we'd chant and say
'My Mother told me I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood
If I did, she would say;
'Naughty little girl to disobey!'

But when the children bullied me
To the trees I would return
Where branches shielded open sky
And bracken bonded with fronds of fern
To offer me a sanctuary
Reassuring me of their concern

With tiny creatures I would hide
Their names and calls I'd learn
I'd feel their trembling deep inside
At the passing of the Hunter, Herne
And the touch of Man upon the land
Self-made god, the giant Cerne

The Gypsies were wood-creatures, too
They knew the landscapes' ways
The turning of the tides of moon
Numbered their weeks and days
They loved the rain and blessed the sun
And hid not from his rays

They learnt from Mother Nature's School
Her wanton Summer mantle spun
In Dervish dance of life and death
Till, cruel or kind, all life was One
All creatures breathing with one breath
Beneath the bright sun's gaze

POETS

Calling Poets of all persuasions
Come out now from under your bed
Stop lurking in dim, dark doorways
We want to hear what's in your head!

'Tis true that the art of poetry
Is something that few of us declare
Yet those of us familiar with divine symmetry
know there's always a Poet in there!

You cannot pretend to know nothing
For some it just rolls off the tongue
It's a rhythm, like laughing or coughing
And is scattered, like daisies far flung

The limit is your imagination
(Which can yet encompass the sky)
Your juices are stirred by creation
So please, let the minstrel muse fly...

Come poets, good, bad, mediocre
Give voice to your verse, rhyme or blank
Here's an ear that is open and listening
Let's taste of the wine that you drank...

For an entry to this poet's forum
Like some kind of poets' parade
lift the phone, turn a stone, dial a number
And stand in the light, not the shade!

Like the chorus at dawn,
Like the dusky evening call
We ALL have a song to sing - I said ALL
Let your senses and heart be stirred

For to speak and to listen
As eyes and mind glisten
At the Call from the inside
Where all of you yearns...
is to celebrate you and your word.

A Grouse

(This was written in response to my lodger
who overstayed his welcome, rent-free
and not content with not paying a penny
the Council charged me rent they never sent me
I realised at last I had been taken
for the longest ride that I had yet known
I went to London on a residential
When I came back, my bike, too, had gone!
He disappeared (persona non grata)
Returning in a while to offer pay
He sat all night in a chair which made me wonder -
Then made off with the rent cheque next day!
To avoid a strain or ruffling my demeanour
I sat and wrote a rhyme, to vent my spleen -
For I'd not encountered quite such bad behaviour -
I still felt 'itches' wherever he'd been!)

A Grouse...

Anyone ever tell you how lousy lice make you feel?
It's the anticoagulant they inject at the end of each fresh meal
It swells up your glands, grits your teeth like wet sands
And makes itches take ages to heal...
They're the first and the worst, of the pests come in bursts
Since Pandora's box cursed us with spiel

So here is a grouse, about any old louse
Who thinks he's got a monopoly of one
In the nature of flowing the numbers start growing,
Then the host gets to combing - and you're gone!
For a moan and a whimper could start world war three
Why not consider your blessings - be happy like me
'Cos this moaning and groaning's unbearable - see?

Fried Lies...

I don't want to grouse
but see, there's this louse
and he's giving me a pain in the head
And though he walks, and doesn't run,
Doesn't play ball or chew gum,
he injects me with his spit, instead

I call it disrespectful
making my head feel insect full,
so I'm scratching while he has his play,
and though he calls it fun,
I'd have sworn there's more than one,
It feels he's hatching hundreds more every day

I wouldn't mind if he paid rent
but does he heck! I'm Heaven sent,
for his sustenance, I'm dinner on the move
and if I use some chemical,
he'll complain, condemn it all,
'Carbaryl's too toxic, it's been proved!'

'Now As for DDT,
It's bad for you as well as me,
And organophosphates rot your brains.
Malathion's as bad,
Yet makes me a stronger lad,
And electronic zappers should be on the mains!'

'for they just spice up my life
(make me look round for my wife)
I watch her lay four hundred eggs a day...
I can make you feel quite lousy
now that I play housy housy
and there ain't a lot that you can do or say...'

'Well, excuse me if you please!'
(I say, scratching, on my knees,
with a nit comb and a stun gun in my hand)
'This may hurt me more than you,
But it's what I have to do..
'Cos I can't stand it no more and so I'll...

'JEEEEEEZZZZZ!!!!!!!!'

A squatter...

It seems to me that frequently
we host an unwanted guest;
If they were rats or wasps or fleas
we'd have to de-infest...
But there are those, one can suppose,
more genial than most
They have a special quality,
to which I don't mind playing host
A spider is one such of these
He gets on with his thing
He catches flies, avoids my eyes,
and doesn't bite or sting
In fact I think of spiders as
a kind of cohabitee
like cats and birds and butterflies -
something I like to see
So here are two more poems of
my spider friends I call
'Boris' and 'Arachnophilia'
Or - the 'Ugliest bugs of all'

BATHROOM BORIS...

There's a Spider in the Bathroom
and he's eating my skin
from the sides of the bath
licking his quadruple chin...
And he's huge, and he's brown
he's got legs covered in down
and he's fat from the dust
on the stairs, up and down

I threw him out the window
on Friday, last week,
but he scampered in again
with his monumental cheek
- I know, he was on the ceiling
on the landing, just today
I wondered if he was feeling
that he'd found a place to stay..

But no, there in the Bathroom,
he has found his favourite meal,
staring at me from the plughole
however sick I make him feel,
as my hand closes upon him
(the tooth brush mug's the trap)
and I throw him out the window
and I close it quickly, WHAPP!

Yet..  He'll be back again by Tuesday,
licking up my skin...
Just one thing I want to know...
WHO LET HIM IN???

Arachnophilia...

Do spiders know they spook you?
Do they do it just for fun?
When you turn on the light in the middle of the night
and they scoot along the floor at a run?
 
Do spiders know you're frightened
by their wavery spidery gait?
With incredible ease
they can sequence their knees
at quite an astonishing rate..
 
When a spider lurks in a corner
building cobwebs ontop of a wall,
does he weave his webs' size
just to catch any flies
or as safety nets if he might fall?
 
When a spider scuttles from hiding
to investigate under your bed,
does he scream with delight
as he guesses your fright
at the squeal only heard in your head?
 
But a spider is such a companion
that no-one else knows he is there..
When you call out 'Come here!'
hoping he will appear -
he won't come - he just doesn't quite dare!

More bugs

I know another creature
that's tiny and squirms
(although not quite as wriggly
or writhy as worms)
It's a night-time creepy-crawly
you'd think he liked it wet
but I've seen him on the carpets,
on the lino, and yet...
What if his world view was
that a house is like a world
where carpets were lawns,
and corners nests where he curled?
Supposing that his history
were noble and true,
would you feel the same about him,
if he were just like you?
Here's the brave warrior Silverfish
going out on his rounds -
Soon to discover...
He's out of bounds!

Sir Silverfish the Brave...

The Brave Warrior Silverfish
set forth to investigate Floorcloth
(at four o'clock in the morning)
which whisked back and forth,
filled with dogged mirth,
erasing the marks of old battles
'twixt cup and lip,
teapot and mug,
basin and bowl,
saucepan and jug,
and, as Sir Silverfish drew near,
was tempted to make him 'disappear';
until, overcome by dread,
Brave Sir Silverfish fled
to the skirting board's flat crack...
But Floorcloth followed him back..
Oh!  No!  Mrs. Platt!
Don't do that!

(Homepat, on another site wrote
Why not get a poetry book together?)

Jane's reply:

To be honest Homepat I'd love to be but don't know where to start -
I just need to find an agent who cares with all their heart
To see the kind of thing I do, get it out there in the world -
Give me a chance, on waves I'll dance, with all my sails unfurled

I came to this quite late in life - I've written all my days
Why, even as a little girl my teachers gave me praise -
But there were lots of difficulties, stacked along the way,
Yet without them I would not have learned what I write about today

So thanks for the encouragement - I'd like to find out how
If you can tell me - go ahead - or anyone here now
You all assume as I write a lot, that I write like this with ease
But I still don't know how to set it free, so tell me, tell me, please

Good Bye

Tick; the clock's tock
Breaks unnatural silence
That falls on the echoes
Of harsh words
Which tore the air
Tore the ear
Tore the heart
Just for a moment
The silence
Masquerades as peace
Until

Click the clock's tick
Invokes the jaunty vision
Of Youth, striding away
Away from strident voice
Away from bad dreams
Youth's inevitable choice
parent's nightmare schemes

'A life to look forward to
Dressed in your eyes?
Thanks but no thanks,
I prefer surprise,
To make my own way now
Where my hope lives
And your despair dies'

Heron

I saw a heron in the garden
The other day
Around the twelfth of June when
Mac passed away
I didn't know it then but
I see it now
A heron is not a
Garden bird somehow

As I opened the door he
Took fright of me
As I stood on the step he
Took flight from me
Such a great bird, a
Blue Heron

We often sat in the garden,
Mac and I
But usually he sat alone watching
Time pass by
Mac, singer and player of the Blues
He had no time to lose
But he took the time to choose
To keep on rocking in the free world
Mac, the angels rock on with you

Michael 'Mac' McCreery
1st May 1942 - 12th June 1999
Requiem Mass @ Our Lady of Glastonbury
Saturday 4th September 1999
Rest in Peace From Jane Johnson
who would love to have been a better friend

Glastonbury Midsummer Dreamland
Summer solstice 1999

I walk the ancient footpath leys
with sunlight dappled in leaf-torn rays
a hazy haven on summer days
to reunite with woodland ways..
My dancing gait feels light and lissom
along a path bestrewn with blossom..
Myriad specks of five-petalled elder
like millions of stars in a moondark midsummer
like a midnight sky
entrancing the eye
where light-years far-off Suns dance round ablaze..
Each bloom is a seeded, spore-filled wheel
Each seed a starting point to fill
another summer sky,
another widening eye,
the conscious awakening
of another passer-by..

Giant hogweed,and ragweed, rims
the borders of a path that skims
the sides of Glastonbury fields
where springs seep trickling in rough stone rills
as they carelessly spill
down the ancient hill..
The Tor is trod tirelessly by endless feet..
all over the world they return here to greet
the dusk of Dark, the dawn of Day
to remember the seasons as they pass away
and to feel the sleeping Dragon stir
in spiral awakening, a rumbling burr
as sudden winds gust, and spin, and swirl
around the summit ground..

A Sunday stroll through familiar fields
to Gog and Magog's realm that heals
the chattering mind to silence..
A sheaf of field-flowers offered to Oakmother..
A tentative touch, tendered forth to Oakfather..
Guardians of a Gateway to Middle-Earth dreams,
Sentinels of a secret world not as it seems...
As the still moment lingers,
rough bark beneath fingers..
Jack's green oak leaf crown
on a sudden glimpse, gleams...
Pictures appear behind drop-lidded eyes
sweet cascading birdsong bursts out in surprise
as aching heart is soothed, fevered brow is smoothed
and fairies dance once more like butterflies...

Underneath the Ash and Willow
Lammas, 1st August 1999

Underneath the ash and willow
with the soft grass for my pillow
branches stretch against the sky
the stillness calls a dragonfly
with gauzy transparent fairy wings..
high over midfield a lone lark sings..
as the cracked and sunbaked earth below
gapes, gasping to slake thirst, deep and slow..
Yet the brackish ditchwater, shrunken in slime,
shows the summer's heat, that bides its time
as I lie full length in the meadow's shade
with the peace of trees in a leafy glade
and rest for a moment, pure and long..
no beginning, no ending, where I belong
in Natures' carousel of beauty driven
by love of life, the life that I am given
a heavenly moment..
Idyllic..
Summers' song...

May delight

In the green woods, harebells and blue
First carpet with flowers the ground
Primrose, pink campion, wild garlic too
Anemones spread all around
When winds and showers have counted the hours
And the first hint of Summer is found

Sun gives each an allotted span
Then breaks forth the buds on trees
The swallows wing home flying fast as they can
Just for visions of beauty like these
Then swooping and diving and calling their mates
They build nests, as soon as they please

As budding trees burst into bloom
Leaves follow, new, tender and green
The woodland canopy dresses her limbs
Where bare bones of winter have been
Swift spins she her garment of verdant hue
And each rugged branch holds a skein

The light dims, cooler now, underfoot
Wild creatures give birth unseen
In each secret place where the younglings are put
Glossy leaves mottle shadow and sheen
New life in surprise opens wide baby eyes
And wonders, what can it all mean

Around the season's corner, May
With loosened tresses starts to play
Her warmth and smile, enticing, sweet
Shows fairy dells, inviting seat
While birds and bees and butterflies
Dance mazes, movements in her eyes

Magical mornings, whispering warnings
As Jack-under-hill holds sway
And mortals slip silently into the woods
Where Jack's oak-leaf crown calls the fey
And lads glance at lasses askance, making passes
In the wood's dance of welcome to May

The Last Laugh

And who shall have the last laugh?
For you and I, in competition,
Sadly don't find it very funny
Trying each to better the other...
Is that what the last laugh's about?

Or is it the Judgement of some Third Party?
Again, not my kind of party - rather more,
like a Third Column, a Third Reich,
something not very nice
and neither is Judgement , so I'm told

So what is this ineffable, irresistable,
rib-ticklingly funny, last laugh?
'On' you, 'on' me,
do we finally (as fine allies)
get to laugh at ourselves (in each other's eyes)

Or is it that such a self-important nothing
should have existance at all (illusory, or otherwise)
and then, cease to exist...
What's so funny about that?

Serendipity...

You are out early walking the dog
and wondering what to make for breakfast,
when suddenly something comes along
to remind you that YOU
are just one of Life's
limitless collections of miracles,
existing in probability clause one,
clause two, three,
up to infinity.

Maybe there is nothing.
Maybe a dewdrop is held at the tip of a leaf,
the world shining in its single eye,
and is then, finally let go...
And in that moment of reflected heaven,
a thousand worlds collide
and are splashed, unseen,
onto the grass below.

The 'lightness of being' that takes your step,
transformed from shuffle to skiffle,
from stance to dance,
lifts your arms, your head, your heart;
you sway, feeling yourself stretching up to the sky,
suspended and hanging down to the ground,
sky beneath your uplifted feet,
hardly reaching the earth...

And a daydream from childhood is,
for a moment, given birth,
as you really feel, your dream revealed,
that should you try, there's no reason why,
you might not just for a moment fly...

Yet, moving three inches above the surface of the grass
that hardly bends its head as your feet float past,
your arms, beating and pulsing like swan's wings,
shed rainbows and flowers flow,
landing star flung, seed sprung,
on the places where you pass.

The diamonds and pearls of dawn dewdrops twinkle,
sprinkled with colours and coruscating fire,
and in an infinitesimal moment,
your eyes gape wide, your heart aflame,
then close in bliss, as you feel your heart's desire...

Oh, you breathe, have I landed in heaven?
Or is this but a dream?
Is this May magic? A glimpse of Fairie for the fey?
A parallel world, a glance afforded children,
storytellers, and poets,
not meant for the solid beams of day?

© Jane Johnson 2000

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