| This poem is for Cemil and Yildiz Arikan, dear friends for many decades. They formed a plan to lure us to Bodrum this year. And when we got there we saw a heavenly place, lively, energetic, beautiful with an almost tangible sense of Turkish self confidence, a quiet realisation that this rich country has untold treasures still to unfold to the world. Impressions of Bodrum Turkish pines whispering, swishing, shushing and sighing, pirouetting to the dance of the restless winds, buffeting, teasing and never still, brushing windows, rattling doors, forever winging soft, through the white hillside house, cool, freshening, twirls up and up, out, back to the sea. Marinas, turquoise seas, boats moored, masts spike into clear impossible blue, traceries of ropes, myriad angles of elegant rigging, played by the wind, Aeolian chords sing and sing, their thrumming music holding us in thrall, energy, beating, tapping, dancing on the impatient sea. From the rooftop, a hushed landscape, horizons misting to white from silver blues and glinting sea. Floating islands, goat herd picking through the unforgiving rocks, hunting for green, tiptoes down and down, bells tockling, tockling, magical sounds from childhood and fairy landscapes, long gone. Hot rocks rear at crazy angles, orange and red fissured. Young mountains tear at the sky with sharp teeth. Agaves, fleshy arms sagging in the long heat, prickly pears offer their sharp harvest to oven days. And olive groves, buffeted by ceaseless busy breezes, ripple silver green tresses across the hillsides. Beaches and bays, soft warm sands, crystal waters, bougainvilles, white and fuchsia brim over the walls, frill the windows, spill from balconies, pomegranite trees bend heavy with promise , nod in the wind. Flowers abound, purple clusters, orange bells hang their scented heads. Butterflies flit past slatted blinds spilling morning sun over the breakfast table. Turkish welcomes where ever we go, markets and beaches, cafes and harbours. This land is blessed... Rainbow steps give subtle message. We are listening. We are watching. Don't take us for granted. Like the wind, we have our spirit, will and energy. Jeannie Mehta September 2013 (The rainbow steps story: Done for no idea of activism, but taken up by ordinary people across Turkey to show solidarity against the dead hand of grey municipality think. We even saw a small rocky set of steps down to a harbour area painted rainbow colours in Gumushluk, a tiny place on the edge of the Aegean at the end of the peninsula in western Turkey.) * Love poem to the Cairo Pot (Found in the under-the-stairs cupboard, when I was about 10) You sang of Egypt, Pharaohs, shifting, whispering sands, dunes sliding soft to a silent horizon, of hands, nimble Nile fingers, shaping delicious curves. His daily bread, but in you I see foreshadowing of choices made. The rough coolness of clay, blue and gold, still brushstrokes, dried too soon in the blaze of Cairo’s blistering sun. Your beguiling form drew me, as I was caught by eyes from distant shores. In my narrow Scottish cell, you struck a spark. Is that your hidden power? You link future, present, past; a life with love from Africa. * This one is rather dark, but came from a painful time. The title is Distant Echoes because it is all distant, so distant that it's out of sight and gone. Distant Echoes Stark garden lake[1], deep brooding darkness comes, all broken dreams, blind Angel's curse from split corrupted tongue. Rocks squirm and growl. The bloody mist of voices. Will they ever fade? The waters clear with time. The dance resumes. The nettles lie in wait. Just stamp on them regardless. The blindfold cast away. The eyes must look again. At last begin to see. The doubts disperse, dissolve. A nettle leaf's in reach to grasp. The risk of sting is life. To fear will bind the heart. Unlock the cuffs of dread, to let the beat begin. The dreams that were are gone, though frozen shards remain. But scattered, thrown to endless void they fly; no power to shred or gash again. The blood has sealed the wound. _____________________________________________ This one was written as part of an OU assignment to take a household utensil and write a poem about it. ...My life in a wooden spoon! The Wooden Spoon You stir custard, curries, casseroles and creams and mud from deep within my pond. What trails of whirling memory wrap around your stem. A genie in reverse you draw in strands which stick, to float from deep forgotten times. Within you crystallised emotions shine, a pensieve[2], to plunge me back in time. I sit before my milky pond with island of oats. I breathe the grainy salty steam and dip my porridge spoon, to swallow down the warmth. Then shiny shoed, and ribboned hair, I go to school with eager feet and smiling steps, my satchel shouldered, full of precious things like pencils, smelling new and sharp, a box of crayons, waxy , soft, their colours bright, red pencil case with rubber, sharpener. Filled with childish expectation, skip and jump into the playground, running round, a game of tig,’You’re it! You’re it!’ I run to catch and then the whistle shrills. I stand in line and school begins. We sit in rows at desks of heavy wood. The ink pots filled, wet pools of black, I dip with scratchy nib. The spoor[3] of marks from there to here is written now across the pages of my life. Now stir away still you write the fabric of my life. [1] This is the pond in our garden, which was always a focus of happiness, and three years on, is again. [2] J K Rowling’s magical device which takes one back in time, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. [3] The track or trail of an animal, especially a wild animal. [Afrikaans, from Middle Dutch] * _____________________________________________ Picture me sitting in the sun, gazing over the front garden with its shifting textures and colours at high summer... as I sip my chilled white wine, butterflies insinuate themselves like tiny dancing ghosts among the lavenders, oregano, anemones, and white agapanthus. Butterfly In your flittering freedom over the flowers, the grasses in summer, you drink deep from necks of buddleia blossoms, held by sweet perfumed nectar drops. Delicate legs cling to fragile petals, world of ephemeral life, the flower will wither. You will mate and die. Leave your progeny to hatch, graze, sleep, emerge in final gorgeous beauty to live in the few days they have remaining. I am learning from you to be...in the moment, savour colour, aroma, taste, pulse, passion for living. Carpe diem is your daily bread and oh you do it so elegantly. Your delicacy is your charm. Your colours draw me. You decorate my garden, flickering among the waving grasses, swaying purples, soft silver greens. Your tongue delves deep, draws in the life giving juice from the tiny trumpets. You bask in the sun, on warm walls, flaunting fabulous iridescence, glistening wings. What do you see from your myriad eyes? A gauze of colours, and a map of scents leading you to sustenance and gilding the lily of my long life. Jeannie Mehta 2011 _____________________________________________ Written after a walk in Cassiobury Park, Watford one freezing cold January afternoon, 2011 Walking in Cassio, cold shock eats our heads, pinches our cheeks. Stark, stern trees stand stiff and stare. No welcome there today. Clay lungs deep soaked with snow and ice melt sighing out their chilled wet breath, repel our swaddled bodies. Freezing fingers needle us away, back to the cosset of Corsa. And Costa calls in the Mall. We clasp hot chocolate to thaw our faces, unfrost our veins. Sweet heat revives the blood. *
I like writing haiku...something about the tight use of language, like painting a tiny picture....usually written in small moments of intense happiness, or sadness perhaps. Haiku are one of the best known and most practised forms of poetry in the world. They used to have 5-7-5 syllables (in Japanese haiku) before 1900, but now with English and other languages having different rhythms and is 'stress times' rather than syllable timed, so English can express the same content in fewer syllables. I usually aim for 17 syllables. This is the most famous of all haiku: 'Old pond... a frog jumps in... the sound of water' There is a Zen influence in Haiku. What Zen, other Buddhist sects and Shinto all have in common with Haiku is the harmony between nature and humans. The strength of Haiku is their ability to suggest and evoke rather than merely to describe. Here are some of mine:
Sun on my face warm beech mast crunches under my feet squirrel hiding nuts * Ragged butterfly
Finds slanting beams of sunlight last glimpse of summer *
Orange berries glow along the prickly hedgerow beckoning the birds *
Autumn morning mist beaded webs drape the flowers beautiful death traps *
Last rose hangs pink wasting its breath unseen now winter dark has come * Red kites dance wind buffets feathers spring pairs forming new life promises * Red kites drift arrow winged hunters spying over the woods soaring * Kites high gliding red hunters quarter the forest stands below prey hides * The kite haiku were written during a drive to Oxford from Abbots Langley in 2012
* Baby's eyes so bright Anything is possible Clutches the sunbeam * That baby was Darsh, lying on the floor at 80 Kenton Road, smiling up at the light falling through the curtains. He tried to hold the light! August 2018 I wanted to capture a picture of Iona, our grandaughter, at 3 and three quarters, since she had given us so much delight. So this is a grandma's poem! Iona New shiny golden girl Loves Reading, Pretending, Counting, Stories, Matching colours, And choosing what Grandma should wear today. Blue eyes, Giggles At her own Jokes Long legs Likes to be doing: Dancing, jumping, leaping, cycling, running about, catching and kicking, Planting and growing, Trampoline bouncing to Yellow Submarine, Being in charge Inventor of games Kite flying promises Baking cakes helper Plans to bake focaccia bread But play dough will do, Painting delights her Drawing holds her And cutting out Glueing, glittering and hat making Footprint painting, Singing and dancing, Beating the drum. Contents of her head? Music, Nonsense Poems and Nursery rhymes Piano notes Glockenspiel Nutcracker Ballet, (after the baby has come) Puppets and Teddies Café, Babychinos, ice creams, Dinosaurs in the sand, buried Human beings, Planets, Space, Numbers and letters Fossil hunting Snails, butterflies, frogs, tadpoles, newts, owls, foxes, Kayla the cat trees, alpacas, monkeys, tigers and Ring-necked parakeets and Autumn Endless chatter ‘My legs are full of beans today!’ ‘I’m running around on my path,’ Big eyes, explanations, why, how, where, when? Play dough crocodile, waterholes in Africa. ‘How do you make one?’ ‘Grandpa, why have you lost your hair?’ ‘How do the messages get out of the car to Mummy’s phone?’ Sleepovers And all the people who love her… This small dynamic person who has jumped into our hearts. Jeannie Mehta 2018 ********* Not long after moving into Eccleshall, we were having a cup of tea with one of our neighbours. He observed that we had not rooted out the slightly scrappy wild mixed native hedge, we found when we bought the house. He particularly shuddered at the ‘spawn of the devil’, wild ivy, we were encouraging to develop and thicken within it. So, it being October, when wild ivy flowers its coronas of flowers, I thought Ivy, Hedera helix, could answer for herself. Wild Ivy (Hedera helix) I shelter Thrush, Robin and Blackbird In my evergreen caves and fronds. Bees Hoverflies and Butterflies sip at My October coronas of flowers. Come winter, Redwing, Fieldfare, Song Thrush Gorge on my fat fruit globules and roost, Hide, on deep frost nights, while webs shiver Within, Spiders sleep, Ladybirds lurk In folds of my glossy green leaves. My Embrace is wide. My guests are hidden. My work is shelter from winter’s storm. My roots gnarl into the earth and hold Rainwater, floodwaters back from roads, Hold your precious topsoil in the fields. IF I am woven into your hedgerows. Jeannie Mehta September 2021 * Bear in mind I was still probably a little high on post op drugs when I wrote this! Pratap I love you utterly butterly I do love butter sensually Soft yellow a pale sun… But Pratap is better than butter Not wrapped in the fridge but always there Always those huge brown eyes looking at Me with love, and a bit of wonder. The field we live in permanently Charged How did it happen? That spark? It jumped. An ignition, under our radar Did pheromones detect each other? Recognise what they needed to do? Bonded, attracted in that instant Clicked , swept away into a river Of consequence, beautiful for us. But shattering family, hurting… But Your eyes Your face That dimple in your chin, your jaw I Love to lick, that corner ‘twixt bone and Soft neck…your lips curved sensually Upsweeping eyes, upsweeping mouth pull Me. Your deep voice and scents of Vencat And Old Spice drew this girl, helpless in The currents of need, lust, joy, calling All to my Scottish porridge with salt Soul? Essence? Spirit? Being? All of the above found their home in You. Jeannie Mehta 14/8/21 Day 2 after hip replacement 7.19 am finished BMI Hospital Birmingham |