Clouds of poverty rained on her youth, she
worked her fingers raw when there was work, and
wages to be earned. She stood between fading
father, childworn mother and humiliation, tried
to find carefree hours in a time heavy with care,
Bleached her hair with lemons, reddened lips with
bourgeois rouge, fell in love at end of summer ,
when hunger marched. Danced to the beat of a
different drummer but was never quite in step

Legs raised in slings she cursed and pushed her first
child into a world where bullets flew, heralding
another conflict, another rich man's ruse to
fill deep pockets and drain a generation's lives.
In the first year her husband fell; Lizzie loosed hold
On the little happiness she had, Pushed up
her sleeves and set to the task of making for her
children a key to better things than she had known,
and for her King-and-country's war, bullets and bombs.

War birds migrated east, class and privilege were
set aside, the common people invited to
the feast. Though the guns were idle nation spoke
fear to nation. With knuckles swollen, gnawed by pain
Lizzie worked, work was all she had known, Always quick
to show compassion, ever tardy to complain,
she was said to be a lake of goodness but few
offered her a comforting hand. Though many a
generous spirit broke, hope still lit her eyes

And when peace came to Lizzie's life it brought her
solitude. Children grown and gone away, her man
three decades dead she faced an unknown future
and began again. A world of unfamiliar
voices promised the future to the young and Lizzie
for the first time had no one but herself to please.
She smiled as the girls with bodies liberated,
boys with flowing hair, defied the high and mighty.
All her tribulations had served some purpose.

Feeding birds, arranging flowers, watching seasons
flow enjoying the time she had earned as hers
to waste or employ as she wished, Lizzie
outlived her friends and all but one distant child.
Slipped away in a home where the forgotten
go to die, and in a sun bright graveyard, under
bursting, bright green buds only one man who never
knew her stood to eulogise a life punctuated
by promises but defined by their betrayal.

Let Lizzie Blackburn's requiem be written
clearly in the future of this wounded world

Author note: On April 9, 2002 the national grief in the UK (inspired largely by the media) reached the required level of hysteria as Elizabeth, mother of the reigning monarch Queen Elizabeth the second and widow of King George VI was buried after lying in state as thousands of people whose lives she had never touched filed past the coffin to make their obsequiences. The world loves to watch such displays of pomp and circumstance by the British, it is what we do best. We do not do quite so well however in caring for the millions of old people who have lived good but unremarkable lives.

ON WITH THE MOTLEY
© Ian Thorpe, 2002

Education taught me nothing except how to ask for more
Ignoring all the lessons learned by those who passed before
The Welfare system failed to nurture from the cradle to the grave
And debt peddlers speak enticingly but their promises enslave
Now somewhat prematurely I have come back to the cross
And balance what might lie ahead with what's already lost
With neither work nor wealth I must contrive to make my way
And see the world more clearly though the world perceives me fey.
So on with the Motley, I'll wear the costume of a fool
And sacrifice my dignity to play the Lord of Ridicule

The tyrant fears the madman more than the idiot fears the gun
And the joker will reclaim the stone when the philosopher is done
With satire as my currency and punning rhyme my coin
I use my wit and wordplay to distract as I purloin
The cloak of self - importance that the powerful must wear
And expose their perfidy while finer wordsmiths sneer.
They build ivory towers of sophism and casually disrespect
My simple - minded clowning and lack of intellect
But I deal in irony and badinage, buffoonery and farce
Because laughter is a precious thing where sagacity is sparse.
So on with the Motley, I'll wear the costume of a fool
And sacrifice my dignity to play the Lord of Ridicule

In Cathedrals of commerce and corridors of power
From the temple of Venus to the top of Mammon's tower
A thousand glib deceptions are used to conceal the truth
While masters of illusion spin substance into spoof,
And create an environment where nothing's as it seems
Propaganda is perverter of innocence's dreams
Conditioning to consumption has become systemic
And addiction to material things is becoming epidemic
But in my multi - coloured garb I make myself immune
And lead my audience in dancing to a different tune.
So on with the Motley, I'll wear the costume of a fool
And sacrifice my dignity to play the Lord of Ridicule

Author Note: From my forthcoming Tarot - themed collection Arcane Encounters. This is a poem to be performed with music in a rather sophisticated rap style.

STILL LIFE WITH PILLS
(For Pauline Armstrong)
© Ian Thorpe, 2002

Breathless traffic sweated exhauted toxins
Into the tired air; factoies coughed into life,
Spitting their poisonous sputum
at a soiled sky. In one workshop
an empty bench screamed alarms
at fellow workers, but nobody heard.
Across town the woman slept on.
Beside her small yellow pills danced
across a tabletop, and a bottle,
half empty, kept a lonely vigil
beside a note. "Goodbye, I'm sorry
I could not bear to stay. The burden might
have seemed lighter if just for once
somebody could have said they loved me.

I heard of her lonely death much later,
Remembering at once the dark eyes,
Jetstones cut cabochon and set in soft cheeks,
Clasped by heavy butterfly lashes.
Quick laughter, too loud as if let loose
only infrequently. Her pleasure of me
urgent too, as if the dead - march
Of some rough hand upon my door
Might steal the moment from her.
Long gentle fingers stroking my skin,
The strength in slender arms that bound
Like an enchantment. And her body, supple
as a wand and hungry as the North Wind,
blowing from a cold place, demanding me.
Always at the end her stiletto qustion:
Do you love me just a little, not to keep
But for now, can you say you love me?

But I was young and did not understand
The dice she cast were not for me.
Nor did I see sadness touch her face
As my evasions, like blows of a brutal fist
bruised and hurt her at the moment
she had to leave where she would cling.
Slipping on her jailor ring she left,
retreating to her loveless bed
before dawn brought home the beast.
I was not wise enough to lie and so
When time shifted my orbit I never
Wondered why she had to ask "please
will you - can you - say you love me
just a bit, just for the hours we have.

Finding the grave behind an ugly church
I knelt and with a finger traced the letters
Of her half forgotten name. Time freed me
To feel again her warmth and taste
the sweet gifts in her kiss.It was too late
But still I laid a rose upon the ground
And beside it placed a note that read
"After all these selfish years I promise
I still love you - More than a little."

Author Note: This is a true story told with the two licences that go with poetry and time. My third "grown up" lover (when I swapped notches on the bedpost for relationships) was a bisexual woman some years older than me. The girl I write of was soon leading me into many love games and opening my eyes to the delights of experience. As the English Aristocrat Lord Chesterfield once said "There is nothing sets up a young man quite so well as having an older mistress." I'll dedicate this one to Veronica.

YOUR GARDEN
© Ian Thorpe, 2002

I would never have found my own garden
or learned of the pleasures it held
had you not opened the gate for me.
Loving you was an epiphany
for someone taught to never leave
the street where he was born.
When you led me to the ways of senses,
showed me the mysteries of Circe
and the dark, narcotic secrets of Nephtis,
I could not go back to a drab place where
rats race and hungry dogs gnaw
on their own young. Nor could I live
among highrise people, for whom each day
is a staircase in their unending climb.

You taught me well, flowers grow in
tended ground, they need warmth and
gentle care but can withstand the
strongest wind, survive the hardest rain.

Then when all our blooms had died
you sent me on to use what you had taught,
lead others to a garden, show them
how every stem, each leaf and all the lives
that share our earth must be equally cherished
and none, no matter how its beauty
shines out brighter than the rest,
should be placed above any other.

I wonder who is in your garden now;
or are we both alone trying to resist
the weeds and deadheading our memories?

Author's Note: (Chapter in "Arcane Encounters" - "The Empress and the Knight of Wands") The Knight of Wands, one of the significators of the collection's narrative voice, has evolved from the callow and rather fey Page of Cups into early manhood. The spirit of mature womanhood in the shape of a series of older and much wiser lovers help him to leave adolescence behind.