If I were a flower
If I were a flower my petals would be fading now,
drooping and withering in the early summer
but if by chance you glanced my way to warm me through,
watered my weakened frame to give me strength,
then I know I would survive to see the Autumn.
Strange that it should be this way for summer
lends itself to life and love and laughter.
Here in this hole where all is dark and pained
my laughter is muffled by the dank air.
No sunlight filters through, no light at all.
I'm cut off from friends and faces I once knew.
Hemmed in by physical inabilities,
dim eyes and ears that hear the nothingness.
The song of silence fills me so persistently,
I hum its tune, remembering life’s symphony.
If I were a flower my petals would be fading now,
drooping and withering in the early summer
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poem by Ruth Walters
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Poor Cow
She'd tousled hair
and crumpled skirt,
her fingernails were
lined with dirt.
with teeth all brown,
she wore a frown,
her hips so wide
they hid the ground
Her legs were short,
her feet were large.
The way she moved
was like a barge.
A ciggy hung
from ruby lips
and much smoke billowed
from its tip.
She coughed a lot
her breath was foul
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poem by Ruth Walters
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Squalor & Chips
My angel of the night
came down the stairs of morning
his hair, brown locks of greasiness,
his mouth, those sweet lips, yawning.
He stopped three steps from earth that day
and gazed at trainers in his way
and then as I began to pray,
stepped over and ignored them.
He took four steps across the room
he missed the cloth, the pan, the broom
and squashed cold chips, bare footed
upon the kitchen flooring!
Alas my fallen angel there,
sat his bottom on a chair
and sweeping hand through tousled hair,
ate his breakfast without care.
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poem by Ruth Walters
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To a daughter
I give to you long golden hair.
offering nothing that love can bring,
but just the richest yellow glow
that makes men look at women.
I give to you two ruby lips
offering nothing that love can bring,
but just the sexiest coloring
that makes men look at women.
I give to you two emerald eyes,
offering nothing that love can bring,
but just a magical haunting gleam
that makes men look at women.
I give to you a heart all true
offering everything that you need,
it will not bring you anything
that makes men look at women.
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poem by Ruth Walters
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Moorgate
The smell of smoked bacon,
clinging to clothes,
and the sight of a rat
or a huge black moth
as I waited on the platform.
Men, scrawny, some scruffy,
some seedy, some smart
would stand too near the edge.
I'd watch nervously,
trying not to stare.
Lone women, late at night,
would slide up to other women,
scared perhaps, of being left,
in an empty carriage,
with just one foul creep.
Some nights I'd fall asleep,
with the jogging of the train,
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poem by Ruth Walters
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Giving it plenty
A girl of 16 is an old mans dream
Sweet, naive, not hard to please
When she reaches 18 she's ripe for dating
With a father figure in her schemes
A woman of 20 of them there are plenty,
avoiding cheap leers, chasing careers,
At 30 she'll marry, find some young Harry,
biological clock going ticky, tick tock.
She's feeling maternal broody and mumsy,
she'll rip off his clothes and grope at his undies.
But soon she'll complain that the baby is tiresome,
her body is flumpy, her boobies are dumpy.
She'll crave to be youthful, do something useful,
starting to fancy men young and fruitful.
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poem by Ruth Walters
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Jars
The second she was born, they put bits of her in jars,
placenta was the first, that went in the jar,
oh yah, it went straight in the jar.
Then when she was 4, her tonsils, what's more,
her adenoids too were all put in jars,
oh yah, they went straight in the jar.
Hospitals, such strange places, all antiseptic and large
and medics are prone to examine, you know,
all those bodily parts left in jars.
So getting back to the story, appendicitis was next,
and sure as the first two small stanza's
you can guess where appendix went next.
For a while they left her alone, in tact and therefore unharmed
but as soon as she turned 47
they put more of her bits in those jars.
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poem by Ruth Walters
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The Spit Sucker
Spit's her burden, her work,
she aspirates it all day, sucks it up.
Of course she does other things,
but you won't remember her for those.
You'll remember her for her hose.
the pipe she sticks in your mouth.
You don't know she did two years college,
studied nights, languished over books.
You don't care, she had to learn anatomy,
and how or when to offer what or why
to a puffed up dentist that looks down on her
for being less qualified.
It doesn't matter to you that she knows canulation
anatomy, or cardiac massage.
No - you don't know, because to you
she's just the spit sucker,
the pretty thing that soothes your brow while you
muster up the courage to have a crown.
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poem by Ruth Walters
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Never Empty
Do you ever muse what houses do
while you're at work, the kids at school,
how the traffic roars as it rolls on by
and the telephone rings with no reply.
The refrigerator sings its refrigerator tune
and the gas man calls in the afternoon.
How rain pours through that hole in the roof
and the ants infest all the children's shoes.
Have you ever thought on that dear folk,
when you're out all day and the front door's locked.
When the spiders dance and crickets chirp
with their clod hopper feet on the skirting boards,
making merriment while you're away,
assuming the house is empty all day.
Have you ever looked under old floor boards
where the mice all run when the cat's at play
and the spiders return at the break of day.
Only the house knows what goes on,
only its walls see the spiders run
and the crickets dance and the mice at play,
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poem by Ruth Walters
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Nobody nowhere
He sleeps with her now, he kisses her brow,
they chatter and laugh and linger at day break
but when old fears awaken, making him scream
there's nobody nowhere who knows him like me.
I know from a look, from a sigh, from a stir,
I can see in his heart and I know much, much more
For I lived his nightmares and suffered his schemes
and there's nobody nowhere who knows him like me.
She looks kind of lost, kind of foxed, kind of scared
as she scurries about sifting through his affairs
and as sunshine makes shadows and moonlight appears
she'll look in my eyes to decipher his fears.
A touch of my hand, a glance at my face,
he catches my eyes as his nightmares give chase
and I watch and I wait and my heart aches to know
if he needs me more now than he ever dare show.
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poem by Ruth Walters
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