Poems To Read — Lucy Berry

maddness

Maddness
Maddness
If I was made in God’s image, God must be partly mad. So, is un-wholeness not divine? I ponder all the things I am, the troubles I have had, and wonder: are they God’s or mine? ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

still

Still
Still
Still The greatest voice is still and small and seldom ever heard at all. These roaring winds of change and doubt which quake and shake us all about, and sound like flames of fire and fear make it so very hard to hear. Still, after all the noise and scare, it’s still small. But it’s still there. ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

flab

Still
Flab
Flab I’ve joined a gym, to help my legs feel less like half-cooked scrambled eggs; so that, in time, this wobbling me becomes unhealthy history. But what gym can I hope to find for weak beliefs, or flabby mind, or unfit thoughts; the type of things which, to one’s faith, are bingo-wings? Where does one look? How do you start to burn the fat from round a heart? ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

High Road

High Road
High Road
Waiting for bars to open, or stuck behind other bars, hungry in awful doorways, breathing in the cars; naked souls on the high road, wasted and on their own; aching to get off their head and forget they’re alone. Weren’t we told to help them? Was it beyond our reach to see the One inside them - and take one each? ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

Step Up

Step Up
Step Up
No lock on his door and his bed is broke. Uncarpeted here, and up the stairs. The boy I’m here to see just woke, but he is going nowhere. No fun for him. Skunk done for him. One step up from him, corner-slopers. Step up, from them, deployment copers. Step up from them, a nice Mercedes, a nice little house and a choice of ladies. Sick of them sucking up youth like milk-shakes, sick of those sucking baron-bleeders feeding off fat from thin boys’ mistakes; systemic slime from bottom-feeders. ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

Read Me

Read Me
Read Me
He said: I can’t wait to hold you, can’t wait to kiss you, can’t wait to have you. She said: But can you read me? Cos I can’t read you. He said: Why d’you want to read me? Why’d I want to read you? Don’t you want to hold me? Don’t you want to kiss me? Don’t you want to have me? She said: I can’t read you! Why not try and read me? He said: Why’d I want to read you when I want to hold you? She said: If you don’t want to read me, then you don’t get me; and if you don’t get me, you don’t get to have me. ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

God the Man

God The Man
God The Man
God, the Man must’ve been lonely; daft idiots for friends, trailing, sleep-walking behind him, and dumping him at the end. Man, the God must’ve been lonely striding from place to place not even one of them getting what he was there to face. Christ! It is bloodily lonely. The more that you yearn to achieve, the vaster the misunderstanding, the sooner they’ll want to leave. ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

Venting

Venting
Venting
How did He keep patience when we were more than usually dense or particularly nasty? Just because we were too slow to catch the raised eyebrow, or eyes rolled heavenward, the stifled sigh, doesn’t mean He didn’t do them. He was human, after all. And even if He was sin-free, (although I sometimes wonder, given His austere attitude to His mum and his Syrophoenician “Dogs” outburst) well, frustration and infuriated eagerness aren’t sin, are they? Are they? How do you vent, watching, no-one having ears to hear and not wanting to discourage anyone? A resigned little shrug? ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

It's like that

It's like that
It's like that
Open the window a little bit. Well, that first bit of real air: that’s what it’s like. It’s what makes cats’ tails twitch; and boredom itch. It’s like scent from a meal from the house you’re passing, or pain in your cheeks when you can’t stop laughing, or shivers from unseen things advancing. That’s what it’s like. ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

Why That bouncer

Why That Bouncer
Why That Bouncer
If I am forgiven, and you are forgiven, hanged Judas in all his despair is forgiven. And, (if it relents and repents), well, then, even the snake who kicked off this whole thing is forgiven. So, why that bouncer with the sword? Why still expelled from heaven? Why are we forbidden the gates to the garden, green paths back to Eden, if we’ve been forgiven? ©Lucy Berry 2018

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Eden Yearning

Eden Yearning
Eden Yearing
I looked over Jordan and I can see clearly now the rain has past; here comes the sun little darling - so don’t worry be happy; there’s a place for us, somewhere a place for us – and the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them, somewhere over the rainbow. There’s something inside so strong - so every little thing’s gonna be alright. Deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome tomorrow, just you wait and see. ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

Morrisons Wood Green

Morrisons Wood Green
Morrisons Wood Green
Sometimes it is only picking up an umbrella, for the woman who cannot bend; or reaching biscuits from a high shelf for the child who cannot stretch. Sometimes it is only nodding to a scarfed-up lady who looks surprised; or lending the man with no shoes money for his daily “rail-ticket home”. But yesterday it was standing twenty minutes in the Tampon and Shampoo aisle while the huge, retired boxer cried for his dead mother, silently, on my shoulder. There are so few tickets home. ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

The Slow Fight

The Slow Fight
The Slow Fight
I drove for months and months past a slow fight between two souls - and watched it every day. One put up posters for the Extreme Right. The other tore them down, threw them away. I didn’t see them (just witnessed their scrap: hate, stuck up on the highway, then torn down. Put up again. And then torn down again.) as I was going back and forth to town. Lord, how I loved that poster-tearer’s guts and loathed that poster sticker’s bigot-gall. Where do you stick? And what would you tear down? Or do you leave the writing on the wall? ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!

Difficult

Difficult
Difficult
I drove for months and months past a slow fight between two souls - and watched it every day. One put up posters for the Extreme Right. The other tore them down, threw them away. I didn’t see them (just witnessed their scrap: hate, stuck up on the highway, then torn down. Put up again. And then torn down again.) as I was going back and forth to town. Lord, how I loved that poster-tearer’s guts and loathed that poster sticker’s bigot-gall. Where do you stick? And what would you tear down? Or do you leave the writing on the wall? ©Lucy Berry 2018

Thank you!