A bloody white handkerchief,
waved as he carries the boy
through gunfire. The boy dies,
with many others on that
bloody Sunday.
Ireland’s second bloody Sunday.
So many deaths, so much blood
in the fight for freedom. How
many bloody white handkerchieves?
First published at Scarlet Leaf Review (many years ago).
Christine, in years to come you will hear words spoken about you,be asked questions you know not the meaning of, you will be as an exhibit, a fascination, reduced to symptoms of medical interest
Resist the urge to live,let yourself go into the gloomy stupor of death which leads to the light beyond. Ignore the instinct to survive, to grab hold of life, your suffering will be ignored, your pain unknown, you will never find love on this earth
Let all the confusion you will know wash over and away, the years beyond will be too many, with not enough of anything to sustain, not love, not friends, not family, your own daughter will desert you, your sister die in your arms
Dad will love you, mother will poison your life more than disease, let go, when death comes, say yes, and let it be short, don’t live long while you are dying, acquiesce, embrace the light, go to the everlasting arms, don’t exhaust yourself with living
People live in their cocoons, what destroys your life is of no concern, no one will care about you, empty words will fill your ears, enjoy the sunlight and say goodbye while you can speak, everyone you love will disappear, fade away, words have no meaning, life is dust, let go
Published by Hedgehog Press
This is the most autobiographical piece I’ve ever written. My editor invited poems on the theme of who we are. I chose to write to my seven year old self. I was broken up over recent events, I thought about the man I married, my love for him that had water poured over it and yet the support I gave him when a mother’s nightmare happened to us. He took, he took and took. Another relationship, fairly uneventful but he was jealous. He slipped a disc and I nursed him, he took and took. And all the time I was a mother putting my daughter first. Then a boring little man, who asked permission to go to the shop for his lunch stuff, got into my bedroom at three in the morning and molested me while we were talking. While making amends for that he seduced me and began a relationship with me. I started to fall in love but he obeyed his owner. I was fine but he came to visit me, and that was the undoing. I have a folder of emails I thought were from his owner, but apparently are from him. A lot of emails over the last nine months. And then he crushed me. Told me I only wanted a carer. He smashed me and the pieces are many
Yesterday, some poet friends and I drove to Romsey for a poetry collective. I read one that is really a stream of consciousness. Many read or performed humorous poetry, and others more serious or pastural poetry.
When I got home I was very dehydrated, and I began to ache. I had fallen last Friday, so bruises from that were still making themselves known. The venue yesterday was upstairs, but we had break and tea was outside. I clocked up a fair bit of walking, which is the one thing I can’t do a lot of.
So last night I went to bed very early. With lots of fluids. I still ache, but it’s going away. I’ve been struggling to open a pressure washer so I can rid my birch tree of some horrid black things that are eating it’s leaves. It’s good for me to be active when I ache.
I woke this morning feeling quite achey and physically tired. I’m not sure why. Maybe my body telling me to rest. So I’ve rested and slept.
I written a letter to the local newspaper about the windchimes. I asked if anyone could provide a solution.
I have submitted some poetry to a publisher I admire, I’ve had notification that a poem will be published in December, and I’m gathering poems a the courage to enter a poetry competition.
My breathing remains good, I have a lot of nerve pain currently. A lot is due to the windchimes. It is a mini hell. I’m doing my best to not think about it, and to live joyfully. That’s hard when I’m screaming in pain.
I can hear birds singing, and that gives me such pleasure.
Today was my daughter’s 21st birthday. I gave her some very simple silver jewelry, a collar made in one piece of silver which comes to a point about 3.5inches below her neck, and a matching cuff bracelet that can be gently squeezed to fit her slender wrist.
We are going for a meal somewhere tomorrow.
On Saturday I received notification that one of my poems has been accepted by the Alzheimer’s Society for their anthology Memories. I am thrilled about this as this awful disease has touched my life. My Dad had it and I used to care for him.
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My daughter, with one of her close friends who she met at dance class when she was seven.
Today has been a weird day. I don’t know why. My daughter and I had an peculiar conversation this morning. Funny peculiar, not weird. Then the chemist got my prescription wrong again. I am missing the tablet that stops me getting breathless and tight in the chest.
I hear my neighbours as though they’re in my home. Not always, but too much though I still love living here, just slightly less.
Mainly, I am not coping well with the deep sadness I feel when I wake every morning. I am still in love with a man. He is my moon, stars, and sun. He once told me he could never be angry with me and that he could never be upset with me. His last words to me were very hurtful and untrue. How fickle the heart is. My friends tell me I deserve someone better, but I can’t even imagine better.
I’ve been changing some things around my home. I have new lights in my dining room and sitting room. It looks really good. I’ve put a piece of stained glass on my sitting room window.
I have dreadfully expensive taste, but fortunately find almost everything at a discount. I can make a little money go a long way. I’m so sad that almost everything in my garden has died due to not being able to keep up with watering. Next year, my garden will be filled with drought resistant plants and I will go back to a smaller flowerbed instead of pots, which need more watering.
So I’m a little wheezy but hope the pharmacy will get it right before I go away tomorrow to Salisbury to do a poetry reading. I’ll be staying there.
If the Government won’t come to us,
we must go to them
in person, by letter, email or tweet.
We must tell them we are tired,
oh so very tired of broken promises.
Mainly, it is the lies.
They word things carefully,
we call it spin.
But the rich are still getting richer
and the poor are yet poorer.
Something is broken, it’s not working,
because of the lies.
They arm the countries which bomb our ‘friends’.
Tax pennies for that,
and tax pennies to aid those orphaned, maimed.
Supply and demand of weapons that kill,
a self-perpetuating warfare and deaths.
Mainly, it is the lies.
We have to tell them we don’t want bombs,
not in our name, stop.
We want that money spent on renewables,
making jobs, saving lives and the Earth,
so the poor get richer, and cream the banks’ .
Stop telling us the lies.
War must end, we’ll organize the peace
and teach love, not power.
They will see bigotry is old fashioned,
humankind has evolved to tolerance.
The arms trade robs us of our bucks.
Corrupt, it’s the lies.
History does not repeat, it’s
human nature that changes not.
Our revolt will ban the weapons and power
until no one can come to harm any more
Tolerance and love are the watchwords,
Otherwise, it’s all lies.
For David
I drank your adoration, it made me glow
in truth, I was used to being the golden girl
you liked my dresses more than my sister’s
I was chosen for your team, football or hide go seek
we’d meet at school in the woods and kiss
just like at home in the shrubbery or the den
always together, you saved me for yourself
and I wanted for no one, no other friend,
though I had them
You loved my long, long, thick hair hanging heavy
my contrasting dark eyelashes enthralled you
you sheltered me from the rain and warmed me
Your family moved away while I was ill
in hospital, how could they do that?
I look for you still
by Chrissie Morris Brady / May 15th, 2016
They talk about being in harm’s way,
your son, father, husband
They’re in slaughter’s way and
often don’t see another day.
Bullets tear open guts,
blow their brains out spilling on the dirt.
Grenades blow limbs off, shell shock,
blood soaking shirts.
Killed, maimed, driven insane in harm’s way.
Collateral damage, friendly fire,
euphemisms to placate.
Civilians ravaged, murdered, raped,
bombs rained down on, crossfire
and soldiers mistaken for the enemy,
shot by compatriots.
This friendly fire has no love,
ironic way to meet life’s end.
Body bags, toe tags, no coffin yet,
but finally draped by the flag.
Field hospitals, ankle deep in blood,
limbs cut off, the mind numbed
Going home a hero, but soon forgotten,
driven to drink, homeless, alone.
Isolated by night terrors,
dead mates they would have died for,
and wish they had, better a grave than a living hell.
That’s just our soldiers who live by a convention,
now starvation is a weapon against the innocent.
Those made homeless by indiscriminate bombings,
Children made orphans, parents made into the nameless
Of losing children, sisters, brothers, cousins.
How the belly aches for food, for love, sheltering arms
There are none.
Untitled
you remember those summers,
after Germany, long and hot
on the grass or in the apple trees
our world, our castles really in the air,
branches so familiar, smoothed by jeans
and you’d sing into the skipping rope
later I’d hear them on the radio
and think you were magic, a moonbeam
you styled my taste in music for a long time
I wanted to look like you, have style
not look so young, so childlike, so thin
it was your love, your arms I craved
and then, much too soon, I’m your bed
as you begin to die, fading,
a moon beam fading
into the morning
