A SMALL MISUNDERSTANDING
This was the first prayer ever taught us,
Long before we could understand
Or be aware of our need for prayer.
Standing in ragged rows, eyes closed, we began,
‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’
But through a small misunderstanding
This became a little prayer for
‘Our Arthur, who art in Devon.’
Still, even not knowing Arthur,
We were happy that our prayer
Put that little intrepid wanderer
Into such safe and loving care.
©2018 Gwen Grant
Back at last, after no internet for days and days.
A MINUTE AFTER MIDNIGHT
The world is dressing already
For a day of loveliness.
New dreams poised to take over
From all the old dreams
Frayed at the edges.
Hope patching the tattered pieces
Until you can’t even see the join.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
DON’T LIE
Do not lie to me of love,
Or act as if the whole is good,
When every time I try
To catch your eye,
You turn away.
Golden words fall from your lips,
That wicked tongue can silver iron,
Until your lies
Cover me like dust.
I beg.
Do not lie to me of love.
©2023 Gwen Grant
When I was ten and very poorly, I was sent to a kind of hospital school three
hundred miles away from my home to get better. I felt so lost, unhappy and
alone, I ran away on a night thick with snow, determined to get back home.
I’d read all the stories of children on their own – Hansel and Gretel, Snow
White, the children in the Bible constantly on the move and they consoled
me. But here we are, decades later, and like the children in the stories I
told myself all those years ago, they are still being pursued by the inhumanly
vicious. When will it end?
CHILDREN WALKING
That night, in wicked December,
When the moon shone
Through the dark tops of trees
Onto the sparkling snow.
The sea rolling over the silent sand,
The water so cold and slow
Even Neptune was frozen,
Frightened by the frost hardened foam.
That was the night she began
The three hundred mile walk home.
Sure it would take no time at all.
She was sick of the great old house
In dark shadow behind her,
With its white beds, white walls
And fierce purple uniforms.
She wanted to sleep in her own bed,
With the candle on the window sill,
Unlit, but ready for any emergency.
A bad dream. The eerie sound
Of a bogeyman almost upon her.
As she walked, she remembered
All the stories she had heard
Of children walking.
Walking back to their own home,
Looking for a new one.
Some together. Some like her, alone.
Walking through flame and fire and snow,
Through desolation.
She didn’t get home that night,
Neither did they.
Even Neptune almost didn’t make it.
But they remember,
Those children walking alongside each other,
That night in wicked December.
And still they walk,
Told in new stories of new suffering,
New desolation,
Of new bogeymen now upon them,
Told in the old story of the breakdown of love.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
I wrote this poem a couple of years ago after a very difficult and
demanding year. This didn’t change, though, simply going on
to bring more challenges.
A SHORT HISTORY OF A COMPLEX LIFE
The woman who ate the moon
Lives in the trees down by the river.
Wait! I tell a lie!
She actually lives on some small landing
Up a flight of stairs halfway to heaven,
Or resides at the bottom of a cellar temporarily,
Standing on dark, unseen tiles,
Cold, mysterious and unsettling.
Looking fantastically familiar
Should you ever catch a glimpse of her.
She has a habit of singing through the dark hours.
Sometimes of how she is made of paper
Inclined, at times, to burst into flame.
Her mind is full of brushed glass pieces
Picked up on the beach, blown lovely
By the steady rushing of the wind-blown sea,
With pebbles, sea-shells, starfish, mermaids
And the bones of the dead rattling amongst them.
After she swallowed the moon, she held it tight within,
Complaining, sometimes, that light shone right through her
And only dragons, biting and marauding, could save her,
Lending her their teeth.
At night, the sky is alive with heroes,
Blazing shields held up and ready to meet the morning.
Great wings of strength and beauty beating behind them
As they go seeking the woman who ate the moon.
But she would only let in
Those who left their shields and wings at home
As she was extremely busy making her own history.
© 2020 Gwen Grant
Poems by Gwen Grant 