Selfish Hope

Death is inviting to people like me,
afraid of life and love. You see
I've nothing to live for, nothing to give,

So what is the point in my trying to live? 

I've lived this life now for too many years.
There have been few laughs, far too many tears.
So, tell me someone, what is my life worth?
I really should have died at birth.

There must have been good times,
though God knows when; for bad times keep coming,
again and again.
So why should I live a life like mine, if
this life's not worth living, a sheer waste of time?

I've loved and I've cared for my family, my friends
but, where is my share of this love that God sends?
My life feels so worthless - death's drawing me in,
with its hope of new life, a new place to begin. 

Yet, still I keep living, and I hope, hoping too
that life might not be all bad; I must see it through.
The years ahead could be happy, be full.
Why, I think now, I hope I can feel that pull
of happiness, of love. Oh, what little there is
for someone less fortunate, worse off than this.

I've been far too selfish in thinking this way.
Let hope have its moment, I'll live for today.

Sue Tonge, crying in 1973

Insanity?

Dreaming, 
an escape
from reality.
Dreams
recollection,
re collection
elusive
Mind.
Mine
ceases to
dream.
No escape.
Dungeons
deep
down
mine
mind
mined
buried
breaking
breaking
broken.
Dreadful dream.
No awakening.

Sue Tonge, 1976, going mad….

Wall of Seclusion

You melted the ice surrounding my heart,
wrenched out my emotions, tore them apart.
My island, my rock of defence, you invaded,
feelings once hidden, now are paraded
for all to see
when you laugh at my tears.

My life, always, once, ruled by my head,
now dominated by a heart of lead, instead.
That fear of hurt, of emotional pain -
that dread, it fills my heart again.
A dream of love came alive
in reality it died.

Your hands created ecstasy, a moment in time
a natural pleasure – the senses - sublime.
I craved your touch, desired your heart;
we pull apart.
I'm afraid once again, must pretend an illusion
and build that hardened, darkened
wall of seclusion.


Sue Tonge, June 1986 – hurting again...

Mother Earth to her children

Listen to my message infant man,’
This world would answer back.
I scream my plight. Now hear my words:
no more soundbites, no spin, no promises.
Your rhetoric hasn’t worked.

Now! I call for action.
Now! I’m fighting back.

Inside my furnace is firing as
tears of sadness become tears of rage.
Millions of years I lived before you...
You who rip off my clothes;
Blow holes in my skin!
You, you who make my blood boil.
Beware infant man...
Your cradle is rocking.

Ode to a planet

We test your trust,
drag you down,
use you up.
We create havoc with your weather.
We love you, we need you, yet we abuse you.
Our planet is dying...
"Whatever."

Your greatness is taken for granted,
Your planetary plight is ignored.
Perniciously we plundered mindlessly.
We manoeuvred and we messed
with you for our wares.

Mammonism rules, 

And so you are dying.
"Who cares?"

Sue Fewster 2009

Poetry

Poetry!

That monster that seems to scare.
We fear it at school 'cos it baffles our brains
yet we loved it when we were small!

But, It’s only words written in a different way
that add extra meaning somehow.
But at school it’s destroyed -
Here, there’s no time to play
With words, with rhyme, with meter, with time.
No fun with puns, no gleanings and
No meanings self discovered.
Poetry becomes work:
a chore, a pain, a nightmare, a bind.

Please, forget all the rules for a moment and write
a song that tells a story, that fights
a battle, talks of love, makes wrong a right.
Describe a peanut,  a sherbet lemon -
The sound, smell, taste, the feel, the sight.
Just play with words:
alliterate, similise, neologise.
Break the rules and make up new ones.
Then, read your words out loud and
wonder at the power of poetry.

Sue Fewster - 2009

Welcome

Plan to put all my poems in one place...  but the plans of mice and men oft go awry...