06/18/2021
https://youtu.be/TGhyfNEHmN8
YouTube video of Lucy Houbart's ZoomMuse Poetry Reading on June 11, 2021.
Lucy Houbart reads both her own poetry plus poems by her late father, playwright Leonard Kingston. Lucy talks about the influence of her writer father in her life, the impact the pandemic shutdown had on her creative writing process and the inspiration that she draws from nature.
Lucy is a visual artist and potter, and a longtime Subud member currently serving as Subud Britain's Committee Counsellor. Lucy is involved in two writing groups, one of which she began in January 2021.
Some of Lucy's poems:
TODAY I AM LOST
Today I am lost,
A mind densely matted.
The wind shoves past, as a passenger I walk.
Eyes drift and sink in a stagnant pool,
Rustling leaves clog my ears.
Shouldering hedges and trees either side,
While flies criss-cross the air - this hill tugs at each step.
Then, whilst leaning on the bend there’s an opening
And suddenly...the view is lit,
Like the climax of a Broadway production!
Huge marigold sun,
Rich like the yolk of an egg.
Its light striking out, displayed across a luxurious sky.
Centre stage, huge clouds demand full attention,
Muscling the light of this golden sunset.
Now feel so glad my desert storm within
Brought me to find this place.
ONE BRAVE AUTUMN DAY
One brave autumn day,
I notice the scene like a digital snapshot –
Bright and glossy.
I want to catch and keep it!
The trees collapsing,
Leaves pouring endless showers through the air,
Flakes of gold scattering a cobalt sky.
Flickers of fire trickle and dissolve –
A never-ending flow,
Spreading gold treasure and rubies red.
The flurries surprise with flips and twirls,
Ending in small heaps that rest in the sun.
The street brimming full.
Then, the next morning early,
Commuters briskly walk.
And there’s the sound of a mechanized hum –
Back to business.
Wet sticky mounds
All efficiently swallowed.
And the street licked grey all bare.
HEAD FEELS LIKE A LIQUORICE ALLSORT
Head feels like a liquorice allsort,
One bit from one half gets inside the other -
Cosy in a roll.
It’s feeding on stuff from my brain
Doing somersaults getting fat.
Not going outside
My brain. Knowing all about the inside instead of
Knowing you.
My brain is getting less scared
No need to find its voice.
Before, it looked like it had grown
Because it had to keep on changing.
But now it can sit,
Hear itself
Talk.
And takes a new direction
Inwards,
Not outwards accommodating fear.
Sometimes I feel strange in the middle.
Thinking I might break.
Not used to being here.
But it's ok,
My shell is as hard as a walnut and I cradle warm and snug.
Look to the future,
Roll to my tune.
Outside - no need to change.
Inside see me instead of you.
DESIRE
Desire to feast not on fake fancies -
Elegance, charm, beauty and perfection -
An ice-cream sundae with a cherry on it topped.
But upon those stories of sorrow
That make us whole.
And celebrate the battles
Where we survived,
Well enough to relate the tale.
Go back through history,
Lay out bare facts,
Hear hidden points of view,
Admit the feelings felt.
Go back to barely noticed seeds and conception,
Noting early days, months and years of fragile growth -
Understand and learn.
Then maybe your desires
Won’t tease like unattainable goals
But materialise as a prize justly received,
Embrace you like a sumptuous cloak of silk
And bring sweet appreciation,
As sunlight unexpectedly reveals
A brand new open page.
YESTERDAY
With satisfaction
I see what I make today
Is better than yesterday.
And can hang glide on the wave of time
Rush, skid, swerve the bend
My pal is time
Full speed ahead.
But.
Another day
I come to realise
I didn’t know yesterday
What I discover today.
And there’s no running back
To make amends.
Like a train building speed,
The world’s moved on.
Feeling left on the platform
Watching windows full of faces flick and pass
Stare at my feet, a universe apart.
Actions spent.
Resources dry.
Oh to drive the vehicle back!
But there’s no way to pass
Through this tough terrain of time.
I’m left
Full with regret.
MARY SEACOLE
Mary Seacole,
Your determination points
To injustice. Your struggle
To serve, be accepted.
Why were you shamed and denied
In this broken land where we lie?
Your courage, your stride
Takes me to weakness
To the ache in my chest like a
broken blood vessel.
To trace lines in my hand
To a bad rotting root.
How many wounds did your hand with compassion soothe?
Behind your certitude
I imagine pain.
And wonder did your hurting
Search out injury and loss?
As you nursed those violent lacerations,
Patiently waiting whilst the healing beat its course,
Did you see, as if through gauze,
Your own fractured self,
Fusing with the patients’?
And, as you nursed,
Did you feel all the wounds
Woven back together?
I ask so the aching in my chest
Can now
Be put to rest.
THE NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON
Long awaited night,
Softly arrives. Woolly darkness quietly creeps,
Soaks us through – blotting – masking.
Everything fully coated,
Zipped and fastened
So that peaceful calm fills me up.
Rest, wait, be still!
All is held perfectly in place
By the one, enormous moon.
Its presence undeniable,
Piercing with its light
And tracing all that we do.
Bringing gently clarity,
The wise, expansive moon.
MAN'S BEST FRIEND
My beautiful dog.
Through grassy field his speed exhilarates.
Simple, refreshing with purpose he leaps.
At one with wind and sun.
Then gulps from muddy puddles
and sinks in flowing streams.
Proud nose plays at detective, savouring smells
recorded by a nostril flicker
And flagged with a toss of his tail.
I love to watch as he spins through all the elements
Imagine his joy - so free!
Yet
where I go, he follows.
Tracks my steps. Explores
but always returns by my side.
His master
And authority.
Peaceful body breathing and I’m aware
This existence dependant on me.
Next move my command.
Maybe he’ll try with a piercing stare or nudging paw,
But always knows
I’m where his next meal is from.
My own source of life is far from that simple.
Where do I look for meaning?
Security? Which way to go,
To whom find answers?
Maybe one day,
He will take me on a walk,
His long mysterious stare will reveal an explanation
Of all that is unknown. His loud persistent bark
Will guide to the path of completeness
To discover the true and faithful master that rules us all.
THE JOURNEY OF MEMORY MEALTIME LANE
Come on now, memory mealtime store
Fill me a tasty smell –
Grandmas’s larder – whole room devoted!
Crinkled brown paper nesting
Squares of brownies, gingerbread.
Eyes behold, like moons of light
Boubon biscuits, french sponge fingers.
Other worldliness, such a sight!
Now take me back to nice school dinners,
Waiting down the hall, up the playground steps.
Will treacle cake all have gone,
Just leaving rice and prunes?
Dreadful cold white mash potato scoops
Neatly spread apart.
My favourite - dark chocolate sponge
And jam pink marshmallow tart.
Join me to sitting round
My childhood kitchen table,
‘Best bit is the skin,’ Dad and me agree.
He approves as I eat
My little sister’s potato jacket.
I’m good and there’s plenty
And we’re all feeling full.
Every plate eaten clean, completely empty.
I remember secretly sneaking
Opening tins and picking out pieces
Of chocolate from choc chip cookies.
By the window, our Kenwood soda stream,
It’s bottles like shop bought fizzy pop!
And Dad’s homemade wholemeal loaf
Unlike any bread from the shop.
My Sixth form packed lunch –
Two Ryvita sandwiches with a kipling cake,
A calorie counting diet
Always eaten by morning break
Whilst writing the stove is forgotten
And now the smell of overcooked stew -
Burnt pan supper – a frequent memory.
I think I can save it, definitely cooked through.
Arriving at the end of mealtime lane,
A message to hang in the kitchen high above
Something I’ve learnt to remember,
That the food in our lives must be all about love.
THE FOLLOWING POEMS ARE BY LEONARD KINGSTON
(LUCY'S FATHER)
LIFE'S SWEETEST RAPTURE
‘…We came upon a garden wild.
Sweet eglantine and briars combined
With ranc’rous rose, thorn defiled,
To bar our way,
My shoes and me.
But magic’d feet so subtly - see! –
Our problem sifted. Skirts uplifted,
O’er we leap, both bush and tree
To force a way,
My shoes and me!
Yet prospects still are scarcely cheery.
Each path we wend a vile dead end!
Soon we may grow teary-weary,
Losing our way,
My shoes and me…
But, no, dear feet; we dare not fail!
Hope reviving, onward striving,
Till – behold – a bloom-strewn trail
Re-points our way,
My shoes and me!
And what is this? O hallowed sight!
A grotto dim, a light within,
On either side two angels bright!
We bend the knee,
My shoes and me!
Yes! Down we bend that trembling knee,
As a voice within that grotto dim
Speaks words of deep simplicity,
To calm our fears and tell us we
Have found the way!
My shoes and me!
Hosannas sing to HIM on high!
Words that are too sacred far
For human ear or human eye
But sure it is we heard the cry,
You’ve found THE WAY!
Your shoes and you!
ENVOI:
O bliss supreme! O joy unbound!
Let the merry cymbals sound!
A voice has spoken to betoken
A berth is booked,
My nook is took.
One little cabin in the sky
Is now reserved – O bliss! O joy! –
FOR ME,
MY SHOES,
AND I!
LIFE IS A MIRAGE
Life is a mirage some might suggest.
An illusion born of our ceaseless desire
To matter, to be of some meaning and interest
To who? Ah, that other mirage – him up in the sky.
Yes, God, him Almighty, his angels and such
Who would in any case, should he exist,
Be far too busy, too much in a rush
Attending to other worlds to bother with us.
For ours is a nothing, a speck too minute
In a cosmos too mighty, unaccountably immense
But in our nothingness perhaps may note
One genuine mirage of comfort and dance
Our dreams! Yes dreams! For do they not create
A parallel universe
Where we parade as hero, villain, fool, a seeming endless show
Forever to be extended?
Perhaps it is fantasy, escape
But yet somehow, we survive in this our dreams
Our other life to be around when we have ended.
Is this a fantasy and not a mirage that we may live on in dreams
When mortal life has ended?
And who knows? Perhaps this is true.
A MINUTE OF FREEDOM
A minute, an hour, a month, a lifetime of it!
Oh, please, yes!
Freedom!
But what does it mean?
A freedom from what?
Nagging insecurity. The thought
That somewhere out there
Is poised a giant threatening thumb
Awaiting the order, the command,
To crush you, me, miserable worms,
Squash each and every one of us
Into blood jelly; we, all of us, awaiting
That dread unknown.
Because it is out there!
Oh, make no doubt of that,
This thing that is threatening.
And will end
All our happiness.
Do we not live our whole life long
Under this fear?
That, one fine day,
An innocent-seeming buff envelope
Will plop through our letter box?
A summons from the Inland Revenue
Or a something from some Ministry!
An insidious little message from the Powers that Be:
YOU have been found out!
Your life of unworthiness has been exposed.
You, yes, you, sir, are for the chop.
Unless you can explain yourself.
Perhaps it is something worse.
A knock at the door,
A menacing monster dark blue shadow,
Glimpsed through the skylight,
Waiting impatiently to carry you away.
Or even just a mousey moth-eaten little man,
With ill-fitting false teeth,
Who will insist, so gently,
“Unfortunately, yes, sir, I am here for you.
Your time is up.
Sorry, and all that, but
Come with me you must. Immediately!”
All happiness, all freedom, at an end.
Oh, but for one minute of release
From this all-pervading, ever present fear.
Oh, to escape the reckoning!
But for what? From what?
The curse of mortal sin. Is that it?
The curse of Adam that haunts us all?
Harking back, I suppose, of course,
To that dread day
When kindly Creator, not half so kindly now,
Snatching the half chewed apple
From out of Eve’s pretty jaw,
Kicked you, us, all of us,
The whole blind, screaming pack of us,
Out of paradise
And into this gloomy, guilt-filled home
That we call Earth.
A RAINBOW IN THE HORIZON
A rainbow in the horizon
And nothing in between.
But nothing, scrap land, desert sand,
A devastating scene.
'We're doomed' then cried Sandy.
I decided to play dumb.
It was always that way with Sandy,
He was the pessimistic one.
But murmurs swelled behind me.
‘He may be right’ others roomed.
I turned and faced them sternly,
'Who thinks that we are doomed?'
A dozen heads went nodding,
Twelve hands sought the sky
'You fools,' I screamed, 'You idiots!'
'And I will tell you why!'
‘Observe the far horizon
That rainbow! There's a link!
Rainbows follow rain, you twits,
Rain for us to drink!’
‘Tis twice ten miles to get there,
We can manage in a day.
Let’s leave Sandy here to die!
And we'll be on our way!’
So bravely then we started
And Sandy changed his tune.
He limped along behind us,
Shouting 'Sorry, we're not doomed!'
Twice that day we laboured
That horizon to obtain.
And found the rainbow faded
There no bloody sign of rain.
…..so it was we perished.
One by one we died,
And last of all went Sandy
'I was right,' he cried!
'There, Told you!'
LOVE BECKONS
Love beckons. But is this not always so?
Does love, this noisy Cupid, do anything but?
The promise of love bubbles in our blood stream,
Forever luring us on, in hope and despair,
To find, enjoy, luxuriate, in its embraces.
A child unloved is a child bereft,
Robbed, ill-equipped, unable to face up to life.
A child loved finds life as an open pot of honey, a feast.
He can dine on in safety, knowing he is lovable.
Love beckons the child onwards into a life without fear.
And later, always, the allure, the chance,
That further Love lies there ahead,
Welcoming, always to be pursued; though
Knowing it may play you false - still a call,
A mysterious whisper, a stirring of the heart,
Difficult to resist.
Beckon on, love. You will find plenty of takers
The whole human race, walks to your rhythm,
Longs for your touch. Love yourself love.
You deserve it.
