Suffering
Emotionally Machete’d
My Broken Arch
Tears Mingle with Tears
(
MP3 )
What Can I Say?
Where Did my Heart Go?
Emotionally Machete’d in Cannon Poets 2004 Anthology, ‘Broadside X’
Emotionally Machete’d in Poetry Now Anthology,‘A Life Shared Is a Live Lived’
2003
My Broken Arch in Anchor Books Anthology, ‘Portraits In Life’ in 2003
Where Did my Heart Go? in Poetry Now Anthology, ‘Poignant Moments’ in 2003
Emotionally
Machete’d
Plunging deep,
without warning,
severing sensitive skin,
tendons of thought,
sinews of imagination,
bones of faith ;
arteries pulsing with hope,
veins flowing with love -
cut without mercy.
Unlike bereavement -
no balm of numbness,
no cards of sympathy,
no consolation of heaven,
no sense of relief;
just pure, agonising pain -
from which I cannot escape.
Angry? All energy trying to fight the pain,
with little left for the anger I know is there.
Raw – bleeding – helpless,
unable to trust life and hope, again.
Deep wounds
preventing action,
unable to function,
carrying empty dreams in my hands.
don’t speak to me of healing
while I bleed.
Stop the flow,
turn back time
and make it right -
I know you can’t.
So sit where I sit,
hear my severed heart,
reach out gently
with the back of your hand
and touch my wound,
help me dare believe
I’m not – alone.
© Mags Scorey 22 July 1997
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My Broken Arch on Iona
I sat by you.
You - who used to be so strong –
seemed fragile too.
And in my weakness,
I reached out to you
and your touch was warm
and you were strong.
And the strength
you gave in that moment
went deep into my being
and taught me ... that broken people
can help other broken people.
© Mags Scorey 1997
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Tears Mingle with Tears
Grief with grief.
This morning I saw a service
with readings by C.S. Lewis
and thought of his book, "A Grief Observed"
I'd like to read it ..
And then my thoughts ran on …
I started a conversation with you,
and grief welled up within me,
tears flowed.
The death of a mother is beyond description
but the death of a child must be greater.
In some ways, we do not want ..
to watch our parents grow older, weaker, suffer,
we want them to stay at one age.
But we do want to watch our children
grow, develop skills, fulfil their hopes and ours
and to be denied that...
But our griefs, I believe, do not lessen,
We learn to live with them,
like the oyster presented with a piece of grit,
weaving a sticky substance around it
and turning it into a pearl,
we make our griefs part of us, of our compassion.
I wiped one eye and then the other,
tears mingled with tears
and grief with grief.
For friends, whose son had died some years before
© Mags Scorey 21 Nov 1993
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What Can I Say?
To the parents whose lives
have been torn apart?
What can I say to the children
whose friend is no longer there?
What can I say to the teachers,
from whose grasp another child
has been torn?
What can I say?
I can listen,
I can gently smile,
I can grieve in my heart,
I can be here when they need me,
but what can I say?
I can think of a garden
and the beauty of flowers,
trees and greenery;
but I can also see the slugs,
greenfly and whateverothercolour fly
and know that life is not perfect.
But what can I say
to those with pain
in their hearts?
I can only hope
that by being me,
something will whisper
into their hearts
that they are loved.
© Mags Scorey 17 Jan 2003
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Where Did my Heart Go?
I gave it all to you..
my deep secrets,
my hopes, fears
and dreams.
I thought you would see it
as a gift to treasure.
Something like precious gold
that you would hold for ever.
But after a while..
you cast it to the ground,
and trampled on it.
Leaving me empty.
If ‘we’ were to end,
couldn’t we have done it nicely?
Couldn’t we have cared
each other through it?
But no, I sit here,
raw and in tatters,
wondering where to head next.
Where did my heart go?
© Mags Scorey 21-Apr-03
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