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Frances Macaulay Forde

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Last blog entry: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:02:16 am

Profile updated: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 01:29:46 am

 

Biography

Frances Macaulay Forde has a diverse background in poetry, children's literature, film and theatre. Her first book of poems "Hidden Capacity ~ a poet's journey" was published in Ireland in 2003. Heavily involved in organizing festivals, writing events in previous years, Frances hosted Poets Corner at Pages Cafe every month until Oct 2008 welcoming more than 60 new and established poets to share their words. She gained a Writing Degree for her 50th and still has her poetry notebooks from 1968. Currently focussed on a feature film script "No Strings", Frances lives on the Sunset Coast of Western Australia writing for page and screen...
I have three blogs connected here: http://hiddencapacityawritersjourney.blogspot.com/

Samples

This Poem was featured in 'the Spring Issue of 'The Scruffy Dog Review' thanks to the amazing Colin Galbraith.
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An Easter Tragedy

At the Magistrate’s Court in Harare, a crowd gathered outside
weeping for men and women who carry an invisible cross.

Thousands have suffered at the hands of baton-wielding zealots,
masquerading as Police, in a land where lives have little price.

Is this commercialism gone mad? Trading in muscle and limbs
feeding their families with the blood of countrymen and women?

Who weeps for Mugabe ~ he who styles himself after Jesus continually
resurrected, who pretends to heave his country away from Colonial roots?

Why should we cry for a Chinese Palace, wifely shopping sprees in Paris;
a man protected from his own voters by his army of security enforcers?

His people no longer believe he leads for them ~ have seen how he dictates,
feathers his own nest and the cronies he keeps very close ~ walled in by sin.

How long will millions of starving, beaten people wait for their turn at life,
their chance to eat, to sleep peacefully in a khaya built in prosperity and peace?

Will the tears shed this Easter encourage the world to stand up for Zimbabwe?

Frances Macaulay Forde © 2007
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The following two poems were published in the Poets Union Anthology 2007.
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Live, Here On Sky
6th August 2005

A capsule of lighted hope lay in the deep black depths,
seven Russian submariners trapped on the Pacific floor.
Although “satisfactory” in their red striped white sub,
freeze as only hours of oxygen remain. Kursk memories

flood Moscow, but she pleads straight away for US
and UK Super Scorpios who help raise the vessel to rescue
depth – averting another disaster. But no one can help
the Discovery’s seven in their cocoon of light circling

our world in un-ending space. They wait in zero gravity,
remove foam chips, listen to Beatles and pray. The world held
a collective breath before touchdown as NASA remembered
the awesome, fiery power of Columbia’s broken tile.


Dieback

between Pinjarra
and Waroona
jarrahs and tuarts
evening dressed
fluff their leaf skirts
expose naked arms
reaching up
appealing
to the endless sky
for a cure


Frances Macaulay Forde © 2006

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These cinquains have proven very popular on poetry websites so I thought I would share them...

She lay
prostrate. Waiting.
Will he stay a while when
their beating hearts have calmed down?
Never.


You glow
with love for me.
Accepting all I give,
never questioning if I love.
I don’t.


Tears fall
like rivers of
pain. Rejection will hurt.
Just touch him and say goodbye to
your heart.


It glows.
The safe ribbon
of light, meandering
on toward home. But my path was
unlit.


Trust
--------

I have
taken your words
folded both hands over
then held them tightly to my heart
Have you?


Don’t
let me drown
in a cruel sea without
that life raft of honesty.
Promise?

Frances Macaulay Forde © 2007

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.

Last blog entry

Front Page Impact

Posted on Tuesday 12th January 2010 2:58 am

entry picture

(written in response to a news story in the Irish Examiner 9th May 2003)

 

Was it right to show all those bodies

in make-shift coffins, lined up like

so many bargains at a boot sale?

 

What’s happened to our humanity

when thirty-three elderly people die

and the focus is on the ‘exciting’ visuals

 

of a train hitting a bus  – slicing it in half,

revelling in the mangled mess?  I said

the same about recent war coverage. 

 

Am I the only one who cringes, every time

I see pain and suffering celebrated without

thought of the mother, father, brother, friend. 

 

Or the lover, who may chance to see a half-clothed,

disguarded pile of damaged meat and bones,

and suddenly recognise a shirt or scarf or shoe. 

 

Previous: All Washed Up

 

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Comments

Ann Foxglove

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Tue 5th Jan 2010 09:11

Hi Frances - thank you for your comments.
Re: Basque - I guess I wanted to give the poem a sort of breathless excitement, hence the "I's" and "ands"! It didn't need to flow poetically so much as pant passionately!
Regarding HD, I wanted to put more than "you're beautiful to me", as it is about not minding age and a few wrinkles in the one you love. The "we never really were" perfect is important too, because no-one is really perfect, even when young. When we look back from middle age at old photos we may think "wow, I looked rather good then!" but at the time we were maybe not confident enough and only saw the flaws. And, hopefully, if you love and desire someone, you love their flaws. Thanks for your comments. I have never had so much feedback, don't know why this poem has caused so much interest. I'll read yours now!

 

Frances Macaulay Forde

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Wed 23rd Apr 2008 16:52

I spent 14 months living in Midleton, near Cork until 2003 and this is one of the poems I wrote there:


Left Field
--------------

Lined up like the Waterford cows,
metal bodies glitter in an Irish field.

Black rubber circles squelching
acres of reconstituted bovine cud.

A Friesian audience has gathered
to ruminate on two-legged animals

with red and white coats, running
and Hurling a stone to each other,

between showers, near Carol’s Cross.



Frances Macaulay Forde © 2003

 

Frances Macaulay Forde

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Wed 23rd Apr 2008 16:45

Thank you Tomas,
I spent my formative years between 1954 and 1974 in Northern Rhodesia which became Zambia in 1964. I'm in touch with friends who still live or have family there.
My heart goes out to the people of Zimbabwe who are suffering - the ordinary person in the street is dying although he has millions in his hands, he cannot buy food or milk because there isn't any in the shops and his millions are worthless.
Any change at all, must be an improvement! When Independance was granted and for quite a few years afterwards, Zimbabwe was THE place to holiday or to live because the ordinary man in the street was happy and could afford to be very comfortably.
Now, no-one can except those in power who live in Chinese palaces and shop in Paris on a whim!
It's time... and here's another poem for you. This one appears on here http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/category/opinions-and-emotions/page/3
It's called:

ROOTS & WINGS

When someone asks for a memory
of Africa, I always remember
those dusty hours spent outside
Katie’s Khaya under the Mopani…

Quiet melodious chattering,
the smell of sunshine and family.
Bright white sudza plops in the pot
while bundu sticks crackled with fire.

Low stools where we crouched
in total concentration on a square
of a dozen small indents for stones,
scratched out of Africa’s skin.

Today Eddie talks of ‘roots and wings’,
of flights of fear or stoic stance:
the holes left by those who uproot
and the bravery of those who stay…

I visualize a map of Zimbabwe
systematically marked with holes.
Is this just another game of ‘Stones’
where only one man gets a turn?

Frances Macaulay Forde ~2007


 

Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

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Wed 23rd Apr 2008 16:24

A lot of people are concerned about Zimbabwe, but who is to say the opposition will be any better?

The feeling in the piece is expressed well.

 

Frances Macaulay Forde

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Thu 14th Feb 2008 01:02

My poem needs to be read aloud to your Valentine:

Like Dust...

…in the brightest moments of your life you will see me, know I am here,
but most of the time, forget you are surrounded until I pile myself onto
the surfaces of your life, obscure the view ~ stop you seeing clearly,

for I will blind you with dust. I have finally found the perfect place,
will settle proudly, content to exist in your garden, even when you shovel
me around, stack me on the side or toss me away turning me into mud

with tears… I will still be here. You’ll see me hurrying as the sunlight
streams, to nestle happily once again in the nooks and crannies
of your everyday. As you work, I will lay waiting patiently on polished glass

for you to draw, or write, or whisper a reminder of me. When you move
or brush me from your shoulder I will find a way to climb up, to be near
your heart once more, to hold you, to cover you with many, many particles

so light, so soft, so tender you won’t be able to ignore me because I want
to go where you go and be where you are. I am found in every corner
of your life, all of your rooms, all of your emotions and all of your actions.

Remember I absolutely exist. I am on your breath ~ your clothes ~ your food.
I am outside, around and in you. I will multiply with every puff of kissed air,
each gentle breeze moving over your body, every cloud that shadows

the brilliance of your day, each current of warmth, every time you touch.
I am here resting on every surface of your life. You’ll see so much dust
you’ll want to claim it, write your name in it and make me yours ~ forever!

© 2008

 

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