Email: frances@francesmacaulayforde.com
Homepage: http://www.francesmacaulayforde.com
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Frances Macaulay Forde has a diverse background in poetry, children's literature, film and theatre. She's been heavily involved in organizing festivals, writing events, and lives on the Sunset Coast of Western Australia. Frances hosts the Poets Corner at Pages Cafe every month and welcomes new and established poets to share their words. She gained a Writing Degree for her 50th and still has her poetry notebooks from 1968, writing for page and screen...
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.
On my website, I've made quite a few poetry postcards available for download. They're easy to do and good to send a friend a little note... when you don't have a lot to say, but better than a forwarded email.
http://www.francesmacaulayforde.com/PoetryPostcards.html
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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
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.
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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Frances Macaulay Forde
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
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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