Hello everyone......it has been awhile

Hi Darkie Thanks for your heart felt post. I couldn't help notice the absence of any response to you. Loads of people reading but ......  This site is getting like that these days. I can see why you left for a break. Im thinking of doing that soon myself. Its become a bit of a ghost town! Look after yourself dear lady x

Hello Darkie

i am so sorry that you have had to experience so much loss over the last year. You are not to blame for this, it makes me so sad that you think you are being punished. Life is unfair as you have found out. 
It’s good that you have your poetry and can express your grief in this way. 
Please keep posting your poetry, it will help you and others reading it

Sending you love and positive thoughts xx

Dear Geoff, Thank you for kindly replying. It is very kind. I am amazed actually that it has gone so quiet. The poetry thread was thriving when I stopped. I was just in mental overload. After the last funeral in Oct 2019, there were family issues in 2020 and finding myself swamped in annual bills I had forgotten at the end of 2019 it was very hard. I also found myself back at the breast cancer clinic where I was made to feel a time waster. As each month rolled by there was one issue after another then Covid hit. It was like the roller coaster from hell and took two more loved ones. A very dear friend of not far off 30 years was taken, also cancer and within weeks, the cousin I grew up with died of bowel cancer & autistic son wasn't coping with loss of Dad and child in weeks of each other the previous year. As a result I had to set aside Johns first anniversary to deal with the fallout. Unsurprisingly it was unsuccessful.  Huge window in old family home got smashed....twice  losing me hundreds of pounds while still not recovered from the funerals. Last headstone only got paid a few months ago. More family crises ensued, then an allergy to my main pain relief.  Trying to support the wife of the dear friend who died but can barely support myself. I read with interest your quote from TS Elliot.... I actually half wish it were so, but there is no return to zero. I do so, so wish I was back in 1973/4 when we were courting/wed and times were simpler. I have come to accept I am a dinosaur unfit for this so called modern world. I just now seek peace and simple life....but with everything techie base there is no chance of that is there? Anyay I do hope you yourself are coping somewhat successfully. I didn't purposely leave for a break, I just was in overload and could not cope. I hope you stay xxx Val aka Darkie

Thank you Val for your kind reply. OMG! Life has treated you, family and friends a bitter blow. I admire how you're surviving all this I honestly do. Re TS ELLIOT. In respect of us  who've  lost the love of our lives. I see him as saying we were once single. But our existance changed and we found the love of our lives. Then our sweethearts  passed and  so  we're right back where we started, single again, but experiencing  life in a different way.  I know this doesn't help,  but what can help us Val ? Only time will tell. Take good care of yourself.

Geoff x

SAUSAGEDOG1 Thank you for your thoughts. I must accept my faults for my demons. I didn't try hard enough to get 2nd opinion nor use savings for more treatment. He ended up in hospice when he wanted die at home. I left it too late . I agreed to him having a condone for incontinence. At home I was washing 12 lots of bedding a day after work. Hospice didn't want this. Didn't say it would be painful to fit & worse to remove. They said he might be uncomfy for a few hrs but would settle. He screamed for days till my frantic threats to rip it out. By the time I got the sister to his room he stopped. I STILL did not get it removed and he was still trying to pull it off himself. I am tortured every single night with that. I failed him . I was still working full time, dashing to & fro instead of stopping work.I was out of pay but HE should have come 1st, not bills! So yes my fault. I could cope maybe if the bad stuff would stop...but all 2019, 2020 & 2021 terrible. Last June, 2 more deaths,our dear friend Albert and the cousin I grew up with, Melvin..Both cancer. Now is big family rift x2 cos I am a dinosaur I am an alien ...with Covid on top and every day something else to deal with...car insurance gone wrong, home ins I paid n got no policy, mot due etc. still got pay one headstone inscription...I was a carer for John 9 yrs & worked 47 yrs. so Im broken. Just want crises to stop.  Thank you though you are very kind. Sorry for the ramblings xx Val aka darkie

THE RUSH OF TIME

 © Val Baxter 4/1/2021

Snow is glistening in the garden

Plants beneath the soil are slumbering

The pale sky cloaks the weakend sun

As days pass on a calender numbering

Tick the clock and tock the time

Babes emerging from the womb

One small second, loudly sounding

Like a scary sonic boom

All those children quickly teenage

Then are adults before we know

Pain and pleasure both in measure

As their parentws watch them grow

Stars are sparkling in a clear sky

Winds blow away the stone cold cloud

Soon the new buds are emerging

Flowers soon are standing proud

No controlling fates grnarled finger

On it turns and writhes or strokes

Creating for us each experience

Be that light touches or hard pokes

All that humans, frail and futile

Try to do will change not a thing

We won’t stop the sun from rising

Nor silence birds who wish to sing

We can’t stop the darkness falling

With it’s sparkling cloak of black

We can’t hear earth’s heartbeat rising

Nor can we turn that cruel clock back

GOSSAMER GHOSTS

23/1/2021 (c) Val Baxter

We two were one part of just one whole

Two beating hearts that made one soul

Then one day Death decided to call

And at cusp of retirement we lost it all

To have both your spirits torn in two

Means that you are really no longer you

Married still in death as much as in life

He still my husband and me his wife

But we are parted by a vast divide

Communication issues we cannot hide

I move about in a mortal frame

But inside I am just not the same

You see the image of a gossamer ghost

Disguised in a body that’s just a ‘host’

The shade outside looks the normal me

But inside I’m so fragile as I can ever be

In dreams, the shape of him is there

Sometimes its far more than I can bear

Yet on those days when I see no sign

I desperately yearn for his soul & mine

I don’t exist, I’m just a gossamer ghost

But my body is here which will satisfy most

They think life goes on but it just isn’t so

Because his soul and my soul can never let go,

Just like two beacons the pulsing goes on

One beam from me but the other one gone

Sometimes a heartbeat tells me he’s still there

And he seems to acknowledge how much I still care

The reason my body roams mournfully on

Is to take all life’s beatings now that his soul is gone

Punishment due for ways I let my love down

I’m beaten each night and in daylight I drown

I drown in the tears that my soulmate has shed

As he cups in his hands, my fragmented head

Merely a shadow, a memory, a shell

Both gossamer ghosts, stuck in surreal hell

Each night in my dreams the demons arrive

To terrify me and condemn me to survive

I occupy space and steal fresh air to breathe

But this isn’t a concept that any believe

Time is a healer is what people say

But I’ve lost so many people along life’s way

More than six decades of struggle and strife

Tell me there is no such thing in this life

If your heart is removed, then your body won’t heal

So why should your soul…..do you think it’s not real?

Memories made over sixty odd years are gone

I only have flashbacks and detest every one

Don’t tell me to cherish the memories we made!

I can’t recall most of them, I’m only a shade

Don’t tell me I’m lucky for the time that we had

You try to be kind but it just makes me more sad.

We did manage a couple of days in Wales & found two shells on the beach. I had them put on a chain for each of us. Cost a mint and only worn about twice....found them in a drawer n cried buckets after this daytime flashback that was only a few seconds long.....

A LITTLE GEM

© Val Baxter 4/01/2021

They say you can’t buy memories

But I have to disagree

Certain things can trigger

Past visions for you to see

A seashell on a silver chain

And I’m back on the beach

My darling’s hand is back in mine

No longer out of reach

Silver tears roll down my face

As waves crash on the shore

And we are looking out to sea

Together again once more

My truelove had to leave me

We did not want to part

But a seashell on a silver chain

Draws him close back to my heart

Thank you for this poem it feels like my life, apart from the 60 years together it was 20 for me. To the out side world i am doing well but inside i am just empty 

Take care xx

I knew him 47 yrs from age 15 Kate. Of that time we were married not quite 45 years. I was 60 going on 61 when he died. I am glad the poem interested you. twenty years is a significant time together....your soulmate is like no other loss because you are intimate with a soulmate... you arent with a child or a parent or sibling etc. they know every inch of you and maybe even know your traits and character better than you do. John pulled me back from making daft mistakes many times and I imagine the same for you. Often i didn't know it till years later. A poem does not need to rhyme Kate....do have a bash. You can even message them to me first if you like.... just a confidence thing really....maybe you already write poems i don't know....but thank you so much for contributing. Another thing i do is write a few lines to my lad every day. i tell him my day, express my sadness, tell him silly things and even ask questions. i still even text his defunct mobile phone odd times. i use his aftershave too...sometimes on me sometimes in the bedroom or bathroom. Sending you a big hug xxx