contents:
Making Whoopee
May's Welcome
Of Love and Mind
Gladstonbury Midsummer Dreamland
Solstice
Snowy the Dog
Sir Silverfish the Brave
Shades of Reason
the Last Laugh

 Making whoopee… home
Copyright Jane Johnson 2000

Making 'it'
Making 'out'
Making 'him', 'her'
What's it about?
Do we create what is, in fact
A peppered path
Where angels fear to tread, yet do
It for a laugh?
I seriously don't believe we do…
Politically incorrect, but so it seems
Somewhere within our dreams
Love merely happens
Merely, such a slighting allusion
To what for me is
God-created Fusion
Of Like with Like
Of Love with Love…
Can we honestly say that we
Create the above?
Why, an easy trap, littered with holes,
How do we dare
Suggest as authors of our Fate.
We really care
Then ask if we 'do it right'
A little Play
A scene from darkest Night
Rehearsed by Day…
There is only One Love
To shout about
We are made 'It'
By Love's own hand
All it's about
And can no more 'make out'
'Make up',  'make in'
Than feel Love anywhere
But deep within
A gift - from Love to us
Then, we begin...

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 May's Welcome…       
Jane Johnson c.2000 home

In the green woods, harebells and blue
First carpet with flowers the ground
Primrose, pink campion, wild garlic too
Anemones spread all around
When winds and showers have counted the hours
And the first hint of summer is found

Sun gives each an allotted span
Then breaks forth the buds on trees
The swallows wing home, flying fast as they can,
Just for visions of beauty like these
Then swooping, and diving, and calling their mates
Their nest building brings the heart's-ease

As budding trees burst into bloom
Leaves follow, new, tender and green
The woodland canopy dresses her limbs
Where the bare bones of winter have been
Swift spins she her garment of verdant hue
And each rugged branch holds a skein

The light dims, cooler now, underfoot
Wild creatures give birth unseen
In each secret place where the younglings are put
Glossy leaves mottle shadow and sheen
New life in surprise opens wide baby eyes
And wonders, what can it all mean…

Around the season's corner, May
With loosened tresses starts to play
Her warmth and smile, enticing, sweet
Shows fairy dells, inviting seat
While birds and bees and butterflies
Dance mazes, movements in her eyes

Magical mornings, whispering warnings
As Jack-under-hill holds sway
And mortals slip silently into the woods
Where Jack's oak leaf crown calls the fey
And lads glance at lasses askance, making passes
In the wood's dance of welcome to May…

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 Of Love and Mind… home

Oh Darkling, do not forget to breathe...
A Literary Pavane in stately remonstrance
Now plays the theme that Courtly Lovers dance
Steps forward, back, forward once more perchance
To dream of parrying sword of wit and woe...

My Other Poet friend, who knows the dark,
Death's 'Other Kingdom,' yet did once remark
On Love's sweet essence being like a game,
Suffusing soul with power of guilt and shame,
That through exquisite pain, feelings enhance,
Yet every newborn child knows it's not so…

And my belief?  Not Love, but Mind to blame,
The antidote to Life's cruel Beauty stark,
Explains away all warmth and afterglow
Pursues its own sweet way, leaving its mark
With pointed finger and with pointed toe

Spurning the glow of heartfelt love with ease
(For only Vanity, Mind's soul does thus appease)
Whereas, in Love, Inebriation wild
Retrieves the Innocence of Newborn Child
And easily disarms both friend and foe…

Jane Johnson
Copyright 19th February 2000

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 Glastonbury Midsummer Dreamland home
By Jane Johnson c.1999

I walk the ancient footpath leys
With sunlight dappled in leaf-torn rays
A hazy haven on summer days
To reunite with woodland ways..
My dancing gait feels light and lissom
Along a path bestrewn with blossom..
Myriad specks of five-petalled elder
Like millions of stars in a moondark midsummer
Like a midnight sky, entrancing the eye
Where light-years far-off Suns dance round ablaze…
Each bloom is a seeded, spore-filled wheel
Each seed a starting point to fill
Another summer sky, another widening eye,
The conscious awakening
Of another passer-by…


Giant hogweed, and ragweed, rims
The borders of a path that skims
The sides of Glastonbury fields
Where springs seep trickling in rough stone rills
As they carelessly spill
Down the ancient hill…

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  SOLSTICE home


The Tor is trod tirelessly by endless feet…
From all over the world they return here to greet
The dusk of Dark, the dawn of Day
To remember the seasons as they pass away
And to feel the sleeping Dragon stir
In spiral awakening, a rumbling burr
As sudden winds gust, and spin, and swirl
Around the summit ground…


A Sunday stroll through familiar fields
To Gog and Magog's realm that heals
The chattering mind to silence…
A sheaf of field-flowers offered to Oakmother,
A tentative touch, tendered forth to Oakfather,
Guardians of a Gateway to Middle-Earth dreams,
Sentinels of a secret world not as it seems...
As the still moment lingers,
Rough bark beneath fingers…
Jack's green oak leaf crown
On a sudden glimpse, gleams...
Pictures appear behind drop-lidded eyes
Sweet cascading birdsong bursts out in surprise
As aching heart is soothed, fevered brow is smoothed
And fairies dance once more, like butterflies...


Copyright: Jane Johnson Solstice 1999.

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 Snowy the dog… home

I have a deaf white Staffordshire that I call Snowy Dog
But my ex-boyfriend, licked by her, renamed her 'Doughy Snog'
She doesn't seem to realise, perhaps 'cause she can't hear.
Call her what you like; she's like the man with a banana in each ear!

She hunkers down on the armchair, her head between her paws
She thinks at me in language that would make a fishwife pause.
To put it euphemistically, I think you'd hear her say.
'I don't suppose you'll relieve my woes and take me out today?

'The back door's open', I tell her, in an off-the-cuff remark
I know my son will give her a run on the track behind the park
'But he won't be up 'til later', I can hear her sad reply
'I hate to beg, but to stretch my legs is a need I can't deny'

'Emotional mugger!' I mutter, as I stop what I was doing
'I had a good connection, when I get back it means more queuing'
I stretch and yawn, uncurl my legs, she gets up with a jerk
'Hey, this is fun,' I hear her grin, 'I think it's going to work.'

I shake my head, I'm smiling, even the dog has more control
Than I have over my life; such a willing, pleasing soul.
But secretly (she knows it too), my dog's my Thought Police
When I've had enough, she acts all tough, and psyche's me my release

'Oh I do enjoy when my mistress takes me walking in the park...
If I do it in daylight I don't have to step in the dubris unseen after dark
'She's affectionate, comfortable, takes me for walks
And she knows the state of my mind.
'I'm lucky, some humans have owners so bad,
They're nowhere near as kind...'

Copyright Jane Johnson 29th February 2000

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 Sir Silverfish the Brave... home

The Brave Warrior Silverfish
Set forth to investigate Floorcloth
(At four o'clock in the morning)
Which whisked back and forth
Filled with dogged mirth,
Erasing stubborn marks of old battles
'Twixt cup and lip,
Bottle and jug,
Basin and bowl,
Teapot and mug...
And, as Sir Silverfish sped near,
Was tempted to make him "disappear",
Until, overcome by dread,
Brave Sir Silverfish fled
Back to the skirting boards flat crack...
But Floorcloth followed him back!
Oh!  No!   Mrs. Platt!
Don't do that!!

Copyright Jane Johnson
12 October 1994

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 Shades of Reason… home
(Or, Faith Restored…)

The drifting shades of reason creep,
blessing and shifting the skeins of sleep…
The bard within sings in tones so deep
that the stones themselves would sigh, and weep.

There is a moment where the words come from
Hush! Be still, lest they take fright and are gone..
The soothing sounds are not what they appear..
'Tis an angel's voice whispering I hear...

…There is a Love that passes
All attempts to understand
'Tis deeper yet than any
You or I have to command

It penetrates and listens
And on old eyelids glistens,
when a hymn to lips
Like nectar drips…

Sweet Lord! My heart's in hand.

Jane Johnson 13th February 2000

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 The Last Laugh home

And who shall have the last laugh?
For you and I, in competition,
Sadly don't find it very funny
Trying each to better the other...
Is that what the last laugh's about?

Or is it the Judgement of some Third Party?
Again, not my kind of party - rather more,
Like a Third Column, a Third Reich,
Something not very nice
And neither is Judgement , so I'm told

So what is this ineffable, irresistible,
Rib-ticklingly funny, last laugh?
'On' you, 'on' me,
Do we finally (as fine allies)
Get to laugh at ourselves (in each other's eyes?)

Or is it that such a self-important nothing
Should have existence at all (illusory, or otherwise)
And then, cease to exist...
What's so funny about that?

Jane Johnson, copyright September 1998

For 'Last Laugh' go to www.poetry.com
And check out Jane Johnson

The music playing is 'Rearranged Air', 
by Jane Johnson Copyright 2000 - 
and is an arrangement of J S Bach's 
'Air on a G String'

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