Joan's poems

We danced opposite each other in the ring.
The performance was excellent.
The audience quite silent.
We knew each other so well.
Every movement was countered with wild love.
With cold hate.
The audience was numb.
Then suddenly, I took out my knife,
Maybe he saw it for an instant, that I was a traitor,
I forced it in his neck,
There was a moment of stillness,
I watched him fall.
Then I was no longer there,
My tremendous action had carried me away,
The shrieks of the crowd were faint,
I was floating with my own lightness and freedom.
I walked past the praise -
For so many years this beast had held me down in that
ring, with that audience, or another,
But always the same beast.
Now I had beaten him,
Now I was rid of him forever.
In that haze, I dreamt of my new freedom.

The authorities gave him a great funeral because he had
Been the strongest and had defied all for many years.
The whole town turned out in their best.
The coffin was piled high with flowers from all over the
world and I was the star performer, playing my part as I
should - a victor with calm respect.

At the grave I stood with a gathered few,
They covered over the earth and I left free.
I travelled for many miles until I found virgin land,
There I stopped with pleasure and sat down with the
beauty and decided that was where I would start my life.
Here was everything for a new community.
I was eager to begin.
I looked up to the sky,
There were the evening's first dark clouds,
But they were like thunder inside me.
And I took out my knife and forced it into my heart
And wondered
If the beast and I would live another life.

Joan Mac Dougall

You will learn,
Late,
But you will learn
The meaning.
I hope not when you are
On the bed,
Dying.

We are given a set of funny signs
To look at and
Nothing else.
These dazzle us,
Our disappointment we must
Find alone. And the more
Dulled we have become, the more are
We dazzled.

But it could be, that
Our own
Light;
From inside,
Pure and real,
Beckons to us
In our confusion.

Then, however
Small the voice and pale
The flame, we must
Take heed.
We may have to sever
A cord, such as was done at
Our birth.

The difference stages have
Their great beauty and
Their utility,
But we must move on,
Listening and watching,
Perhaps hesitating,
Alone.

Joan Mac Dougall

I am blind.
I cannot see your colour or your race.
Your fine attire, your riches
Or your rags.
I cannot see your face.

I am deaf.
I cannot hear your tongue
Or what you say.
Whether it is high or low.
Whether I should stay or go.

It is only your act.
Direct, like sun warming my skin.
Generous, like earth's fruit feeding me.
For this I need not hear or see.

Joan Mac Dougall

There are truly days
When this drugdrag body
Pushes though, along.
There are truly days,
When man's love seems
Far from home.
There are truly days,
When his hand and eye
Seem to be withdrawn.

Will that youthful laughter fill again,
A little baby's cry
Fill my sigh?
And apple blossoms
Fill our lips?
The forgotten mournful days
Will be white cloud ships.

Joan Mac Dougall

When the green or blue
And and evening come.
Or the touch from you
And a sigh.
Or an act or a thought
The loss of someone.
Or the solitude
In the morning light.
When pain or joy
Don't touch my heart
Then I want to die.