Here are a few samples of my poetry. This has to be read in rap style!!! (i.e. 4 beats to the line.) R.I.P RAP (Retirement rap) by Dinah Jurksaitis I am goin’ on the big time rest. All my mates say it’ll be the best. I didn’t look for it. It just found me. What’s I gonna do without my babes around me? I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m scared as shit. Gonna live down in that big black pit. Gotta get out an’ down Lewisham market. Takin’ the car but there’s nowhere to park it. “Walk down. Walk down, you lazy old cow!” Yeah, but I don’t cos I’m gettin’ old now. Can’t go cycling. It’ll hurt my ass. Why do you think they’re givin’ me a Freedom Pass? Go up Greenwich park. 2 minutes on the bus. Whooa just missed one. Hell I’m gonna cuss. 10 minutes later, sittin’ on the wall, Another comes in sight but it’s pack full. Go back home and sittin’ in the room Is my old man like the prophet of doom. Now I know why old folks go to Australia. It’s ‘cos no-one knows there that their life’s become a failure. Goin’ on the internet to buy my ticket. Comin’ straight back if they just talk cricket. Boom tiddy boom boom - boom boom Hell, right now my life is full of markin’. Bin at it 30 years. I must be barkin’. When I go I won’t care about their coursework. I’ll just swan around and do a bit of housework; Do a bit of dusting, get out the hoover. I’ve always been a good girl but now I’ll be a groover. Groover, groover, groovie groovie groover. Get out the hoover. Gonna be a groover. Wanna be a groover? Get out the hoover! Can’t wait to clean right up them stairs, Muck been lying around for years. Got a new lust for suckin’ up dust. Got a new lust for suckin’ up dust. See me in the garden trimmin’ them roses, Stretchin’ up high on my little old toeses. Finally I’m gonna get out the mower. I’ve always been a good girl but now I’ll be a go-er! Wanna be a go-er? Get out the mower. Hey, here’s what, I’ll do the wash! Man, I never felt so posh. Washin’ my socks. Oo that rocks. Washin’ my socks. No that sucks. Get out the bucket, the soap and sponge. Never washed the car before. I’m takin’ the plunge. Gonna take the plunge. Get out the sponge. Here’s my new image, my brand new look, Polishin’ the front step. That’s just book. Mop til I drop, yeah, mop til I drop. Mop til I drop, yeah, mop til I drop. I’m not usin’ big words like obfustication But I want you to know that I’ve had a vocation. Teachin’ the nation. Teachin’ the nation. Senile dementia comin’ on real quick. Where did I put my memory stick? Memory stick, comin’ on quick. Memory quick comin’ unstick. Put this on my grave stone? No it just craps. Store it on the database. Keep it under wraps. Sittin’ on a park bench, writin’ this rap, Gettin’ tired now …….it’s time for a nap. DJ My Christmas poem THE FESTIVAL OF BIRTH: NATALE In Italian this word has power, Shows Christmas as a different flower. Any new created being, Breathing, walking, knowing, seeing, Whoever and whenever it's born We feast as a fabulous new dawn. So on this day in December All births throughout the year remember. What celebration do we have Other than this to say "Ave!" "Welcome" to our human race To any tiny newborn face? My Poem for National Poetry Day 2004 (The year’s theme was FOOD) Free verse gives me indigestion. I half swallow a line and then find a tough word to chew on and on and on and I tend to BITE off more than I CAN comfortably masticate. There’s nothing like rhyme. You can take your time And you don’t get caught On a deep, pointed thought. You don’t gag on a crust Of dry wit, or some toast. It goes down like smooth jelly, Calms the gnaw in your belly With elegant sufficiency. Gut grumbles turn to harmony. No burps no farts of undigested expression. By Dinah Jurksaitis FOR AUNTIE MARY (died Feb.2004) "I'll just be through to the other room in a minute." She knew. she must have known what she really meant And she opened the door to the world that she was prepared for As though she had been called and her time was spent. No other word was said as she passed over. She simply went into the other room And turned the light on saying, "Come on you lot, I'm here. It's party time. I think I'm home." RELATION Picked up in a charity shop, a reject, looking like any other, but cheaper, with a quirky blurb on the inside flap. Anyway, it was a hardback with a tough spine and a gilt edge. You started in the middle, dipped into some good bits randomly, closed it without a marker, left it lying around in dust and coffee. You come across it later, tidied irritably into a corner. the same pages fall open and having read them before, you find it boring and without your contacts, reckon you've read how I relate. It's a good job there are copies elsewhere. I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD When my childhood home is turned into a museum, with exhibits of collected memory, framed or modelled, researched in carefully chosen detail from scattered debris, there will be a new, red, checked cloth spread daily on the dining table, visible through the window from the lawn, where a bike will stand held by metal supports buried in the ground. It will be poised at just that point at the top of the incline where if it were moving it would begin its headlong free-wheel down the grassy slope to the shed. There will be a dummy on the bike, like a Guy Fawkes on top of a bonfire and its stuffed hands will be on the handle bars, its feet on the pedals, and through the body, from saddle to neck will be a rod, holding the head turned, rigid, to look through the window. A cardboard cut-out Thinks, in sealed Perspex, will be fixed on the head; "and as well we’re going to Grandma’s for the holidays tomorrow." On the well-kept lawn, just by the back wheel, will be a copper strip, set in neat York stone, with the title of the piece engraved: his form had not yet lost All her original brightness (Paradise Lost Bk I, line 591) It will last a few years until the curator decides it would be better as a hologram and to get rid of the cloth. (No-one ever knew why it was there.) New Year's Eve (I want someone to put it to music!) At the dying of the year when you're feeling like a cry And the night is dark and lonely, not a star in your sky, Get out on the street and kiss everyone you meet For the family of mankind is passing by. When the main street where you're standing is full of rain and storm And you turn around and find there is violence and harm, When the world is screwed up tight in the middle of the night, then the strokes of twelve caress us like a charm. When you see the backs of crowds in the harsh electric stare Of the streetlight and the headlight and you're caught in the glare, Focus on the places where the laughing people's faces Send the message of the human hopes we share. No matter what your age or sex or what you believe, The sons and daughters out there long to give and receive. Every man you meet tonight is an Adam shining bright Every woman is a sparkling new year's Eve. For Anne and Ludo's 25th wedding anniversary. 10.12.01 (Pascale asked me to write one that could be inscribed onto a little silver plaque!) The thread that binds two young lives can break, slip off or rot. The silver hoop of many years does not. For Frankie's 18th birthday 31.10.2001 There's someone up there! Can you hear the throb, (somewhere in an attic space above) of drum and beat and sound vibrating air? A life is happening and I'm unaware of quite what's in it. That man whom we made, fed, watered, and sometimes had to prune, has branched, rooted and is evergreen. His life is magic; his secret drive unseen. You know, I've done the things that mothers do, like Lederhosen and accordion lessons! and, bribed with jelly babies, taught him reading, right up to intensive sessions on where life's leading. I know he's gentle, sweet and unaggressive. I know he's beautiful and a stunning looker. He gets mad on things, Warhammer, dinosaurs, his band, photography, or some cause, and then somehow everyone is into it. We suddenly love pop music and gigs, or notice news photos. You can't ignore him. It's infectious, but that's cos we adore him. He's had this household full of total fans. No star or hero could have asked for more, and up in that room with the fags and cans, there's someone who's a mystery and obscure. From Mum with love. WRITTEN FOR NATIONAL POETRY DAY for our school reading on Thursday 4th October 2001 JOURNEY Let's get back to basics. Has this word lost its sense? A journey is a day's length. It comes from the French. Just a hundred years ago in a slowly chugging train people could travel two hundred miles. That was a journey then. And fifty years before that, (Jane Eyre's got this in it), in a day with a coach and horses fifty miles was the limit. And in the 6th century Saint Bede went from York to Jerusalem seven times. I bet he had to walk. Imagine how many journeys in one trip he would make, three hundred and sixty five at least and then the same lot back. Oh modern sophistication! In a journey we can go from here to Australia for a little weekend spree. Now after the History lesson, here's the moral bit. Though journeys are much longer, let us not forget a day is still twenty four hours. However we succeed, the earth still turns in one day around at the same speed. A WHEATFIELD (having seen Van Gogh in Amsterdam) There a wheatfield what a wonder before harvest ears ripe ready for cutting all push friendly together in a warm wind. Hear the hope in them communing in a whisper. Here an oast of hops, harvest in Holland is oogst, German fruit of the earth Obst words push friendly together in a warm wind. Hear the hope in them communing in a whisper. Here and there a table, beer, baked bread feast fine ready for sharing people push friendly together in a warm wind. Hear the host in them communing in a whisper. The following poems are part of my collection about buying, selling and doing up houses. DON'T FORGET THE BONDING This Jamaican, over 65, came one day to the work site. "Want a plasterer?" Working black. Old man with a bad back from a lifetime of stooping to the bottom of the wall, been here since the 50s - not his. Young man, slipped into the country - glad to have work. Got a piece of land over there but old lady with a liver problem. Can't go back. Sang "Summertime" richly. Girls passing by knew him, stopped and flirted. Frank, off in the van with a list: bag of dust 2 of finish and always at the last minute from the top of the stairs he'd call, "Don't forget the bonding." ASSURED SHORTHOLD TENANCY Is it freehold? Oh yes, completely, entinrely, no doubt about it. That means I have the right to hold this land freely? That's correct. And in fact this building too, I can do with what I like? Well, yes, this particular residence has no preservation order, I mean within the limits of the law, of course. It could be an eye sore. I see. But if I raze it, as it were, to the ground, dig myself a pit (what 8 foot by 4?) can I stay there undisturbed for ever? Ah, I see what you mean, Sir. Well, God forbid that that would happen in the near future, but, the law, and of course your heirs... But I don't have any. What? Heirs. Everybody's got heirs. So freehold only means it's mine for as long as I live? Well, yes, of course. Of course.