After the Applause

'Blurb'

Contained within, Poetic words, some grim, of my recent experiences, during these times mysterious, of love and loyalty, and life’s’ great frailties, words of understanding, and observations on society, I share all this with you, humor, tears, happiness, fears, nakedly I bear my soul, for you to read, because we all need to forgive ourselves in times like these. 

A Year of Words

The year is 2007 and my mind is full of poems and a need to write. These poems I wrote are a diary of emotions reflecting the day that they were written. They are an eclectic journey through my year. They reflect an emotional journey whose intent is to diarise in rhyme the moment they were written.

Oft the poems are whimsical, sometimes philosophical, and other times musing. The poems were written without edits, the poems in this compendium are of the moment, no revisions were ever considered. These poems are my conversation with you, they are your insight into a very mercurial mind, full of emotion.

I have written poems all my life, and now at 74 some of them have found a page and an audience, please enjoy.

A World of Stone

From Mireille Saba Redford, author of A City Across the Night, The Waltz of Dust and The Wounded Virtue, and translator and editor of The Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry, here is a new collection of English poems that will take you to a forgotten land where nothing seems to matter anymore.
A World of Stone adopts the voice of a woman who finds her life turned upside down when faced with the harsh realities of the modern world and clings to her childhood memories, when the land of legends was a truly mysterious and captivating place.
It highlights her love that could not overcome her pride, her loneliness caused by the many losses she has encountered, and her sorrows amidst the fast and sad changes in the world, such as humanitarian crises, drug abuse, violence, alienation, inequality, power in the hands of the few and abuse of human rights.
Throughout the poems, you will hear and feel all the torments, disappointments and cries which somehow have the power to change the way some perceive the world. However, there is a clear message that despite losing its ‘gentility’, the world can still have a ‘Margin of Peace’ that would guarantee its security and sustainability.
This book of love and anger, of the living and the dead, displays the values that once formed the very pillars of our society, and sends a call to restructure what is left and to stop the decline in civil liberties. Its vivid descriptions shed light on the poet’s own experiences, while stressing the need both to save a world on the brink and to alleviate the suffering of the most vulnerable by a return to the humanitarian principles of equality and justice.

A Word of Hope

Each of us are on the journey of mortality. A journey in which no one is spared a handful of heartaches, a time of trial, or a darkest hour. And though our time on Earth is a time for joy, love, and life– there will come a time, or many, of shadow when a simple word of hope is all that seems to part the darkness surrounding us. A time when it is only hope that is light enough to keep us moving on our path. Where this hope can be found is a question whose answer is too individually unique to capture in a simple phrase.

A Word of Hope is a collection of poetry that explores some sources of hope and the faith required to find them. Other poems in the collection paint a picture of the hardships of mortality as these are the times hope is most needed. These poems serve as reminders that no matter what may darken our lives, there is some light that will always shine. There is always hope to be had.

A Tale of Crystal Visions

There’ll be song and laughter, music and dance

This night is so young, dreamer of sweet dreams

There be playful romantic song per chance

Before the morning where the dawning gleams

Our souls are like diamonds

with facets cut by the masters

We are capable

We expect the unexpected

And we think the unthinkable

And each time we stay connected

Life becomes more incredible

We do undoable doing

And find the unfindable

And time in mindful thinking

We reach, grasp the unreachable

We stand amazed at new meaning

At new found realizations

At new found paths we are treading

And always there are new questions

We then learn the unlearnable

Question the unquestionable

We achieve the unachievable

And find that, we are capable

A Spoondrift of Pearls

This lyrical collection of poems is inspired by the tiny island of Eilean Bàn, lying off the Isle of Skye, the final home to Gavin Maxwell, author of Ring of Bright Water.
Lesley Kahney worked as a volunteer warden on the island for many months, observing the otters, seals and dolphins; absorbing the rhythms of the sea, clouds and nature.
Vivid and rich in description, the poems capture the detail in nature. We catch glimpses of a vanishing Scotland with bothies, otters and selkies. Using metaphor, symbolism, and mythology, her poems connect with the history and mystery of the island. Whether depicting seagulls, primroses or seals; the themes of life, death, hope, and impermanence linger at the heart of the poems.
With language that is both tender and raw, an emotional journey is taken through the ordinary and gilded with the microscope of the extraordinary. Here is an invitation to immerse yourself in the scent of sea mists and bluebells, and to give your attention in every moment to being part of nature. Whether a fan of Gavin Maxwell or not, these poems will speak to anyone who likes nature or to be by the sea.

A Seasons' Treasury

Follow the changing seasons through all their wealth of growth and flowering, through autumn’s fall, the withering of winter and all the challenging varieties of weather that can accompany these changes. These poems, written over a period of 30 years, are essentially poems of celebration: of immersion in the seasonal round that ‘resonate with quiet joy’ as one reviewer observed. ‘To walk through its pages is to be touched and refreshed by the dew...’ To encounter ‘widths of sky, or mercurial, brimming weather.’ The author’s companionable sensibility brings us a welcome breathing space at a helpful distance from the overly ironic or overly cerebral poetry to be found, too often, in literary journals. A blithe purity ushers through it. And, as in its Midsummer Garden it extends a joyful invitation to re-enter that purity ‘like...a winged seed.’

A Revelation of Love

A Revelation of Love will help readers grow in their understanding of the amazing love God has for them. We all need a deeper revelation of how much we are loved by God because that has the power to move us and help us develop a more meaningful relationship with him. 

The personal beliefs expressed in its poems are based on profound and universal Biblical principles. Many of its poems are testimonies about how applying Christian values to one’s life can bring about emotional healing and freedom. Sharing our testimonies is important because it helps us to be overcomers (Rev 12:11). Its messages are clear and easy to read and will appeal to many people at varying stages of their spiritual journey. They encourage each person to follow the same carefully tracked footprints of Christ’s, so they too can climb onwards and upwards towards true success and lasting happiness.  

A Poet's Heart

Lies of night

If the tip of a sun doesn’t wash your ink away,
Then your eye has sinned throw that lamp away,
This darkness like a sigh is the sight of an eye,
With the rise of a sun comes the news of a night,
That which will give a raging fever to your art,
For years has to burn like a flame in your heart,
Every wood brings change when placed in a pyre,
Happy or sad it’s bewildered by a fire,
Filled with memories are your empty eyes,
Full of life but your spirit has died,
A night always comes with a dagger in one hand,
For those happy boarders of a joyful land,
The fire of love burns in those parts of hell,
Where windows of heaven open to drizzle her smell,
And If god lives in heart or so says the Christian man,
Then when a heart is broken does he feel the pain?

I wrote this poem in fear that should a day come where I have to write a synopsis for this book what will I say? Well, this short poem truly encapsulates my story, words, sentences, and paragraphs don’t do justice to art, so “Let the rise of sun be the proof of sun”. Poetry has burnt within me for years. This book is about that fire, I believe every single person in the world has an interesting story to tell, but not all can tell an interesting story. Then there are those stories that are both interesting and intense, those stories are really worth telling. While a neurotic can choke on his own intensity, an artist makes a story out of the flesh of his madness. There is not a lot of difference between the two, except the latter is somehow penetrable.

A Pariah's Heartbreak

A Pariah’s Heartbreak is a series of beautifully written poems which gives a compelling look inside the chaotic mind of a trauma survivor. The poems give an alluring and devastatingly painful account of issues such as solitude, heartbreak, gender based violence, society’s disapproval, anxiety, trauma, mental health issues, among many others.

A Little Bit of Everything

This is a compact and intriguing collection of mixed genre poetry. As the title suggests, it has “a little bit of everything” within it: happy, sad, horror and fantasy.

Let your imagination get to work, as you immerse yourself in a world of dreams, and possibly even some nightmares.

These poems may alter your perception of the world around you and make you realise that there is always something beneath the surface, or that a shift of perception can breathe new life into an old routine. Perhaps some of these poems may even reflect on your own personal circumstances?

A Heart of Glass

This eclectic collection of poems invites you to sit at a table and feast along at a banquet of thoughts, desires and dreams. Each theme spotlights some untested message about identity, mental health, love and being, giving a lucid perspective to otherwise complex matters. The vulnerable, delicate and emotional poems coupled with the author’s transparency about her own experiences have informed the title A Heart of Glass. She employs simple rhythms and imagery to explore regular but intriguing characters set in plots that allow the richness of their stories to become real. This body of writing comes unrestricted and ready to spark – regardless if it is a conversation, thought or a long-lost memory...