No Words

Summer days slip by, chilly, damp and grey.
A sudden gust, the lounge bay curtains stir.
You lie alone; you have no words to say.

A tabby cat slides through the flap, “Let’s play!”
She purrs, then licks your wrist and fluffs her fur -
a summer’s day slips by, chilly, damp and grey.

The answerphone clicks in, “Are you okay?
Don’t feel you must pick up, if you prefer
to lie alone and have no words to say…”

Daylight fades. Veiled within a dwindling ray
dust flecks drift; the room recedes, a sepia blur;
a summer’s night slips by, chilly, damp and grey.

Next day – “I wonder if she’s gone away?”
across a close clipped hedge, neighbours confer;
you lie alone; you have no words to say.

And after rain, a sweet scent - like decay
seeps from a drooping, pearl-white buddleia.
Summer slips away, chilly, damp and grey.
You lie alone. No more words to say.


The Summer of 2009 in Britain is remembered as the 'BBQ Summer' that never was. Having predicted in a long range forecast months of glorious sunshine the Meteorological Office was forced into a red-faced retraction following endless weeks of wind and rain, floods in the Midlands and a 'twister' in Scotland. We escaped the gloom during August by heading off to a villa in the Costa Dorada to find our own 'BBQ' Summer. Back to work in September and the rain in the UK just continued. So, it is against a background of drizzle and gloom that I remember the rumours first on Eratosphere,  soon afterwards confirmed by David Anthony on the Sonnet Board that M. A. Griffiths - Maz - to her cyberpals had been found dead at home in somewhat harrowing circumstances.

David wrote:

Further to my investigations yesterday, I had a reply from the Funeral Directors who conducted the cremation service last Friday (4 September).

They provided me with the following information:

• She died at home.
• She was found and certified dead on 12 August. Unfortunately, she had been dead for some time.
• The neighbours had called the police as they had not observed the usual patterns of behaviour for a while.
• There were very few people at the funeral. These included a handful of neighbours and the solicitors.
• The solicitors are trying to trace any relatives, however distant.
• Paul Tapper of Tapper Funeral Services can be contacted if anyone can provide more information on this.
• As little was known about Margaret, there was no obituary recorded.

Although somewhat reclusive in real life, Maz was a major mover and shaker in the world of on-line poetry. Given her extensive activity across a number of sites then it is not surprising that in 2005 a poll carried out by The Academy of American Poets voted Maz as the greatest poet writing on the internet.

As the initial on-line howl of anguish and grief dissipated some practical  concerns began to emerge. Because her work existed mainly on-line and she was notoriously prone to computer crashes then there was a danger that much of her work might be lost. The response among the community of on-line writers was remarkable. I noted by September 23rd that over 300 poems had been tracked down. I was pleased to contribute to the effort but the real heroes were David Anthony and most of all, Rose Keheller. Quite who might lay claim to the rights to this substantial body of work was less than clear. Rose set up a secure 'on-line vault' for all the material collected and a self appointed web group of 'maz-friends' emerged to mull over what to do. I felt honoured to be counted among the likes of David Anthony, Rose Keheller, Janet Kenny, Julie Stoner and Ann Drysdale, though I always feel a bit intimidated by the company of proper poets.

One of the few photographs of Margaret Griffiths

Many poets wrote memorial poems on Eratosphere and elsewhere. I could not find the words, I felt anything I could come up with would not match the quality of Maz's own work and somehow that would demean the memory of her for me. It did not take long for those of is with access to the new collection to realise that once the less formal work from Gazebo, the sonnets on the Sonnet Board and the material from Eratosphere and elsewhere had been collated, then we had  the work of a seriously talented and skillful poet whose invention, thematic range and linguistic facility was nothing short of astonishing. I decided to write a short memorial piece to include on my website; what started as 300 words grew to something almost ten times that length. 'Goodbye Grasshopper' was well received and I am delighted that it formed the introductory essay to M A Griffiths' collected poems - 'Grasshopper' published in 2010 by Arrowhead Press.

Since then, over the past three years I have written very little poetry. Quite a few older poems got  published, I actively supported the efforts to promote Maz's work and a collection of my best work was included by Mike Burch in 'The Hypertexts. So why the dry period?  Partly as work became more demanding and 60 hour weeks the norm, then what time was there left to write?  My own position became more tenuous and college seemed destined for receivership or merger. I decided to sign up to do an M.A, in Education in the hope that I may have been able to pick work outside Senior Management in Teacher Training and Development or Consultancy. I did manage to get two of the postgraduate modules finished, but Social Sciences were never my strength and in the end I opted for the PGcert rather than the whole Masters qualification. Although I kept up with the writers I had become acquainted through Facebook, I had no time to write myself and contributed very little to either Eratosphere or the Sonnet Board.

Life was not all hard work, in July and August 2011 we traveled through Japan, to Sydney and Northern Queensland and back home via Hong Kong. I enjoyed emailing my impressions to Matthew and Sarah but none of these travelogues were later tranformed into a poetry as so often happened previously. I began to wonder if I was through with poetry at least writing it anyway.

I never stopped carrying my little black notebook with me though just in case. Finally, in Easter 2012 we managed to get a bit of time to ourselves in Frejus. A path led away into the red hills of the Esterel from the place we were staying. Gill and I would take an evening stroll through the pines at twilight as the moon was rising. April is a lovely time in the Mediterranean, the flowers just starting to burst into life and the air still, clear and crisp. It is difficult not to feel restored.

Evening, Frejus.

Somewhere along the way this quietude paid off. Finally I knew what I wanted to write for Maz - a villanelle, I called the piece 'No Words'. In one sense 'there are no words to say', but Maz has left us many words, funny, clever, brave, arsey, beautuful words. Buy the book!