Connections

By Jennifer Christie Temple

Jennifer Christie Temple is back with a new collection of poems, several years after her last was published. The intervening time has been one of personal trauma and loss for the poet but, as she herself remarks, ‘sometimes it’s the worst of times that can produce the best poetry.’ These new poems certainly show a depth of understanding and maybe even a celebration of the differences in life experience of those we know and love. Happily, the quirky little bits of humour are still interspersed through this collection as they were with her earlier books and give a balance of emotional tone that characterises all her work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Christie Temple
• Release date: Mar 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005249267

Jennifer Christie Temple

Jennifer Christie Temple grew up in rural Hertfordshire in the 1950’s. The daughter of a traditional woodcutter and forester, her childhood days were spend in woodlands, meadows and country lanes and she learned to love and respect nature and all life.Trained in biology, Jennifer found her work in science unfulfilling and soon turned her attention to writing. She became a successful freelance writer, working for magazines and newspapers across the UK and Ireland. For several years, she wrote a humorous column about city life for The Daily News in Birmingham, where she lived for 25 years.Moving to a village on the border between England and Wales, she now lives in retirement with her husband and a small group of chickens and devotes her time to walking the surrounding hills, her grandchildren and writing poetry.

Book preview

CONNECTIONS

..................................................................CONNECTION

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.....................................................Jennifer Christie Temple

.............................................Copyright 2022 Jennifer Christie Temple

.............................Published by Jennifer Christie Temple. Smashwords Edition

Thought for the day

Life makes more sense

when you don’t take it personally

Index

Visionary

Impostor

Voodoo

Maybe

Misguided

The Scarecrow

A Touch of Grace

Just a Thought…

Within the Walls of War

Hands

The Jackdaws

Graven Image

The Hedonist

Diminished

Amazon Man

Remembrance Day

Degeneration

Searching

Scrabble

Roots

The Trial of Mathilda Crump

Forsaken

Definitely, Maybe

Poetic Catharsis

No Competition

Isolation

Metamorphosis

Looking Back

The Hedgehog

Siblings

Sunrise over Honey Hill

Eggs

Dawn

Encounter on an Autumn Day

Unforgiven

In the Stars

Hot Day in April 2020

Word Art

The Storyteller

The Meeting

Rainbow

Choice

Compassion

God Save Her

Covid Times

A Covid Lockdown Dawn

A Question

The Difference

Conversation with a Newborn

Arthur Eggshell

Sidelined

Dissatisfaction Guaranteed

Disjointed

Don’t Let Them

Circumstances

Greens

The Visitor

Haiku

Cliche King

I Watch You

My Love

To a Lady

Mean Streets

Murder in the Bathroom

Helpless in the Face of Fate

No Visitors

Understanding

Old Sal

Post Love

Rag Rugs

Lost in Translation

A Memory

Wasted

We All Conspire to Lie

When Time Runs Out

Telly Addict

Perhaps

Identity

Worms

Ambition

Sandy’s Garage

Poppies

The Vulture and the Lion

Existence

About the Author

Other Books

Visionary

transient as a smoky cloud

in a shadowed sky

reasons and meanings don’t apply

you don’t ask why you only know

in that split in the ocean of time

he has managed to shake your world

Impostor*

He wore life like an overcoat

that he’d plucked from a peg

by the door of a pub.

He always knew it wasn’t his.

The texture of it chaffed his mind

but he clung to it and pulled it close

and moulded himself to fit.

He knew-and I knew-

that it wasn’t his coat.

We never spoke of it.

It was all he had.

Voodoo

As old as the hills,

mind manipulation

with soft explanation

backed up by threats.

Snakes, bones and zombies,

overcome resistance,

hypnosis at distance,

building on fear.

Practised by tyrants

who offer protection

with threatened rejection

for any dissent.

Once named black magic,

controlling behaviour,

a self-styled saviour

is walking abroad.

Maybe

Where all is one and life a spark,

it is easy to get lost in the dark.

Life is experience and should be enjoyed,

with all opportunity fully employed.

Regret is futile, as is hope;

pain and joy are all one rope.

This life is once and when it’s gone

we’ll not return or carry on

This much seems true and I don’t doubt it

but think there could be more about it

if I could look through every veil

to see what consciousness entails.

Misguided

No, that is not right! Her favourite refrain

with a look that spoke of disappointment

and pain. Her view of the world

was quite black and white

without ambiguity of