A Poetry Showcase (Sept. 2022) from Jay Maria Simpson dedicated to her daughter Kate Simpson-Langley

My Daughter

The beauty and joy that I see in you is 
Every artists dream
Every singers struggle
Every poets inadequacy
All the beauty in the world
To be thrown into the air
For only me to catch

The Apples in her Eyes

Venus holds the calming apple and her cupid bow
She casts the apple high  
And holds her arrow against her heart

As midnight chimes her sleepless night
She hears a rustling in the air
And looks to see a golden bird appear inside her window 
Snapping at the golden apples upon her bedroom wall

Venus throws the precious arrow to disturb the pesky bird
That looks at her bewildered
But leaves behind a gift

Kate caresses the golden feather and crawls inside her bed
To dream of the glass mountain where there grows an apple tree
She climbs the glass mountain and is there just in time 
To touch the Tree of Knowledge with her finger tips

Kate dreams of Isaac Newton and that slippery mountain ride
Of Alice in Wonderland’s journey and the undertow
Of William Tell, the masked man holding a cupid bow
Of Adam, Eve, Snow White and other fairy tales

Her mother says be careful don’t let go of my hand
But Kate sees the alluring apple and smiles
She gathers up the apple and her mother’s hand

Kate dreams of a girl called Florence
All blurred and dressed in white
Of the mirror mirror on the wall
And of all the vanities
Of a Nightingale whose song is lost
Of a tired moon in the endless night
Searching for the dawn

Of apples fallen on the ground 
And of her mother’s hand

She listens to the words he sings
Go back to sleep. Go back to sleep.

Certainty

I watch your hand pass over the group handle
As you carefully remove any stray grounds
You perform a perfunctory task
With so much care and intent

I know that I love you and that you will do well in life
I feel settled and comfortable in that thought
As settled as the coffee grounds that you press down with force
Then slam into the group head

I’ve walked down to the café from work
A chance to see you and drink a coffee made precisely to my taste
You look up at me with surprise, gladness, love
We’re as comfortable together today as those fucking coffee grounds

The sour dough loaf is still warm 
Our coffees carefully extracted
A precious moment in a time
More precious than I knew, more precious than I knew

Lifetimes have passed now 
You no longer make me coffee
I leave the stray grounds on the group handle
And think of your hand

As my feet just hit the footpath
Your boss screams out
Kate’s awesome
I throw up my hands in that weird way that I do, and call back 
I know

I walk slowly, gently back to work
Sure and certain as a mother ever could be

Trompe L'oeil

A million songs echo inside her head
They compete for you her daughter her obsession
A word a phrase a sound a force
A mystic melding of love melody and life

Her head spins she’s anxious and uneasy
Everything is magnified and blurred
The candles flicker out of control
The noise from the party nearby is deafening

A million visions turn her blind
They look for you her daughter
They see an old woman feeling around in the dark
Who trips on an accident of life

She looks around to find hope
But as she’s blinded there’s nothing there
She tries to picture a fragment but
Hits her head against the flaw

A million senses remembering
A life squeezed into a crazy corset
To stifle and prevent

They still sing their songs for you

She closes her eyes and you’re there
Saying ‘come on mum’ or ‘mom’ for affect

You reassure you tell your tale
You chop the fetta the olives the bread

You are Kate
You are her daughter

Eleven Years

The anniversary of 18 July
Imprinted on our souls
Jacarandas losing their leaves
Yellowing
Falling

Searching, searching
I look for you
To find my heart again
To write some inadequate words
To fill an unfillable void
To lie to myself that life is good
Knowing it can never be
To confuse the force 
That forces me to smile at the people I see

Photos, photos, memories
In every crevice of life
To ponder what might have been
To dream against the tide

To swallow deep, to say your name
To call you back to me
To whisper quietly
To muffle my thought
 So as not to scream
To see your number in my phone and your email address
To look at the door in case you’re here 
Walking back to me

To understand the impossible
Seven years away

Photos, photos, memories
In every crevice of life
To ponder what might have been
To dream against the tide



Bio: 
Jay Maria Simpson was born in Sydney, Australia. She worked as an English, Drama and Music Teacher for many years in schools, TAFE and the University of Newcastle. Jay has been a writer all her life. She moved to Perth, Western Australia in 2011 following a personal tragedy. It was then that her poetry exploded. In her poetry she explores reality, change, sorrow, sex, anger, love, death, escape and memory. Jay pushes the boundaries in her writing. She often writes from a dangerous, fearful place where you will find raw honesty. Her poems might also dance in a happy sexual fairy garden. There is no pretension. Jay loves poetry, art, music, satire and black comedy. She also loves reading poetry publicly. 

She is the Creative Director and Author at 'Living Dangerously'.



"There is so much stubborn hope in the human heart." Albert Camus