I had to go to the hospital for a Custord Capote.

If that’s artificial intelligence then give me  real intelligence any day.

The doctor said,

I want to put a camera into your bladder.

So I said to her doctor you must be deluded how can you expect me to believe that you can put a camera like the one I’ve got here in my pocket into my bladder when the only way in is a very very tiny hole about 5 millimeters in diameter.

And anyway what were her motives?

She smiled belligerently. It’s a very small camera.

But it is still bigger than a molecule, I said superstitiously.

Well I don’t know she said wisely  because I’ve never seen a molecule.

Anyway, if you put this camera into my bladder, how on earth will you get it out again? Or is it going to be a permanent fixture so that you can see into my bladder any time of the night or day?

Don’t worry it’s in a little plastic tube and at the end there’s a little pointed knife so I can cut a bit of your skin off

Well doctor I know that men are afraid of having their penis cut off and now I feel a little bit like that although I know the bladder is not a sexual organ.

Do stop overthinking she told me. Just shut up and keep quiet like all the other patients do.

Then  lie down on this bed and pull your trousers down. I’ve never heard such a nuanced conversation. The British are famous for being tactful and also for being ironical; can you guess which I am being now?

As soon as I did what zhe wanted she’s stuck her great big needle into my bum claiming it was an antibiotic.

Well I know that was a lie because antibiotics come in little bottles from the pharmacy. Antibiotics don’t come in the shape of needles as far as I have ever experienced or seen them.

Well after that it’s all a blur .The nurse gave me a piece of kitchen paper.

That’s to wipe yourself  she said.

What’s the point when your bladder is always leaking unless you’re on penicillin or ciprofloxacin or another very dangerous drug which can affect your mental state profoundly.

So I’d rather leak than go mad. People seem to think that if you go mad you don’t know what is happening you don’t know what you’re doing and so you’re happy but it’s not true.If you go mad it’s terrifying. On the mental health services in Britain are not very good so you might be discharged after two days treatment a and hang yourself. Yes, it’s that bad for some people. On a lighter note sometimes the madness only lasts for a few hours like when you’re on steroids

I might be more likely to believing god if there were some medication for rheumatoid arthritis   or  drug resistant infections that did not cause such side effects.

Anyway they gave me a cup of tea and then I went to the Loo.

Then I came back and I thought to myself 

They never showed me the pictures from the camera

I could have put them in the computer and changed the colours and used them to illustrate my blog

It’s like going through the labours of Hercules or some other initiation process. And what happens when you get to the end of the seven horrible events or trials? That is something that I have yet to find out but when I do you’ll be the first to learn about it

And if they give me the photographs I’ll publish them here as I know you can’t wait to see them.

No  countenance, no   face,no smile no joy.

Without your face the world’s an arctic waste.

How can I my need to love employ ?

No countenance no face no smile no joy.

I cannot play, the world is not my toy.

I swallow food, no longer can I taste.

No countenance no face no smile, no joy

Without your  love, the world’s an arctic waste

Pray Father,give me some washing.I’ve got Wikileaks and a new obsession.
Tell me more,my child.I am feeling bored.
I think someone has been inside my computer.
They can’t be human. so why worry?
Why not,Father?
Well, we are not thin enough to get into the computer.
Ah, they turn themselves into particles and come in with the current..
when it’s high tide.
Do you mean tied?
No,Father.I’ve not been reading that book.Fifty Blades All Gay
Neither have I but in the confessional I’ve heard it all and more.
And how does that make you feel,Father?
Why pay to read a fantasy when you can dream up your own?
Some are born dim… others become dimner by choice
Well,any sins tonight,my dear?
I’m so sorry.I was planning to tell a lie but I forgot.
There’s a list of sins in the Missal…have you read those?
Yes,I’ve not tried most of them yet… though I just got a slight pang of anger
when a brick fell onto my head from a clear blue sky.
That’s natural anger,my child.but I feel it was odd for a brick to fall like that
Has a brick ever fallen on your head,Father.
Not yet but I’m only 97.I must buy a hard hat
Wow,you look much olde than 97 r.Are you longing to diet?
Why, is there no food in heaven?
I wonder who cooks if they eat up food
Maybe they live on manna.
Does God eat food?
That was one topic we never did in the cemetery.
Do you mean the seminary.
At my age, they are all one.
You have reached Nirvana….congratulations.
Well.I’d prefer a cup of tea.
You English!
What are you?
I’m a great Dane.
Did you say a grey Dane.
That too.
Well perk up;the show’s not quite over till the gnat really stings.
Do gnats eat string?
String… it’s my passion.Love it or mate it…get involved.
Live a little.
And for your penance… you must have a bath…
Why?
I don’t like the way you smell.
Well,I am a dog.. we like to sniff.May I borrow your hanky?
Definitely,I shall dry your tears for you and please try to commit few intriguing sins before you come back here.
I’ll wash it for you.And dry it out of doors
Well,it’s not over till that gnat gets its sting and the phone gets a ring

My doctor was a lady of very great skill

She cut my whole head off with a new green  type of pill

I still miss those kind voices I once nearly heard

Till she convinced me they were only birds.

My doctor had got malice in one eye.

As she demanded some patient must die.

I said to her that I thought Jesus was enough

And it was a mortal sin to call God’s bluff.

I told her how a voice had said clearly,

That love but not great wealth would come to me.

She said, “you’re bordering on offence .”

So I told her that real numbers are very, very dense. My doctor was so extremely good at curing ills

When she died, they made her into millions of pills.

I do not like this stone within my heart

Its jagged edges  tear the living flesh.

Devoid of feelings yet it causes pain 

Who will cut it out, with blood to wash?

Why do people turn to stone inside?

Something is preserved, we are not dead.

And yet it’s useless even full of harm

I lie here weeping on my unmade bed.

On its stony surface evil dwells

Alien forms of life take up this home.

And, all unknowing, we  live our sweet life.

Until we’re brought to earth, no more to roam.

Oh do not let me die, I want more life

Where is my surgeon with his sharpest knife?

What was so wrong about asking
About your absence from this world
And trying to grab you back
holding onto your coat tail
Eternity’s long enough already
We don’t need your vapour trails.
Was it a wicked thing to do
As you floated so far away
To reach out to touch you once more
I admit I never knew you kept score.
When I beat you at chess so long ago
Were you already packing bags
to throw out the door?
I knew it was the real thing
But some men never do.
You have your expectations
And your tests and rules
But we never learned those
In our higher math schools.
We learned rigour and icy vision
We learned definition and precision.
But what use are they in loving
I didn’t know how to steer with no maps
You were off anyhow.
The orchestra stoped playing
When they saw the gap.
You can’t fly forever
But I do be leaving you.
In the circumstances
What else does a woman like me do.
You can smile and squeeze your eyes tight
Suck in those cheeks and hide your love.
What’s coming after you’s an eagle or a crow
Not a dove…it’s black I know
When you toss it all away then
Seems like it’s long past time
and emotion to call it a day.
Come again…..you must be crazy
Love is clear to me now like the face of a new born daisy

Your gaze your smile,your frown,your glee.

And if I want to know the rest

The shape your posture’s made is best

For saying what your life is now.

A look,a gesture,all this show.

Till all you are is then disclosed

And I am in your arms enrobed.

Love vanishes when analysed

And thinking too’ by Love’s despised

Use the means to fit the end

Then to you, my love I’ll lend.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/jun/26/poem-of-the-week-in-no-strange-land-by-francis-thompson?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

The world was made familiar by your face.

I n a  loving face we find our truth.

Without such love the world’s a bitter space.

The world was made familiar by your face

And in your arms I found the best embrace

Without your words the world seems base, uncouth.

The world was made familiar by your face

In a loving face we find our truth

https://poets.org/poem/habit-perfection

Search

The Habit of Perfection

Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only make you eloquent.

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!

Nostrils, our careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.

And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on January 14, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

Born at Stratford, Essex, England, on July 28, 1844, Gerard Manley Hopkins

About Gerard Manley Hopkins

Themes

Audio

Body

Desire

Eating

Religion

Self

Silence

Spirituality

About this Poem

Originally written in 1866, a fragment from “The Habit of Perfection” was first published in Robert Seymour Bridges’s anthology The Spirit of Man: An Anthology in English & French from the Philosophers & Poets (Longmans Green & Co., 1916). In “Food Metaphors in Gerard Manley Hopkins,” published in Victorian Poetry, vol. 55, no. 3 (Fall 2017), Mariaconcetta Costantini, professor of English at D’Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara, Italy, writes, “Another struggle against the lure of the senses, including taste, is dramatized in ‘The Habit of Perfection.’ Like other lyrics of Hopkins’s university years, this poem in quatrains exalts the human capacity for renouncing physical pleasures in favor of spiritual ones [. . .]. [T]he poet turns the body and its perceptive organs into vehicles for achieving a condition of bliss that entails the final rejection of corporeality. Such a strategy is evident at the beginning of each quatrain, which opens with a direct reference to man’s sensual powers of perception / communication: hearing, speaking, seeing, tasting, smelling and touching. Stanza four, in particular, focuses on the pleasures of the palate—‘the hutch of tasty lust’—which are visibly evoked before the invitation to transcend them. Despite the use of negation, the speaker gives flesh to the palate’s ‘desire . . . to be rinsed with wine,’ while the other references to drinks and aliments (‘The can . . . so sweet, the crust / So fresh’) attach physical valences to the ‘fasts divine.’”

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More by this poet

Z

The boughs, the boughs are bare enough,
But earth has not yet felt the snow.
Frost-fringed our ivies are, and rough

With spiked rime the brambles show,
The hoarse leaves crawl on hissing ground,
What time the sighing wind is low.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

1863

The Sea and the Skylark

On ear and ear two noises too old to end

     Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore;

     With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,

Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

1918

41 [No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,]

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing—

Gerard Manley Hopkins

2018

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I must be far from men and women
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I must be on a mountain
Breathing greatly like a tree
If my heart would yearn a little
For the peopled, placid valley.
I must be in a bare place
And lonely as a moon
To find the graceless ways of people

Elsa Gidlow

1923

Reflections

I walked along the countryside
At eventide,
And everywhere
The road was fair
With moons of water here and there,
Into whose heart the grasses spied.
And suddenly upon them shone
The light of the City’s eye,
Reflected from a bulb on high.

Ameen Rihani

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It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea;
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.

William Wordsworth

1807

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In the 60’s women  wore a tiny mini-  skirts
[Which seems  odd now, as we wear trousers most]
Then  bought longer ones should Vogue direct

We wore minis, stockings with grip welts
Cool in summer, chilly in the frost
Once all women  wore wool winter skirts

Trousers  made us free from fashions cracked
As long as we had slender tapered waists
We bought versions of  Parisian taste direct.

But  recently we see the trousers whacked
They must be short this year or lack good taste
They’re up and down our calves just like the skirts

And though we hated  belts, suspender packed
We now must buy a longer type of sock
To close the gap the shorter trousers make.

So I make my case that women’s trousers lack
Virtue, beauty, wonder, colour based
I think it’s time that skirts should now be backed

Let us admire the  daring females  most
Who wander  flower-skirted to the coast
Let us humans tear off all that hurts!
We need comfort, let the fashions flirt!

I meant to write a poem of revenge
To hurt the one who shot out glacial words
I knew how to begin but how to end?

Through the Oxford. my sharp eyes had lunged
My vile emotions then were further stirred
I meant to write a poem of revenge

First he wooed me , showed his cultured friends
Sweet the words and soft the voice I heard
I knew how to begin but how to end?

Would retaliation my heart rend?
Down the vultures rushed ,carnivorous birds
As he wooed me with the words he wrung

My arm was disengaged by unseen hand
I could not write, impossible cruel words
I meant to write a poem of revenge

Lady of Macbeth, who’d wash in blood
When evil can be overcome by good?
I meant to write a poem of revenge
I hated once but Good controlled my hand

Through the TV series fun on Saturdays,
They educate us to our foreign ways
We’re blind to our own prejudice, you see.
But we can see it on our dramatised TV.

Our mind’s a stranger to our self;
As Freud discovered with his stealth
We make believe we are all saints.
In words, by gum, it doesn’t half sound quaint!

Tonight on Taggart we see Poles
Shot at close range, here, look, bullet holes.
They’re foreign though they were born here.
And, by the way, your auntie’s queer.

We want a game like chess with rules
Make it black and white, we’re fools.
We forget the Last Judgment’s here today
And God is foreign, by the way.

God’s the foreigner par excellence
He sent us Son down here just once
But like we often do, we killed
They’re using TV now to change our wills.

Enlighten us, dear God, by screens of blue
Make us understand we’re foreign too
We don’t need to go to Church
The TV’s on and here I perch

The Lord’s my Shepherd,I’ll not scratch.
Oh, raise me with words
Underneath the arches,I’ll sit and eat my shoe.
Scarlet ribbons made her glare.
Guardian angels set heaven alight.
Wraiths of our fathers ‘ living bill.
God blessed our Hope
Yesterpray.
Welcome to the Communist State of Diarrhea.
You keep sewing your way.
In search of lost crimes with Marred Cell Pouffe.
A still small choice .
Ezekiel,why are you Lear?
My fiance was a Jew until he met me.Then there were three.His mother made a big impression on me… with her shoe!
Don’t believe all I write.I have blurred derision and fantasy.
The Lord’s my shepherd,so he taunts.

Ezekiel sits on the floor eating an orange 

He has four teeth, he can stand up.

He can’t walk yet but he dances.

He’s as tall as the table 

What are you thinking Ezekiel? 

You are murmuring and muttering

You are singing and whispering

Speaking in words and sentences is in a way or diminishment of all this.

I can see what we lose as we grow older

Oh happy,Ezekiel, you like oranges.

You want something and it appears as if by magic.

It appears as if you created it.

Be our guest

I bought a talking watch because I couldn’t read The Watch face but I forgot I am also hard of hearing

My phone is too big to fasten to my wrist

Can you get braille watches? Combined with hearing aids….

By this stage of life maybe you don’t need to know what time it is

Can’t we be like animals going by the sun and the moon?

, Now therapy usurps the place of faith

And into our own minds, we’re told to delve

Whatever we now think, we have to say it In that way, Freud thinks we find a truer self. The therapist is like a looking glass

They just reflect whatever we have bared.

But if we look to long, it comes to pass

That Satan and his devils are prepared.

They may enchant us into false self love

To value pride and then deceive our souls;

Yet to humble people comes the holy dove.

And self-forgetting is what makes us whole.

Confused, alarmed and reckless with despair.

Look out, not in, and find salvation there

When true love’s gone and doom hangs over head
When life runs like a river to the sea
Then shall I take new lovers to my bed
And with their carnal touch consoled be?

When lovers lie and break my woman’s heart.
When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path.
Then, shall I my life of evil start
And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

When my love lies and wrecks all loyalty.
When puzzlement makes all the world seem mad.
Then I shall upend causality
And let myself do deeds which make me glad.
I have the fruits of love within my heart.

Sorrow will not tear me into parts

The still small voice is easy to ignore.

Why does love speak in this quiet voice

Underneath the bustle and the noise

Coming from it’s habitation poor

On the peak the frightened prophet heard

Hiding in a cave, while tempests shrieked

He heard God’s whispers, in this place so bleak

Absent was all life bar little little birds

Now we are cocooned with food and heat

The BBC controls the voices heard.

Jezebel is coming we must act

Lineker the prophet sends out Tweets.

Wisdom is a sparrow on the wind.

Listen to its song for we have sinned

Why don’t we hear more about the bladderoscomy?

Next they’ll be putting cameras into our ears but are the eustachian tubes large enough?

Which is larger the urethra or the eye of a needle?

Just think what might be living inside your kidney and you won’t even know until one day you have a terrible pain and it’s not your period.

I have had sepsis twice but will I make it through a third episode? On the one hand yes I must be very strong to survive twice so on that basis I predict I will go on surviving it forever until I die of something else

But my infirmity is no reason at all for Trump to bomb Iran or indeed to bomb anywhere at all in the world.

There’s probably a name for this but it’s the opposite of feeling that you are responsible for all the sin and suffering in the world.

We just have to accept we’re responsible for a small amount of it but we’re also responsible for a larger amount of goodness kindness decency humour love friendship care and community spirit. And much more . Like the preservation of ancient churches and other buildings. On the medical research that’s ongoing in the NHS and our universities.

The still  small voice is of no use to the deaf.

What does the Pope think of the bombing of Iran?

Please accept our creepiest symphony.

With sweetest tympani.

Please accept my commiseration despite your looming con scription. You won’t miss her when you’re in the army invading Iran.

Loss is always a tradein

I’m so sorry that your husband lied. At least it won’t happen again.

We live in hope of an insurrection

When will the geeks inherit this laugh?

I’m so sorry to hear about your blister. She should not have gone  astray.

When is the humeral to be belled?

He left me his new router. Saturday the cat died as well.

He left his cheapest empathy on my Facebook page

I am sad that you are so lonely with your thief.

If she believed in Devon, she kept it riot.

I will always remember that a dog shook hands with my husband in heartlands in Devon

I haven’t had time to make a world so could I buy one?

I found his last bill and pissed lament

I said I wanted to see Jesus I didn’t mean that I wanted to die a liar.

If you die I’ll be very angry and I really screamed that. But it was too  fake. You never relieved me.

Do you think that God is working for us when we lie ?

Does God dismember everything?

He said he was working for the still small voice I didn’t really believe that but I am deaf. God should shout not whimper

When you are dead you have blood  that will not percolate anymore.

Who is the person who makes our blood flow around our bodies?

There’s a music played by all the blood circulating in harmony around the bodies of those who are close together but I wonder who can hear this?

Shall I miss the journeys that we made
Up sheer cliffs and through deep muddy yards
Chased by geese and then with heather laid?
I cannot catch you now, it is too far.

You cleaned my boots back in the cottage sweet
On the bed, you covered me in coats
Tenderly you stroked my crooked feet
And hot and sugared tea you once more brought

A dog stopped by and held out its clean paw
It shook your hand and gazed with amber eyes
Remote and cold, the Hartland Cliffs we saw
Where have you got to now, my love, disguised?

Danger and delight then drew us on
I cannot find your face, where have you gone?

Which would you prefer

An angiogram

An inflexible cystoscopy

Open heart surgery

Bunions surgery on both your feet simultaneously

Sudden death?

What do you like for breakfast

Fried brains on wholemeal bread

Black pudding with fried tomatoes

Sliced haggis

Buttered toast well licked by your cat.

Two Weetabix and a banana?

What would you like the nurse to do

Try to put a cannula into your arm  and burst  a weather vane. Sorry I meant your vein.

Inject you with broad spectrum antibiotics with a blunt needle.

Give you an enema

Wash you all over with fairy liquid and cold water?

Read you a story about Donald Duck the evil orange murderer. He is getting to be worse than Satan

All of the above?

After all, the worst thing is being bored, being alone and being sick.

We don’t know what it’s like to be dead until we die and then we can’t come back and tell anybody although I did see my husband once.

I saw him in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep because my friend had been run over and my husband was very fond of her so he appeared in my bedroom and said when I heard I had to come back unfortunately he was only there for about two minutes.

Talk about shock and awe.

I had a CT scan today

It’s free so you don’t have to pay.

The iodine is great

If you want to mate.

Otherwise, it improves the display.

Yes they broadcast my scan on TV

I am never embarrassed, you see.

My kidneys are swell

How can they tell ?

Is it something they put in the tea?

They tell me the iodine’s less risky.

It’s not Viagra so it won’t make you frisky.

Believe me, I know.

I hoped it was so.

The only man who came near  was a pixie.

Maybe I should be more alert

And make my voice pleasant not curt

Keep an eye out for men

Although not for Big Ben

I’m so shy I don’t even  dare sweat

Do you think Meter Pandelson’s rich?

He got £75,000 on that pitch

He wanted much more

He’s terribly poor

I wonder where he bought all that kitsch?

The face that was familiar is no more

The people in the streets seem bland as wheat

I dream I hear your key turn in the door

How you loved to walk on long seashores.

The sands of Norfolk charmed our curving feet

The face that was familiar is no more

I’d like to die right here on this  floor

Why should I live now in love’s defeat

I think I hear your  key turn in the door.

I never knew the pain that old folk bore.

They did not speak and left us with deceit

The face that was familiar is no more

I wish someone would seize my heart, it is so sore

If only we were words, I’d press delete

I thought I heard your key turn in the door

I remember Southwold and our seat

We’d cross the river Blyth, the people weep.

The face that was familiar is no more

Yet I hear the key turn in the door