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 your 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

All of the above?

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

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

Read me if you will but don’t believe

No human mind is pure enough to read

For through a poet’s words, one may deceive.

Yet we need a language to perceive.

And through our words we sow our our fruitful seeds

Read me if you must but don’t believe.

In such  writing what can one achieve?

Who would cut the heart and make it bleed ?

Through my poet’s words I may deceive.

When we’re wandering dange can impede

Read me if you will but don’t believe.

Yet through a language every thought’s conceived.

Language is impure and so are deeds

Everything we say say may well deceive

We disbelieve the truth for what we need.

In our hearts and souls it’s love that pleads

Read me if you will but don’t believe

Everything I tell you might deceive

Do not be afraid of sacred fire

Did Joan of Arc lack courage at the end?

Kill obsessive thoughts, such thoughts are  liars

In the fire the sacred dove descends

Trust in this and what it must portend

Do not be afraid of sacred fire

The angels  hang in beauty in the choir.

Do not be afraid of sacred fire

No Joan of Arc lacks courage at the end

I didn’t know I’d miss you

With all my loving heart.

But as we’re made of fragile flesh

We must sadly part.

If you had been a sadist

If you had been unkind.

I would not be grieving by

And losing my own mind.

So maybe I should be grateful

For being found and known.

I wish you were still sitting here. And I were not alone.

When we feel so lonely

No-one else will do

It’s not that I’m just lonely

I’m lonely, just for you.

The face that was familiar is no more.

I search each face as people pass me by

I cannot find you so my heart is sore.

The face that was familiar is no more.

My future’s empty, sadness drifts before

There is no god and no one to implore.

There is no mother, comfortless  I cry

The face that was familiar is no more.

I weep before the people who pass by.

The pain was excruciatingly sharp

As she plucked on the strings of my heart.

What she was after

I never even asked her

But her bowing was, to my mind, not smart.

Intellectuals think limericks non de trop;

Incrementally better than faux.

But when times are inclement

Enjoy a bright moment.

For one day we each have to go.

My bowels are a nuisance to me

Yet without them how bereft we would be

In fact we’d be dead

And as St Paul said

The glass is now dark,but we’ll see.

Pain must be approached with some stealth

As aggravating it’s bad for our health

Accept it and bear it

And never,ever fear it.

Relaxation is the best form of wealth

My this metal bed is very hard Mary thought she lay on the scanner. Where should I look? Just keep my eyes closed that’s the best.

I think the iodine will have got into your kidneys by now, she heard a male voice say

Well I can’t feel anything but as long as you can see something I am happy Mary told them suddenly her phone rang.

It was nside her capacious bra Mary had forgotten.

Luckily she was not inside the scanner so she pulled it out and handed it to the radiographer who was standing by her side.

It’s lucky it wasn’t inside my knickers I suppose but then we don’t have those knickers that women used to wear in Victorian times with elasticated legs coming halfway down the thighs but they would be very useful. Actually my mother-in-law used to carry a handkerchief there.

Mary’s mind drifted on. Her shoulders were aching because she had to hold her arms vertically behind her which meant they were actually horizontal.

Finally they had finished and she sat up with the aid of the radiographer because the room was spinning round and round.

Well this makes a change, she told Annie. Then she heard a noise that sounded like a cat meowing

Have you got Emile inside your handbag she asked Annie?

Well yes I have because I did not want to be alone in the wait ing room while you were having your scan.

I don’t know if that’s a good enough reason…

we could have brought another person with us like that man who lives in the house across the road it’s about time we got to know him.

Mary you’re acting very strangely you’ve never expressed interest in men before not since we lost Stan

Well maybe it’s the iodine if it goes into my kidneys and bladder gets into my womb

Maybe iodine is like viagra for womenm I can’t say what it does for men .

But do not drink iodine at home as I will not be answerable for the consequences no will I pay for you to go to a nursing home to have a baby if you become pregnant after reading this storym

short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale’s edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.
on wind-side,careful sight,
may swoop to prey
and away.

your yellow broad-eyed look,
at once both sharp and distant,
holds me.
oh,silence,
oh,wind on green,
oh,earth,
sky.

immense your held vision,
sphere without center,
pied geometer of flight,
oh, swift descent and ascent.
trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home

Mary went to the hospital to have her CT scan. As usual she was a companies by her friend Anne. But she didn’t know that Emile the cat was in Anna’s handbag today.

As you know some women like to have very big handbags but have you never wondered what they are carrying inside these bags?

Annie, they are going to put some iodine into one of my veins, she informed her friend .

Well it doesn’t matter which one they’re putting it into because all your blood circulates around your entire body is it once every 24 hours or is it once a year I’m not sure.

I think you’re thinking about the sun and the earth and the moon which has got nothing to do with the human circulatory system.

Yes Mary I think you’re right I was never very good at science.

And you have no common sense either

How could it take a whole year for the blood to circulates round my body. I would turn into a stone!

I just wasn’t thinking properly I apologize. But why should I apologize because I was born like this… in the lower half of the normal curve for the IQ. God must be very good at statistics.

Oh don’t worry I know what it’s like I’m sure I will say something quite stupid while I’m in the hospital. Doctors seem to bring out the worst in me.

If you feel like that maybe you shouldn’t speak at. After all irs only scan of your kidneys not your brain.

Do you think if you’re having a brain scan that talking will make the scan come out differently? It seems a ridiculous idea to me but you never know is these days especially if you watch Fox News.

Mary lay down on the on the cold metal bed that was part of the CT scanner.

Will it be alright if I put a cannula into your arm, the nurse enquired kindly?

If I say no, what will you do Mary asked

Well it’s not really a question it’s just a form of politeness so we don’t just grab your arm and stick the cannula in as it will be seen as very invasive.

You are in a very powerful position aren’t you as a nurse here before you could ask me a question which I cannot actually give a truthful answer to because I don’t like having cannulas put in. I really don’t want you to put it in but I have read the explanation on the internet and I realised it will better if you do put it in.

You really need to study philosophy and language and many other topics before you could understand these pseudo questions that doctors had nurses and other people may ask you.

Why it’s almost as if Benjamin Netanyahu rang up the new Ruler of Iran and asked him would he mind he dropped a bomb on his home.?

If they did that then they would say it wasn’t a war because the Iranian person had agreed or at least not disagreed when he was asked if he would mind having a bomb dropped on him.

Is it what they call a rhetorical question asked Annie nervously as she stroked Mary’s cat Emile who was in her handbag without permission of the hospital.

I knew I shouldn’t have brought a cat she thought anxiously.

If he meows it will cause a lot of trouble and since Mary can’t see him or touch him it’s of no benefit to her that he is nearby. I must be out of my mind she thought. Don’t tell me I’m getting dementia.

To be continued

The face that was familiar is no more

I gaze into the crowds, but see no sign 

I’m fearful like a child lost on a beach

But no one I see here can I call mine.

The face that was familiar disappeared.

I can’t believe you’re nowhere I can find

And as you are gone my own small self has too

I’ve lost my soul, and I might lose my mind

The face that was familiar is no more.

I cannot see or love you as I did.

I wonder where to walk and where to rest.

My  feverish ramblings do my half wit’s bid

The face that was familiar is no more

And my own eyes with weeping are now sore.

The face that was familiar is no more
Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again
If ,by a chance, his life could be restored
It would affect me like the hidden chord
Which played, my own life force would go.
That one must live and one must die is plain
The face that was familiar is no more.
Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again

The setting  sun reflected hits my eyes

Beautifies the branches multiplied

While daisies bloom in January frost

Deception of the seasons  is a loss

Climate change has made the air too warm

Too soon misguided bees may start to swarm.

We live without a thought until we see

The deaths of summer flowers the bumblebee.

Yet the strange reflections in my eyes

Fill me with that ancient, wild surmise.

Although we long for comfort, stable times

We also long for change though in disguise

Enraged by boredom, tired before the night.

What is the way to gain some new insight?

I think it is  to find a slower way.

In between each breath a moment’s prayer

No need to fight a tiger on the lawn

Or kill the hippopotamus  forlorn

That moment of reflection was so brief

The sun shone  in my eyes, it was no thief.

Jack opened the door and saw his elegantly thin wife Simone riding her bicycle along the pavement without  even holding the handlebars

That is absolutely and utterly wrong, he told her rudely yet patiently.

You are giving a bad example to the cat and to many other people who may be looking out of their windows or driving along this intriguingly bland suburban road

Louisa grinned like a Cheshire cat would

Don’t be  so ridiculous  she cried, cats can’t ride bicycles. Their legs are not long enough

You’re missing the more subtle point that you are breaking the law in a particular way Now the cat or any cat, a dog or a human being may not be able to ride a bicycle but they can break the law.

Well of course they can because we all have free will or we are just too lazy to think she cried merrily.

So if you ride a bicycle along the pavement especially when there are people about you are giving the impression that you do not have any thought for the good of others. In modern terminology you are a narcissist or in Christian terminology you are a sinner although it’s not a mortal sin unless you kill somebody deliberately and wilfully. Who knows who is guilty of mortal sin ?

Don’t ask me I’m only a writer

Oh dear Jack you are so scrupulous. I have never done it before but it was so inviting when I came around the corner I felt like a child. I thought how lovely it will be to ride along the pavement

It’s very sad Jack sald that people see being an adult as a deprivation of pleasure. There are adult pleasures of course that we can’t talk about those in front of the cat can we?

Why not, the little cat wondered to herself. I would like them to talk about is in front of me.

The elderly couple rolled into the sweet little  kitchen on their milk bottle like legs and their cruelly deformed feet and rolled onto the wooden bench behind the kitchen table. But close to the grand piano as well

What are we having for our tea?

Jack said, I found a teapot in the dining room so we can have tea in the pot instead of in mugs with tea bags I think you will enjoy that my dear

I definitely will. I love a nice teapot. And have you made a cake?

I’ve made a lot of cakes but they are potato cakes!

Well my mother used to make those in the 1950s or was it the 1960s ? We still had a coal fire with an oven at the side. Those were the days.

Jack put the potato cakes on the table along with some co-op best butter.

Then little Louisa climbed onto the table and licked the butter with her red tongue.

See I told you that you were leading the cat into sin and now she’s been licking this butter. I will have to throw it away m

A cat can do something wrong but is it a sin?

Are there cats in hell?

But she didn’t see me riding on the pavement, his beautiful  brave wife exclaimed with a subtle yet obvious hint of violence.

Unfortunately the cat has got second sight being half Irish and she definitely did see her mother riding the bicycle along the pavement breaking the law with every turn of the pedals

What the cat was thinking was this:

is doing something illegal automatically a sin and is something legal always good?

The second question is easier to answer because we know that in world war two many things were done in Germany that were legal under their leader Hitler but they were definitely not good to put it mildly

To be plain they were evil

But breaking the law by riding a bicycle along the pavement is not in the list of sins in most Catholic missals

I suppose in the time of the Apostles there were no pavements and there were no bicycles so you would have to look for a general principle.

Give unto Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God’s

After that Jack got some fresh butter from the fridge and he and his wife demolished the potato cakes along with   some  bacon and egg

And so would all of us

Who would feed the cat?

In the desert grey I walked alone

I was great with child, my heart a stone.

Betrayed by love, who can we trust again?

0 God protect us from the wiles of Man

The stress and strain made my full womb contract

The pains of birth are easy to detect.

Here there is a doctor dressed in black

He has no face, no courtesy no tact

My baby dies, the father is a lack

The doctor throws my baby on a pile

Babies, children killed without a trial.

Hitler’s still around disguised, I’m cold.

Evil runs the world, so mad so bold

I know I too will die unless I leave

Postpartum grief so rarely will deceive

But when I gaze upon his holy face

My baby smiles and waits for my embrace.

Even here in hell there is some good

In the muck and dust of human blood

I do not know where I can walk from here

I walk into the darkness with him near.

Sad and lonely, yet I must go on

I must not fail until my life is done

Why do they sell rock at the seaside?

They can’t sell the sea.

Why is the UK not a republic?

It’s private

Why do we believe in God?

It’s like the vanishing point in Art. It doesn’t exist but we can’t do Art without it

Do children need to learn cursive handwriting?

No it’s easier to teach them to curse by imitation.

Are sausages British?

Only if they have no meat inside.

What are the advantages of a fountain pen?

You can spray ink onto your enemies then write love letters. If you have anyone to love.

Why do we eat ice cream at the seaside?

Because there’s nowhere to boil the cream.

Why did people like to go to Blackpool for the day?

Because we only used to get one day’s holiday a year and we had to see the seaside to buy those rude postcards and scream on the big dipper.

Work is not good for you after all does God work?

He doesn’t answer prayers any more.