Timely humor

Anthony Gormley sculpture in Liverpool.Photo by Mike Flemming 2015.Copyright.

1.Blake saw infinity in a grain of sand…and spent an eternity in the shower..

[I never knew they even had showers back then!]

2.Infinity is unimaginable,indescribable and unfathomable

and all in eight letters.

3.Eternity could seem short when writing is going well

and an hour may seem agonizingly long if you are unhappy/depressed

4.Why did Blake single out one grain of sand?
Was he going to sow it ?He wanted a desert in London.Does sand grow or is it fixed?

5.Aren’t thoughts intriguing?
And all free if your head is empty.What bliss

Higher again

Freed from her trap
Bird soared into air,and hovered
And floated, resting;
And flew higher, singing as she flew,
And higher again,
Till there was only her song,
Left in the silence,
Trembling.

Up on the wide,stump topped hill,
I felt the lark inside my heart
And heard her singing.
And flying up with her,
I saw gold sun and silver moon,
Moors of heather ,and sheep grazing
Green hills,
And shimmering lakes,
Clouds ,sun and sky in watery mirrors.
And sang ,and dipped,and dropped,
And curled
Up the blue
Bright heaven, and rested
On the wind.
All that day
I was a lark singing.

I shall always have a vision of
A bird
That flew upwards,
Rejoicing and free
Into a deep blue sky, and high
And higher
Beyond high
Into a place, beyond eye even,
But music still sending.

I wish I were back on that heathery moor,
With the nibbling sheep and the bees sweetly humming,
Hearing again
The poignant song
Of the skylark,
A prisoner,freed by a magician,
From her trap,
So happy to be free,
So wonderful to see.
Do it again,
For me.

Shells by the Dead Sea

Stan the aged yet sexy senior citizen was outside polishing the brass doorstep till it gleamed in the early sunshine leaking from a blue and orange sky.
“My goodness,these microfibre cloths are wonderful” he thought intrigued.Mary was out taking a load of clothes to the Oxfam Shop.Suddenly he heard a loud cry.,then he felt a pair of hands fondling the top of his bald head and tugging on his beard.
“Eeh,no rest for the wicked,even at 81,” he screamed.He staggered to his feet and rubbed his nose with his knees.
“Just give me a hand” ,he said,”I’ll have to stretch my hamstrings.They tighten up so.”
“I’ll stretch them for you!” Annie whispered naughtily.Stan leant forward to touch his toes and she could not resist the temptation to give his bottom a hearty slap.
“For God’s sake,Annie” he shouted faintly.”Someone might see that.”
“Don’t worry,there’s no-one around at this time of the day” she tittered in her usual female manner..
“Oh,yes there is!”
It was Dave,the paramedic.He had been lying behind the wheelie bins,all three of them standing plaintively and unwanted in the tiny front garden.
“I’m an MI5 spy,and I’ve been reading your blog,Mr Brown.”We need you to answer a question”
“I’m not called Brown”,said Stan nerdishly.
“Refuses to accept reality,”Dave wrote in his little notepad with some blood he had taken from himself earlier,
“Jesus Christ!”, said Stan.”Now,now” said Dave,”that’s not your name.
“No my name is Tan,not Brown,you’ve been reading the wrong blog!” “Stan Tan!”
Dave appeared crestfallen,”Any chairs need mending today?”
“My what beautiful ears you have,sweetheart,” he said to Annie,
“They look like sea shells by the Dead Sea”
“Your eyes are like shallow pools in Lake Windermere during a summer thunderstorm.”Annie replied womanfully,sarcasm being alien to her nature.
“Are you still a transvestite?” she followed on incoherently yet logically.
“No,I had a mystical experience and now I’m a Zen Buddhist”
“How did that happen?” demanded Stan querulously.And can’t you be both?
“Well,I was knitting myself a Shetland lace sweater in pale blue mohair,and I suddenly had the feeling that everything was interwoven.
Going forward or backwards,sideways or straight ahead,it is all part of the warp and weft of life.
“mistakes don’t matter” he continued emotionally.
“Oh,yes,they do,”Annie said pouting her full lips,cherry pink by courtesy of L’oreal of Paris and New York,lip balm by Yves St Laurent,peach foundation by Lancome also of Paris,toning smokey grey mascara by Max Factor,handbag Annie’s own,deep burgundy 70 denier tights by M&S,Grey pointed ballet slippers by Bally of Switzerland.[also available in black,red and teal].Raspberry lingerie by ,strangely,M&S.
“As I was saying..,”
Dave dived back behind the wheelie bin.
Stan polished the brass and Annie disappeared in a patch of woodbine..
It was Mary’s famous and loud vocal imitation of a bicycle bell that had alerted them to her imminent return from the Oxfam shop.
“Don’t they make bike bells any more?” Dave boringly wondered as he carried on reading the new life of Emily Dickinson “A loaded gun.” He thought it was an army training manual,but,hey,mistakes don’t matter!Or do they?Read the next instalment yesterday at your local newsagent or here free of interest,hope or love.Any additions welcome.
All donations to Oxfam.

Trust begets perception

I have become interested in virtue and perception.It began when I read a littleAristotle about virtue being a habit.That was quite recent.Before that for many years I believed virtuous acts would follow from being able to perceive well.But when we are fraught our minds and eyes tighten up and so we perceive only what may be a danger to us.To perceive others well we need to be in a position to trust others and we need to feel secure.How is this possible?From my studies I read that our ability to trust begins with a trusted caregiver in infancy,[See” atttachment and loss “by John Bowlby reference to come] We may be able to become more secure later by good fortune,friendship and love.If not,I seem to get the idea that if we are insecure and nervous we cannot truly perceive others and they may be in the same position.If we are very afraid then virtuous acts may be hard to accomplish. The reason is obvious… when. we are concerned with mere survival as a person , in that state what we do to others may be impossible for us to consider.We cannot truly see them and so we cannot act well towards them except by good luck.Or if we are able to tolerate great anxiety,we may see better…. if not we are incapable…. Those whom we cannot see properly we cannot truly consider with feeling and act on this feeling.We see them partly or mainly in terms of the fearful fantasies in our minds and cannot see them as other and interesting.When we make a friend online we may feel safer but in fact we are more likely to misperceive them. When we are from a sad a or difficut background it may help greatly if we have some friends who might point out our errors if we trust enough to tell them.Or we may pretend to be hard and tough.Neither leads to virtue.If we trust God it may help but I believe we see God through the lens of our parents.. which is not good…depending on the parents. When we live in fear,we cannot see what is there before us.We cannot let go.We cannot accept grace and love nor give it.We will try to live by will power.Ironically people who are fearful inside can develop a shell of toughness and pride and so are not seen as vulnerable and/or lovable.Tbey may seem frightening to others. This account may help to explain why politics is the way it is and also we see that arguing is not persuasive when the other is not able to open up and see things more broadly.Arguing makes us tighten up and see less well.And it can be frightening too though some cultures find it more acceptable than others.

Here are some relevant blogs and articles

This author had a lot to say about perception…http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-marion-milner-1163951.html http://susannanelson.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/happy-go-lucky/

http://glimpsejournal.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/the-real-bees-knees-stunning-micro-view-of-the-workers-behind-your-mothers-day-flowers/

Book review:The society of timid souls by Polly Morland

The book I am reading now is called”, The Society of Timid Souls” written by Polly Morland.

Here is a very good in depth review of it and a photo of a bull fight

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/19/timid-souls-polly-morland-review

She is a good writer,mainly in journalism and also she works making documentaries.The title comes from a Society that existed in New York starting around the time of Pearl Harbour.It was for musicians too timid to play in public.From that which ended in 1946 she goe on to look at many situations which need courage such as bravery in war,in giving birth,in bull fighting.She is well read and has studied Aristotle,read Beowulf and many other serious books and writings.Yet it is not a very difficult read.[I like hard books because I read them several times so they last longer.]The intriguing part so far is about animals and birds which won awards for bravery.. such as pigeons in WW2 and whether an animal can be brave in the true sense.I have read half this book and strongly recommend it as suitable to a wide range of readers and also because it makes reading Aristotle seem normal,not just for scholars and academics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelian_ethics

You can get Ethics by Aristotle as a free kindle book

You have to pay a little for Nichomacean Ethics and there is more than one translation so look inside before you buy it.I feel amazed by his thinking and wonder if we’ve gone backwards

Being troubled in itself will not make you a writer

I like the writer Kenneth Gergen and especially his book,” The saturated society” Legs 2

http://identitythoughts.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/the-saturated-self-dilemmas-of-identity-in-contemporary-life-kenneth-j-gergen-pt-2/

http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/553/1198e”

I think it’s beautifully written and explains the bad side of post modernism but also how differently it could be used.He got a very good review on the Washington Post but later got a terrible one in the NYT.In an interview he told how this affected him badly until the man who wrote the review died ten years later,I’ll put a link in here later.http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SweMLEe6TpgC&pg=PA294&lpg=PA294&dq=kenneth+gergen+the+saturated+self++washington+post+review&source=bl&ots=_lKF4I_lVi&sig=VEbgQl1ZpIwcLgfw3S5M5sI9__U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JJ_VUtfLEeaP7AaviYHwCA&ved=0CGwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=kenneth%20gergen%20the%20saturated%20self%20%20washington%20post%20review&f=false.

!He used to wake up at night with thoughts of what he’s like to do to this person.This shows how even someone of high quality can be wounded easily.

Most people who read English novels have heard of Virginia Woolf. She was highly acclaimed yet had breakdowns whilst awaiting reviews .Eventually she committed suicide during WW2.Her husband was Jewish and she was afraid of what would happen if the Germans invaded Britain.

But her mental health was fragile after losing her mother and favourite older sister in her teens and also possibly being sexually assaulted by her half brother.Despite al this she had much happiness and is one of the most highly acclaimed women writers of the 20th century…not much good to her of course

Sylvia Plath a great poet a generation after Woolf also committed suicide and later became known as one of the best poets of our time

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/18/writers-who-suffered-from-the-sylvia-plath-effect/#!scilW

Would you like to be a tormented genius and enter the literary canon or just be an ordinary,moderately happy person? Most of us are not so gifted in any case.

Some of us believe that others with more gifts,more money,more winning personalities are much happier,but it’s not true.Many geniuses are troubled.On the other hand being troubled by itself will not make you a genius,alas.Everybody is troubled at times.Sometimes a writer may use it

The trance like past

midsummer days evoked the trance-like past

where children played in joyous, daisied fields

with buttercups so bright the memory lasts

a freedom that our conscious growth will steal.

those stones and leaves and many colored flowers

were gathered into images that glow

yet later we forgot those treasured hours

when for a while we lived in life’s deep flow

we did not look and see,but felt at one

we lived as did the birds high in the trees

now we see and write yet experiencing has gone

we forget to live like flowers filled with bees

to lose ourselves in nature is a joy

which to our adult selves we must restore

Simon Armitage in the New Yorker

• Sharpen all pencils.•

Check off-side rear tire pressure.•

Defrag hard drive.•

Consider life and times of Donald Campbell, CBE.•

Shampoo billiard-room carpet.•

Learn one new word per day.•

Make circumnavigation of Coniston Water by foot, visit Coniston Cemetery to pay respects.•

Achieve Grade 5 Piano by Easter.•

Go to fancy-dress party as Donald Campbell complete with crash helmet and life jacket.•

Draft pro-forma apology letter during meditation session.•

Check world ranking.•

Skim duckweed from ornamental pond.•

Make fewer “apples to apples” comparisons.•

Consider father’s achievements only as barriers to be broken.•

Dredge Coniston Water for sections of wreckage/macabre souvenirs.•

Lobby service provider to unbundle local loop network.•

Remove all invasive species from British countryside.•

Build 1/25 scale model of Bluebird K7 from toothpicks and spent matches.•

Compare own personality with traits of those less successful but more popular.•

Eat (optional).•

Breathe (optional).•

Petition for high-speed fibre-optic broadband to this postcode.•

Order by express delivery DVD copy of “Across the Lake” starring Anthony Hopkins as “speed king Donald Campbell.”•

Gain a pecuniary advantage.•

Initiate painstaking reconstruction of Donald Campbell’s final seconds using archive film footage and forensic material not previously released into public domain.•

Polyfilla all surface cracking to Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah.•

Levitate.•

Develop up to four thousand five hundred pounds/force of thrust.•

Carry on regardless despite suspected skull fracture.•

Attempt return run before allowing backwash ripples to completely subside.•

Open her up.•

Subscribe to convenient one-a-day formulation of omega-oil capsules for a balanced and healthy diet.•

Reserve full throttle for performance over “measured mile.”•

Relocate to dynamic urban hub.•

Eat standing up to avoid time-consuming table manners and other nonessential mealtime rituals.•

Remain mindful of engine cutout caused by fuel starvation.•

Exceed upper limits.•

Make extensive observations during timeless moments of somersaulting prior to impact.•

Disintegrate.

I like the way you feel

Oh,Stan is feeling happy.

His wife has gone away.

She’s gone out to Australia

She won’t be home till May.

Oh,Stan has got a mistress,

She lives next door to him.

She is very curvy. She won’t go to the gym!

Her first name it is Sukie

She loves Stan and his cat.

She wears far too much makeup.

Her cheeks are very fat.

She wears bright coloured stockings.

Her handbag’s apple green.

She wears a dark red jacket,

In case she meets the Queen.

Stan loves Sukie dearly.

He loves his wife as well.

What will be the outcome?

I’m damned if I can tell.

They’ve been in this threesome

For twenty seven years;

Even though Stan’s mother

Said it would end in tears.

Mary is Stan’s wifelet

They only had one child.

Her name is little Lyra.

and she is very wild.

She looks quite like a tiger

Her eyes are very sharp.

But Lyra’s a musician.

She plays an Irish harp.

Stan wanted 10 more children

But Mary went off sex.

She never let him love her

Except via a text.

She called him her sweet baby.

She called him “little lamb”.

Stan gets very angry.

For Stanley is a man.

He wants to join with Mary

Like couples usually do.

He wants to unite with her

But she always has the flu.

Now she’s giving lectures In the southern hemisphere.

So Stan makes love to Sukie

And swigs ten pints of beer.

The cat Emile is watching.

He keeps a daily log.

Stan has bedded Sukie

Right there on the rug.

He’d vacuumed it that morning

To Emile’s great surprise.

The antics they performed on it

Have opened Emile’s eyes.

Now they’re in the kitchen To microwave a meal.

Then Stan says to sultry Sukie

“I like the way you feel. “
Read more at: http://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/a_bit_of_love_and_humorwhat_the_cat_saw_445444

Advocatus diaboli

Belief in the Lord has decreased
But in Satan belief has not ceased
Advocatas diobili
What an anomaly!
There are many, for this is the least
”
“Advocatus diaboli” is the devil’s advocate”,usually used metaphorically I think

A bleeding thumb

I realised that I was taking photography too seriously when I cut my thumb on a hook behind a door in the beauty salon today and was disappointed not to have my camera with me..as I got some wonderful images from an bleeding insect bite on my leg one summer [see above]

The lady there got me some Elastoplast before I could even get my phone out.I assured her it was not just the hook.When the weather is frosty I get little cracks near the ends of my fingers and thumbs and it was that which had caught on the hook.

Does God get depressed?

From the bus window 2012

If God had to rest on the seventh day,she must get tired.And if he can get tired then he might get depressed.Especially when she looks down on us here all fighting,squabbling and showing envy,hatred and malice
So,for God’s sake
BE GOOD

Where our consolation is

When others acts push splinters through our souls

And into strangers ears we pour our woes..

When grief and sorrow shudder thriough our walls.

And whether all is lost we cannot know

When what is in or out we cannot tell

When fantasy and dream become confused.

When darts of agony are felt to maim each cell.

When sensibility is utterly bemused. .

He ,in whom I to trusted, wills to fail

For what he claimed was friendship was desire.

Now pain and disappointment make me frail;

With torment know this person was a liar.

Then, having lost all other means to live,

We turn to darkness where our consolation is.

He promised to love me from now to infinity

Oh,dear,what can the matter be
My old man spluttered and spat at me.
He liked his dinner and asked for tea.
Oh,dear,what can the matter be;my fella has lost all his hair.

He promised to buy me a laptop but puzzled me.
He promised to buy me a Kindle yet spat at me.
He promised to buy me a Slate to eat for tea.
Oh dear,what can the matter be,my fella has bags up to there.

He promised to marry me, a week ago Saturday.
He promised to buy me a ring with a battery.
He promised to love me and help in my cattery.
Oh,dear,what can the matter be,my fella is somewhat bizarre.

He promised to buy me a guitar and a flat for three.
He promised to buy me a flute and an egg for tea.
He promised to buy me a harp and explain Marx to me.
Oh,dear,what can the matter be, my fella has bought me a mare.

He promised to love me from now to infinity
He painted my portrait and it is the spit of me.
He took my self image and set me free.
Oh,dear,what can the matter be,he’s gone and he won’t tell me where.

Oh,hey,what a catastrophe
I was married yet now am free.
Oh,hey whatever’s gone wrong with me.
Oh,hey,where’s my apostrophe, the cupboard fell out with the chair.

Daniel and the lion

[image from arkadiansystems.com]

http://www.arkadiansystems.com/?p=1391

Daniel Spinnett was a newly homeless man in a horrible , wealthy but cruel country called the Reblighted Kingdom.He had been married once but his wife often used to hurl his hot dinner at him if he was a bit late home and she also had fourteen lovers into the bargain.When she was made Head of Uncivil Service UK he decided he was leaving her and hoped for a second chance and maybe a child as well with a gentler woman
At first he was truly happy in his new commodious flat and also with meeting women on the Guardian Solemates website but all too soon his firm was affected by the recession and he ended up with no money to pay his rent ; his ex-wife was completely and utterly unsympathetic. though she was rolling in money!
He went to the Council to seek for cheap accommodation
I have nowhere to live.The rents in Lone-don are so high.. can I get a council flat?I am on job seekers allowance of £70 per week…
A council flat?The man behind the desk laughed sarcastically like a dying flea on heroin.
There ain’t no such anymore,mi duck…didn’t you know the Trying Lady sold them off.
Did you not build more using that money,he enquired courteously and logically. as was his wont
Sorry,chum, we spent it on wine, women and bling… gold watches,golfclubs,moats, you know
Daniel felt very upset so he set out to walk to Lightwebbs Forest a couple of miles away for a time of green beauty andquietness…He fell asleep under am old oak ; he was nervously exhausted ,no doubt
When he woke up a huge cat was standing near him staring curiously
Hello, the cat said in a kindly but loud voice
Hello,I am Daniel from down the road
Well, the cat said,I’m a lion from the circus.We have escaped and we are living here in the woods.
But what do you eat? asked Dan.
Well,we forage around and we find quite a lot of food left out for house cats.. we also have learned to cook leaves and grass over a fire in a double boiler.
The lion smiled down at Daniel showing a light in his amber eyes
You look very thin.Why don’t you come with me to have dinner?
Daniel was afraid of the lion but he had no alternative. in mind.
After a circuitous walk they reached the deepest,densest most magical part of the wood.There were four lions,two tigers and four leopards.
Is this our dinner,they cried excitedly as they gazed at Daniel.
No,this is a poor starving man with no home.
Well.lie down Dan and eat this leafy risotto..
Absolutely delicious,awesome, he cried greedily as he used his hands like a child with no table manners
Then the first lion asked Dan to come with him to his own den.
When they got there he said piteously
I have got a problem and none of the animals here can help.I have got a piece of barbed wire stuck in my tail and I need a human with fingers to untangle it..
Daniel looked and there was about 12 inches of barbed wire which hit and beat the old lion as he walked or ran.Dan managed to untwist it and uuntangle it.He got some water from the stream and washed the lion’s backside where the barbs had cut into him..I have no Elastoplast, he muttered anxiously.The fresh air will heal it, said the lion gently….

And that was how Daniel came to be living in the lion’s den.
He says he prefers it to living with his dominating wife.
He certainly looks fitter than before and is considering asking for surgery to change into a lion on the NHS as there is a lady lion whom he has fallen in love with.No doubt lions don’t get married in church but they do love each other very deeply.
Just go to the forest and take a look next time you fall asleep.
Now the lions enjoy even better food because Daniel has recipe books and unlike the lions,he can read.They found some old sauce pans at the recycling centre so he can do cheese sauce using milk from the sheep on the edge of the wood,
If you knew what went on in our many woods,you’d definitely get a big surprise..I can tell you.

And hatred seems to cloud the very sky

When friendship and esteem have been foregone

When we have strangled virtue at her birth

And evil thoughts are all that we can find

We cannot take a draught of cheerful mirth;

Escape from this black prison in the mind.

When friendship and esteem have been foregone

And lone as buzzards circling are our hearts.

Remembrance of past joys will never come

And soon from us the last love will depart.

When wickedness draws down our minds to die

And hatred seems to cloud the very sky

When we don’t look to see the geese fly by

When all we do is moan and weep and sigh

Then let’s remember all we have not lost;

Knot firm our souls till this dark grief has passed

Winter weather,frost and stars

I often am grateful for the vision of birds flying across the sky but how much more should we be thankful to the patient creatures like worms dwelling in the lowly earth.without them life would be impossible

Photo by kind permission of Mike Flemming 2015.Copyright

Winter weather,frost and sky,

See white geese and silver stars.

Two cooing doves with collars red,

Watching out for seeded bread.

From the sun ,low in the sky,

Light falls slantwise to my eyes.

Trees bud though invisible,

Nothing that my eyes can see.

Bulbs shoot up from dark cold soil

Where worms and beetles quietly toil.

We take for granted air and sky,

Love the birds we see fly by

But who loves the worms and slugs

And those creatures we call bugs.

So in our dark cold winter time,

Praise these creatures in the grime.

Without these worms ,our crops would die.

No cornfields for us to lie,

Midst the poppies bright red flowers

Revelling in soft summery bowers.

Praise the snails and bees and ants

For these and spiders,let’s give thanks.

As the lightness needs the dark,

From darkness come life giving sparks.

Enrich darkness with our gifts.

Look not always to the swift.

Quiet and patient like these worms,

Nature‘s lowness is my theme

I love men

I love men,but not the Toffs,
Nor the ones with smokers’coughs.
I would like an artist most,
Especially if he eats buttered toast.

I love men,do men love me?
There’s only one true way to see.
Do your best to put them off,
Wear flat shoes and never laugh.

Study Wittgenstein and Kant,
Study science that’s difficult.
Parse Quantum theory as a hobby.
Learn long words from the dictionary.

Dance with Riemann,flirt with Joyce;
Read Ulysses in a Rolls Royce.
Enjoy some Chess and Trigonometry;
Weigh down your mind with Solid Geometry.

Look around and see who’s left.
That’s the man who loves you best.
Once you’re wed and have a home,
You can free your mind to roam.

Throw away your library,
Let your senses all run free.
Wear bright clothes and enjoy some fun.
Your second life has just begun..

Hearts and heads,please

I was taking a short cut through M & S today when I met a lady whom I have not seen since my cancer problems began last April,probably because I’ve been unable to get out.I was quite glad not to see her as she is the most negative person I’ve ever met.And that is saying something.However I did meet her there today and not being unkind I was prepared to talk to her.I said,I can’t talk standing up as it hurts me,let’s go over to the seats by the cash dispenser which was quite near.She was not prepared to do that.. she said she was going home.Now,she often used to complain to me of being lonely and I did help her when she had had cancer but she can’t seem to adapt to someone else’s needs.
Actually it was a relief to me as I’d already met two closer friends.And this person moans so much that it really is awful.I am usually pretty sympathetic but I am not prepared to stand up in pain for 15 minutes to hear her woes.I have enough woes of my own right now….She seemed angry that I did not stand there and listen to her.Most likely she has had a lot of health problems and may not realise that other people do as well.Ideally I’d like to talk about something else like how about joining the Over Fifties Forum,for example or going to a poetry reading.
I think she had a very good job and is quite well off.When you retire or even before I feel it’s important to mix with people from any part of society for old age and its problems affect all of us,though the well off have more options.But to refuse to meet people who did menial work is not a good idea.Being lonely is inevitable if you are very choosey about who you befriend.Several of my dearest friends both men and women did very low paid jobs and one is almost illiterate but they have hearts and feelings not to mention native wit and common sense which some of us so called intellectuals have either lost or never had.I’ve had it with intellectual snobs.

And this is the end of the world tonight

Hello,Mrs Blogge.What can I do for you this lovely sunny morning?
Oh,I’ve got a nasty odd pain in my conundrum,doctor.
Are you being careful in your speech?
I’m always careful.
No,I mean, are you using a euphemism?
No,I am on the pill.Is a euphemism better for preventing babies?
Look here, tell me what is really wrong with you?
It’s a complete conundrum to me and all my family
Well,it will be so for me as well unless you tell me where and what it is.
It’s a pain in my testicle.
But you are a lady.
That’s what people think.
Well,surely somebody would have seen before now.
It’s only just dropped.
That’s very odd.
Yes,it is as usually testicles come in pairs.
I don’t know what to say.
Well,it’s just an absolute conundrum.
Maybe I should examine you.
I am in a hurry and you need a chaperone.
No,I can use gloves.
What,put a glove on my testicle!
Well,let’s just wait and see whether it progresses.Come back if you feel worried about it.
Is it wrong to be a hermaphrodite?
What a stupid question.How can it be wrong when you can’t control it.You didn’t make the testicle grow did you
Yes ,being a hermaphrodite does give one stronger sexual desires as like with a worm there’s more possibilities.
I really don’t fancy sex with a worm myself
But if you loved it the worm then you might cuddle it
They have no faces so they all look the same.
They used to say all black people looked the same to the whites even though they have eyes and faces and expressions.

Do we need faces to love

We need them to kiss.

And what is life without a kiss?

Ask a worm.They seem to have a good life with no wars and worries.

No,they can’t use guns,can they?

Well,not to shoot with.

So the answer is to get rid of people and just have worms. and beetles.

The way the world is going this may happen quite soon.

It’s a terrible conundrum..

Well,I am very euphemistic.

Do you mean optimistic?

Bang

And that was the end of the world tonight.

May I borrow your glasses? Watch out for new crime… stealing specs

I had a strange experience today.I went into Argos in the town centre and aas looking at laptops on their little screen when a woman nearby whom I did not know asked to borrow my glasses.I said,Why do you want them?
And she replied that they would make the print bigger on the little screen.I said it might not be so as I am short sighted and the lenses makes print smaller and in any case I didn’t lend them out.She seemed very angry like a toddler who has heard the word,No,for the first time.To me it seemed odd to ask a stranger such a thing.
When I was on the bus I was telling a friend who said she probably wanted to steal them.That never ocurred to me but it may be true.So beware.What next,my heart? Then I was thinking that my glasses were quite expensive and we come to the question of envy and whether it is ethical to walk around town in designer glasses.Because it might give pain to poorer people.She must have guessed I was a generous, soft hearted person but I would be in serious danger without them.

It seems very weird to expect someone you don’t know , outside, in public ,to lend you something so important to them.A tissue or even some money,maybe but not spectacles.In Jesus’s time they were not invented so the Bible tells us nothing about the ethics of spectacle lending.So maybe I need to write a new book for the Bible discussing via stories this type of question.Imagine in those days they had no cars either or fridges…. so nobody could borrow them…. it makes me think of a play called,May we borrow your husband?

You only have one!

Doctor,my toe is very sore.
You mean you only have one!
Doctor,my nails are horny
So am I.
Doctor why do nails get thicker when we age?
Ask the ironmonger!
Doctor, my throat is swollen.
It’s your whole head as well !
Doctor,you seem so young.
You make me feel so blung.
Doctor,do you enjoy the job?
Which one?
Doctor,where did you train?
Train what?
Doctor,how many A levels did you get?
We didn’t have them in my day.We just matriculated.
Doctor,did you know my mother well?
Not in the biblical sense.
Doctor,why are we here?
I’m here for the money.How about you?
Well, doctor,patients don’t get paid….
Don’t they?Write to your M P at once.
I can’t write…
Well,wrong your MP instead and vote for somebody else.
Why?
Don’t ask me,I’m only a doctor..
Doctor Who

Daydreams

The daydream is despised by many folk
who feel that willpower is the better way.
Yet daydreams often bring creative thoughts
and teach us what to do and what to say.

I fear it is the modern curse to will,
When will cannot achieve the wanted end.
And trying too hard is effort and may kill,
where reverie and dream can make us mend
.

The emptiness of mind is too much feared
As if we do not trust in God nor man.
Yes,take the tiller, and with perception steer…
We do the little that we should and can.

For dreams can work in harmony with will,
As long as we can make our minds quite still.

The will to sleep

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1256389.The_Ways_of_the_Will_and_Other_Essays
Edward Munch painting

http://www.medicaldaily.com/how-much-sleep-do-you-need-national-sleep-foundation-revises-recommended-hours-shut-320602

This article gives the latest findings on how much sleep we need.But is it good to worry about it?If you deliberately deprive yourself of sleep so as to work longer hours it may be an error.But in older people I find it is much more common to worry about being unable to sleep for long enough.So being told how much you need might make you feel worse as it generates more anxiety.
Anxiety is defined by Leslie Farber as being generated by the wish to control what cannot be controlled and sleep is one thing we can’t control.We may avoid horror films,make the bed more comfy, and other sensible things but in the end we can’t make ourselves sleep by will power .In fact having such an interesting life that you look forward to each day and think less about sleep may be ideal.Being relaxed is the main help and yet in our world now with all the genuine concern together with our owbn neurotic anxiety being relaxed is hard for some of us.I suppose that is where leaving it in God’s hands [ or the secular equivalent of trusting the Unknown] might help.
Relaxing muscles is a physical skill taught to mothers to be sometimes and it is worth trying.Yet ultimately relaxin means trusting and whether we learn that as infants from the good enough mother or whether we can learn to trust the world and other people at a later age I am unsure.However I believe there is a a goodness which underlies all else but I cannot prove it.Nor say why if there is a God he does not act in a manner we wish like stopping evil men from murder.
That is just one of the mysteries of our human life on earth.

Time’s wise

Green woodpecker in Oxfordshire UK

Source: Mike Flemming UK copyright

Pray,Father,can you give me a dressing?

This is not the Red Cross,you know.

Well,I tried to get the sin out of my art but I accidentally cut my throat

Are you still alive?

Well,how do I look?

You look ghastly

As soon as A changes to O,I’ll be gone.

Begone all woe

Beggars can be losers.

This is a confessional…what sins do you bring.

I have a few…I stole a black cat from a witch….

How will she manage without it?

Well,I’ve been having kittens ever since.

No wonder you look so ghastly.Do you not see what trouble sin
causes.

No,only the trouble that causes sin!

If you are so clever why not write a book?

I prefer cooking the books.

Are you on drugs?

Not yet but I see the shrink today.

I meant hard drugs.

They are all hard… they can’t get them into the bottle otherwise.

They could put them in a baby’s bottle.

Seems hard on the baby

Anyway I absolve you from your sins and your penance is not to come here for a week.

That’s a blow.

Well,see how the land flies.

Time dies when you’re going with the glow.

Time’s wise when your mind overflows.

Time’s a surprise when you are far too verbose

Can’t you just laugh it off?

Doctor,I think my husband has something wrong with him.
Thank God,I thought he was dead.
Doctor,I have a pain in my groan.
Oh,do stop moaning.
Doctor,my head feels strange.
Can’t you just laugh it off?
Doctor,why don’t you do give examinations to your patients
They have their degrees already.
Doctor,where is the receptionist?
She’s at a reception.
Doctor,you look worn out.
I shall take two aspirin and see myself in the morning.
Doctor,I feel ok today.
I must find out for myself.
Doctor,my husband is in the waiting room.
I’ll feel him later.
Doctor,I told the priest you were the worst doctor in town
Well, how do the others do it?
Doctor,I can’t sit here all day.I have to go to work.
What is it you do?
I train crocodiles to become vegetarian.
How about men?
No,they are very hard to digest.
Doctor,you look pale.
It’s my white blood.
Well, it goes with red blood and blue blood.

Doctor,what is my diagnosis?

It’s all Greek to me.

The Liturgy of Loss

Like a piece of ground where bombs go off repeatedly,
my inner landscape is perpetually marked by these explosions of sorrow,
made all the worse by the lack of a listening ear,
a warm open heart or an outstretched hand.
I have constructed a map but it’s incomplete,by its nature;
so even now,I might stumble into an old hole or a new one,
created by reverberations underground;
the noise like distant music, a constant drumbeat.
We do not dance
I might call it the Liturgy of Loss,
a dance to the music of rhyme;
Patterns and shapes hold the feelings and express them.
The shape of these forms is a container for the grief.
In this way,I indicate that life will go on;
I hear the healing music and sing to its melodies
like a mermaid on the edge of the sea in winter
when the water is cold and green like his eyes,
and the rocks are hard like large fists.
Nature can be a symbol for such emotion
we cannot walk without a tear in each eye
and a softening of our hearts as tenderly we touch the world
and are touched in turn by each other.
Stretch out your hand to meet mine.
We can hold each other better than each can hold theirself. As in bodily love,
the meaning is not in the frenzy but the giving and being given;
receiving and being received.
The sacredness of the erotic needs no explanation to a gardener or a fisherman
but may need it for the information saturated,postmoderns
who dwell in the fascist virtual reality we call life on earth today

The mind still schemes

When doubts and drawbacks struggle in the mind
And certainty seems but a demon dream,
When the faith to love is what no-one can find
For even when asleep, the mind still schemes

When darkness and defeat seem close at hand
And lights dim even as we pray for peace
when wrecks and ruins rile the native sands
When in this life we feel we’ve lost our place.

Then at the saddest depth we see the light
Surrounding with such warmth,with love adorned.
The path that seemed so wrong now leads us right
And in our hearts, warm feelings are new born

Within each storm there is a calm still eye
From there we see the loathsome clouds blown by

Green thoughts

Gaze deep into the flower’s heart;
And let your healing vision start,
Lose yourself in shades of green.
What is life with might have beens?

Cyborgs are a coming in

The cyborgs are a cummin in;
Loudly shout and scream
The cyborgs are a cummin in
They’re made from steel and dreams.
So sing,hello….
What do they know?
The end is nigh today.
So sing and cry
Oh,dear,oh my.
Whatever can we say?

A cyborg’s made from human parts
And steel and nuts and wire.
Some may have hearts
And feel love’s darts
Indeed some set on fire.
The flames burn high
The birds upfly.
Create a crowing choir.
Oh,joy to hear
Disperse our fear,
Prove love is not a liar.

I hear my wooden leg is dumb
My hands are made of glass.
I may be frail
And words may fail.
But I will let hate pass.
I love all kind,
With my own mind
My heart gleams like the brass.
I hear your voice
And make my choice.
Do not fall off your ass

Love our world

Let your lips meet gently

the top one resting against the lower
touching with tenderness
your own skin to skin.
Forefinger propped on chin,
I let the others dangle,
like leaves on a branch;
how softly gravity tugs them downwards.
Let the heart beat quietly,slowly
as the blood circulates carrying its music ,
a river,following te path of least resistance.
How the blood vessels receive willingly this flow,
touchin it kindly as with tiny open fingers
helping and being helped.
How the hair on the head floats
on the breeze,like tentacles of an octopus
waving goodbye.
Top eyelid loves the lower one;
as we blink they touch
like lovers kissing swiftly
behind a tree.
and how the light comes in
we see a world.
Mine may not be yours,
but the blink of my eyelid
sends waves through the air,
so we’re all touching and being touched,
lips kissing each other,
kiss all living creatures
skin to skin
air to air.
And inside us,the rich darkness
of creative night
transforms in turn
these touches
into dreams.

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