Ye old Bible Story

She washed up
And it came to pass that they ate their dinner
and that she did washeth up.
And she did leave the dishes to drain
Whilst she put on the washing machine.
and the man was very pleased.
And it further came to pass
that she gave the man some pudding
and he was more pleased.
And then it came to pass the he fell asleep
By the fire.
And the Lord God,said
who is this man that sleepeth by his fire?
And He said,I shall waken him up
And the man awoke,
And God spake unto him
How is it that the woman laboureth in ye kitchen.
And that thou sleepeth here in an armchair.
And the man said,
But Thou didst order women to labour.
And the Lord God said unto the man
Why dost thou remember so selectively what I have said?
And the man said,
I knoweth not and therefore I will help this woman.
And the Lord God said,
Why dost thou not think of it thyself?
And the man said in reply,
It was Thou that made me,O God.
And the Lord God was displeased with the man.
so he called down a plague of butterflies
To prevent him from sleeping.
And when the woman came in
she was much pleased to see these butterflies
and so she fell onto the man
And he did make love unto her.
And the cat was very pleased.
For it thrilled a cat to watch humans loving
and gave him hope
That the Lord God would take his rib and make a mate for him.
And indeed it doth seem to have happened
Judging by all the cats staring in ye old window here;
And by their ecstatic yelps
That the Lord God was very generous with them
and made them many mates.
For truly there is no jealousy among them
And they mate freely and happily
and never have rows about the washing up..
as they eat straight from the can.Amen
Here endeth today’s lesson.
Be thou kind to thy mate or lover always
And to all people that on earth do dwell

Black and beautiful human friends

http://www.islandmix.com/backchat/f6/blackest-people-earth-258827/

Last night when I was ill a very black doctor came to see me so I was wondering where his ancestors may have lived Then I found these lovely images.

The spirit

Order and chaos

Life and death

Yet too much order can kill the spirit

Chaos brings a chance of new connections

In my end is my beginning;

Into dust all life goes

Like a flying star

The books neatly arranged

Are only a dust trap to the obsessive cleaner

Less use than toilet paper

Infinite dreaming worlds

While to the artist they contain

That now few of us have time for

Fearing the loss of drowning eyes

In the colour of Impressionist dots

And Van Gogh’s fields,

Blues Picassos

More divine than grace

Lose yourself then rise

As Christ did

And shoot like a flying star

Into the joys of heaven

Have your flute shot now

Thin skin

Competitive grief

Is that a game we play in public

I’ve lost six friends this year

You lost only a cat,

She lost her husband.

Somethings we’d never share anyway

I lost my pride,my job and my eyesight

You’d never know but for the white stick

And my coat is five years old.. or maybe ten

She got married just a year after her husba

nd fell off the roof onto the concrete yard

So what’s her claim to mourning?

It was just another topic to write about.

She made money.

Think of that.

Surely, in the USA ,nobody would object to that.

We know how important numbers and measurements are

In this society

We ourselves are numbers to the government

So much easier to deal with.

But how can grief be measured?

Good actors can play the part

Others are more circumspect or shy.

In this society we forget

Not everything can be measured except metaphorically…….

Like,I’ve got your measure.

Competitive mourning,,,

Why not have a Game?

Why not have it in the Olympics?

Why not have it on TV nightly.

Why not get the Queen to give us medals?

Just passing a remark,as it were.

No offence intended.

But it was taken like a dagger to the throat,

Then they blame you for having such thin,thin skin

Where are their shadows,where is now their night?

Where is the artist who could unfold
The world like Graham Greene,the good,the bad
The sinful priest who saves a woman’s soul,
The dead, the lost,the starving and the mad?

The shivering menace that we felt but could not see.
Osama bin Laden shot while we sipped China tea.
No judge,no court,no jury,no tribunal.
No face,no body,death but not a funeral.

I see the graphs of chaos theory and the forms,
As butterflies’ wings shake,creating wilder storms.
I see the ellipses,circles and the squares.
They seem to hint at something not yet there.

In the forests of the Congo,secret agents hide,
Where Joseph Conrad thought his hero lost his mind.
The snakes of Eden curl around the trees.
Who can know what strange satanic gods they see?
s
The Impressionist artists painted flowers filled with light,
Where are their shadows,where is now their night?
My impressions are of webs with too much geometry.
A world of email,text and failed economies.
Where are the silver moon,dark sky and wind-lashed trees?
Where is the world the magician’s eyes have seized?

I hear the government want to read my mail,
My blogs,my texts, my chats,all my details.
Will it help or hinder if I write in blanker verse?
Or if I make my poems and stories shorter and more terse

THE MUSIC OF FLOWERS

Like you,I hear the music of flowers
And the poetry of windblown leaves.
And the ballet of stretching cats
On the path through the kirchen garden

Friends or Enemies?!

FRIENDSHIP

“Thy Friendship oft has made my heart to ache do be my enemy–for friendship’s sake.”
William Blake

Lullabies from American life in poetry

Patrick Phillips lives in Brooklyn. Here’s a poem fromElegy for a Broken Machine published by Alfred A. Knopf.

I chose this because I sang lullabies to my husband while he was dying.They were what my dad had sung to me when I was little,before he died prematurely.

The Singing

I can hear her through

the thin wall, singing,

up before the sun:

two notes, a kind

of hushed half-breathing,

each time the baby

makes that little moan—

can hear her trying

not to sing, then singing

anyway, a thing so old

it might as well

be Hittite or Minoan,

and so soft no one

would ever guess

that I myself once

sang that very song:

back when my son

and then his brother

used to cry all night

or half the morning,

though nothing in all

the world was wrong.

And now how strange:

to be the man from next door,

listening, as the baby cries

then quiets, cries and quiets

each time she sings

their secret song,

that would sound the same ten

thousand years ago,

and has no

meaning but to calm.

Give them the boot

Cognitive distortions

Affect our emotions

We can’t see very well

So we make life hell.

Why should we suffer

And not some other b*gger.

If we are going to lose

We’ll destroy whatever we choose.

Even if it’s our own

Destructive seeds are sown

They can’t raise their hats

I have made friends with my excessive anxiety

And welcomed my split off cold rage.

But my errant inner voices,

Don’l approve of my choices.

They are refusing to accept or engage.

I know it’s not normal to marry

And most of us now deviate.

But my mind has its ailments

For which I take payments

In order to feel second rate.

They once told us we were too humble

Then we became over- proud

We never felt right

As we preyed in the night.

For with compulsions we’re over endowed

I decided to give up religion

And God really thought I was right.

He don’t like the Vatican

Took off his hat again.

His head was a powerful site.

I put my husband in the cupboard

And got into bed with a plate.

It was rather hard

And should have been barred

As we were unfit for our fate.

A man can be a useful accessory

If you go into the town

They are made of money

And are frequently funny

If f left in the sun they ‘re more brown.

But treat men with awe if you meet one

They suffer from low self esteem

They can’t raise their hats

Nor make butter pats.

And they tweet about what might have been.

It’s too late

There was a young lady called Bates
Who had a strong yearning to mate
But no men was around

So she fell to the ground,

Crying,oh fluck,I have left it too late!

Then up came a large furry cat

Wearing a coat and a hat.

The cat offered marriage

and a honeymoon in the garage.

How will her parents take that?

The owl also came down from his tree

He said,Will you please marry me?

I know you can’t fly,

I’ve been watching you try,

But we could live in a boat on the sea.

So in the end she has two wild house mates.

This seems to be the fashion of late.

They spend alternate nights

Debating their rights,

And pondering her puzzling new fate.

A human being made from some old wood

I fell over this morning for no reason while hoovering the sitting room and then found a dead rat under the stairs.What next?

I saw a doctor with a wooden leg

For his attention we now have to beg

The leg was oak

I had a poke

But he felt nothing, so he later said

Some humans look as if they ‘re entirely wood

I’d find it hard to tempt one if I could

For wooden bodies don’ t feel joy

And wooden heads no fun employ.

So on the whole I feel that wood ain’t good.

The same of me

I wish to live despite my love has died

And I have no-one but a cat to feed and stroke.

In memory my love will long abide

Though as I write I feel my spring has broke.

My grammar and my spelling are perverse

I used to make religion out of these.

But now I feel that life is getting worse.

As if my heart’s been stung by monstrous bees

In such a state my words may get confused

My sentences are senseless as they’re writ

And as for syntax, it is now abused

As round this room the ghosts of lovers flit.

My grammar is not perfect yet it be

Sad I can say just the same of me

Harass and intrude

The day is passing as our days must do

The sun shines on the holly berries bright

Soon it will be time for me and you.

We must accept the dying of the light.

To fight is not what nature needs

Surrender is the better way to go.

The cat lies hidden in the thickest weeds.

For they have knowledge we folk do not know

At times in life, we fight so many foes

Threats and needs harass and intrude

And as we age we observe highs and lows

In our free time, we suffer and we brood.

Consciousness gives rise to anguished hearts

Yet into death we go and thought departs

Cat

The humor of buying gloves on line

I used to have some sheepskin mittens years ago and as I do have cold hands I wondered whether to buy another pai,

They came in three sizes and next to that was a box that you click on to check the sizes.The only problem was that the measurements it gave were for bras

!I don’t know if there is any correlation between the size of lady’s bosom and her hand size.If there is I have never hears it mentioned.So no doubt I shall wait until I feel ok to go shopping in a real shop.

At last ending and Alfred’s real name

After 4.3 months I have finally ended my practical tasks related to my bereavement.I had to make about 14 phone calls to the Customs and Revenue and only later did I realise that the young man had not been able to explain the tax to me but I worked it out myself.It might have been easier to take to my bed and lie down for three months.

I located Alfred’s owner.His real name is Luca and he is definitely male.She said he is nervous but he seems very calm unless I accidentally stand on his foot.But the cat always hangs around purring for food so it’s not easy to keep him safe

We ate it all up on a scone.

Do you like growing tomatoes

I had to make lots of jam

They tasted like strawberries

I can’t rhyme with odd fairies

But it went very well with my spam.

I found a jar in the pantry

It said it was from the year 81,

It’s 24 plus years old

And still looks like molten gold

We ate it all up on a scone.

Scones are my passion at teatime

Especially the ones made with cheese.

They cook in 12 minutes

So it’s never a limit.

The left over ones will all freeze.

You need some more bags for your freezer?

Well ,do get the very thick ones

Or else they’ll be ice damaged

Irrevocably ice savaged

What a waste of some great homemade scones

My cat visitor

The week before my husband died, a black cat kept coming in to see me.That’s because the door was open a lot.Lately it has been chillier.As an experiment I opened the cat flap and late one evening as I sat here reading Alfred suddenly appeared looking extremely pleased with himself.Hes sat on my knee and stuck his nose into my arm pit.Just like a man.I realised that to maintain his interest I shall have to give up using a . deodorant It’s so nice when someone likes you for who you are even if he is only a cat.Maybe he will come and sleep on my bed

I am not quite sure if the cat is male as I don’t like to peep down there.However since he wears no jewellery or ear rings I guess he is a boy cat.A tomboy

We create another soul

4662161_f260 2

Sometimes my hands curl up,
and other times,they open.
Then I feel the air;
My fingers relax.
I touch your hand;
uncurl it and press it to mine.
Palm on palm,it’s no secret
that palms connect to hearts.
In your face I see a hint of melancholy,
I feel it in my soul..
as if there was a secret connection..
thought how,I don’t know.
Somehow,touching, we create another soul,
Neither you nor I, but we……
Touching,need to be physical..
We know how a story can affect us that way.
What a gift to know we have touched someone…
In the heart.’s. most tender space.The place of love.
Both true and false,my palm is lonely.
Then I feel the caress of summer air..
To touch is to be touched
as one soul opens to another..
Vulnerable,human,loving,
Painful and illusory,like those dreams of childhood.
Now I go,first gripping, then loosening our hands.
Goodbye,we say,Goodbye

On Walls

http://www.cbc.ca/books/2013/01/marcello-di-cintio-on-his-book-walls.html

We are so near and yet so far apart

The wall of stone makes concrete all our fears.

For even if we change our minds and hearts

This wall and all its meanings will endure.

Even in suburban avenues

Men have knifed their neighbours in red rage

We hate those people who have different views

And cypress trees too tall feel like a cage.

We long for closeness,yet we fear too much.

Strong,invulnerable we would like to be.

Yet, without open hearts, we darkness touch;

And into hellish flames , we foolish flee..

No wall endures forever nor does fame

When we reach our deaths we’re all the same

For everyone

Sun rose,

travelled in a lower curve than summer

so that only for one hour

I saw its light

through the red leaves

of my acers.

Short burst of beauty thrilled my heart

Would that we could make the sun shine

For everyone

For dreams can work in harmony with will

I only began to write sonnets a few months ago.I was afraid to try as I imagined it was very hard,but eventually I wanted to try.I sometimes do find it difficult but I am enjoying it now.I was reading a book by Leslie Farber called,The Ways of the Will.In this he says that anxiety neurosis is caused by, “trying to will what cannot be willed.”I found that idea fascinating.

We can make ourselves lie down,but we cannot sleep by will power.

We can sit at a desk all day but cannot will ourselves to get inspiration.

I am sure you can think of many examples yourselves.So we need will sometimes but also we need to allow things to happen;we are not always in control.. we cannot be but we wish to be.

Think of our brains and bodies… it’s all outside our control…as is most of the Universe,God and all… despite our technology and science.

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.

From the News

Whatever evil humankind may do,

The sun will rise and shine on one and all.

Mercy ,grace and love are spread anew

As apples ripen and the sweet birds call.

What is the mystery of the world we know;

That God looks with dispassion on us all?

And what his wondrous virtues are to show

When wolves attack and murder does appall.

Will heaven compensate the refugees

Who starve in camps when money is withheld.

From those who gave us prophets and great seers

We see confusion,fear then ethics felled.

So often we are blind to wider views

And get mere entertainment from the News

Need I say more?

How things are

7821302_ecf18c80c3_m

Who you should be

Tension is who you think you should be.Relaxation is who you are.
Chinese proverb

A possible Xmas gift to a lover

This is a real book for sale.I don’t usually lke these things but sometimes they can be amusing.

To my local hospital

Dear Director

I walked into your hospital grounds yesterday but as A and E has been knocked down I found it hard to locate the Urgent Care clinic.After half an hour I was reduced to agibbering wreck and had to be taken there by wheel chair.

Why are there no signs nor any staff around?I have never had a daytime experience that was so exactly similar to a nightmare.

I also want to point out that shouting and moaning outside the building was not a sign of a mental breakdown nor a panic attack.It was a rational decision as if nobody found me I might have got pneumonia.

By the way I don’t think much of your wheelchairs.Nor did I expect to be in one before I had even seen the doctor.Despite my condition no-one asked me whether I had anyone here at home to help me.Hence it was 11 pm before I could get myself some food.And 1 am before I got to bed

I hope you catch some horrible incurable skin disease or even leprosy and have to wait 19 hours in the A and E place with no food or drink.Then you might find out what it is like for people like me.

If I were young enough to emigrate I would be leaving asap.I prefer the foreigners to you stuck up English prats who have no thought for the common people.And why have you not made a new map of the site.?

How can a cab find where to drop me when they have no map or any other info

Yours nastily

A mad woman

The heart of darkness

Indifference tolls the knell of humankind

So easy just to turn our eyes away

We often self deceive or mimic blind;

So Hitler goosestepped while foolish Pope but prayed

How bright the candlelight on Christmas trees

And tender children widen joyous eyes

Yet for the other,we will hear no pleas.

At every heartbeat “foreign” babies die..

Can we love any but those with our same ?

what sense the story in which Arab aiding Jew?

Is the underlying truth not seen

As Jesus said the chosen are but few

We split the world into a double view

The good, the bad,the heart of darkness slew.

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