Day: March 7, 2016

Stan and the angel

  • Stan had eaten too much pizza because he was extremely ravenous from doing the washing. and hanging it up on the mulberry tree in his long garden Now he felt lazy and haphazardly fey and other worldly and liable to have visions..Now and then he saw an angel whom he called Yael in his home.But having looked up Yael on a website he realised she was not a very nice woman unlike his dear wife Mary.So he was planning a new name for the angel with her permissiom
  • Do you mind if I change your name,he enquired gently when Yael came in through the French window.
    Well,what to? Yael asked him familiarly
    How about Ysabel? Stan offered.It’s got just an extra b and s.
    Or how about,Sybael?
    You seem fond of b and s, the angel answered in confusion.
    It was just mere chance,said Stan somewhat defensively.
    Ok I’ll take Sybael,the angel said loudly .
    I want to change my name too, said Emile the cat of Stan.
    How about Mebiles or Melibes or Eimbles….
    I don’t know, pouted the cat haughtily.
    How about Semile,said Stan.Though it has no letter b in it, he brooded
    They all pondered quietly as the sun shone in through the window and made a lovely lacy pattern on the wall.
    In came Mary,Stan’s sweet old wife and his computer aided extension too.
    You are very quiet,she murmured.What’s going on here ?
    We are tring to find a new name for Emile,Stan told her as Sybael waved her wings about.
    It seems very draughty in here,Mary said.And Emile can’t change his name because it will change his personality.
    I didn’t know I had a personality,the little cat purred noisily.
    It is what is most characteristic of you.For example, if you always hurt those you love then you have a cruel personality or you have got diabetes.Some people want love but they are too harsh and demanding.
    So true,Stan added pensively as he thought back over his life.
    Anyway,I have some awfully strange news,Mary went on.
    You just won’t believe this but Dorothy Grey who lives at the bottom of the hill has just had a heart attack.
    How come
    She had an online love relationship with a rather peculiar but intriguing and clever elderly man who turned out to be a sadist in disguise.So when she ended it he flew over and attacked her with an air gun and some cat’s claws which he had bought from a cat market
    Is he a wizard,asked Emile.
    No, he flew on a stolen magic carpet from Persia.
    Persian carpets,I’d love one here said the cat greedily
    Actually it’s a kind of plane,said Stan. knowledgeably
    How boring ,said Mary angrily.
    Anyway Dorothy was so shocked her arteries spasmed and she is in A and E now on morphine,she added…
    What a shame that she got that instead of a spasm elsewhere….Stan muttered thinking of Freud and fountain pens.
    But who’d have sex with such a horrible old man? Mary asked in puzzlement.
    An equally horrible old woman,maybe? Stan riposted laughing.
    Any way it all goes to show the dangers of online love, he informed the room.
    It’s not real love,is it, because in real love the other person is as important to you as yourself.Mary said theologically.
    Well. now Eros is a kind of love,too.But many old men just want their washing done and a companion.Eros has departed from their world.
    Sybael smiled and then flew out of the window.
    What was that noise, said Mary anxiously.
    Just an angel’s wings,said Stan quietly
    If only Dorothy had seen an angel instead of that harsh old man she might be much better now.Mary mused.
  • But not everyone can see them.Their world seems full of horrible old men and beautiful young women
    Emile winked at Stan and then ran out to chase a butterfly amongst the scented tulips.. there were lots of angels there every day but only he knew that.
    Angels don’t like big modern cities but they like old abbeys and cathedrals and moorlands and mountains  and places where such things used to be before post modernist architecture took over.
    And cat’s claws are not meant for scratching your loved ones either.And online dating should be avoided except with atheists and agnostics.They are less judgemental about women’s place and roles.It’s strange how harsh many religious people are.Harsh and unforgiving.Very strange it is,thought Stan as he boiled the teapot on the stove.
  • Let’s all have a nice cup of tea,he murmured.Angels too.5346929_e6134c3279_m

Mary’s clothes and songs

5356006_967ca7cd14_m

http://youtu.be/IEVow6kr5nI
Just before Stan’s funeral a heatwave began.Mary realised her outfit, which her sister had  kindly chosen was too heavy for summertime.
She called into a small department store full of delightful garments.Unfortunately most were more suitable for a nightclub than a chapel.A black dress caught her eye.It had a somewhat low neckline which was decorated with a deep gold band.
Mary decided it was more suitable for Queen Cleopatra than a British woman.After a few minutes she found a lovely thin black jacket and a long drapey skirt.She rewarded herself with a large cup of coffee and observed the scene around.
Many of the women were wearing the dresses Mary had thought were for dancing and nightclubs while the rest wore jeans with T shirts saying:
No Size Fashion
or
Free women now!
Stop staring!
Most of the women were rather plump so their busts stuck out with the words going up and down some invisible contour lines across the small mountain range their bosoms resembled.No wonder when the counter in the cafe was stacked with almond and chocolate croissants.Definitely an occassion of sin and for sin.
The next morning Mary showed her new outfit to Annie who had called to help her.
You can’t wear that,Annie screeched musically .The skirt is blue!
Well if it is it is dark blue,Mary cried.It looked black in the shop to me.
You will have to go back and change it.And you must buy some makeup too..
What,for a funeral?
Yes,said Annie who was wearing pink and purple eyeshadow from Pax Wacter combined with sun protective foundation by Minxette in deep beige.Her lashes were dyed purple and her brows had been groomed in a way which gave the impression she was constantly in a state of severe surprise or shock.Her thick juicy lips were painted a lurid orange from Revlon of Timbuctoo and Shanghai which meant that any man who kissed her would never be able to conceal their sin from their wives or partners.How hard life can be at times.Or even all the time for some of us.
You must dress entirely in black and it will make you look pale but don’t worry you can have some of my makeup
Will the colour suit me,asked Mary plaintively.
I think you can wear any colour now your hair has gone that horrible shade of pale.
You are a bit rude,Mary said but I  can take the hint.
http://youtu.be/Mb3iPP-tHdA
After Annie left Mary phoned an old friend of hers and asked him what he thought of her clothes problem.
Black and blue will look very good,he told her.As long as it’s dignified and dark the colour is immaterial.
That’s nice,Mary thought,as she hated shopping and was unsure how much income she would have as a widow
5356187_b63a55d438_s.jpg
Being practical a dark blue skirt is something a woman can wear any time whereas black is not so good in the daytime unless you are a business woman.
Mind you,after you visit any town centre in Britain you will see sights of women in strange and tight clothing that will both amuse and appall you though most of us are used to it now,I expect.
My goodness, Mary said to herself,what hard work it is losing a husband.I should have hired a boat and thrown him into the sea or even buried him in the back garden.That would have been better than all this kerfuffle.So she decided to turn her mind to higher things.
5346929_e6134c3279_m
I must admit to a confusion of the sublime and the ridiculous here but that is how it has been lately,including an ancient hymn being labelled as sexist.

A poem about mothers

Blythburgh_church_-_roof_angel
 xuk-suffolk-blythburgh-church-ahnfpy

 IMG_0025
IMG_0016

 IMG_0009
7134238_f520
12294895_638742139599001_6528697835114099297_n
 
Photo0295
American Life in Poetry

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Facebook Like Button Tweet Button

In my limited experience, mothering and worrying go hand in hand. Here’s a mother’s worry poem by Richard Jarrette, from his fine book, A Hundred Million Years of Nectar Dances. He lives in California.

My Mother Worries About My Hat

Every spring my mother says I should buy a straw
hat so I won’t overheat in summer.
I always agree but the valley’s soon cold, and besides
my old Borsalino is nearly rain-proof.
She’s at it again, it’s August, the grapes are sugaring.
I say, Okay, and pluck a little spider from her hair—
hair so fine it can’t hold even one of her grandmother’s
tortoise shell combs.

Terracotta dishes

I ‘ve had to buy some smaller dishes

The old ones are too big for  only me

I weep as in the bowl I  gently wash

The ones we used  to use when we had tea.

 

Here’s a terracotta  Spanish pan.

We  filled to entertain our friends.

Y0ur dish of onions and lamb;

Tomatoes added to the blend.

 

Here’s a souffle dish  for  six  or eight .

Cheese or lemon,  you enjoyed them both.

And here are all the dinner plates.

Too separate from these, I’m   feeling loth.

 

I don’t know if I’ll cook for friends again

They’ve not cooked for me just lately.

Are they afraid I’ll steal their man?

They  state their reasons so politely.

 

In the guide for widows I was told

Prepare to lose some friends and then some more.

I don’t want their men so  mild yet bold

I’ve closed   the windows and   I’ve locked the doors

 

I feel they compliment me as they think

I’m so  alluring  I can pull again.

But I have  had enough of  loveless links.

I don’t want any  cast off ,needy  men.

 

I dry the pyrex and the copper.

I dry the lids and  muse on  colours

What shall I have for my supper?

What  healthy diet shall I follow?

 

I just want to be with you one hour.

A   cup of Earl Grey of tea, a chance to talk.

But I accept that will be nevermore,

Like my hand in yours on our  long walks

 

I didn’t know that you were dying

The doctors are afraid of saying.

I wish you were  in my arms, just lying.

I’ve tired of churches and of praying.

 

I felt that tendon in your  gentle hand

You turned  around and smiled so brightly.

Then the curtains of  your death descend.

You slipped away so  soft, so quietly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So nice?

 

 

 

https://litreactor.com/columns/happy-grammar-day-10-facts-about-grammar-you-can-use-to-annoy-your-loved-ones

 

The meanings of words change all the time. Some words even shift to mean the opposite of the original meaning and then shift back again. Take the word nice, for example. From Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue:

A word that shows just how wide-ranging these changes can be is nice, which was first recorded in 1290 with the meaning of stupid and foolish. Seventy-five years later Chaucer was using it to mean lascivious and wanton. Then at various times over the next 400 years it came to mean extravagant, elegant, strange, slothful, unmanly, luxurious, modest, slight, precise, thin, shy, discriminating, dainty, and—by 1769—pleasant and agreeable. The meaning shifted so frequently and radically that it is now often impossible to tell in what sense it was intended, as when Jane Austen wrote to a friend, “You scold me so much in a nice long letter . . . which I have received from y

In each flower

 
Walking on this quiet path

I see trees leaning their patterned branches into the wind.

I see old walls;

Gravestones lined up against one wall.

I see a sparrow

and some greenish lichen where the wall protrudes.

How good this silence sounds

To my inner ear.

Like Hopkin’s silence

Elected,now exalted…

Sing to me

And  I will hear you.

Speak to me and I will praise you.

In each lineament of this world

We see you.

In each flower and leaf

Your name is written.

Since she whom I loved

I love this.I wanted to have it at the funeral but my sister said it was too sombre.But I feel better when I listen to it.You can get all of these sonnets set to music by Benjamin Britten.They are called the Holy Sonnets.I believe he wrote them after his wife died.

No Man Is An Island – Poem by John Donne

https://youtu.be/AUmbXVqQbKM

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

John Donne

Metaphysical poets

John_Donne_BBC_News

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2691536

John Donne,the most famous.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_poets

The metaphysical poets is a term coined by the poet and critic Samuel Johnsonto describe a loose group of English lyric poets of the 17th century, whose work was characterized by the inventive use of conceits, and by speculation about topics such as love or religion. These poets were not formally affiliated; most of them did not even know one another or read one another’s work. Given this lack of coherence as a movement and the great diversity of style between poets, it has been suggested that calling them Baroque poets after their era might be more useful.