Month: May 2017

My big toe’s red,I feel a piercing ache

What’s wrong with you?
They think that I’ve got  gout
My big toe’s red,
I feel a piercing ache
Oh, I’ve got Parkinson’s .I feel depressed.
The doctor never sees me when undressed.
Him or you?Be careful with your speech
Are you trained  to join the word police?
No, I’ve got  swollen kidneys on my back
I brought some paper;I will draw more graphs.
Do you feel the gout is getting worse?
No , it’s menstruation, women’s curse.
You should let your mind go blank like verse.
My advice is,  care and never curse
But what about this blood on my big toe?
That is not where menstrual blood should flow.
I know that but maybe as it’s low
The blood sinks down and emigrates like snow.
Pardon me for parking on your blog
I need a place to  come to with this dog
This is Urgent Care we don’t do pets
Are you telling me you have no vets?
That is right, we  only take Great Brits
By the way,  a wondrous pair of tits.
I think they’re blue but I am not quite sure
Take your top off, let me see your flower.
This is not the place for  casual sex
I’m serious.I’d love to  bite your neck
But that is like Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath
We must not go down that terror path
And if you’re really ill , you have no power.
I rent some from the station by the hour!
So to function in that way.  you’ve just been wired
I’m the  manager.Get out, you are fired
Can patients now be fired like men from work?
No, more like bombs that go off when I smirk
Well,I guess it keeps the patients down
Tell the management that Labour frowns
What’s this, more patients coming to be healed
OMG, it’s Donald Trump on wheels.
Is he disabled by some rare disease?
Maybe the Israelis  asked him to say please
No, he has not seen Bibi as yet
Thank the Lord, he looks like one beset
He’s with the Saudis, where will he abide?
I am mental, please tell me no lies.
They say he likes to sleep in his own bed
Don’t we all,?I’ll build one in my head
I wonder what he’ll say to Pope Francis?
I am gonna take mankind down this abyss
And I’m gonna test my great big nuclear bum
When I shout go, I want you all to come!
I’m feeling worse, I wish that I were home.
Urgent Care has turned my mind , I groan.

 

 

A potent feeling of your presence here

I sense you just behind me as I write
A potent feeling of your presence here
But turning round, there’s no one in my sight

Here I love to sit in gentle light
The shadows and the pools are how I steer
I sense your arms around me as I write

I like to go to bed when it is late
Another day gone, love, and still I fear.
Feeling round, there’s no-one in my night

I think I’ll get a passport and escape
Love’s gone missing; now men merely leer
I sense him just behind me as I write

My heavy feelings  enfold me, they drape
Bring me down to earth and atmosphere
I turn round, there’s no man at the gate.

In my side, I feel again the spear
I ask for aid but nobody can hear
I sense you just behind me as I write
But flailing now, there’s no one in my night

 

 

Baroque

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Word of the Day : May 20, 2017
 https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day

baroque

play

adjective buh-ROHK

Definition

1 : of, relating to, or having the characteristics of a style of artistic expression prevalent especially in the 17th century that is marked generally by use of complex forms, bold ornamentation, and the juxtaposition of contrasting elements often conveying a sense of drama, movement, and tension

2 : characterized by grotesqueness, extravagance, complexity, or flamboyance

Examples

Though I was interested in the book’s subject matter, I was put off by the baroquedescriptions the author seemed to favor.

“The Rev. Canon Patrick Malloy, the priest who oversees arts-related projects at the cathedral …, said the idea was to recreate a Baroque chapel and show the tapestries differently from when they hung over the transepts.” — James Barron, The New York Times, 21 Mar. 2017

Did You Know?

Baroque came to English from the French word barroque, meaning “irregularly shaped.” At first, the word in French was used mostly to refer to pearls. Eventually, it came to describe an extravagant style of art characterized by curving lines, gilt, and gold. This type of art, which was prevalent especially in the 17th century, was sometimes considered to be excessively decorated and overly complicated. It makes sense, therefore, that the meaning of the word baroque has broadened to include anything that seems excessively ornate or elaborate.

To comfort those who need eternal rest

Oh,  teapot round you are a  soothing breast
To comfort those who need eternal rest
For in the meantime we must do our work
As dust and dandruff  and algebra all lurk

Oh, teapot let me sing your praise anew
The best thing in my life is feeling you
And pouring over tea made with loose leaves
Some brandy liquidised with Chesire cheese

For after doing  real analysis
My mind is in a state of bitter mess.
Those functions and those forms make my head reel
I need a fishing rod, whose shall we steal?

Ted Hughes said he often fished for his ideas.;
That meditation soothes the minds of seers

My mother was the mistress of the leaf

I can’t write a poem, they all tell me.
Can you write a letter, read the tea?
My mother was  the mistress of the leaf
Paper, tea or even legal briefs.

She told my fortune after I  drank wee.
You’ve swallowed all the leaves, how can this be?
You’ll never be well off  despite your mind
Yett you’ll never want for love, you are so kind.

I tore a leaf from out her book of cheese.
I wrote a free verse on it, just to tease.
She said she  preferred to read the sonnet form
Or  humour, as the laughter kept her warm

Oh, mother how I wish  to hear you laugh
I  have a sense of humour and  much love

The electric world of love

 

Touch me with your silence and your words
Embrace me through your language and your love
Let us share our beautiful new world
From the lowly earth to stars above

Touch me with your silence and your song
Embrace me with the tunes of love and note
Eloquent your talent, pleasure brings
And makes us closer when one feels remote.

Touch me with your silence and your tongue
Embrace me with your body warm, serene.
Babel was a punishment for wrong
I have always felt the goodness of your being.

Two lovers make a pact to ever be
Kind and gentle in their subtlety

What’s of value’s not by effort bought.

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I have  filled my mind   with  dreams   and thoughts
I have drawn conclusions  that seem real.
What’s of  value’s not by effort bought.

As Ted Hughes said,  his fishing was the sport
Which brought both meditation and a meal.
I have   studied minds   and  dreams   and thoughts

We see ,like that,   new images are caught.
In silence and in noticing  the feel
What’s of  value’s not by effort bought.

What we find may not be what we sought
At  first ,it may not show its wise appeal
I have  found  my mind   through  dreams   and thoughts

In the night the images  take flight.
God’s lioness  destroys what  is  congealed
What’s of  value’s not by effort wrought.

Like a butterfly, a flowering dart
Of love and beauty  which was once concealed
I have  found my mind  by  dreams, my  wordless thoughts.
What’s of  value’s not by effort bo

The art of travel is to guess

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Words structured make a map for me
Sentences enable me to see.
But there are maps of other kinds
And different maps suit different minds.

The artist with her skilled brushstrokes,
Her unique sense of the world evokes.
This goes straight to the heart and tells
Of feelings’ deep, unfathomed wells.

The sweet, plain singing of the spheres
Moves those who hear to happy tears.
Yet notes are written on just five lines
From these flow all music’s rhythms

There are so many different worlds,
Which all these maps to us unfurl.
The Art of Travel is to guess
Which Map will suit which World the best.

Silence has its melodies within

Silence has its melodies within
Subtle like an aromatic spice.
Underneath the violence and the  din

When entertaining, silence is a sin.
Surely making dinner is fair price
Let guests release the thoughts they’ve kept within

I cooked fresh food,  used nothing  much pre-tinned
Then I had to entertain them with my life
Wrapping up the  cracked  plates with the  sin

There they sat, my food upon their chins.
Gazing full of greed, those content thieves.
Stupor has more melodies within

Women then as cruel as  gentlemen
Underground, divorce grew, wild, aggrieved
Companionable with violence, drunk on gin

Some went crazy, some became bereaved
Lost, their lives, their work, their dreams
Silence has its melodies within
We prefer the violence  and the din

Sonnets are for all of us

Source
  1. A sonnet is a poetic form which originated in Italy; Giacomo Da Lentini is credited with its invention. The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto (from Old Provençal sonet a little poem, from son song, from Latin sonus a sound).Wikipedia

You must read

When you are writing you will be using whatever you have stocked your mind with.So reading poetry and fiction and other writing is crucial.and of course your life and what has happened to you or your society will be present in your writing.I find keeping a l journal of things which make an emotional impact on me is helpful.Read what you like but not rubbish.

Starting with the sonnet form

The first line of Gray’s Elegy has the right meter.for a sonnet.

“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.”

So you must write a line to that music:

The clouds rise up and buzz across the sky

for example; then you need a second line.I find these two lines must be interesting.emotional and deep or symbolic.After that, the structure determines to some extent how you can develop your poem…Fourteen lines according to the pattern below.

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Sonnets are usually serious but it is possible to write a humorous one.Historically it was the metaphysical poets who wrote this way about love and death…John Donne is one of them..He wrote

No man is an island

/Brightness
 
Eve's temptation
 

Sonnet on writing a poem

Poetry is the art of shaping words
The structure contributes to make it whole.
And writing sonnets is not just for us nerds.
Creating structures helps create our souls.

Yet many folks are frightened by the risk
Of imperfection, criticism and pain.
But for myself, I love this tempting task.
And daily I sit down to write again.

Though what I write may not be alpha plus.
The chance to share my feelings lures me on.
And when I travel on a London bus
I take a notebook lest my thought be gone.

We each can be creative in our way
And find through it our happiness. every day

Electric Cheetah

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Was this Earth designed for life or death,
When wired up cheetahs surf the desert sands
Seeking prey to stave off hunger’s wrath?
This hunt’s repeated over all our lands.

And in deep sea of green, we find the curse
Of being pursuer or of becoming prey.
Blood in water looks to me much worse
Yet God requires that we should kneel and pray

Rare flowers can snatch and eat the striped bee
Programmed by their genes this way to feed.
I grieve a  violent God exacts a fee.
Even loves to see his creatures as they bleed.

Nature soothes our souls when life’s all green.
Yet tiger springs and cares not when we scream

More subtle is the need to do no harm

What love and friendship can at once entail
Are boundaries elastic and yet firm.
Yet even that is but a mere detail
More subtle is the need to do .no harm

For in the flush of youthful spirits strong
We do not like to know that all love fades
nor when it does a lover may do wrong
So to evil, he may find out he has paid
And with the stone-faced demons, he belongs.

Thus friendship love and joy involve the will
To take the other as she comes to be
For all our goodness there may be a bill
Acknowledge this, it follows truth we’ll see.

Accepting that perfection is remote
We play our tunes and suffer every note

Think again

 

ShowImageWe see that the government is withholding NHS performance data until after the Election.I wonder why that is? Could it be that it is not very good?
One reason why there are more people in A  &E  is the following
A cardiologist who diagnosed my husband’s severe problems wished to admit him into hospital  then.At one time he could have done the referral himself.However, he told me he could only do it nowadays by sending us to A & E.After previous experiences I absolutely refused and brought him home.[He was finally admitted  in  ” an end of life situation”  late one evening and died the next afternoon]

So do you want Tories making more “savings” like this?
Are you willing to pay a bit more tax if you earn over £80,000 per annum?
Do you believe you will live forever and never have a serious accident or fatal illness?
Think again

Complaining at the absence of sweet rain

Complaining at the absence of  sweet rain
Complaining  now dull clouds keep out the sun
Who is it that we will seek to blame,
Complaining at the absence of our rain?
Too much  water  flows straight down the drains
The  front flower beds, the  soft green lawns have gone
Complaining at the absence of sweet rain
Complaining now grey clouds keep out the sun.

 

Complaining at the absence of  sweet rain
We park our cars in gardens paved and cold
The  lawns  once soaked now what goes down the drains
The paving stones con’t take the water in.
So we grumble and we constantly proclaim
The government must take some action bold
Complaining at the absence of  sweet rain
We park our cars on gardens paved and cold

 

Complaining at the absence of  sweet rain
We  notice not just what our cars have done
We think of our own wishes in the main
Do not see that nature’s not to blame
The worms and beetles knew they’d not remain;
Made exit in a lengthy night parade.
Complaining at the absence of  sweet rain
We never see the world our cars have made.

The black cat’s run, the birds unfold all day

The sky is stark, the air is cool and still
The black cat’s run, the birds unfold all day
I sit down here and with my totty pray
Ye cast o’ foolish thoughts, you raped my will.
We’ve each enraged the bureaucratic mill.
Oh frigid purse, I never meant to pay!
The sky ‘s a-spark, the air is warm and shrill
The saturnine , demoted, knelled their way
With this feathered pounce, my sample quill,
I cite the cheque and date it for next May.
Oh, tit for cat, the tiger’s bed ‘s astray.
Yer life is settled by a harlot’s will
The sky ‘s a shark, the air is cooler still,

Confusion melds the disparate into one

Confusion melds the disparate into  one
We forget distinctions and combine unlike.
Paranoia  circles   like a  shrieking bomb

We’re acting in a film and come undone
The villain and the victim pass our sight
Confusion melds the disparate into  one

The victory of deep  secrets comes undone
At most, we hope to see  the ghost alight
Paranoia  panics   thus; oh,  shrieking bomb

The light of ages is not made for fun
Some are merely nibbled, some take bites
Confusion melds the disparate into  one

At last, there is the silence of the tomb
After death, we  choose the sacred rites
Paranoia   circles  in the  shrinking room

What can happen, what is given rights
What we see and what is our of sight
Confusion melds the disparate into  one
Paranoia  sparkles  like a speaking bomb

Bedouin

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bedouin

“Most Bedouins are animal herders who migrate into the desert during the rainy winter season and move back toward the cultivated land in the dry summer months. Bedouin tribes have traditionally been classified according to the animal species that are the basis of their livelihood. Camel nomads occupy huge territories and are organized into large tribes in the Sahara, Syrian, and Arabian deserts. Sheep and goat nomads have smaller ranges, staying mainly near the cultivated regions of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. Cattle nomads are found chiefly in South Arabia and in Sudan, where they are called Baqqārah (Baggara). Historically many Bedouin groups also raided trade caravans and villages at the margins of settled areas or extracted payments from settled areas in return for protection.”

The Bedouins, refugees from other times
The places were they live are still the same
But other people founded States and took
The deserts where they roamed , ancestral nooks.

Ther little tents of black on the hillsides
Have not changed from Mediaeval times
But now they are like flies, unwanted guests
Who will know the tremor in their breasts?

Cruel is the heart of humankind,
The Commandments spat on daily by men blind.
The Bedouins of our spirit need to be
Allowed their space, allowed  their deserts free

Post-truth, post-God, post meaning, post remorse?

o Who should speak, which people have a voice?
Can we trust the ones who’ve told such lies
Post-truth, post-God, post meaning, post remorse?

If we’re wounded, who shall give recourse?
Does it matter to them what we’re tortured by?
Who should speak, which people own their voice?

If we hear bad news, what is its source?
See the bodies , hear the babies cry,
Post-truth, post-God, post meaning, post remorse?

Can we spread democracy by force?
Is it still democracy post-war?
Who should speak, which people own their voice?

Which of all the methods is the choice?
What is politics the reason for,
Post-truth, post-God, post meaning, post remorse?

If I speak, will you believe I lie?
The tongues of angels whisper,what of Troy
Who should speak, which people have a voice?
Post-truth, post-God, post meaning, post remorse

 

 

The menu for today

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Menu

1.Avocado cares with free lemon juice  9/6 each
Melon and ape salad with free dressing [ elastoplast] 7/6
Marmite jelly on toes  3/6
Mock curtain  jelly 8/6
Hot carrot spook and bed roll 11/6 [no sleeping bugs]

 

2,  All £2 10 shillings and 5 pence

Lamp chops with risque chips and Brussels
Vegetarian Roast Leaf and frozen Yorks pudding.
Potato pie and  cucumber ballad
Chicken Flies with Curried Wings and Lice

3. Free:  Just desserts

Jellied blackberries and short head with stream
Plane Yoghurt and Scream
Whose Berry Fools with Lemon Noose.
Cheese and Friskies.
Celery stalks and green water cries.For vegetarians
Chocolate Mice [ real mice if the trap works]
Poison Pie with bastard

 

 

Those little commas

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All beds to be re-combusted daily.
All china to be smashed before viewers
Tea towels which fall on the floor to be awakened before use
No dogs bowed to in kitchen or hallways
Cats enter on owner’s fist or else.
Please be polit , as being alive often offends.
Do not wait too long.Hit the roof if needs be
Do not question me, if I speak Double Dutch.I am it  wielly   learning  thee slowlier than Buber.

 

Please thank  our  neighbours before screaming in bed, especially while asleep.
Please leave our grooms better than you find them.Microfibre clothes and Ajax in the wardrobe.Dusters behind the door or in the washing machine.
Remember we have no maids; please cook your own goose.Not provided.
My wife makes herself useful in the puddings as you see in our menu.No flavours
Do not giggle or gurgle while asleep as the walls are very thin.
No sex except on Sundays or, by prior arrangement, with the manager.

Did he feel his freedom was well worth 2

I read  fine books on poetry by Plath
Her genius arrived clearly, what a force….
An edgy woman emitting sharp, bright wrath

An immigrant, her German roots surpassed
Two languages  entwined, a unique voice
I read  the wanton works of Sylvia Plath

She early found her voice, direct of path
But fate was inconsistent with her choice.
Mercurial, she  troubled love with wrath

Her suicide predictable as maths;
Her suffering and her German soul  flew loose
I voiced the books of poetry by Plath

Her problem was in finding a true man
She had more faith from Ariel her horse
This vital woman, torment gave at last

Did  he feel his freedom was well worth
Hearing the electric blackbird’s  curse?
I read the brave, mad poetry of Plath
Imperious, what  vocabulary, what mass!

The Forest Door 2

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The kitchen floor was cleaner than before
The Iron Age Curtain , wall without a door.
The steam, the heat intense, un-layers.

The unconscious mind is timeless, is prepared.
How do we discover what it’s stored?
Is Britain sacred,classier than before?

All work is done by people, not by prayer.
Each nightmare spins an image from the store
The streaming media  sacrifice more players

Beforethe vote, there comes  unthought despair
To make some sense of all our hard-won lore
The government  grows stupider, devours

Men advise me not to say I’m fey
Others find  the News, continuous, bores
The steaming rage  has taken off their layers

We’d like  our politicians to endure
The economic game plan and its cure.
The  forest floor is darker than before
Woodlands wild, creative have no door

The strangled car horns, broken, debonair,

anatole-auschwitz
Worth has not anything to show more sore
Dull would she be or cold who did not rage by
The  broken nuclei in their tragedy
The pity now doth, like  a sick fog wear
The strangled  car horns, broken, debonair,
Whips, towels, combs unneutered   rumpled lie
Unroll the British shields,, we shoot to pray
All quiet yet twittering with a reckless air.
Never did cunning more evilly still creep
As our PayPal; mock not  the plastic  Bill;
Whether I was, whether I felt, a sheep asleep!
The  nerves all heat up as  Trump’s  tweets may kill;
Oh God! all their fuses  blew they’re incomplete
And all  the mighty Courts   with liars fill

Little Tin Key

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/118557
BY LAURA KASISCHKE
Little tin key
lost somewhere in my memory, returned to me in a dream.
Like the blue-burning match blowing over the surface of
some drunk girl’s sweet, flaming party drink. Happy
birthday. Lucky
coin rubbed away to nothing, turned back into invisibility.
Back into its first atomic energy. Both
lost forever now and all around me. I’ve
rendered it, it seems, back into its
first longing — to keep
safe the loved ones on the plane, or on the freeway, or
strapped to the gurney, opened for the surgery, wheeled
into the lobby, being
screened for the journey, or stamped with the date
at the entrance to the pool, the portal, the nightclub, or
any spot where one might pull to the curb, drop
off a soft target, kiss it, make
with it a plan to fetch it later —
unbloodied, still breathing, in no hurry. This
talisman with no magic. I’ve made it for you
out of your own flesh, teeth, hair.

But what matters is our choice and choose we do.

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I do not see my future, how to go
But now I have steam cleaned the kitchen floor
If I  run out of  all my china plates
I’ll eat meat off the floor till I am late.

I only see a half of what most see.
But still enjoy to swill my throat with tea.
The world is so delightful, I must smile
My grin is  wider than the Royal Mile,

We wonder about ethics and virtue
But what matters is our choice and choose we do.
The new doormat’s good,  for it is bright
My little bay tree  loves the air and light

When the dirt is vanquished for a time
I sit down with a pen and start to write.
Dirt’s a symbol  of  our human sin
Yet without it,  plants have nothing to grow in

So dirt and dust, creative elements
Are only bad when  they create a stench
I found some fruit that rotted in its bag
The odour was, in its way, very bad.

At first, I could not locate the odour’s source
I wondered if it came from my parts “coarse”
But no I’ve never smelled as  bad
As bananas stuck inside a plastic bag

And do it is when we wear manmade cloth
The heat of polyester  brings out wrath
For  sweat or moisture can’t evaporate
We swelter like  a vine of purple grapes.

Who will navigate my life, if not myself?

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Who will navigate my life, if not myself?
Evasion of the truth is best at times
Who will venture to the hidden depths?

In the depths lie darkness and great wealth
We cannot linger long with the divine
Who will navigate my life, if not myself?

Use a ladder with its sturdy steps
Go down slowly  looking not behind
Who will venture to the hidden depths?

Return and take the tiller, safely kept
Look across the ocean fierce, sublime
Who will navigate our lives, if not ourselves?

Sleep when you have fixed the stars bereft
We will get there when we know the lines
Must we venture to the hidden depths?

Trust and strength, humility they test
Only those who trust can truly rest
Who will navigate my life, if not myself?
Who  will love inverted mountain depths?