Photo by Mike Flemming 2017 copyright

Take a look at Mike’s blog

http://home.btconnect.com/mike.flemming/home.htm

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/143643/sylvia-plath-nick-and-the-candlestick

“In “Nick and the Candlestick,” a woman walks through a dark house toward her sleeping infant, and this ordinary action becomes fused with a metaphoric descent into a ghostly otherworld. Addressed to Plath’s son, Nicholas, the poem belongs to the tradition of poems such as Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” and Yeats’s “A Prayer for my Daughter” that directly address a poet’s sleeping infant. “Nick and the Candlestick,” however, teems with evocations of the speaker’s pregnancy and continually merges these images with descriptions of the baby himself. Like the poem’s opening fusion of metaphor and reality, this conflation collapses the boundaries between two things: past and present, memory and experience. In the poem, pregnancy is, itself, a time when two individuals are contained in one strangely altered body. As such, pregnancy, like metaphor itself, becomes emblematic of both the tenuousness of distinctions and of the inevitability of transformation.

As in many her poems, Plath borrows language and imagery from nursery rhymes, harnessing their peculiar mixture of menace and cheerful, linguistic playfulness—a juxtaposition that mirrors the poem’s insistence that seemingly disparate emotions or states of being are often closely entwined. This poem’s title recalls an old rhyme:

Jack be nimble,
Jack be quick,
Jack jump over
The candlestick.

If Jack is not nimble, after all, he risks setting himself on fire. “

I want the pain to leave  and I shan’t grieve
I’ve had enough  today and evermore
For mourning mourning’s hard for the bereaved

I think of God and whether I believe
Although to him or her I’m just one fewer
I want the pain to leave  and I shan’t grieve

I wonder if some new work I’d conceive
For God, I have not  got infinite allure
Is mourning squared too hard for the bereaved?

Maybe I’d do better to perceive.
Does God believe in me, does love endure?
I want the pain to leave  and I shan’t grieve

In  my heart, I wish  peace were achieved
Does Jesus want me,  in sorrow so immured
Yet mourning mourning’s right for the bereaved

For life like this, death is the final door
But when it opens what will we see there?
I want the pain to leave;I shall not grieve
In mourning mourning’s  rites  I was conceived

Since arguing is dangerous for our hearts
How can we respond when people start?
We might say, maybe you are right.
Jesus was born on the Isle of Wight.

Or if they say that prayer’s a waste of time.
Say you only read prayers for their rhymes.
Or that you have so much time now you are old
You think you’ll try it as you’re feeling bold

If they say you  lack intelligence
Tell them you’re an imbecile with pence.
My IQ is only 65
But with hard work or luck ,I won the prize

“A survey of new algebra” I won
I’ve has it 50 years and I ain’t done.

I got a doughnut for the second prize
Topology is great  for telling lies

I read all Euclid  when I was a kid
It came in handy in the marriage bed!

I like the cubic forms around your eyes
And tell me, can I guess what’s your bra size?

The Temple builders estimated pi.
Tried to square the circle with their eyes.

A diagram or picture is my style
An  oral   maths test  makes feel surprised

Shall I give home to grievance and  to woe

And cultivate my hatred with my tears?

Shall I remember  carefully each blow,

And add this sorrow to my anxious fear?



I  thought by hating you I would have peace;

And surely I had reason without doubt.

Yet rumination  gave me no release.

For wisdom and compassion, it did flout



I remembered our  past love and  our shared  words

I gave them freedom in my anguished heart.

I did it for your sake, yet then occurred

A sweetness, joy and gladness in all parts.



To  forgive, repent and  let go of such grief

Helps us more than hatred’s legal briefs

Cut off from land by wiles of tricky sea,
For Norfolk is deceptive in its tides,
He grabbed my hand and said, just  run with me

If we had drowned then now I would not be
In England  where   shrill voiced  voters  stride,
Cut off by hopes  installed with trickery

Nor would I, by Donald vexed, see
How he may ask the Good Lord to abide
He grabbed the votes and said, all  lie with me

We would not argue over Ceylon Tea
About how many immigrants God made;
Cut off from  thought by wiles of trickery

I believe  that God  has no pity
He  created man  to be a refugee
He gave no hope yet said,  hey, worship me!

Oh, haunt of mystics send  thy remedies
They’re drowning in the places we can’t see
Cut off from land by tides of  your  Son’s sea
The dark eyed children drown along with Thee.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/05/09/could-frequent-fights-with-friends-and-family-lead-to-an-early-grave/#547c8536785a

People who reported more arguing with their spouses or children were 50% to 100% more likely to die from any cause at all. Those who reported frequent arguing with anyone in their social circle – including friends, relatives, and neighbors – were two to three times more likely to die over the next decade. The results held strong even when factors like depression, gender, marital status, chronic health conditions, available emotional support, and socioeconomic status were removed from the equation.

Drink some tea and eat a piece of bread
Take an aspirin, check that I’m not dead.
Read my Gmail on my Windows phone
Walk to bathroom pressing down my groans

Click “your sources” see the Daily Mail
No, I cry, the Independent’s all
I see Reuter’s  arrived  and it says there,
Princess Di  is 56 and seems set fair

I peer at M & S and see a colour block
It would  look  special on an evening flock
For I love sheep and buy them  outerwear
To keep them clean and fragrant like fresh air

But once a ram gave me a kick on’t bum
So if I see a man I tend to run

1, What was the most original sin ever committed?
2.Name some topics which might give people ideas for original sins.
3 Why did St Augustine think it was a sin for a baby to touch the mother’s vagina? If you don’t know what a vagina is,  ask the invigilator.If he doesn’t know  write Cannot answer owing to innocence and stupidity on the Exam Paper.
4.Why do Catholics think they eat  the Good Lord in the bread at Mass?
5 .Transubstantiation is
a] A town in Romania
b]Part of the Wholly Roman Empire
c] Part of Rome
d] Advanced calculus

e] A Latin newspaper
f] All of the above
g] None of the above
h] A new cookery book.
i] The missing link
7] Why is Patience a virtue?
8]Why did Christians start 2 world wars?
9] Is Freud right in his idea of the Death Instinct?
10] Is the Pope
a]A Catholic
b] A Jew
c] A cake you eat at your birthday party
d] A writer of aphorisms
e] All of the above?

When we live so close to the cliff edge
So even one small shudder knocks us down
We must choose our attitude with calm
And not for rage or anger ever dredge.
When we live too close

Some  are saved by one outstanding ledge
They suffer shock but not much-dreaded harm
Yet we cannot trust mere Chance’s arm.
Nor on hoping for a climber’s wedge
When we live with choice

We need to know  that life awards no badge
We need to know what will be our special balm
In the imagination’s   proper realm
When we live so close to the cliff edge
When we wish to live without a grudge
When  our needs are close

When we are born into a happy space
We feel our vulnerability is held
And from  fragmented senses, a self weld
That feels a unity with its new place
When we are born

When we are born , the shock  must strike us hard
At  first , we were a fish in private seas
With mother’s breathing music,company.
Yet  force unknown from  this  sweet space us lured
When we were born

Oh, like the flowers, one day we will die
For some, it is a sudden accident
Or it may be a languid, long descent
Until in arms of angels, we will  cry
And our beloved spouses stand and sigh
Oh.  like the flowers.

When we begin the slow descent  to age
From that peak or maximum of strength
We notice nothing as it has no length
So feel no need to cry or scream in rage
When we begin.

The ” writing on the wall” is on the page.
The well off sink in angst, the workless tense;
We’ve lost our youth, our mind looks for defence
Then we begin the slow descent of age.
Then we begin.

The music that we hum is  a slow dirge
An elegy falls from every pen to page
I do not  feel it’s good that we should rage
But gently take the  shroud of silk or serge
As in the living earth, we all shall merge.
Then life begins again

How like a prison my dear home can feel
When waiting here for parcels to arrive.
The clothes that had such catalogue appeal
In Royal Mail vans were loaded for their drive.

After several days they’ve not appeared
The Escalation team attempt to trace
Meanwhile, I get writer’s block  from fear
You’d think they had to carve Big Ben  from ice.

At last, an answer, ring our famous store
They can  cancel any thing ordered
My lace and coloured wish, is wish no more
Sweet lingerie embroidered,  hors d’oeuvre.

I used my phone so much I’m turning grey
To think  for all this waiting I must pay.

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/phpBB//viewtopic.php?t=7459&start=780#p122680

I liked these two images very much.I imagine it is difficult to get an image of two butterflies at once.The second image showing the beautiful underside of the wings is beautiful.

These photos were taken just yesterday so if you live anywhere near a site where butterflies  are common take a trip out to see  them

Copyright Mike Flemming 2017

http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/phpBB//viewtopic.php?t=7459&start=780#p122680

Th

The wonder of these flying flowers
We enjoy in daylight hours
Natural beauty, touch my soul
We pray then to be more whole

http://www.griefandsympathy.com/emotionsofgrief.html

“During the bereavement process, normal everyday mood swings reacting to all of the external problems of life still exist. On top of this you have to deal with the emotions of grief.

For this reason the mood swings and emotions of grief can be likened to being on a roller coaster ride, there are so many fast highs and lows. You can experience such a frenzy of changed moods, that some people think they must be going mad.

Check out Stephanie Ericsson’s book

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54864/a-history-without-suffering-

Speak to me, I cannot understand
Despite much thought and patient reverie
That chickens  never use elastic bands
Nor porcupines write daily news to me.

Speak  to me, I often wander here
In the ancient woodlands of the oak
Asking why the owls like drinking beer.
Asking why the robins like to smoke.

Speak to me, disrational is my mind
Despite my knowledge of the cubic form
Why are marionettes so very kind
Why do my own feet not keep me warm?

Speak to me, I  long to know the worst.
Has Theresa May left footprints in the church?

Reverberations of the ancient elegies
The coffin carried by the four dark men
Agitate the mind  with memory

He has gone and where will I  soon be?
Am I to live and utilise my pen
Remembering all the ancient elegies?

I’d like to ask him what beauty he could see
Before he smiled and dropped his head again
Don’t agitate the mind with memory.

Hamlet asked, to be or not to be
But most go quietly when it is their turn
Singing still the ancient elegies.

Can we trust the darkness we perceive
Where god hides his great mystery from man
Don’t agitate the mind with memory.

Violently, with passion, the young burn
Then  stone temples  harden as they learn
Reverberations of the ancient elegies
Wound the human mind  with memory

Intangible but evident like smoke
Like scents of perfumed oil left in the air
An essence of his presence seemed to speak.

My voice was dumb, my feelings ran amok
I knew he had passed through but all is bare
Intangible the evidence like smoke

The senses are not separate but leak
Like watercolour runs, like sorrow’s tears
An essence of his presence seemed to speak.

I strained to hear or see or to partake
But nobody yes, nobody was there.
Intangible that evidence, like smoke

Loss makes such great waves when a life breaks
Yet I am grateful for his loving  care
An essence of his person seems to speak.

Twice in life we humans are a pair
With mother and with spouse, if one appears
Intangible but evident like smoke
An echo of his lost voice seems to speak.