I have so many phones I can’t go out
My handbag is too heavy for my arm
And watching them charge up makes me feel doubt

I had one and then got it a mate
This one was pink and so it had great charm
I have so many phones I can’t go out

Then I needed Android to read owt [owt= “anything”]
As I had google play books as a balm
And watching phones charge up made me get gout

I got a Windows phone to fend off louts!
I said to someone,can this do me harm?
I have so many phones I can’t go out

Then from my own chiropodist I bought
An i Phone 5 to act as an alarm
And watching that charge up made me grow stout

Around my bed, these phones float in a swarm
I am lonely for a human arm
I have so many phones I can’t think straight
And watching them charge up makes me feel nowt

=[nowt means “nothing” in Northern England]

Martin Buber: I and Thou, dialogue or touch?

” Consider, says Buber, the language of so-called primitive people, meaning those who are poor in objects, and whose life develops in face-to-face relationships of strong presence (p 69). The result is that “man becomes an I through a thou.” (p 80) This was and is always true, but the thou is becoming weaker, less present, in the contemporary world, as the it becomes more.

In sick ages [like our own] it happens that the it-world, no longer irrigated and fertilized by the living currents of the thou-world, severed and stagnant, becomes a gigantic swamp phantom and overpowers man. (p 102)

People want certainty, which leads men to flee from everything “unreliable, unsolid, unlasting, unpredictable, and dangerous” to a world marked by possessing things. You may treat your iPhone as a thou, but it will always remain an it, and you will become more it-like if you forget this.”

Oh, steam iron how I love your heat
And how you make my clothes so neat.
A flat iron is no use to me
For no open fire is here , you see.
And though I liked the flickering coals
I feared those faces that looked droll.
They were in the flames and peered
At anyone who ventured near.
I wonder how the people past
Kept their trousers neat and pressed.
Now I’ve bought a hand steamer
To keep the germs off my femurs
I didn’t like to say, my crotch
In case the devil is on watch.
I never ever used to think
My body perfume was distinct.
And yet it may appeal to men
I don’t want to try again.
One old husband is enough
Though he did enjoy a cough
He had asthma and bad eyes
Looking out with wild surmise.
He saw my golden hair float by
As by his window, it did fly
All at once he fell for me
And we sat by an apple tree.
His clothes were wrinkled so I thought
I would iron them for a start.
He could darn and polish floors
Cook lamb chops and apple cores.
So my steam iron sees much use
I wonder if it’s self-abuse
For as a woman feminist
I’m not meant to iron vests
I’m not meant to boil men’s socks
Nor underpants of interlock
I’m not meant to make them tea.
What a naughty person, me!
I must confess these wicked sins
Then I’ll polish my cake tins.
Satan wants me down in hell
Don’t say he needs work as well!
As he was an angel proud
I’ll save him into One Drive Cloud.

 

A ghost drives an old  cart by here at night
But few have ever seen this plaintive sight

I love you like an avocado pear
Would love a little lemon juice inside
I love you most when you are barely  there

I love you drinking porridge made with  beer
I loved you when  your cat with me abode
I love you like a sweet yet prickly pear

I hate a man who’s always dressed  and near
I  giggle when  your daydreams all collide
I love you most when you are rarely  here

I fear  real sex so why can’t  you  turn queer?
I said I liked it  out of cowardice
I love  myself and no one  compares.

I hate your touch so keep your  hands quite clear
Your arms are open but they are too wide
I love you when  there is no atmosphere.

It’s wrong to say that one sweet love has died
For often love has never been alive
I love you like an apple  or pear
I love you when you  tolerate my fear

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/03/news.johnezard

 

“William McGonagall is under the direst threat today in his apparently unassailable position as author of the world’s worst poem.

The 19th century Scots bard’s notorious lament for The Tay Bridge Disaster:

And the cry rang out all o’er the town, Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down

has been challenged in favour of a single appalling last line by a more exotic British versifier, Theophile Jules-Henri Marzials: “Drop / Dead. / Plop, flop. / Plop”.

The poem is titled A Tragedy. The opening lines: “Death!/ Plop. / The barges down in the river flop. / Flop, / plop,” suggest that the author is brooding about suicide.

The 1873 collection of verse in which it was published, The Gallery of Pigeons, was once highly praised. But – in picking Marzials as one of the new entries for its website today- the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says the poem is now claimed as the worst ever written. It quotes the last line as an example.”