A day of sudden changes.Clouds cross the sky like whales swimming North in rows. The sun was bright,dazzled my eyes with gold and silver. Wind cut across my face like a slap from an angry father.. Those who love can also seem to hate us too.. The lure of that small childish body tempts them to divert their anger towards it. When the ones who hurt you are also the ones you love, it’s hard to know which direction to run in; but it usually turns into a circle. Retreating turns into a new arrival. Straight lines might be better. though On a spherical earth difficult to find. Even parallel lines meet In their Riemannian geometry. So we can never get away Sometimes the best we manage Is to increase the circle’s radius. Though how is hard to know. Do you love me or hate me? Do you want me to stay or go? What do I want?Do I have a me? The memory of warmth draws me back Like a cold lonely beast leaving the jungle To lie down with a what appears to be a lamb, Surprising the farmer up early to milk his animals Finding a strange new one Looking with tender,puzzled eyes into His Human Face.
Month: November 2018
Europe took their human ash within
In Bedzin and in Krakow they breathed in What they denied in conscious thought or word. The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin Penetrating lungs so deep within The dead unburied mixed, in air secured In Bedzin and in Krakow, mortal sin. The nearby people turned to burial urns. The human dust by breathing was allured The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin. So Europe took their human ash within. A graveyard we became unknown, impure. In Bedzin and in Krakow, more of sin. And who they thought destroyed lived on in them Controlled their lungs, their hearts their minds uncured, The ashes of the Jews, borne in their skin. Like a mass communion without words We ate and breathed the Jews, the gays, unheard In Bedzin and in Krakow we walked in The ashes of the lost, the glades of skin,
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To wit, to woo
Wurve yew been?
Ah fell of’t buzz
Owcome?
Mi glasses wer wet
Y?
There wur a thunderstorm
Did weeavit ‘ere?
Did y’ear awt?
Ah can’t say adid
Wot wer ye doin’
Ask ye dad.
Ah feel shy
Oh,my.Is it social globia?
No it’s quite flat
Up ‘ill down dale
That must bi Yorksheh
It’s a metafor?n
Matter fr oo?
Metaphor ah meant
Ha.ve ye bin studying again
Ah can’t stop
Y az the mind no switch?
It’s not electric
Well what izzit, Gas?
That might expiain ‘tbill
Too Woo
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She frightened the hearses
I unthinkingly trod on his con-technology
Marriage is window dressing for the unfaithful
On all my worldly goods she love endowed
Shall we have breakfast instead?
My honeymoon was a state of kind
I never liked the holes in truth.
I’ll be judge,I’ll be jury, we’ll persecute Fury.
She lost her wits to the owl, Too Woo.
I like to share my bed with animals,vegetarians or criminals
Why do I look a fright?
She frightened the hearses
Did she say where her purse is?
New curses for sale.Any offers inserted.
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Un-think your poetry
http://writersrelief.com/2009/11/09/un-think-your-poetry-how-to-write-better-poems/
Beginning{
1. To write better poems, turn off the part of your brain that is conscious of what other readers might think of your poetry. Let your subconscious do the writing. Don’t go chasing after the words you want to write; instead, follow the words as they come from within you. Don’t censor, second-guess, or hesitate. Just open your mind so that it can make connections that you might not consciously see.
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To sit by Mr Aneurin Bevan
When I die I am going to Heaven
To sit by Mr Aneurin Bevan
We will eat buttered Welsh cakes
Float in hot blue lakes
Oh final thought, how about Devon?
I wonder if I am perverted
For writing my poems with ten verses
They say we’re post modern
And swearing’s forbidden
So are magic,religion and cursing.
I wonder if I can be fluid
A man or a woman or druid?
I can be other
Since I have no mother
But what about rats in the sewage?
To economists we are just” Labour ”
We’re units when once we were neighbours
Gender’s quite useless
True love is a nuisance
Capital makes Money our Saviour
Why not buy a new winter coat
Decorated with the fur off a stoat
Weasels are cheaper
Cats purr and pierce you
As you sail ‘cross the Styx in a boat
I thought I’d not marry again
I’m a feminist along with the men
But a m\n tried to hug me
And tickled my kidneys
He says I’m charming the snakes into sin
But I think I am past getting wed
I just want to go straight to bed
Not just for the pleasure
Of getting his measure
No, it’s just that my organ’s half dead
I’d gaze into his eyes and feel good
As at last I’d feel well understood
We don’t need to chatter
About any matter
Nor scratch like the cat and draw blood.
I think my bed is too small
The headboard is stuck to the wall
The mattress collapses
As do my synapses
Who do you think should call?
I’ve been untidy ever since I was born
I lost mother’s breast and her warmth
I’ve been looking forever
I got rather clever
Now I’ve lost my old man in the corn
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You slipped away
When you are far, so far away, The longest night, The shortest winter day, will be places where I might die. The heart's interior no-one else Can view. When you are lost, I cannot find your face... Its outline on the pillows, My fingers shaped to trace... The new design, the stellar rhyme, Where have you gone? You slipped from out my arms. You slipped away. Was night or day Ever cut by such a narrow line? In your embrace I lay. You seemed so strong. Yet,sighing, took the path away. I can't see where Is it night? Or is it day..? I tried to write to bring white light, It's dark, and still. I long for you to come. Oh,will we ever quite Find out our way? Or is that pure illusion? As we stagger through the wandering furrows in the fields They shoot us down. What is this confusion? The war goes on The world goes round The mirror gapes at each new clown. But in a crack, a seed may grow.. I can't see you, But yet,I know. |
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Mary darns a moth hole
Drawing by Katherine using Microsoft Paint, for her little brother
Mary took out her easy threading needles and some blue thread so she could darn the holes in a favourite old sweater.Not only had a moth been living off it but she had to cut a little more off when her mini shoulderbag had got its buckle stuck in the sweater.
What are you doing,Annie asked her?
Annie,I didn’t know you were here.How did you manage to get in.Have you got a key??
No,I climbed on my flat roof and in through your bathroom, window Annie admitted furtively
But why, cried Mary, as she noted Annie was wearing a blue jumper rather larger than normal, covered in a print of ladybirds and spiders.
I just wanted to feel young again,Annie told her.
I never knew you were a burglar!
I didn’t steal things,I did it to keep fit!
Supppose the government advised people to break into houses just to get some exercise?Would that be moral? asked Mary
Well, it would make us close the windows ,I imagine.I admit if Donald Trump climbed through my window I would be very anxious Annie admitted
Oh, don’t worry.It’s just cats he like to grab,Mary informed her
Cats? Is Melania a cat? asked Mary
I expect she is catty with him , Annie whispered
Well, thank the Lord he never assaults women,Mary muttered
Why does the Lord allow other women to be raped or to have their clitorises cut off?Annie pondered
I say, thank the Lord, but I suppose I don’t mean it.As you say how can he allow all these evils?He must be less omnipotent than we were taught,Mary decided
Can one have degrees of omnipotence?~Annie enquired
I am unsure.I shall have to muse.But you can get a degree in omnipotence,Mary said roguishly
How?
Well, how much maths does a third class degree confer on a person?
They got 40 % in their exams, Annie murmured
So if we have a third class degree in omnipotence, we are omnipotent about 40 % of the time! First class about 70 %.Mary stuttered
I find it worrying that a doctor might qualify when she or he has only got 40 % in anatomy or in heart murmurs.Not to mention the brain.
Do they even have to know where it is?
Probably not, the women decided.
Emile was smiling his cat grin because he had phoned 999 and here was Dave running up the garden path wearing a jumper exactly like Annie’s over a red spotted skirt from Cotswold Connections Sale and some purple trainers from TKMaxx with socks covered in squares a la Mondrian.
Will Mary be angry?Will she want a blue jumper too?
Well so will all of us
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The memory of Dunwich Heath:a triolet
The memory of Dunwich Heath
The birds so rare, the sea so near
The broken marble on the beach
The inner fires, the burning Heath
The trees that hunch, the wind so East
The savaged,polished rocks now dear
The sacred life of languid heath
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The words we heard when we learned how to swear
The pleated skirts that teachers used to wear
The tight permed hair, the handbag and the pearls
The words we heard when we learned how to swear
With words we threw out what we could not bear
Then simpered by the window lips uncoiled
The fleeing minds that we dare not declare
The worst came out and everybody stared
My head was turned, inside my mind still whirled
The muck we heard when we first had to swear
Now we wear our jeggings, pleats are rare
Yet there’s elegance in skirts that swirl
Depleted teens with beauty gone awry
We did some Hardy and into Shakespeare tore
Now we read Ted Hughes and Sylvia’s pearls
The midden reeks,hate makes the goldfish swear.
The gold rimmed glasses in the mist and murk
The hairnets, the control, the constrained smirk
The worn out books, the turning of the years
The words of joy and woe, we learn our prayer
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Wendy Cope-British poet
https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/helen-lewis-hasteley/2011/11/cope-poems-british-poets
Extract:
3 DECEMBER 2011
Wendy Cope: “I can’t die until I’ve sorted out the filing cabinets”
As Wendy Cope donates her archive to the British Library, is the literary world at last taking her seriously
WENDY COPE, PHOTOGRAPHED BY THE NEW STATESMAN.
“Let’s go back to this thing about there being a story,” Wendy Cope says as we sit on a bench by the canal in Ely. “There’s a story of how a depressed primary school teacher became quite a well-known poet.”
She is being characteristically understated. Cope is one of the best-known and among the bestselling British poets of recent decades. Her first collection, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, was full of “the kind of poems journalists enjoy”. As a result, it became, by her own admission, almost too successful. “I’ve never been more famous than I was, suddenly, in 1986,” she says. “I did find it very difficult to cope with all the demands that were being made on me.”
She quickly decided that she didn’t want to become “some sort of media personality, always on radio quiz shows”, and retreated to her study. She observes, with a touch of pride, that she is one of the few poets who don’t need to supplement their income by teaching creative writing courses.
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One Catholic priest who did give his life to save another man:Maximilian Kolbe
Extract [ please read the whole article]
Wartime Effects
After WWII had broken out, Kolbe and a few other priests remained in his hometown monastery where he organized a makeshift hospital. He was arrested in September 1939, briefly held for several months, and then released in December. The Germans gave him the option to sign the Deutsche Volksliste as he was half-German by birth and, could claim rights as a German under Nazi rules. However, he was very adamant he would not do so. The Germans allowed him to continue his publishing work although, on his release, he used it to begin printing anti-Nazi publications.
Kolbe set about doing more work to save his people, but this time, he did much more than establishing a hospital. He and other monks at his monastery worked to shelter refugees from the rest of Poland, and they hid as many as 2,000 Jews during the Nazi invasion.
In February 1941 the Gestapo shut down the monastery and arrested him and his fellow monks. He was sent to Pawiak Prison, before being transferred to Auschwitz.
A Priest in Auschwitz
During his time in the concentration camp, Kolbe continued his role as a priest, but it caused problems for him. There were many instances where he was subjected to harassment and violence, including beatings and lashings. Once he had to be taken to the prison hospital.
In July 1941 several prisoners escaped from the camp, so the deputy commander picked ten men to be punished, to discourage others. They were placed in an underground bunker and not given food or water until they starved to death.
One of the men chosen was Franciszek Gajowniczek. He was a Polish army sergeant who had been captured in Slovakia. When learning about his fate, he reportedly cried out, “My wife! My children!” Kolbe volunteered to die in his place.
The assistant janitor at the camp later reported that Kolbe led the other prisoners who had been chosen in prayers when in the underground bunker.
Kolbe outlived the other nine prisoners. He remained calm throughout the experience and was found by his guards to be either kneeling or standing in the middle of the cell at all times. The guards eventually tired of waiting for him to die, and gave him a lethal injection of carbolic acid. He calmly took the injection, and his remains were cremated.”
Note:
At that time cremation was not allowed for Catholics so it is a double injury to deprive his family or religious order of a Requiem Mass and burial for him in a Catholic graveyard
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Who gives meaning?
What gives meaning to our love and pain?
Love is missing,sex is cheapened now
The values of the heart have been disdained
What a laugh, we lit eternal flames
Fascism rides again, we had no clue
What gives meaning to our love and pain?
Marriage is demoted, life’s a game
If we see, whatever shall we do?
The values of the heart have been disdained
The doctor’s here, he limps in , he is lame
He has no wisdom, no goods to endow
That which may give meaning to our pain
The still,small voice is now by actors feigned
The mighty Tempest has no eye of calm
The values of the heart have been disdained
Where are they who’s hearts can feel, can warn
Whose minds are wise, who notice with alarm?
Who gives meaning to our love and pain?
The values of right minds, we have disdained
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I write well.yeah super Nell
What the hell,a villanelle!
It looks too hard for such as me
Still I will write ,yes,I write well
I have a story I can tell
It’s from the English who love tea
What a hell,oh villanelle
I saw a man with a sea shell
I asked him for a pod of pea
I write well.yeah super Nell
I often wonder if I smell
As I drink so much greenish tea
What’s s to tell ,my villanelle?
But worry makes life into hell
And it’s bad for those who see
I write well,but who can tell?
I must take much charity
If you ask, what is your fee?
What the hell oh villanelle
I write well but life is hell.
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The Tiller
Come back to me, my sweetheart Don’t leave me all alone. Come back to me, my darling I can’t believe you’ ve gone. I’m crying ‘cos I’m feeling blue again. I’m crying’cos I’m falling like a stone.
Oh, let me tempt you with my beauty And my voice forever young. Let me tempt you with my spirit My laughter and my songs. I’m crying ‘cos I never did you wrong. I’m crying ‘cos with you I still belong.
I thought maybe I’d follow, To see where you have gone But there’s a hand upon this tiller That is not mine alone. I’m crying ‘cos I wrote this old blue song. I’m crying ‘cos I’ve been lonely for too long.
The hand upon my tiller The mystery of the dark The unknown one who lives in me And sings like a skylark. I’m singing ‘cos I wrote you a new song. I’m singing ‘cos the cat ain’t got my tongue.
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We love your form and elegance ,oh both
To you my villanelle I plight my troth
A poem both dignified and full of play
I love your form and elegance ,oh both
In your form I’ll never insert oaths
Neither will I boast of making hay
To you my villanelle I plight my troth
I’ll take you in my boat to the North Coast
From you I expect no reward or pay
I love your form and elegance ,oh both
You are a welcome visitor to host
Though you look both diffident and fey
To you, dear villanelle, I plight my troth
And when my friends come round we’ll drink a toast
To wordsmiths and to poets on their way
We love your form and elegance ,oh both
On my bed at night I gently rest
Knowing that I wander as your guest
To you my villanelle I plight my troth
I love your form and elegance ,oh both
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Poetry and the future
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/patricia-lockwood/poetry-future_b_5071308.html
- poetry that THINKS it is about nature, but instead is about the simulation that all of us are living in.
- Poetry as facehugger, chestburster, Queen Mother, and sticky disgusting egg.
- Postmodern poetry is succeeded by posthuman poetry.
- Grace Jones is now required by law to make an appearance in every poem ever written. If she is left out, then the poet is killed.
- In Grand Theft Auto 47, you don’t steal a car… you steal a poem, which is a vehicle for the imagination.
- Perverts are now allowed to marry horses, the Eiffel Tower, their pillow-wives, and poems.
- Poetry is more machine now than man, twisted and evil.
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We freeze our soul
Like the threatened frog or timorous toad
In a bowl of water by the path
We play dead,we keep our profile low
Until a sense of safety is restored
We freeze instead of exploding with crazed wrath
Like the threatened frog or timorous toad
Our cowardice makes the withered soul erode
And who can weep all day and never laugh
We play dead ,we keep our living low.
Feelings frozen in burst , explode
We will kill the best with poisened pus
Unlike the threatened frog or wise old toad
We discover patience when bestowed
Or we shout an aggravated curse
Even risking killing by those we loath
Patience is like money in a purse
We fill up the lacks with our sweet love
To our frightened self we love bestow
We live now accepting that we’re low
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The holy, the desire , the deep deep dark
The unconscious is the home of image stark
The faces of our love and of our hate
The holy, the important and the dark
The cat that bit, the black dog with wild barks,
The bills ,the charge, the passive, irritate
The unconscious is the cave of image stark
The Northern moors the heather and the lark
Old letters torn up when they came too late
The holy, the important , the deep dark
The marvelled fire, the glowing light, the spark
The holy place immune from every State
The unconscious ,oh the home of image stark
Here too dwell envy and malicious hearts
Yet in that space we must a soul create
The holy and its candles light the dark
Time has gone, there is no day or date
We are never early or too late
The unconscious lives, the home of image stark
The holy, the divided , glossy dark
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Washing Day in Knittingham
After the unusual November sunshine, Mary was happy to discover her underwear was dry. She took it into the sitting room to fold up, ready to go into the drawer.
Although by nature she was very untidy, she did try to keep a bit of order in her drawers.
As she sat musing, with the pile of knickers and bras nearby, the door bell rang.Quickly she pushed the heap of lingerie under a large cushion and opened the door optimistically with a brave laugh
There stood the Vicar with a beaming yet sultry smile, like a sun ray on Hellvellyn in winter
Do come in.I’ll make some fresh Ceylon tea, she murmured politely
She carried in a tray of tea and cake and sat on the sofa, after placing the tray on a small table nearby.
Why are you here, Father? she said anxiously as she sucked her thumb
That was what God said to Elijah on the mountain, he anwered shyly
Well,I am not God but we all wonder now and then why we are here and think we should be somewhere else , like in bed with Leonard Cohen.
That never worries me, said the Vicar.I can’t marry a Jew, Leonarda Cohen or whoever.
So if Jesus was here you would not let him marry your daughter?
Even though he was the Son of the Most High?
Definitely not.He wasn’t a Christian.And imagine what it would be like when he was never at home helping with the chores, but was fishing in the Sea of Galilee all day.And feeding hungry people.Not to mention getting killed…..
But he must have been very loving, Mary muttered nervously
God loves those who love themselves, cried the Vicar.
Er, that’s a bit narcissistic,Mary told him.I’ve never heard anyone say it before.
Well we ought to love ourselves or why should anyone else love us?
For our beauty, our mind, our kindness, our humour, our cooking or our money.
Yet some a people are sadists and some are masochists.
Well, that is unfortunate but, if they are willing, it seems acceptable to me.I won’t criticise them if they enjoy it
Suddenly Annie,Mary’s neighbour,ran into the room in her dark purple velvet trenchcoat and shiny green vinyl boots which matched her eye shadow and contrasted well with her terracotta lipstick and matching earrings.
Hi, she shouted.I’m here.Well, they all knew that.
Where is that lipstick from,Mary quizzed her pensively
It’s by Lambscombe of Wigan and Ilkley. Annie revealed furtively
I didn’t know they made lipstick,Mary answered.It’s an unusual colour
Is it made from old bricks?
I don’t know, Annie cried petulantly.She started to snivel and felt under the cushion in case Mary had left a hanky or tissue there.
Her hand reappeared clutching a pair of bright blue lace knickers
It was hard to decide who looked more embarrassed ,Mary or the Vicar
What’s going on in here, Annie demanded
I’ve never seen them before, the Vicar told her manfully
Surely your wife must wear them, Annie said knowingly
My wife wears underpants.
Well, it takes all sorts,Mary mused.Is your wife a man ?
I don’t know.We live a life of utter chastity.We have therefore had no children.We could have adopted I guess.
What a waste,Annie whispered.
You are a very charming and delightful person.~
I can’t believe you are innocent.You persuaded Mary to take off her knickers so you could play Mummies and Daddies but I came in at the wrong moment.
Mary fainted silently onto the rug
Emile mewed loudly and rang 999 on his Nokia1
In ran Dave, the fluid gendered, transsexual and well dressed paramedic.
What’s wrong ?Why has Mary fainted and why are there knickers on the floor? Is this an orgy? Why have you called me?
The Vicar went bright red with embarrassment and shock.
No, it seems Mary keeps a pair of knickers near her in case she runs out of tissues.
Dave made some Ceylon tea in the bijou violet and emerald green kitchen and used Mary’s art deco mugs to serve it along with some chocolate biscuits he found under the sink
Mary rose up from the carpet and asked where she was.
Still here,in the EU….until Scotland goes independent and Ireland gets more Troubles and how about Wales getting big idea?
Oh, for goodness sake, shut up.I am sick of Brexit cried Emile.
Where is my tea? Where are my sardines in olive oil?Where is my pudding?
And so ask all of us.
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Dressing like a woman
Even being mathematician did not make me think I had to wear trousers like most mathematicians did as they were men
I have no objection to trousers but I like pretty things and I love colour.Yet a woman friend demanded recently to know why I was wearing a skirt.I should have said that my husband forced me to do!
Now another friend went shopping for a nightdress in a her local town.Some of the shop assistants didn’t know what she meant and asked of she meant an evening dress.She likes the beautiful Victorian style.But where are they?
Marks and Spencers still have a few but they are often man made fibres.
Is it a bad sign when women think they have to dress like men to be equal? I don’t find trousers warm unless they are tweed.And tweed is hard to wash.Probably you can’t wash them.
Since the moth invasion I’ve been looking for a woollen skirt and succeeded in getting one in a kind of heathery mix which reminds me of the heather on the moors in the North.I expect it might look old fashioned but why worry about that? If we look at history a lot of people in politics were superior to our present politicians.So don;t tell me I have to wear trousers.Let me have a choice.Thank you.
Similarly why must black women straighten their hair for success?
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Free Speech?
The beginning
In an era of growing political impunity, when dissidents are murdered on foreign soil and even the head of Interpol is not immune from being “disappeared”, Ma Jian seems almost recklessly brave. Could there be a more provocative title than that given by the exiled novelist to his latest satirical onslaught on the country of his birth? For, with China Dream, he co-opts the rhetoric of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping to tell the story of a politician who is driven mad by memories of his own corruption.
Xi first used the phrase shortly after becoming general secretary of the Communist party in 2012, and Ma has responded “in a rush of rage” with a short, ferocious novel about the way turbo-capitalism and authoritarianism have combined to inform a Chinese dream that excludes all but a chosen few. “I wanted to give myself the challenge of encapsulating everything in as few words as possible,” he says, wryly adding that it will be interesting to see how the Chinese authorities react to the novel, given that they’ve outlawed so many “key words” online – “even the name Winnie-the-Pooh is banned because people joked that Xi Jinping resembled him”.
A momentary silence falls as we consider the surreal possibility of the “paramount leader” being forced to ban his own slogan. But the reality, Ma acknowledges, is that censorship is now so all-encompassing that the novel will very probably not be allowed to exist in Chinese, even in Hong Kong, which has historically provided a toehold for work by dissident authors banned on the mainland.”
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The Book
The half blind give advice on where to look
The soft tongued sell us slogans of defeat
The religious read us stories from old books
The thieves like best to point to vicious crooks
As we amble down the just vacated street
The half blind give advice on where to look
We win a gamble yet it is a fluke
We love our loss, we like to be downbeat
The religious read us stories from old books
The terrorists are now in charge of truth
The former rulers in their slippers creep
The half blind give advice on where to look
The teachers are afraid of learning loose
The tangent to the circle is too steep
The aged read us stories from old books
Love is rare yet sex is very cheap
Timers on the bed end duly beep
The half blind want to control where we look
The religious agonise about The Book
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The cafe not to visit
I had an experience I have seen written about. in magazines for women
I decided to go out as I am on a vitamin D supplement [ huge] and sunlight helps.I went into a coffee shop/bistro I’ ve been in many times.There were 2 people at a table for 4 but they said were waiting for friends.I moved to an empty table further inside.I was then told it was a table for 6 though it looked like 4 to me.
The waitress then put a very tiny table and an old chair near the toilet doors facing a blank wall and asked me to sit there.It was very noisy which was worse there, being further away from the door
The waitress then put a very tiny table and an old chair near the toilet doors facing a blank wall and asked me to sit there.It was very noisy which was worse there, being further away from the door
So after a few minutes I walked out.I am not paying to sit and watch people visit the toilet as I drink coffee.The people at the first table were still alone, no friends had come
I went to one called the Art Cafe further from the bus stop and found the place much better
Then I recalled reading articles about lone women being treated like that
Really it was a horrible experience to sit there.I shan’t goagain.I can sit by the toilet at home free.
I did enjoy going into Waterstones bookshop though.And accidentally knocking their tables of books over.
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See Saw
Looking in. we miss the outer world
The blossom hanging from the vicarage wall
An old man’s hat which by the breeze is whirled
The toddlers skipping in the Shopping Mall.
Now coffee shops are where we socialise
No more to labour over stove and sink.
And listening, hear what would not meet our eyes.
When for one small moment they both blinked.
And yet we long for time to be alone
To breathe more freely, play within our mind
For being far less solid than a stone
Impingements to our boundary we find
As we balance on this old seesaw
We know no thing is static. life is raw.
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How to look different from whom?
If you are not a Muslim, you may be dressing in the style of Muslim women.For example they often wear trousers under dresses and so do we now—- leggings?
So to make your classic or old fashioned clothes look different:
Under your pure wool knife pleated check skirt wear some black leggings and coloured trainers
Or how about a denim shirt with a Mondrian patterned tie? Topped by a huge puffa jacket
A headscarf or nun’s veil on your head? Or a chrystal headband
Thigh boots?
Wacky earrings or pierced nose
A modern colour block sweater and shiney white vinyl coat?
Brogues and tartan socks and a yellow sou’wester.
A handknitted Sheltand lace sweater
A wool cape
An apron dress. Or an apron.
A Brigitte Bardot sweater
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In between two tears.
Some evenings,the sky turned pink
We were happy,lying in the grass
Watching the sun set.
Arms around each other.
Seemed like eternal life had come
Earlier than forecast.
Those weathermen are always wrong!
They need new training
In that timeless moment
In between two raindrops,
In between two tears.
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I hope you reach the promised land.
I have loved you and I’ve held you.
Many years,you have been mine;
If the time has come for parting
Let us embrace for one last time.
You know you have to leave me,
Though you desire a longer stay.
Let me hold you in my arms now
For just tonight and perhaps one day.
Then I’ll watch you travel on,sweet.
We take this last step all alone.
I’ll be here beside you watching.
I shall feel when you are gone.
May you accept, may you surrender.
I hope you reach the promised land.
Into this earth my tears will fall, love,
As I recall your tender hands.
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ENDINGS TAKE TIME
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Poetry of WW1
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/trench-duty
Trench Duty
Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake,
Out in the trench with three hours’ watch to take,
I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then
Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men
Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light.
Hark! There’s the big bombardment on our right
Rumbling and bumping; and the dark’s a glare
Of flickering horror in the sectors where
We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled,
Or crawling on their bellies through the wire.
“What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?”
Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire:
Why did he do it?… Starlight overhead—
Blank stars. I’m wide-awake; and some chap’s dead.
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See you soon
Play, Father,it is 29 years since my last decision.
What was that?
Not to practice my Faith
Who is Faith?
I mean, like Hope and Charity
So why are you here?
Only God knows
But there are so many of us.Will he want to know?
Probably not but he has to know
Surely we can’t decide what he should do
So if he forgets us, then what will happen?
Just watch the News tonight
Fox News or the BBC
Do foxes have news?How wonderful
No, it’s a right wing place.
Oh,my.I like the Independent.
They want ad blockers turned off
No-one is totally independent
You can say that again
I refuse.
Be like that.
Have you any sins you want to confess?
Adultery, lies and envy.
Be more specific
I fell in love with a beautiful woman
Your wife?
No, it would not be adultery with her!
Oh,dear,Can’t you pretend?
I never thought of that.
What a shame,How many adulteries have you done?
Probably about 12 a year
You look old too
That’s why.
Are they demanding?
In a way.Why should I do it though?
What do you mean? Surely you should not do it.
Well, they won’t leave me alone.
What is it that draws them in?
My eyes,I suspect.They are like magnets
Yes,I have noticed.
So I am tired with all these women and my wife as well
If you got divorced that would cut it down
But who would make my dinner?
You could eat out or get your lover to cook
I don’t know.My wife is a wonderful cook and also writes novels
What about?
Unfaithful men and their secret lives
How amazing.Is that why you decided to be unfaithful?
I can’t remember.But after the first time it seems to matter less
So why bother?
I have no hobbies
Well, for your penance go to Art Classes.
I can’t draw.
Once you could not commit adultery
That’s true.
Are you penitent?
We didn’t do Latin.
Are you sorry
No,I didn’t like French
I mean for your sins?
How my heart sings 