Is our home on earth
Where   handsome trees  stretch upwards
Yet have deep roots in soil?

Where are human roots
Where is the soil that nurtures
Where are our flowers?

The flower of kindness
Is always ready for us
If we look outwards

To accept is hard
We like to be the  stronger
Are we receptive?

Who is the strong one?
Is it God, is he humble?
The   green force  shoots up

In a crack,  trees grew
Elliptical trunks,marvels
The beauty warmed me

Gold leaves in autumn
The beauty stretched my feelings
Like a  child’s face does

What are you thinking?
My beloved has gone forth
I remain, am rust.

What is rust’s purpose?
Change,ceaseless change and growth
Decay, neutrinos!

,

1.Try dropping a lit cigarette into the duvet cover.I never said you’d still be alive
2.Wear most of your clothes  to bed and cover with  a cotton,wool or silk wrap if it will still go on  over all your other clothes
3 Take some animals to bed.I do not mean men or women.
4 Use a sleeping bag as well as a duvet.Not good for newly married couples.
5.Clean the bedroom before you go to bed.Activity makes you warmer.Then  you can enjoy being virtuous for once
6.Hats do make you warmer.Or how about a wig? Golders Green is ok for both
7.Try putting on a heater… hard for the British but not impossible
8 Get angry and have a row.May be  a mistake?
9 Emigrate
10 Be wicked and have two partners.Nowadays anything goes
11 Look at something rude like Marks and Spencers lingerie.That will warm you  up

The gravity and grace of those who’ve died
Make us pause and take a deeper breath
The distant look of almost closed , dear eyes

Now the nerves and muscles do not try
Their life has gone and they are on the path
The gravity and grace of those who’ve died

The larynx closef we hear no more sad cries
Nor yet is there any mourners’ wrath
See distant look in almost closed , dark eyes

Space and peace and caring are allies
Somehow we shall know what is the best
The gravity and grace of those who’ve died

See the face, how watercolour flies
Seized is the hand when put to its new task
Catch his look ,his almost shuttered eyes

No longer to face challenges and risks
No longer do the fingers urge his wrist
The grace of those who have just gone survives
The holy soul ,the weeping of mine eyes

https://youtu.be/86lczf7Bou8

 

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1729765

 

Toby’s  gone away
He won’t be home today
Toby, won’t you kiss your wife again?

Toby was so dear
To all whom he was  near
Toby, Toby, why have you just gone?

Toby’s little boy
Could sometimes Dad annoy
Toby, lose your head with Fred again!

He took his son to school
Love can be so cruel
Toby ,may  your mother  love your son

Your wife has lost your love
Unless you smile above
Toby, help her when the birth pangs come

Your baby will be born
While  poor Alice feels forlorn
Toby ,touch her  and  your little son

Goodbye to  this world
Your children’s hearts unfurl
Touch them gently  as the birds fly on

God is with the lost
As they weep  and rest
Let them  mourn a husband,father,son
Let them mourn  a brother, a  dear friend

I have baked beans, enough to feed a street
So left alone, our lambs can safely bleat
I’ve got ten spuds fit enough to bake
But only one debilitated steak

I’ve got some bread flour and some old dried yeast
If we find some jam,oh, what a feast
We may have a street party, watch men  box
As girls with  long blonde hair   each sidle past

But once I use the last of my supplies
Will we get more food  or will we die?
There will be a shortage of white  sacks
As we collect the bodies of the wrecked

A greater Britain cannot now exist
Boris  is the immigrant we missed

Annie Laughton, the neighbor of Mary Brown, widow of Stan , the  almost world famous logician, came out of her oak-panelled front door and paused in her double glazed white plastic porch deliberating over whether her teal color 7/8  length wool coat was the best one for her to wear in the frosty smog covering Knittingham and the River Quaint.[Now breathe]
She decided a full-length raspberry maxi coat would be wiser however she did not take her own advice but wandered next door, to see what Mary was doing.
Mary was reading some book reviews.
There is a new type of illness, she told Anne.
Almost flu.almost depression, almost measles……almost happy

Surely you either have measles or not, Annie mumbled.
Not so, Mary answered.That is Aristotelian logic; nowadays we use fuzzy logic.It’s a degree of indefiniteness or its opposite.
This is why Trump got elected, Annie cried.We want it simpler.apart from Leonard Cohen who wanted it darker and so it has been for him.He died!
Well, fuzzy logic is not so hard, Mary whispered.
Any logic is hard, Annie replied.Prehistoric man had no logic and look at us now.Are we happier?Or we wiser? 
You seem a bit moody, Mary told her.By the way, I love your new coat.Where did you get it from?
I stole it from the cloakroom at the Cricket Club, Annie teased her thoughtfully.
Are you not worried the owner will see you? said Mary anxiously.
No, it was in Newcastle under Lyme!  Annie cried
But it is still both a crime and a sin.Mary retorted logically
Actually, I got it from Lands End, Annie said triumphantly.They had a big sale on.Because it was a warm autumn.It was only £6,788.09.
My, that’s cheap, said Mary.
My pension is £189 a week so how long will it take me to pay off the credit card? Annie wondered.
If we ignore interest and assume you pay £100 a week it will be 16788/100 which is about  168 weeks or 3 years.Can you live on £89 a week for 3 years?
No, I knew I should have stolen a new coat but I lost my nerve.
I am still wearing my old clothes, Mary boasted.
Yes, I  can see all the moth holes, Annie said humorously.Your darning is pathetic
I know, Mary said.Stan was good at darning.
Well, he can’t do it now, Annie informed her logically.Well. he might darn God’s tablecloth but not your skirts and jumpers.
God’s tablecloth is perfect, said Mary.It lasts for eternity unlike our clothes
Are we going out?It looks so cold.Why don’t we stay in and teach Emile to thread a needle?Annie pondered
Do you believe that a cat could ever learn that? Mary cried.
O ye of little faith,cried Annie.With God all things are possible.
Your argument has only one flaw,Mary cried.We are not God.
And so say all of us

The British love a  fairly good excuse
To buy more toilet paper   for their loos
Also more detergent  and some spice
Nutmeg is so great for killing lice

Don’t run out of turmeric, my dear
Its absence from my kitchen causes fear
Weetabix, a  thousand   boxes stored
With  dried milk in  tins that  men abhorr/adore

Buy some frozen  fish and thaw them out
Gratitude  brings   harmony, no doubt
Take the fish out in a golden bowl
If it’s cracked  then they might escape whole

I guess you’d better buy some bags of flour
Sifting those will pass a merry hour

All religion was meaningless to her.
She had never heard  of God, she shared
She spoke Dutch and  thought the priest said Sod
Swearing  is as common as iPads

So Sod help us with Brexit or make jokes
Does   this Sod enjoy a little smoke?
Dear Sod, the very mountains seem asleep
BTW I think you are a creep

Later he had changed his  name to Sid
And he always shared his sacred blood
He had so much it fed the whole wide world
Believe me now,   compassion’s not absurd.

Do not  do  to  others what harms you
Sid  lives in   your soul and he gets blue

There were three of us on this motorbike,
Father Dan with me,
And he had Jesus in his bag.
That makes the total three.

Transubstantiation, oh my Lord
I looked  at his  black bag.
Is Jesus  inside there, I thought?
Should it have a tag?

It’s a secret  never told
Father Dan gave it me to hold.
So I had Jesus in my lap,
No wonder now I feel a gap.

We zoomed off up an unmade road
As fast as Dan could go.
I felt bewildered and bemused,
I loved my Daddy so.

Father Dan took back his bag,
And went inside our house.
I got my marbles out to roll,
I ate a chocolate mouse.

So Three of had taken a ride
And after that my Dad had died.
Father Dan said Mass  today
With holy Jesus,so I cried.

Digital art by Katherine

My sister liked solving 40 quadratic equations every morning when she was 12  but she had no idea why they existed and why children should learn them.
That seems odd to me.

Then we have odd numbers but no normal number, just even ones

Why are odd numbers called odd?

If we take away all whol numbers from the set of all real numbers there are still more numbers left behind than the number we removed.Infinity has sizes!

A world in  which genocide has occurred can never be he same world.And it is not only the victims who suffer.It remains in our shared minds.
As with a nuclear bomb being used, the world is  irretrievably changed
Now our mouths gape with horror and all that we have seen  or known
But I didn’t like to mention it

.

Genocide

God is, alright Jack?

This sentence has  very different meaning without the comma in that place

God is alright,Jack

Apparently people in the UK hate commas.Why?

I have found my phone
Using my google account
Do not disturb!

I  got a new pan
I have bought frozen cabbage
How good with butter

I could not believe
Anyone would buy cabbage
Already chopped up
But I did

 

I have seen people
Buying Marks’ mashed potatoes
Now I understand

It’s creating jobs
For  unemployed graduates
Helping older folk

I’ll adopt one or two
I’ll teach them comversation
They can cook for me

I will live longer
When  men cook me hot dinners
They can eat as well

I like to feed people
But helping others is bad
Unless they buy something

Neo classical
Economics is harder
Than cooking dinners

We can live on food
But not on economics
I can believe that.

I like to believe
But they say action is best
In doing the will of God

Such a  wise saying
Judaism is like that
God is, alright Jack?

 

Watercolour by E.Limbrey 2019 copyright

 

When Mary woke up, it was very sunny and bright.  Then, she realised, she had forgotten to turn off the light over her bed, when she went to sleep. So, it was not sunny at all; in fact, it was the middle of the night!

 

“Oh dear,” said Mary to herself. “Shall I make a cup of tea or, since the landing light is not working, maybe I should stay here.” She closed her eyes and began to think about whether there was any space in the house to store the hundreds of chargers and USB cords that she seemed to have acquired over the last 20 years.

 

Soon, she was thinking about what she was going to wear, because Annie and she were going to a poetry reading in the Civic Centre at 4 p.m. and, before that, she had to do some shopping.  It was much easier in the 1960s and 70s, when everybody wore denim all the time, whatever they were doing, except of course in bed. “We don’t actually know whether anybody did wear denim in bed but I would not recommend it, because denim is very stiff when you are in bed.” Mary mused.

 

Before long, Mary fell asleep again and started dreaming about Stan, her dear husband. They were in the kitchen, scrubbing the gas cooker with Brillo pads.  Stan did not speak to her, nor did she ask him why he had never cleaned the cooker during the many years of their marriage. There was no point in dwelling or ruminating over what has gone.

 

On the other hand, it would have been nice if she had dreamed that they were staying in a hotel overlooking Poole Harbour and, from there, were magically transported to Corfe Castle, to have lunch in a beautiful restaurant.  Stan and Mary had been for a walk along the top of a hill overlooking Poole Harbour, when they were younger, and it is one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen; certainly, more beautiful than Torremolinos.

 

When Mary woke up again, it was 8 o’clock and Emile was mewing on the landing, as he wanted his breakfast.  Once she was down in the kitchen, eating her Weetabix, Mary heard a noise and, when she turned around, she saw her neighbour, Annie, dressed in purple velvet, standing at the back door

 

“Why are you up and dressed so early, Annie?” Mary cried “and why are you wearing velvet in January? It doesn’t look very warm to me.”

 

“Don’t worry,” said Annie “I am feeling very hot.”

 

“In what sort of manner are you feeling hot?” said Mary, quizzically

 

“You have got a vulgar mind, Mary!”

 

“Well, you may be 72 but you look stunning and I am sure that men will be staring at you, as you walk down the street.”

 

“I don’t want men to stare at me” Annie retorted

 

“Well, in that case, why are you wearing the foundation cream from Rummel St Quarantine, silver beige, and that purple mascara that you bought in Wigan last summer.  By the way, why did you go to Wigan last summer?”

 

“I was following a man on Facebook.”

 

“But you don’t literally follow them, do you?  I thought you just read what they wrote on Facebook. Did he know that you were following him?  He might have reported you to the police and said that you were a stalker.”

 

“No, he wouldn’t do that; he was very nice.  Actually, he introduced me to his wife and she took me shopping in this amazing pharmacy, where they had wonderful make-up: mascara in 20 colours and lipsticks in 40 colours!”

 

“I see,” said Mary “why did you not send me a postcard?”

 

Just then, they heard a noise by the front door. It was the post and, there on the door mat, was a big picture postcard of Wigan Pier

 

“Good heavens!” said Annie “why does it take the whole year for my postcard to arrive”

 

“Don’t ask me,” said Mary “I could understand differential operators but I cannot understand the so called Royal Mail”

 

She picked up the postcard when, suddenly, she felt dizzy and fell over, clutching at the banisters with her left hand.  Emile was very worried; he sobbed and sobbed.
“I think I’d better ring 999.” he said. “we need some help!”

 

“I think I’m alright.” said Mary “It’s just my hand is a bit painful but I haven’t broken anything.”
But it was too late, as Emile had already phoned.

 

The doorbell rang and Annie opened the door. In ran Dave, the trans-sexual paramedic, wearing a purple velvet trouser suit and a green silk scarf.

 

“Is that your new uniform?” Annie asked him politely

 

“No, I’m not on duty officially but, when I heard it was you phoning, I thought I would come.”

 

“Well, you see, Mary fell over in the hall.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Well, she had just seen a postcard that I sent to her when I was in Wigan last summer and it’s only just arrived.”

 

“Did you see the Pier?” Dave asked her.

 

“You know the Pier’s not real; it is a figment of somebody’s imagination, like George Orwell, for example”

 

“Well, I’ve often heard people talk about Wigan Pier.” Dave muttered nervously.

 

“Well, Wigan is not on the coast.” Annie told him.

 

“Don’t test me!  I didn’t even do O-level Geography.”

 

Mary stood up and said “All you need to do is look at a road atlas.”

 

“I am afraid you are behind the times.  People do not have road atlases, because they use a sat-nav.”

 

“Well,” said Mary “even if I were to use sat nav on my bicycle, I would still like to see where I’m going before I leave home and then I would know if Wigan was on the coast and whether Southport was at the bottom of the Langdale Pikes, if you see what I mean.”

 

“Yes, I do see what you mean.” Dave said “Let me take your pulse.”

 

“Where are you going to take it?” Mary asked him, anxiously.

“I will use your wrist but not the left one, because I know you have just hurt it on the stairs …Your pulse seems quite normal, Mary, so I won’t bother to take your blood pressure, because you might get ‘White Coat’ syndrome.”

 

“But you are not wearing a white coat.” Mary joked.

 

”That doesn’t matter. I am a Medical Professional, so you can imagine I am wearing a white coat in your unconscious mind, even though I am not”

 

“My goodness, Dave, you seem to be getting very clever these days; you sound like a Professor from Oxford.”

 

“I’ve never had the good fortune to meet a Professor in Oxford,“ Dave replied “but I have seen your Professor here in Knittingham, because there is a University here; actually, there are two Universities here now.”

 

“Yes, I know.” said Mary. “Let’s all go into the living room and have a cup of tea.  My cat needs to have his breakfast.”

 

.Emile crawled out from under the kitchen table, he was shivering with nerves.

 

“Oh dear!, Emile, I am sorry that I frightened you when I fell over”

 

“Oh, mama, I thought that you were going to die!”

 

“Well, I’m not dead yet.” she replied tersely.

 

“Thank the lord!” cried Dave.

 

“You sound like an evangelical Christian,” Annie told him.

“Well, I might be an evangelical Christian.” he said, in a rude tone of voice.

 

“Don’t be so rude, Jesus would not like it.” said Annie, bluntly.

 

“How do you know?  He lived 2000 years ago; they must have been very rude then.  I do know that the Jews are very ‘in your face’ and they like arguments” the paramedic replied.

 

“But that is not the same as being rude to people.”

 

“And I don’t like arguing; it makes me get migraine.  Thank the Lord I never married a Jew,” Annie cried.

 

“But  the Lord  was a Jew, himself.” Dave whispered.

 

“Very true. They are very clever people, you know, and they have been persecuted so much; it’s a miracle that there are any left at all,”  Mary told them, uneasily as it caused her anguish to think of the Holocaust and the Museum in Prague

 

“Well they enjoy their bodies; they are told that the body is good and that sex is good, both for procreation or for recreation or, hopefully, both at once, now and then.” he lectured her

 

“You seem to know a lot about Jews.” the women said  “Are you Jewish?”

 

“No, I am not Jewish, although my mother was, I believe, but she died when I was only 3 years old and I never learnt anything about that religion … but I know they can’t eat pork”

 

“Who brought you up?”  said Annie.

 

“My father and his sister brought me up and I like both of them, and that is why I am a trans-sexual dresser, because I like women’s clothes and men’s clothes, depending on the weather …You have never asked me before about my background.”

 

“You just seem so British.” Mary told him.

 

“Well, I am British; I was born in Clapton.”

 

“What a shame it was not Clacton-on-Sea, because there was a pier there, unlike Wigan, and I am sure that you would have liked to grow up by the sea.”

 

“Yes, but Clapton was also an interesting place to grow up; there are people from all ethnic groups, including Jews, Muslims, black, brown, white, Irish people, Catholics, Protestants, evangelical missionaries …….”

 

“For God’s sake, stop!” Annie told him “I have had quite enough.  How are you feeling, Mary?”

 

“I was feeling alright, actually, until you began asking Dave about his background.  Mind you, it is very interesting because, if your mother is Jewish you are too, so Dave is actually Jesus.”

 

“I don’t believe it.” said Dave “I am not the Messiah.”

 

“But would you know, if you were the Messiah?”

 

“Yes, I’d imagine so, but we can never be absolutely sure about anything.  Perhaps my time has not yet come.”

 

“And I hope it never does!” cried Emile

 

And so say all of us

 

Noone seems  to feel they”re satisfied
The Jones had 5 new kitchens, so they say
Why do richer people tell more  lies?

You might think they cry because God died
Would they never learn the way to pray?
Noone seems to feel quite satisfied

See the old man set  his mind to try:
What  is truth and where do pigrims go
Do the richer people tell more  lies?

Tax is bad  and payment is defied
The rich invest the withheld , putrify
Noone seems  to feel they’re  satisfied

Jesus shared the food so none  would starve
But soon the rulers   said , oh crucify
Why do  those above us tell more  lies?

Some have revolutions  where they say
They will change the world and make us hay
Noone seems  to feel they”re satisfied
Why do   rulers lie and lie and lie ?

 

If I could not see
I’d miss the bare black branches
Against dim burgundy.

Trees nod  heads gently
Accepting night fall and   moon
Neon  light, vulgar

Dark blue,plum, soft grey
The sun dies bleeding , upwards.
As it sinks to darkness

Would I notice skies
If I wasn’t alone searching?
I found more wool gloves

I found wrist  warmers
It is no longer  freezing cold
But no bikinis

Darker and darker
Now the branches join the sky
All  plum velvet deep

I’m two people now
Plaited relationship
Love,hate and fireworks

Could I have helped
Other than by freezing all
Into a  ice bomb?

Implode or explode?
Move on  a dimension
Then see  what happens

I am fortunate
If I can find two gloves now
One left and one right

The other problem
My hands are misshapen too
Ladies’ gloves might not fit me.

I can be a man
If I decide I want to be
There! I wear your gloves now.

But I prefer scarves
Made for women, with flowers
Embroidery,silk,cashmere.

My taste is quite good
I know  I like your image
You stand on the bridge in Prague

In Wenceslaus Square
The orchestra played Ma Vlast
The Elektion

Holocaust Museum
Children’s coloured drawings are
Butterflies for God

He died too with them
So we have no  floor to stand on
Everything’s trembling

I forgot I am.
I was lost somewhere other
How I stand on air!

 

Stranded by my loss
I gaze right across the sea
Desolation