Where is my microfibre cloth>
Day: May 14, 2019
The cat’s mother
After Mass on Sunday Mary decided to visit Stan, her elderly, gentle and frail husband in the Rehabilitation Unit where he had been sent recently by a strange physiotherapist…He was unhappy as the diuretics made him pee even more often than he used to do and he got very worried about it because his bad heart made it extremely hard for him to walk.
When she went into the small four bed ward she saw Stan sitting on his chair without any pyjama trousers on even though it was visiting time from 3 to 8 pm.
Why has he no trousers on? Mary asked a nurse angrily, her singularly blue eyes full of unshed glistening tears which almost washed off her turquoise mascara and made runnels in her honey beige foundation by Rimmel of London and Paris
He keeps wanting to go to the toilet so it’s easier for us all if he has no pants on, the nurse told her haughtily.He’s on diuretics, you see as he has water in his lungs and other inner organs and the water has to be removed from his body, Sheila ,the nurse announced in a cold voice
What about the lack of dignity in baring him to the world, Mary enquired softly yet piercingly her eyes dripping tears again.
Dignity ,what’s that? the nurse said insolently.He is just a pest. And old men don’t deserve any attention.We are tired of them.They should all die now.That’s government policy it appears
Emile who had hidden in Mary’s old, but good olive green Radley leather handbag let out a sound like a banshee in Cork or a demon in a nightmare.
The nurse looked quite frightened
What’s that? she whispered to Mary behind her hand.
It’s probably Satan coming to say ” hello” to you as you seem very wicked to me.Mary informed her politely yet honestly in her Northern way.
Oh my,what shall I do? the nurse asked in a trembling voice.I am so upset now.
You could try reading the Ten Commandments, Mary riposted jocosely… if it’s not too late.
Or recalling the Golden Rule………
I’ve never heard of the golden rule, said the nurse.Is it a measuring instrument of some unusual type?
Yes,in a sense it is, Mary said.It measures us by our compassion towards others.And you seem to have none for Stan.Can you not imagine what it’s like being a man sitting half naked in a public room with no recourse?
What’s a recourse, Sheila, the nurse, asked her thoughtfully,Is it a garment like a dressing gown?
No,it’s a a source of help in a difficult situation.It’s a remedy or an option
I have a higher degree in nursing,Sheila boasted stupidly.
I don’t care if you have a doctorate in nursing and philosophy,Mary cried.It’s what you do and say to the patients that counts.And going to an evening class in English would do you no harm.Your vocabulary is limited,to say the least.And words are useful whatever job you do.Or even if you are unemployed it helps you deal with bureaucrats
Oh,dear,said the nurse,I am sorry for being so thoughtless.I am always thinking about sex,love and clothes instead of the patients.I see now I have fallen into evil ways and hope I can improve a little.
You have been cruel, said Mary.And seeing my aged husband like this is breaking my heart.
She went over to Stan and sat by him.He fell against her bosom hungrily.Alas it was not for erotic reasons.His blood sugar was only 2 and his BP was 60/40.He was dying there with no trousers on and with no-one but Mary to help him… and Emile, their small intelligent black cat ,of course.Unfortunately Emile’s trousers were too small for Stan.Mary wrapped a bath towel around Stan and held him in her arms.
Stan tried to speak but Mary could not make out what he was saying.Tears ran down her beautiful lined and wrinkled face and dripped onto Stan’s head.I suppose one might say it was a kind of baptism by love.Now Stan will soon be entering a new dimension and will be given a new and better name by One who cannot be named here.But you catch my drift?
Judgment is mine says the Lord.
Stan collapsed, his face went black.Only then was he sent to a real hospital with full equipment.He died, looking happy, the next day.His last words
“So many lovely friends”
Emile was crying on Mary’s lap.
Don’t worry Emile.He was very unhappy.
So am I, Emile wept
Then Mary wept herself.What a pity Emile is a cat and so cannot embrace the person he calls “Mother”
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Wondering how to export Johnson, May
We’re living with the lunatics today
Half the population burns with rage
Wondering how to edit Theresa May
No longer do the anxious kneel and pray
We hear the verbal missiles wildly staged
We may be the lunatics today
For this civil war, we all will pay
The British voters ‘ anger is a plague
Wondering how to infect Theresa May
Is this a stage and who has made this Play?
Of the facts we seem to be quite vague
We may be the lunatics today
The stage is set, the tyrant has his say
Who will give the poor a living wage?
Wondering how to question Theresa May
Shall we too see immigrants be caged
They are merely animals despised
We’re living with the lunatics today
Wondering how to export Johnson,May
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The poetry of history
“History and poetry hardly seem obvious bed-fellows – a historian is tasked with discovering the truth about the past, whereas, as Aristotle said, ‘a poet’s job is to describe not what has happened, but the kind of thing that might’. But for the Romans, the connections between them were deep: historia . . . proxima poetis (‘history is closest to the poets’), as Quintilian remarked in the first century AD. What did he mean by that?
From its beginnings, epic poetry in Latin was frequently based on actual historical events – so Naevius’ Bellum Punicum in the third century BC told the story of the first Punic War between Rome and Carthage, whereas the subject of Ennius’ Annales, from the second century BC, was the history of Rome from mythological times down to the poet’s own day. Evidently the Romans had no difficulty with taking a genre used by the Greeks mainly for the retelling of myth and employing it to celebrate their own national past, and indeed present. Even Cicero found the time to write an epic poem (complete with gods) about his own consulship (De Consulatu Suo) – after unsuccessfully attempting to interest some real poets in the job. Barely more than the first line has survived; and that verse, o fortunatam natam me consule Romam, ‘O happy Rome, born when I was consul’, is as inelegant (with its ugly repetition –natam natam) as it is immodest.”
How my heart sings 