We may miss the  very clues we need

Emotional claustrophobia is widespread
We fear   our feelings,fear the sudden dread
We swing between attraction and dismay
Others have been seen to sink to prayer

Yet all alone at Xmas we are sad
Even   our other choice was dread
People who  can madden with crude noise
Feel some  one else might love their voice

Silence is  like music in  its  joy
No intrusion, no strong  words to annoy
But if we flee intrusion   at great speed
We may miss the  very clues we need

Oh, to find a lover  joyful in our space
When we long  for  touch, for wild embrace.

Between intrusion and abandonment

Between intrusion and abandonment
We  hope to find a  place  of trust and care
A place where we can  spend our loving wealth

Communion starts.our hearts enjoy love’s health
Here our bodies and our souls are bared
Between intrusion and abandonment

Walk  as does the tiger with its stealth
Treat your loved one well  as  both prepare
A place where  each can  spend this loving wealth

And if you are  alone, stay with  yourself
Do not neglect   that soul who’s always here
Without intrusion or abandonment

Quietly sings the soul  for all is meant
We’re inspired  by hope  and  not by fear
To  clear  a space , to  learn the dove’s  lament.

Take the tiller, love itself may steer
Our voyage through the  unknown ocean’s near
Between intrusion and abandonment
We  seek a   space  to share our loving wealth

 

 

This frail membrane  is our boundary

My room is warm and comforting and light
This feels  like kindness , brings my skin delight
I remember  being held in loving arms
And soothed by songs  as sweet as any balms

Let the lamplight run across  the eyes
Let them soften to a wider gaze
Let the hair  be free from wax and sprays
Let the skin enclose us, be our way

We can’t deny the skin is often pricked
Or beaten by a parent who’s too strict
More fragile than a leaf from any tree
This frail membrane  is our boundary

Floating into sleep in  reverie
I lose myself  while God imagines me

Well as it’s free we do not have to pay

I went to vote, the queue ran down the street
Strange to see the British change their ways
None were holding phones  nor were there bleeps

Eager faces, animation sweet
Well as it’s free we do not have to pay
I went to vote, the queue ran down the street

The staff were  kind, the voters  were no sheep
They did not need a shepherd  for this Play
None were holding phones  nor were there bleeps

The politicians   crippled by conceit
Put fake websites on the net  today
I went to vote, the queue ran up the street

I alas am  old  but I still sweat
The stupidity of   gossip  is  made clear
No-one made a video   of my seat

I  did not queue, a cripple  may   shed tears
All I  have is  sight loss and  burnt ears
I went to vote, the queue  stood   with no light
Smiling, patient people black and white

Never join conspiracies or choirs

Why do we love  those who love us least
To prove we can obtain whom we desire?
He makes cruel comments at the wedding feast

Do not call  this man a nasty beast
An animal is  better than a liar
Why do we love  those who love us   least?

He shouts  in rage because his shirt is creased
Throws your letters into the coal fire
He makes crude comments   at our Xmas feast

I do not mind  if you are dressed in fleece
Wear nylon shirts and  shoes with laces wired
Why do we love   most the late deceased?

Never borrow  men  who have no price
Never join conspiracies or choirs
If they make  “remarks”   don’t on them feast

The  old cathedrals have  the tallest  spires
With older men the risks are  sadly higher
Why do we love  those who love us least
Who  cannot be polite at wedding feasts?

 

I googled “Ending war”  but nothing came

 The wilder edges, hidden  cliffs of life
Sorrow slides into the hearts unnamed
As we see our neighbours fall to strife

We make our minds up,  this won’t happen twice
We  act from some gut feeling  reason’s lame
Walking the wild edges,tossing dice

The anger and the rage pierce  all, disguised
No caring for opponents. sharing blame
As we  and  many neighbours fall to strife

The smartphone has no answers I surmise
I googled “Ending war”  but nothing came
The Pennines have wild edges that surprise

The white rose and the red rose  compromised
The Queen  used like a weapon  in the game
As we  and once loved  neighbours fall to strife

See our faces wet with bloody stains
We prefer to fight, than use our brains
Oh,wilder edges,   flowers,  would bring delight
If  our neighbours end this goddamned   fight

 

 

 

 

I shan’t be alone

In my coffin I will have no phone
At last I shall be free  like  new born babe
But how will people hear my mobile groans?

Who shall write  my story on a  stone?
I can’t ring Emergency  for aid
In my coffin I will have no phone

I must have a linen sheet untorn
Be reminded I’ve already paid
How will people hear my mobile groans?

Out we go, as in we, came alone
Will someone sing for me ,   oh humming bird
In my coffin I will need no phone

We will  die as we have lived, atoned
I hope  a human person hears my words
Help  us all,dear God, to forestall groans

Free  from medications  .free of  nerves
 Straight to Heaven  atop our loved ones prayers
In my coffin I   shan’t  be alone
I want to go with all my garden gnomes

 

 

 

My naked flesh

On my journey into sleep I hold
A little bag which holds a tiny phone
I hold a spray of GNT  to bomb
My arteries as wide as a mother’s thumb

Yet I’d like to go in naked form
Trusting in the darkness as a balm
Before  all, this  I loved my naked flesh
That with my loved one I might be enmeshed

Now I seem in danger from myself
My own heart is severed from its wealth
Migraine of  the heart can lead to death
Through my artery I  express   wrath

What other mysteries can my body  know?
Thank God,I  only signed for Pay and Go

 

I pray the  silent music brings relief

img_20191201_185332-1Underneath the silence there is peace
A stratum clear  ;a different way of life
With music ‘s just discernible  relief

In the calm we find a pure release
Love can heal the wounds of a sharp knife
We embrace the silence ,welcome peace

The self  may break ,may shake in disbelief
Render us to fragments,soul denied
Does music   give discernible  relief?

Do not bury loss and hide your grief
We mourn  what’s gone and those who  have late died
Company in  silence   brings  us peace

Did you see your body lying creased
On the bed below your   hiding place?
Play with music, pray for  some relief

I  find myself  lie broken in a box
A jigsaw needing time beyond the clocks
Underneath the silence there is peace
I pray the  silent music  brings relief

 

Young Men Who Chase After Ghosts from “A Small Blue Marble” by Syd Weedon

Young men who chase after ghosts amuse me,when I fight through haunted night to keep them at bay.I want to say, “Just give them time; they’ll arrive,”but I don’t want to spoil their fun. Tissue frays; sharp becomes fuzzy. Night falls.Look straight ahead, not side to side. Shades gather.Don’t make eye contact or answer, or […]

via Young Men Who Chase After Ghosts — A Small Blue Marble

When after death I lie deep in the earth

O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat
When after death I lie in deep in the earth
My bosom,hands and eyes  become your meat

You have no sun as you enjoy your feast
And none is  chosen as we were at birth
O happy worm that of  my flesh might eat

All of us are equal in defeat
None are high or low , what are we worth?
My brain,my hands,my eyes  become worms’ meat

In the soil, we rest  in comfort sweet
Let us all be blessed,God  make no curse
You made the happy worms who   will  us  eat

O  remember the deep  ash from Auschwitz’ heat
The little children killed without Kaddish
Those  hearts ,those hands, those eyes   no worm   could eat

,
Why should we  be satisfied by wish

When  people burn or starve  beside our dish
O Godly worm that of  my flesh might eat
Let my very self  become your meat

The biggest part of our minds is the unconsious

 

 

 

 

6819924_f1126074c2_m-brighter-1

My art

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160315-the-enormous-power-of-the-unconscious-brain

Exract

The non-conscious mind also plays a role in more sophisticated actions, whether it’s deciding on attraction to the opposite sex, completing mathematical sums or forming political views. There are even strange cases where people who are ostensibly blind can ‘see’, thanks to the non-conscious part of their minds: a phenomenon known as blindsight.

“There is debate in the field about whether consciousness even has efficacy,” says Eagleman. “By the time your conscious mind registers something, is it always just the last guy to get the news, and it doesn’t even matter what it thinks?”

Indeed, designers and advertisers have known how to control our non-conscious decisions for centuries. By using subtle cues designed to bypass conscious awareness, they can “trick” us so that we drive more safely, navigate cities in ways we do not realise and even drink more alcohol at the bar.

Race for the bottom

ashdown-house-2019-1

 

 

 

From the Guardian Newspaper

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/10/racism-election-defined

Rather than understanding that all racisms, while distinct, are entangled with each other, we are encouraged to regard racisms as organised on a hierarchy of severity – one that perversely mirrors the power imbalance established by the idea of race itself. The reason why antisemitism is seen as more representative of “serious” racism is precisely because it has largely been seen as belonging to a “more racist era” in the past.

In contrast, the fact that Facebook ruled Islamophobic posts did not violate its “community standards” shows that Islamophobia has seeped so much into the everyday as to be seen as something other than racism. The same can be said for the racism facing black people, migrants, asylum seekers and Roma – especially as the Conservative manifesto has explicitly committed to confiscate the property of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. Similarly, nearly 700 people drowned in the Mediterranean while trying to reach the shores of Europe this year alone, but the rising death toll of Fortress Europe is never identified as “racism”, due to our poor public understanding of race and racism.

Here in Babel

If I wrote the perfect poem this week
After  musing on the style and words
The world would end and no-one else could speak

How would the voters feel if this news broke?
  Election Day would be no doubt absurd
If I wrote the perfect poem this week

From the Mail, God seems to be a freak
The journalists  by such endings  are  deterred
The world would end and no-one else could speak

What is perfection, when does  judgment cease?
Here in Babel   which tongue will declare
If  I   write   the perfect poem this week

My pen leaks, now my paper sheet is creased
Is this war or love, block eyes that glare
The world may end then no-one else can speak

As we bite the apple or the pear
We leave the milk for infants  and their tears
If I wrote the perfect poem this week
This world would end then God might  find life bleak

· Daddy’s coming home

At three o’clock, we ran across the park
Then up the Wigan Road, we children roamed
Past the houses and along the fields
Looking for our daddy coming home
Looking for our daddy coming home.

I was only  two or three  at most
We passed our church and saw the Pope in Rome
We climbed a fence and walked by fields of wheat
Looking for our daddy coming home
Looking for our daddy coming home.

From the distance came a tall thin man
A ladder on his shoulder, hair well combed
A bucket full of paints and all his tools
Look, Paul, is that daddy coming home?
Bernard, I think daddy’s coming home!

A look of shock, a smile, a cry, my loves!
He rushed towards us, happy and transformed
What about your mammy does she know?
Yes, yes, yes it’s daddy coming home
Yes, yes, yes, it’s daddy coming home.

Oh,Mammy had no idea   of  it at all
She thought we were just playing by the wall
Children were much bolder and more free
 But Daddy  went to Heaven after that
Mam was   so depressed   she killed the cat

 

Happy in the golden fields  of joy
Happy with no money  with few toys
 Daddy never walked that road  for long
I missed him so I  cut   off my own tongue

There’s always cake

white and blue floral table lamp
Photo by fotografierende on Pexels.com

What a great thing Food Banks are.You can meet people like yourself and if there are enough tins of  baked beans you can ask someone round for tea.I expect if there’s no bread there will be cake

 I hope there will be some PG tips tea.I hate foreign food even tea. and   want real tea made in England and well brewed

Gosh even if you are rolling in money you can still trawl Charity Shops  in Hampstead  for cheap designer wear.The poor don’t need designer clothes.I mean, they don’t even know what they are, do they?And they are hardened to the cold.Why in my mother’s era they had no shoes and when you think about it. why does the government not ban shoes for people on benefits?

I  think it’s wonderful of the people in Vietnam to make a hundred T shirts a day for 10 pence
I mean, it is a job  all is said and done.I once worked as waitress and it  is such fun during the vacation from Oxford.We are only there 24  weeks a  year so I need to be occupied but only with my consent.My mother is descended from King Charles 2nd! He had lots of mistresses, such a naughty boy.Bring back the mistress but don’t marry her

The words were wise, the sentences allured

Once an Empire ,  once an admired place
Great Britain should now be in outer space
We lose connections, cut them with  a sword
No-one  seems to know where dwells the Word

We had  a language rich and full of grace
Apostrophes and commas knew their place
The words were wise, the sentences allured
Shakespeare could  quote  music  sung by birds

We were not wrecked by theories   so base
Enjoyed by French  professors , what disgrace
Sentences should ring  out  and be  shared
The circles  of  our culture can’t squared

Where have gone our manners and our strength?
Where indeed has gone the National Health?

 

We have no  reverie,  we have no time

Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall
The words predicted death  and so it came
The mightiest king is not  preserved from falls

Is there  wisdom  in the deep that calls
True scholarship  is hard , to name unnamed
Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall

 

Even  blatant  evil, none appals
We have no  reverie,  we have no time
The mightiest king ‘s no  safer    with his gold

 

Counted,weighed,divided, aren’t we all?
The words in Aramaic  were  no  rhyme
Belshazzar saw the grave  there on  his wall

Once old ladies smiled  knit  infants shawls
They had joy  though death  came wandering by
The King  of Babylon  deserved his fall

Being alive seems  near to a  great crime
God may die yet love burns its small flame
Belshazzar learned the writing on the wall
The  humbler people are,  the  less the  fall

 

 

e

 

Problem pupils

What shall I do with  a dilated pupil?

a) Send them to the Headmaster

b} Give them a shrinking glance

c) Look away

d) Go to an Eye Clinic

e} is she  having a baby? How can you see her cervix? Are you a doctor?

My glasses are reading  any advice?

A} You have schizophrenia

B} You are a witch

C} You  need an eye test

D) They are a surveillance device.Throw them in the bin

My lenses are plastic

a} You have had cataract surgery

b} You are deluded

c} They are  ruining the environment.Hide them if you can get them out of your eyes

4} You want attention.? Ask for a glass eye next time

I inherited 11m pounds unknowingly

You tell me  how I can do it too.Are you a Royal bastard?y

The  optician also takes wax out  people’s ears  but it does no harm and  we all have our neuroses.He makes candles out of it so he says

I saw my father running after the bus

We saw the trolley bus, small, like a child’s toy
Passing the bottom of our street
Once we went out on that bus to a park
Coming back,I was sitting at the front
Four years old
 watched them all get off
But I stayed still; as the bus moved off
I saw my father running after  us
He was shouting, but they went to the next stop
I felt no emotion except interest.He got me

The houses up the top had faces watching us
They were at an angle 
The geometry was  not simple
There was the back street we went on to school
 My brothers left me,I was running
A bicycle boy rode   over me
Nobody came
I was five years old

He lived on  a steep hill, my 6 year old boyfriend
He had  lovely  red hair

He let  me ride his tricycle
He had to catch me  before I hit Wigan Road
Which was  busy by the standards of the time

I was not afraid.He was under my thumb
I was six years old

When the cat has screamed

 

 

 

cats on sofa (1)I

I see I’m very smartly dressed today
My jumper’s striped in black and clotted  cream
I have  a  black skirt with embroidery

This outfit was not planned in anyway
I got dressed in  the bathroom,  the cat screamed!
I see I’m very smartly dressed today

The skirt is from a pricey place’s sale
The jumper ‘s M and S, is that obscene?
I have  a  black skirt with embroidery

The opthalmologist admired my taste
I seem to dress just like our much loved Queen
 I see I’m very smartly dressed today

I feel  so happy , that   is no  disgrace
From  my chair I see the sun’s gold beams
I have  a  black skirt , flowers in their place

I used to wear a T shirt and old jeans
When I was teaching maths  and  losing dreams
I see I’m very smartly dressed  again
I  have  a  black skirt  on, is that depraved?

 

To hear your voice

img_20191122_203051

The music

of

your voice

I shall never hear.

I shall never

play a duo with you.

Would we harmonize?

Or find some compromise?

Does one need to hear

the sound of someone's heart,

transposed into verbal music..

Or can we manage without it?

Ideolect

Sociolect.

Circumspect?

Words reveal the lost soul.

But not the whole story.

Play it again

But this time

Speak it.

I want to hear the music

Of you.

Copyright

Meditating over the dale’s edge

short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale’s edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.
on wind-side,careful sight,
may swoop to prey
and away.

your yellow broad-eyed look,
at once both sharp and distant,
holds me.
oh,silence,
oh,wind on green,
oh,earth,
sky.

immense your held vision,
sphere without center,
pied geometer of flight,
oh, swift descent and ascent.
trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home

So you don’t like J C ?

 

 

Clement Attlee founded the NHS.He was a Labour PM who did good things

 

https://whitstableviews.wordpress.com/2019/12/04/so-you-dont-like-jeremy-corbyn/

“You like his policies. You want railways and other utilities back in public hands. You don’t see why foreign-based state-owned rail companies should be taking profits from our subsidised rail system. You want to see our Health Service properly funded. You don’t want to see it sold off in a trade deal with the Americans. You don’t want to see our nurses using food banks. You think that corporations that use our infrastructure should be properly taxed. You are against tax havens and tax cuts for the rich. You are fed up with foreign wars.

But you don’t like Jeremy Corbyn.” End of quote

What would Jesus do?

We wounded hide away

10363756_491792187620581_3914824934932227777_n (1)If I could see your heart and soul and know your feelings past 
 and if you knew mine
 we could   guess why our expectations go so wrong
 because at that moment what was said seemed right but looked at from a wider perspective 
Some  words we said were  errors
or at least not expressed in a way that communicated what we really  meant….
And how painful it is to hurt a beloved person…
Beloved…….I don’t believe you after the cruel you wrote…….
this is the confusion of the human condition…
when fear for a  time eclipses the  warm sun of love
when everything seems dark and  one can only wish to hide away.
…… to protect others from knowing……….
yet the message they get does not say that  the intention………
to protect them and it seems like a total rejection…..
I’m not good enough for you……
I don’t want to hurt you.
Don’t hurt me.
Yet the eclipse will end the sun will shine again………
 and it gives us compassion for others ……….
We don’t take an eclipse personally…………
but with people………………… it’s hard not to do so……
 yet there’s so much we don’t know……… or can’t know
so trust is all we can do….
trust what we once saw………….
and take down the barbed wire we put around our hearts………
 let ourselves be touched and touch.
 When words are not enough…………
we have a rich silence….
 the gaps between the words can say so much.
……to those gifted with understanding
When words refuse to come…….. 
we can share our silence ………
and keep it empty not full of dread or images of fear
until words begin to flow…
like tears.. welcome after a drought,,,,,,
when  our  words hide…. we will find them………….
so much is unknown…………….. we can’t know………
and past losses and rejections   haunt us………
filling the pregnant space with pain.
Yet words can comfort too…console, c
caress,
make communion possible

….words………….
they are all we have…… we‘ ll make them enough somehow.
…..learn their ways and how to use them to touch gently the other’s heart.
……and show, and share our love
………….not use them as a sword…………..
 use them with care….to show care,,,,to show love..
.and regret our faults and failings … but not attacking ourselves cruelly
 stop punishing ourselves….~
have mercy on ourselves 
Have mercy on others…..
We are all vulnerable
We  may miss so much because we are afraid
Wounds can heal,will heal

Have mercy
Accept the pain until we are healed
Then we start again

English idioms maze the minds we lost

English idioms maze the minds of most
Every cloud is  lined in silver cloth
I put my foot in it now I’m divorced

If I’m  late the wife will have my guts
What on earth is meant by the Lord’s wrath?
English  natives speak in  words and grunts

 

Straight from the horses mouth,  seems  rather coarse
If you  want    to  bid, you merely cough
I put my foot in it now I’m divorced

There’s no fool like an old one , shall we laugh?
The tea could hardly crawl out of the pot
English  natives speak,  we’re twice as daft?

She looked as nice as pi … is that in maths?
Her wardrobe was the envy of the  gods
I put my foot in it now I’m divorced

Ever seen old boots, well she is not
Ever been  on  Tubes, well mind the doors
English idioms bruise the minds of hosts
I put my foot in it ,now I’m divorced

Spent a lifetime hanging off a ledge

Ah,rebellious spirit wanting space
With my finger on the map I paced
I climbed Helvellyn, fell off Striding Edge
Spent a lifetime hanging off a ledge

Meanwhile our kind teacher twittered on
Thomas Hardy, Hopkins., we were numb
She never mentioned she saw my escape
The way the nuns  hurt me, the bitter rape

I slipped  on High White Stones and almost  dropped
My feet were dangling off the  fearsome rocks 
No-one knew for I was climbing last
Know me  please but never learn my past

How quickly life has  run since I could climb
Now I merely sit here draped in rhymes