I got a winter coat online 3 months ago.I have never seen a coat so strangely shaped The shoulders are extremely wide so they drop off the ends of my own shoulders This ensures that the sleeves are so crazily long that my whole hands are covered The length should be lust below the knee but it is nearly down to my ankles And I could wear a dozen thick jumpers under it [ may be useful in the cold[ The only positive thing I can say,I got it half price !Instead of it upsetting me,I could not help being amused when I looked down at it It’s the sort of thing a homeless person might get for a shilling from a Jumble Sale Can I get free soup from a Convent?
The red leaves in the sunshine seem to smile A pale blue sky, a silver aeroplane I’m happy,I am warm, in your arms coiled I have no heater but the kettle boiled I made us coffee then my parcel came My face in the small mirror had a smile My love is deep, you never were on trial If we quarrel, we both share the blame I’m happy,I am warm, in your arms coiled Our sorrow is, we have not made a child Jesus cursed the fig tree in its shame Yet red leaves in the sunshine seem to smile Sorrow need not madden nor make bold We do not know the purpose nor the game I’m happy,I am warm now as I toil We need old fashioned virtues like restraint We don’t see the whole as life we paint The red leaves in the sunshine seem to smile I’m happy,I am warm, the sea sings wild
His hands travelled all over me like a herd of drunken fleas the size of spiders His eyes wandered over my supine body like a surveyor estimating the price of a house He kissed me with my permission as I was frozen He showed me our marriage certificate in triplicate in a gold frame He tickled me with a feather till I was maddened by rage So I said, quit staring,I don’t like your gaze His nails were as thick as the icing on a Xmas cake He never scratched me even when I itched I don’t know if it was deliberate but he missed I said I would never get married and it was a lie in retrospect
I have caught a drug resistant bug Could it be that European mug? They drink coffee till the cows come home As for me I’m permanently stoned I want to go to bed, so I must eat I take the powerful tablets as I sleep When I waken I may well be cured Not like bacon,I can’t see the lure All day breakfast is a silly name Keats would be astonished ,it’s iname My mother tried to make me knit and sew I can’t see but will that make me slow?
I did not know my mind was strong as sin My wickedness was choosing to be thin My ringlets seemed far wilder than cats’ screams The torture and the vividness of dreams I picked up books and read them in an hour How could I guess the wreckage of men’s power? I made pastry, I baked cakes of wheat To honour God , my father, the elite .From my pram I gave the neighbours shocks Electric was my verbal skill and luck They asked me how to vote and who should win I sucked my dummy as my thoughts all ran I sit and listen by the kitchen sink For I get drunk without a single drink
Near sturdy cobbles rounded with tar packed The gutter’s dirty grids held marbles drowned Washing new hung out like rain damped macs
When the bin men came they used the back The ash bin was full up,some on the ground By sturdy cobbles rounded and tar packed
The sound of lorries terrified the cat From his throat there came a frightful sound Washing now inside, like rain damped macs
In the backyard was the privy dank An air raid shelter full of wood we scrounged Near sturdy cobbles rounded and tar packed
How the washing dried I cannot think On the wooden maiden some was singed Washing rarely dried, like rain damped macs
Five sheets, towels, the knickers, all were hanged Waving in the drizzle like mens’ hands Above the sturdy cobbles well tar packed Washing in the back street, abject,pecked
Cracks in the pavement,mosquito bites When my own blood runs,I don’t waste the sight Ants on a tree trunk,busy all day If you are grieving, with you I shall pray We don’t know the future, we forget the past For asylum seekers, we pray and we fast For refugees starving, for the suffering lost Give them attention, what does it cost?
We are swimming in deep water,deep and green I am coming towards you with my fingers stretched Our bodies pale as fish, our soft hair streams
The deep sea has no sun, yet we can see The retina is waiting, ready,etched We are swimming in deep water,deep and green
I see your face and eyes,how well they gleam Do we have to undergo a test? Our bodies pale as fish, our soft hair streams
Underneath the ocean are strange scenes I will tell you later, we are blessed We are swimming in sea water,deep and green
Our fingers meet, our lips share silver sheen We float in circles, weightless is our flesh Our bodies pale as fish, our soft hair streams
What will happen, what shall we do next Inspiration,grace, we are perplexed We are floating in deep water,deep and green Our bodies pale as fish, our soft hair streams
I always think I hear you when I wake Lying in the warmth of the front room Memory stabs my heart,I want to wail There’s noone near,my mind is swept by gales I always think I hear you when I wake Then I know it is a sad mistake Tears like petals fall through Easter hail I gave my heart but love grows not in tombs I often think I see you when I wake Smiling in the warmth of that bedroom
Stan was reading the paper at 9 pm when the front door bell rang.Emile,his delightful tomcat who was asleep,nearly jumped out of his skin.Stan opened the front door cautiously .“Goodnight,sir.” remarked the handsome man standing there. impassively “Goodnight?”Said Stan confusedly, ”But I’ve never seen you before.Are you the sandman who comes to put little children to sleep?” “Good evening,sir.” the man continued,”I’m so sorry my English is so poor.I am studying David McChrystal’s Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language and I’m still a trifle mystified by it.” “What do you want?”Stan asked him. ”What do I want? I want to study philosophy and write a novel like Iris Murdoch did ”“ No,no.” said Stan” I mean,why are you here ?” “A good question,why are we here? Do we have a mission in life or are we here as a result of mere chance and happenstance or even serendipity or did God send us on purpose ?” “I mean,why are you here ringing my doorbell at this time of the night?” “Shouldn’t that be evening,sir?” The stranger enquired sardonically yet politely.“ Look.are you after something?” “Well,I’m after getting people to go to church or other place of worship.” “Are you partly Irish?”Stan asked him plaintively. “What’s happening,”called Mary from her study where she was reading a critique of Principia Mathematica for the seventeenth time .“God only knows!” said Stan. Mary came to the front door.She wore a green silk blouse with a jade necklace, a pair of smart jeans from Per Una and some pink trainers with yellow laces.On her face she wore Lancome of Paris light beige foundation,strawberry pink lipstick and purple mascara from Clinique.Her perfume was by Beyonce. “Goodnight,madam” said the stranger. “I think that’s slightly rude,” said Mary.”If you’ve never met someone before it’s inappropriate to say goodnight.” “Well,you aren’t in bed,” he replied laboriously. “What has that got to do with it?” she asked “Inappropriate is often used to refer to sexual behaviour.” “Well,who are you?” she whispered politely. “I’m the new curate!””I’m Polish and I’m here ” “Well,I’m sorry I don’t know a single word of Polish.would you like to speak in Latin?”“Ite,missa est!” The curate exclaimed.“Uno reductio ad absurdum”S tan muttered seductively .“That’s Italian,UNO” cried Mary shyly .“Well,it’s pretty similar.” Stan said ironically; “Well,I must go,”said the curate anxiously “You’ve not been yet so how can you go?” Mary asked mathematically, demonstrating the futility of logic.“ I don’t know,sir.Good evening,good afternoon,good morning.”the red faced man screamed as he ran hurriedly down the garden path. “Are we Catholics ?”Mary asked Stan .“Oh,I can’t remember,” he said.”Do we go to any church,synagogue or mosque?” “Well,we may be non-practising at it all, I suppose.” “Perhaps we’d better start practising,” he murmured affectionately. “Oh,if you insist,” she replied in an un-wifely roguish tone. “That’s right,blame it all on the man.In my experience it’s you who is keener than me on all of that.” “What are you talking about?”she enquired seductively.Prayer? Suddenly the door bell rang.It was the curate. “Goodnight” he called.”goodnight”“Goodnight, old man” they responded in their reserved English fashion. “Mioaw” cried Emile,”Mioaw,miaow,miaow.And so pray all of us.Amen Donations via PayaFriend.com please live generously
I am very clever,give me that I have got a first class aegrotat Do you feel that you would like one too ? Just get chicken pox or maybe flu
I went to York in winter,this is true Hebden Bridge had icebergs in the loo Then we were near Grimsby in thick fog The Humber Ferry crossed like coppers plod
In Hull they gave degrees in geography Now they teach the gross democracy That may be where I caught Golders Green My face is apple and my eyes are teal
I could have done degrees in Law or Greek I love to hear the way the foreign speak Give me Aramaic for my tea Give me ancient Hebrew,I am he.
I learned Dutch but I was not first class In fact I failed completely,I’m an ass
We walk along the Pennine way some years If farmers let the bulls out,we don’t care I like stiles and jumping over walls But then I’m not a man with stuff to haul I like mountains,I like lakes and boats I like being tickled as we float I like sheep that follow me all day Trying to find the perfect spot to pray Up near Dent the sheep beg very well They learn to knit while sitting on a Fell In the winter Dent is somewhat cold It feels more frosty to the very old I’ll never go to Dent or Alston now Unless the bull is gone and there’s a cow I’ll never climb up Coniston Old Man Nor meet Mary,Annie, Dave or Stan They are in another kinder place Where one the women made the famous lace On the River Trent come down the Peak Do not wear your shoes unless you’ve feet
On summer days the cliff at Weybourne sang Of finest grass entwined with tiny flowers The butterflies were floating on the wind
We walked along contented, hand in hand In Sheringham we saw no faces dour On summer days the cliffs at Weybourne sang
We met no wasps nor anything that stings The footpath was kept clear, no weeds to sour The butterflies were resting on the wind
I looked at bluebells,insects hear their ring So we passed with pleasure our free hours On summer days, the cliffs at Weybourne sang
Was it for this perfection Adam sinned? No human joy is with us very long The butterflies were resting on the wind
On summer days the cliff at Weybourne sang Of grass so fine and of its tiny flowers The butterflies were floating on the wind
In winter the North wind will make beasts cower No need for ventilation,faces glower On summer days the cliff at Weybourne sang The butterflies float through my mind, bright, winged
By Salthouse Church the wind blew off your hat We watched it flying like an unstrung kite Then snow fell in cold Cromer,see the map! A cat dosed by the fire in the warm pub Yet near Salthouse winds blew off your hat I’d have blown off too, were I less fat These gales would give the sailing boats a fright By Salthouse Church the wind blew off your hat We watched it flying up in cold sunlight
He sometimes seemed cantankerous Yet he carefully looked after us He bathed us by the hot coal fire But for all you know I am a liar I’m certainly tempestuous
He had an even temperature Of that I am almost sure We did not use thermometers The doctor stuck one up of us Which showed us life must be endured
He was good at his arithmetic He could read and perform tricks We loved him and we smiled at him With his dog so clean and trim Alas we weren’t allowed to lick
He liked the sand at Morecambe Bay And said he’d like to sink right there Very economical No need to hold a funeral And that is all I wish to say
When I read that a family had pitched their tent on the edge of a cliff in Yorkshire I wondered whether many of us had retained the natural intelligence we had as animals rather than spending years in school then coming out with a low reading age In the UK the average reading age has fallen from 11 to 9 in the last few years by some reports
“Up to 16 million adults – nearly half the workforce – are holding down jobs despite having the reading and writing skills expected of children leaving primary school, a new report reveals today.”
This is shameful.Surely reading and writing should be higher than this for most people It might explain some of our economic problems.How can we have a democracy when half of us can’t even read the pamphlets we get before Elections?
Going back to the campers. is there no innate sense of danger in human beings in the West? If you sleep on top of a cliff are you not likely to drop off completely forever? If you sleep next to the bottom of a cliff you might be hit by a falling body or even a large lump of rock
How my heart sings 