Tangled web

Odd book titles

The clot thickens

The end of his wife

Some where under the rainbow

The blood of others

Gulliver unraveled

How to knit for Dummies

Nightfall fell.It does.

To Russia in a sieve

The resignation of Mr Johnson

Start a war for dummies.

Married and alive.

How to be framed.

The rain rinsed her

There was a young lady from Windsor

Who got washed as she used rain to rinse her

She went out in Storm Gladys

And this is the sadness

The gale and the hailstones have minced her!

Behind the trees

Behind the trees a block of flats rears up

The radio plays more Elvis as eyes drip

The scaffolding remains the same each day

What can cripples do when they can’t pray?

Mornings

Two long curved branches lean towards the East

The sun shines on them and upon the least

Algebra

If you like adding up numbers

Or counting up rows of cucumbers

Don’t learn X and Y

No log tables nor pi.

There is little aid for the plumber who’s dumber

No confessing

Confession is totally wrecking

Almost as bad as henpecking

Keep your mind to yourself

In sickness and health

Your privacy’s smarter than clucking

Try to be bad

There was a young Catholic from Devon

Whose mind was dead set against Heaven

So he tried hard to be bad

Oh, no luck did he have

Now he’s in heaven with Lenin

Hughes’s Thrush

Hughes’s thrush a coil of steel with its black hole

Swallowed up our culture, paid in gold

Tangled in sweet web

Tangled in sweet webs of flowers wild

Love fell down like summer drizzle mild

We are still alive

Stormy heart

When the windows shattered
And the splinters flew in
He just made for the back door
And left me
not knowing where to begin.
When the shards of glass hit me
And pierced my vulnerable skin
He was already going
Leaving me
feeling he was an inhuman being.
When I fell down covered in glass and bleeding,
And the storm raged on,
I didn’t look round because
I knew,I knew,I knew,
I knew he would be gone.
Suddenly peace came, the storm had quite
disappeared..
It was all over so quickly
Not as murderous as I feared.
My wounds were bad,I have to confess.
I had no bandage
Nothing with which to dress.
With an old towel I cleaned my blood
Then I lay me down to pray.
Since that day,no storms come this way.
My wounds are healing
I have just one thing to say.
When the storm was so bad
He left me all alone…
but strangely since then
all is peace and calm.
His absence has become
almost a balm.
But I hear stories of fierce storms rising up
In towns and villages
Not too far from here, where a wandering man appears.
Seems like he’s running to get away
From some storm
But he takes it with him
He gives it form.
So when the windows crashed in
glass flew at my face
he left me all alone
In what he thought
was a very dangerous place.
Did he not pick me up
and carry me outside?
No,my daughter,he left me alone;.
But since then
I lost a great burden…
And I lost a great feeling of shame.
Rise up,you women,bleeding and torn.
For on days like this,a new resolve is born.
While you live don’t accept all the blame.
Don’t live so long as I did,in fear and in shame.
Rise up and find that calm
In the eye of the storm…
On days like this
a new woman is born

Emile and Smokey

Annie went into Mary’s kitchen to look at her new grey kitten
Will Emile not be jealous of Smokey,she asked nervously?
No, he says he’d like to pass on his knowledge to other cats,Mary sighed
What knowledge? Annie said intrusively?
Well, how to get on with me like Stan,Mary murmured
Surely all men are different,Annie said thoughtfully?
I suppose so, but they do have somethings in common,Mary rambled on
Such as?
I’ll have to be careful or I will be hounded by the politically fairly correct,said poor Mary
How can you be fairly correct? Annie enquired
It’s like fuzzy logic….. a thing is no longer right or wrong, true or false,and so on
It’s a many valued logic,Mary said in her peculiar manner ; very rapid speaking combining a Northern accent with the vocabulary of a scientist thus rendering her unfit to read the Newsfor the BBC,ITV Israel, Al Jazeera
or indeed any TV service anywhere at all especially China.
I suppose in reality few things are just black or white , remarked Stan jovially.
I have made a cake he announced proudly
What sort, shouted Annie hungrily?
A chocolate cake.I made icing by melting a bar of chocolate in a pan with some buttera
then it spreads easily.
So does my waist, said Mary.I used to be almost flat but now I am 3 dimension.I know I was too thin but now I am obese
So it’s not just your waist,said Annie.
Oh,give over.Stop me feeling worse
Well, you look ok to me, said Stan.I am proud to be your husband
And I am proud to be your mistress, Annie said to Stan
Surely you should not say that in front of me, Mary said
But you know,Annie said in a matter of fact manner, her eyes gleaming with blue and gold eye shadow and green mascara
It’s one thing knowing something, another hearing it said out loud,Mary told her sharply
So, if we don’t believe in God, we should not say so and visa versa.Annie added
My goodness Annie, your IQ is rising like bread in a hot oven,Mary exclaimed
On the whole it’s better to keep quiet and only tell people something if it is essential.
Stan’s brother was in South Africa, they say he was in the ANC
What is an ANC, a mental health unit?
Anxiety Not Conversation
Angst Never Converts
Anguished No Clue
Anxiety Not Condemned
Anguish Now Cool
It was a political movement to get rights for the black people in South Africa
Was Stan’s brother black?
Possibly but he died long ago.
Stan, was your brother black?
No, he was just a priest from England who got sent out there to teach black students in the apartheid era,
Wow, why did you not tell us,asked Annie
As I said before, do you need to know?
No, but it’s interesting, she said
You should do something useful instead of gossiping,Stan cried
Annie hit him with a big umbrella which, alas, knocked him out
Oh,no, said Emile, how can I look after Smokey when I will have to ring 999?
I shall call them, said Mary, and get the police here to arrest Annie
Stan jumped up.
I was not unconcious he said.Not totally, but don’t do it again as it is common assault
The doorbell rang and in ran dear Dave, the transgender gay and well dressed paramedic
We’ve not even phoned 999, said Emile
Dave cried,I just knew something was wrong
Well,Emile said,I am taking Smokey upstairs.And we will have a good sleep
Maybe you should all do the same
And so say all of us

Deep

God is the earth which we despoil

Yet worms work quietly deep

. in soil

Madder , calmer

It’s such fun to be psychotic

Tami talk to ghosts up in the attic

Better than neurotic.

They think that is erotic

Develop an obsession

It will focus your attention

But compulsions we detect ’em

Before you can select them .

This country’s getting madder by the day

Mania is exciting

Then it becomes too frightening.

Try to calm your solar system now

Owl rescued after the storm

Academic questions

Academic scholar,academic worth

Academic squalor, academic curse.

Where did you take my father?

And things can get much worse

Where did you take my mother

Was there any hearse?

First you took my body

Then you took my soul

I am getting ready

Purgatory calls

New rules for UK residents

1.You must eat exactly one meal a day.This will make you lose weight, stop shopping, save money and wreck the economy.Thin people cough less
2.You must make your phone accessible to the Government. We mean Us. DC and BJ
3.If you commit a crime and are jailed, you will get a meal on alternate days.You may lose weight
So you can slip through the bars!
4.You will wash your undies once a week.Yes, the same pair.Save water, we sold it to Spain
5.Please do not get hunger pings or pangs while in the street or at home
6.If you feel too hungry, you may have a boiled eel on toast cursing you
7.You can be too thin; it is not illegal.
8.You can’t be too rich anymore… the tax man cometh
9.Please sweep your street and eat any pizzas you find
10.Your cat can eat as much as she likes.So you may eat her leftovers
Not the whole tin
11.Do you swear to fix the roof, the whole roof and nothing but the roof?
12.Please do not eat refugees before we count them.Data matters
13.If the pandemic spreads we will put you all in cages.Like in the USA
14.No pretending to be a twin.Not even a tub
15.Lose weight,pray and soon you will be in Heaven.

Wanted: Disguised spies in each street in Britain.No questions in Nothern Ireland
Just take photos.
Pay £7.00 per week plus bonus at Xmas [ £2.00]

Your Government UK

Save it

Save money, fail your driving test.

Ride a bike or walk so pay no gym fees

Eat a half of you eat now. Lose weight too

Learn to put buttons on and how to wash most clothes at home.

Sleep 🤪 in your underwear.In bed n

Marry for money

But love too.

Oh flat screen television

Oh television with flat screen

I think you know what I have seen
I won’t confess my media sins

Watching Charlton Heston wins.

I watch the horses and the dogs

Gambling though my mind’s befogged

Losing money in this way

My mate has sold me on eBay
Here we have more large TVs

No doubt brought from Overseas.

We have gold and silver too

Older windows phones still new.

The Plays we see where people swear

Do we no longer have our cares?

Children watch as folk have sex

Maybe busy with their text

Then someone takes an overdose

Pills and Brandy, what bad taste.

Watching tennis on TV

Handsome men do it for me

I forget that I am old

No longer a young woman bold

I did not need to flirt before

I feel shy ,though I’m a whore

I charge little, so am poor

I went to Iceland for a cure

I saw the advert on TV.

I love penguins,I love you

Owl

short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale’s edge,
shadows the fields and folds in elegant diurnal flight.
on windside,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 centre,
pied geometer of flight, s
ketch your descent and ascent.

trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home.

The ancient virtues,patience and restraint

You stabbed my heart when I was left alone
Telling me my writing was like porn
Now you give me nightmares, be my pest
We all need one or two,and you confessed

My writing is so bad, you envy not
Did I hit you on a painful spot?
If others have a gift, that is their call
You have yours , get out a net and trawl

Ambivalent in love which turns to hate
We wound ourselves in making this our fate
Talking overmuch lets such thoughts out
As tea will pour down from a tilted spout

The ancient virtues,patience and restraint
Shall be our wise protectors when distraught

Ode to a lightbulb

Oh,light bulb foreseen by our God
Save us all from darkness’ rod
You are our Saviour as foretold
In prophecy by ancients bold.
We will worship you at night
When sunken is the sun so bright.
We’ll watch TV and Kindle fire
No more to play shall we aspire.
We’ll wear ourselves out watching screens,
As from a can we eat baked beans
We’ll send for pizzas with our phones
With which we never feel alone.
We might talk to our partner dear
Though texting is much easier.
We see the neon street lights gleam
Where once we saw the moon’s cold beams
And in bed we read our books
With a kindle or a nook
We put beneath out pillows fair
I phones which we long to hear
Can one have too much new light?
From technology some take flight
For gone are seasons, and their fruit
As our computer we reboot.
New potatoes all year round
Avocados once quite rare
Now seen almost everywhere
.Melons,grapes and fresh green peas
As the birds sing,life’s a breeze.
Oh light bulbs,fluorescent tubes
Electric candle, light is cubed.
We thank you for extended days
Maybe we’ll find time for prayers.
God is great in mystery
No light bulb can help us see.
In silence,darkness, meditate
Wonder what will be our fate.
As retribution for our wrong
Satan stabs us with his prongs
He needs no more light in hell
The fiery furnace cooks as well!

Storm

Thin white clouds have covered up the sky

My black tree waves as winds around it play.

No loose slates have flung themselves to earth.

That’s what I see today for what it’s worth

Moses

When Moses climbed the mountain
And he got to the top,
God was waiting for him,
He didn’t say a lot.
He said, Take my commandments
They are written on this stone,
I have only fifty,
Or was it fifty one?
Moses was very worried
~about the human race.
Fifty one commandments
Would meet with strong distaste.
So he told God his troubles
And God thought long and hard.
He came back with the commandments
Written on a card.
How many have you got there?
Moses politely said?
I’ve got it down to ten, said God.
His eyes were very red.
So Moses took the postcard
And put it on his pad.
He said I’d better get back down.
Oh, and thank you Dad!
When Moses got to earth
He called his people near.
He produced his i Pad.
Look what I’ve got here!
I saw God on the mountain.
He gave me a few rules.
They’re easy to remember.
We are not moral fools.
How many of these rules
Has God given to you?
I got it down to ten.
Let’s see how we can do.
Ten is far too many,
Some of the people cried.
We don’t want these rules.
We hate to feel we’re tied.
But all games have their rules.
They’re what define the game.
If we had utter chaos
This loss would be a shame.
As pictures have their frames,
And lessons have strict times.
We need some good constructions,
Like poems need their rhymes.
So all his people heard him.
And they agreed to try.
They lived as best they could
Until they came to die.
But one part of this story
We will never know–
What were all those commandments
That Moses did not show?
And why did God give in
To Moses’ bargain plea?
Do not ask for Moses,
We don’t know where he be