A life of stress was ended by a blow

Mindful meditation makes us mad

She faced death with courage as we know

Half of them that learn it feel distraught

Mindfulness is more than just a fad.

If you try it keep your practice short

The task of living is to feel alive
Not caged by walls of awe or steely fence
We want to love,be taken by surprise.

Our wounded, mangled self we can’t deride,
Recalling fights and struggles lived through once.
The point of living is to feel alive.

We dither to and fro in puzzled ways
We feel the anguish, still and quite intent.
We want to love,be taken by surprise.

The self’s spontaneous, not a thing contrived;
Formed with love and hate, contained, intense.
The rage of living is to be alive.

When washed away by feelings glad,immense
That cross our borders with our glad consent.
The hope,the need of living thus is life
We want to give and take and live surprised

What the hell,a villanelle!
It looks too hard for such as me
But I write well.if you can tell

I have a story.who knows Belle?
It’s from the English who love tea
\What a hell,oh villanelle

I saw a man with a sea shell
I asked him for a pod of pea
I write well.yeah super Nell

I often wonder if I smell
As I drink so much green tea
What’s s to tell ,my villanelle?

But worry makes life into hell
And it’s bad for those who see I I write well,but who can tell

I must take much charity
If you ask, what is your fee?
What the hell oh villanelle
I write well but life is hell

• Jim Brown was in his new conservatory admiring the windows he had just
  polished.His 82nd birthday was coming up in a few days
  Marie,his stunningly attractive yet irritable,nasty and over educated
  wife,a leading authority on Wittgenstein and most likely suffering from
  Asperger’s syndrome into the bargain,….oh a cliche prone author too—!
  had made a huge whole orange cake and planned a large gathering of friends
  to celebrate his survival for so long whilst married to her,not easy she
  knows.
  He heard a sharp tapping on the door.
  There lay Lucy their next door neighbour spying through the key hole.
  “Are you on your own?” she queried tersely yet rudely.
  “No, yet I’m suffering from chronic existential anxiety” Bill lied politely.
  “Well,I just saw Martina on her second hand Raleigh bike going to the
  market or the Charity Shop or possibly leaving home for ever….”
  “Well,I still have the cat here”,he whispered loudly as if he were free
  associating in a dream
  “Let me in and make me some coffee” she asked courteously,
  “She’s an odd one” the cat Emile thought naughtily.
  “Where’s my Carnation cat milk?”
  “Real or instant?” Simon answered suavely yet naturally.
  “Won’t it wash off your brand new coral lipstick from Chanel of Paris?…
  not to mention your factor 60 sunblock.”
  “God’s whiskers” she murmured quaintly to herself.
  “How does he know it’s Chanel?
  Is he a spy or what?
  Is he in M.I.5?”
  John got some instant coffee and debated whether to put in a little LSD to
  add some visions to their morning!No,a short breathing exercise would do
  he concluded after 9 minutes of obsessive anxiety.
  He sat down in his favorite old wooden Habitat chair having poured the
  coffee into some old plastic mugs.
  “Did you know Habitat is going b..b bankrupt?” she brightly stuttered
  turning pink with happiness and the menopause which so far had lasted over
  30 years.
  Suddenly Lucy sat down on Bert’s lap and began to kiss his right eyelid
  “Careful, my darling!” he muttered insensibly.
  He was savouring the annoyingly uncommon pleasure when the chair fell to
  pieces as it frequently did at such times, throwing the elderly but
  versatile and experienced couple down onto the new Mary Quant patterned
  pure New Zealand lambswool carpet.Suddenly they heard the peal of Mary’s
  bicycle bell.Shortly she walked into the room carrying 78 bags of
  groceries for the birthday party.
  “What’s going on here ?” she murmured seductively in a piercing shriek.
  “I’m so sorry, Jenny, please accept my apologies, he has this thing about
  chairs.It’s a fetish ,I believe, according to Sinald Floyd.””
  “Have you got your mobile?” shrieked Tom agonisedly in a loud whisper.
  ”I can’t get up.” he screamed softly.”Am I dead?”
  “What cannot stand up must forever remain lying down” As my old philosophy tutor at Cambridge used to say, muttered Marty.
  “Why, that’s bit extreme,” said Jane uneasily yet gallantly.
  .”MY tutor said “Who cannot speak must forever remain silent.”
  “Oh,who was your tutor?”
  “Elizabeth Ansconbe!” Amy admitted furtively.”She knew Wittgetensin well.”
  “Mine was Iris Murdoch!” called out Alf.
  Later they heard a silent siren.It was the emergency ambulance.
  Dick, the paramedic bounded into the room.
  “It’s this chair” said Marie urbanely.
  “Can you mend it for me? My husband can’t manage without it!”
  “Anything else, madam?” Rick queried anxiously.
  “Any coal to fetch in,tins to open, blocked toilets?”
  “Later maybe.”
  Danny looked at Joan.
  “Your eyes look like two deep pools in the Caspian sea.”
  he whispered into her left ear.
  “Are you on another creative writing course?”she quipped urbanely.
  “Yes, we’re on eyes at the moment; what colour is that eyeshadow you have
  on.”
  “This is called winter teal” She admitted uneasily yet seductively.
  “Did you know I’m a transvestite?” he admitted happily her.
  “Yes”,she replied dishonestly.Kitty like to give an impression of
  omniscience owing to her ontological insecurity and her ignorance of
  theology and also her narrowly trained mathematical mind.
  Unfortunately, that frequently gave men the wrong impression.
  Mamie cried out to Al,
  “Get on with it,my sweetie!” So he took out a big tube of glue from his
  jeans’ pocket and set to work reconstructing the chair.
  “Oh,dear, Stewart looks a bit odd”
  “!No,he looks quite prime to me.”
  “Is he an integer?!”
  “No, he’s a transcendental real number”
  “He’s a number all right.”
  “Never mind, we’ve just got new wheelie bins so I’ll put him out with the
  rubbish,”
  Marty joked on hearing Amy’s remarks to Zach.
  But Simon was not yet dead.He merely had fallen asleep.
  He dreamed of his days at Oxgridge University studying illogic and unreason
  with Rudolphina Catnap, the famous female philosopher.Oh, happy, happy days!
  Danny made the ladies some Ceylon tea in the fabulous oak kitchen with its
  pure linen curtains in raspberry beige. and its black enamel sink with
  matching double oven and microwave.”Why no halogen?”Iris Murdoch might
  have asked.
  “What is a human life,”he pondered.He was studying logic as well as writing.
  He began to tremble like a leaf in the wind to use a freshly recycled old
  cliche.
  “Help” he called,”I’m having a panic attack.Hurry I’m dying,I believe.I
  need a priest“
  “You can’t have a panic attack,” shouted Marianne
  “Paramedics heal themselves.”
  “Does God heal those who heal themselves he wondered as he lay under a pile

  of broken china?”

  “Where’s the tea?” called the ladies.
  Ah ,if only Wittgenstein were here,he would know,t hought Emile.
  But I disagree.Only God would know that and He won’t say usually as he
  speaks another language known only to the few.Though sometimes one may
  hear it on the wind deep in a thick forest.
  That’s what I believe.
  Here endeth the first lesson… so be off!

In a private room they’re left alone

With old age and sadness they will moan

Gazing at the pictures on the wall

They see blurs yet,if they walk they fall.

Photographs of loved ones bring remorse

Memories of quarrels taunt and curse

Suffering pain, depression which is worse?

Ice inside the heart will numb the pain

To feel our grief, with sadness

We remain

At some moment will come change of heart

In the black death of the night a new life starts

My heart is like a boat on choppy seas

Directions changing,constantly deceived.

I startle like an infant with no guard.

All burned up.my self is painful charred

Why are the winds inconstant and too strong?

And where on earth does this poor soul belong?

I need a life official to take root.

Otherwise I shall produce no fruit.

Not the barren fig tree Jesus cursed

Save me from a life that feels accursed

Dislocated retina.

Detached shoulder

Broken charm

Split hairs

No heir.

Wandering mind.

Loss of correction.

Waving ears

Dry cleaned tongues

Cloven feet

Lost head

Head shrinking

Short trunk.

Bald facet

Died hair

Lost wig

Katherine poetry, Thinkings and poems, villanelle  August 24, 2016 

Rich deep silence brings pleasures unique
From  peaceful green of  trees where small  birds  hide.
The work within the mind  may be complete

About our souls, we each must be discreet
Even to those  living by our side
Rich deep silence brings pleasures unique

Happy to do nothing,nothing seek
Innocent as  young, beloved bride
The work within the mind  may be complete

Ignorant of Latin,Hebrew,Greek,
The heart needs no such learning to decide
Rich deep silence brings pleasures unique

I listen to the  world around me speak
Underneath the turmoil,love’s alive
The work within the mind  may be complete

In our world  the sensitive may writhe
Yet, by our intuitions, we may guide
Rich deep silence brings pleasures unique
The work within the mind  may be complete