Month: April 2023

Fear of writing sonnets

I’d love to write a sonnet but I  daren’t
For in this steamy heat it’s much too hard
So please don’t send me messages that taunt
Nor with disdain compare me to our bard.

Not all people have poetic skill
And  what I have will sometimes fall to dust
Like virtue,  writing’s not done e by the will
We. wait gorvgrace ,as every human must

In  the mind, an empty bowl of space
We keep to catch the offerings of the gods.
It’s more like contemplation than a race;
For freely, quietly we receive the good.

The lady’s not for   turning words to gold
But with a  chosen few she loves to mould

Is there sacredness in this world now?

IMG_0276

IMG_0269

We sense the sacred in these peaceful walls
Yet men have died in places that appal
Women too and children then unborn
Fell into cold dark earth in lands forlorn

As our weapons grow, our hearts are hard
The people live in Gaza behind bars
The water all polluted as taps drip
Is this war or is it vengeance fit?

In Britain, it’s the poor who lose the war
As it was when Jesus Mary bore
Yet here are clerics blessing marching bands
A military show for all the land

The genocide in Europe of the Jews
The self destructive actions of the proud
The fields of France filled sick with blood and bone
Who are we to cast judgemental stones?

The War’s not over when the fighting stops
The soldiers and the tortured suffer shock
The widows and the parents all bereaved.
The unborn children hover in unease

We let the prisoners out from camps of death
But who would take them in or take their path?
The injuries will travel down the years
As still we fight and still we live in fear

It’s Europe’s grasp and greed which was the cause
Of death in Gaza, Syria, in long wars
Yet we judge we are more civilised
When we self defend with bitter lies

The face I loved to contemplate

The face I loved to contemplate is gone

The image dwells no longer in my mind

I once was sad to see it when I woke

Now I’m even sadder by mind blind

All perceptions fade if not renewed

The ones we loved the most still disappear

Perhaps when we’re asleep then they return

We are passive though our love’s sincere

As I grow old, I lose their shape and form

Yes I see the smile before he died.

I helped him to the river and the boat

Now he Is no longer by my side

Such loss includes the images as well.

Into cold dark earth his body fell

The face of one we love

Norfolk UK by Katherine

The face that was within me fades away.

I hope for some time longer it may stay.

That which I thought permanent is gone.

No more are we so special to someone.

At first I saw his face as if he lived

But to the dead there’s nothing we can give.

We must turn away and walk alone.

Let the face be blanked out like a stone.

The shingle on the beach, the cobbled street

They have no faces,nothing we can meet

Can we live without another’s gaze?

Mysterious is the Lord as are his ways

HEMATOHIDROSIS – A RARE CLINICAL PHENOMENON – PMC

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810702/

Hematohidrosis is a rare condition in which a human being sweats blood.

Leonardo Da Vinci described a soldier who sweated blood before battle. Jesus Christ experienced hematohidrosis while praying in the garden of Gethsemane before his crucification as mentioned in the Defenders Bible by Physician Luke as “and being in anguish he prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”

What is” the writing on the wall”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Writing_on_the_Wall

It’s very ancient story about Belshazzar’s feast. It’s well worth reading this if you are interested in phrases that we use we got knowing where the

Passing for normal

The face that was familiar was erased

Now I feel the emptiness within

A lonely heart,a mind that seems half crazed

By losing him,how greatly have I sinned?

The face so dear, seemed etched upon my heart

I did not see the writing on the wall

Now my heart is blank, how shall I start?

Never love another in this life?

Measure mathematics on a chart?

Learn the poet’s worth yet feel the knife?

The dagger in the heart, the loss of blood

Anaemic, faint and weak, where shall we go?

Like the chained up slaves felt, where is good?

The Arctic wastes of life, the frost the snow.

I smile and look contented , understood

My patient hands alone now sweat with blood

Sun

In this spring weather birds appear

Building nests for children dear.

The sun is low and sends strange light

Shadows long form artist’s sight

Blossom bends from trees still bare

Cherry AE Housemans dear.

I look up into the sky

No geese are here for a flyby.

I look down to see the soil

Where the worms in patience toil

Like the Carers in a Home

Noone writes of them in poems

Noone writes of beetles’ paths

Not of great spiders hidden worth

The cobwebs glitter with small gems

We have no way to preserve them

So we must seize the moments beads

Decorations our souls needs

About Emile

Oh,Emile got up, then he yawned stretched
Cat pandiculation
For cats get stiff and cats get tense
They won’t write no dissertations
Emile called to Stan and Stan got up
Pet manipulationion
Stan made tea and fed Emile
Emile’s ecstasisulation
Mary came and she saw old Stan
Oh, a manifestation?
Are you real,she , called to him
What impertinentication!|
I like your cheek, her husband cried
Show me your appreciation
Where is that, his dear wife said.
Is it under my aprion?
Well,Leonard Cohen did mentioned this
I’m damned by my own veneration
Oh,Stan get up and get us gin
This is pure excruciation
Calm down,Mary.I am back
This is a mere notification
I have got myself another man
What a pestification
Does he sleep by you in bed aT
There may be an evacuation
Don’t be rude, we thought you had gone
I’ll drown in my own perspiration
I feel such shame at seeing these men
It’s torment and it’s a tribulation
The doctor told me you were dead
Is it conspirification?
Send a code to my phone,send me ten
That will verify my restoration

Am I you?

The phone rang and a voice said,
is that you?
I said, it’s me.
He said, who are you?
I said,I’ve not figured that out yet.
He said, are you pulling my leg?
I said, I can’t even see your leg!
He said, do you fancy eating owt tonight?
I said, eeh, you’re from Manchester!
But it was just a spelling mistake.
He was trying it on.
Whatever it is

Demented people look like refugees

Like refugees demented people flee

They have no plans no place where they can be

In my nightmares I have felt like this

No surrounding arms to bring us bliss

The fear which seems irrational is not so

Would you be patient with no place to go?

Lucky refugees may find a home.

The elderly are lost, they scream and moan

Help me help me like a child they call.

There is no Eden after that great Fall

They long for death, the home they’re in appalls

Where is the Ark to rescue these lost souls?

They have nothing left to pay the toll

Mother father husband and young wife

Confusion takes the meaning from a life.

They do not pray because they are locked out

No church no Mass, no priest,no rites,but doubt.

The piteous hands held out for us to grasp

We turn away, unbearable the task

Regain your confidence – Harvard Health (aging)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/regain-your-confidence

O

Don’t believe in ageism

Another reason older adults lose confidence is ageism — the socially pervasive idea that you are too old to do certain activities.

In fact, studies have found that age stereotypes can diminish older adults’ ability to perform tasks even if they possess the proper skills.

For instance, research published in 2016 in the Journal of Applied Gerontology looked at the influence of ageism on driving ability among adults ages 65 and older. Participants’ driving confidence was measured by a questionnaire, and then everyone was exposed to either negative or positive age stereotypes.

The participants then completed a driving test. When confidence levels were recorded again, those who had been exposed to negative stereotypes had much lower self-reported confidence in their driving ability, even when they performed well on the driving test.

The lesson here is this: don’t let your age dictate whether or not you have the right ability, skills, or desire to succeed at something.

Creation

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

by Mike Flemming copyright

My old blue fountain pen allows
The ink across this page to flow
Like wet paint from an artist’s brush,
And words come in a rush.
Enchanted by the hand that writes .
Bewitched by art,beauty alights
The script is like a music score
Through which we step as through a door,
Imagination’s home.
As,mysteriously, to you, to me,
The spirits of our hearts are tamed ,
By rhythms of pen,of brush, of mind,
They enter vision quite unplanned,
Like moths to flutter softly round
Fire joined heart and hand
The pen slows down,the hand grows still,
And ,just as dreams at daybreak will,
They shrink,they disappear,they’re gone
Like dew dies in hot sun

Questions about visiting relatives with Alzheimer’s disease from the New York Times

Favourite place of my mother-in-law

Reader:Iabsolutely understand the impulse to avoid watching a loved one suffer, but it’s one of the problems of our society that we look away from people who are struggling. Too often we deny the realities of aging. We deny the humanity of our elders and people with disabilities, and we’re materially diminished by that choice. The service you give your grandmother by not looking away in the midst of her suffering serves as an example to your children, and it shapes you as a person. Dial back visit frequency if you must, but don’t stop them altogether. — Mary

Shells by the Dead Sea

Awlf portrait
Stan the aged yet sexy senior citizen was outside polishing the brass doorstep till it gleamed in the early sunshine leaking from a blue and orange sky.
“My goodness,these microfibre cloths are wonderful” he thought intrigued. Could I find a better word than wonderful?

.Mary was out taking a load of clothes to the Oxfam Shop.Suddenly he heard a loud cry.,then he felt a pair of hands fondling the top of his bald head and tugging on his beard.
“Eeh,no rest for the wicked,even at 81,” he screamed.He staggered to his feet and rubbed his nose with his knees.
“Just give me a hand” ,he said,”I’ll have to stretch my hamstrings.They tighten up so.”
“I’ll stretch them for you!” Annie whispered naughtily.Stan leant forward to touch his toes and she could not resist the temptation to give his bottom a hearty slap.
“For God’s sake,Annie” he shouted faintly.”Someone might see that.”
“Don’t worry,there’s no-one around at this time of the day” she tittered in her usual female manner..
“Oh,yes there is!”
It was Dave,the paramedic.He had been lying behind the wheelie bins,all three of them standing plaintively and unwanted in the tiny front garden.
“I’m an MI5 spy,and I’ve been reading your blog,Mr Brown.”We need you to answer a question”
“I’m not called Brown”,said Stan nerdishly.
“Refuses to accept reality,”Dave wrote in his little notepad with some blood he had taken from himself earlier,
“Jesus Christ!”, said Stan.”Now,now” said Dave,”that’s not your name.
“No my name is Tan,not Brown,you’ve been reading the wrong blog!” “Stan Tan!”
Dave appeared crestfallen,”Any chairs need mending today?”
“My what beautiful ears you have,sweetheart,” he said to Annie,
“They look like sea shells by the Dead Sea”
“Your eyes are like shallow pools in Lake Windermere during a summer thunderstorm.”Annie replied womanfully,sarcasm being alien to her nature.
“Are you still a transvestite?” she followed on incoherently yet logically.
“No,I had a mystical experience and now I’m a Zen Buddhist”
“How did that happen?” demanded Stan querulously.And can’t you be both?
“Well,I was knitting myself a Shetland lace sweater in pale blue mohair,and I suddenly had the feeling that everything was interwoven.
Going forward or backwards,sideways or straight ahead,it is all part of the warp and weft of life.
“mistakes don’t matter” he continued emotionally.
“Oh,yes,they do,”Annie said pouting her full lips,cherry pink by courtesy of L’oreal of Paris and New York,lip balm by Yves St Laurent,peach foundation by Lancome also of Paris,toning smokey grey mascara by Max Factor,handbag Annie’s own,deep burgundy 70 denier tights by M&S,Grey pointed ballet slippers by Bally of Switzerland.[also available in black,red and teal].Raspberry lingerie by ,strangely,M&S.
“As I was saying..,”
Dave dived back behind the wheelie bin.
Stan polished the brass and Annie disappeared in a patch of woodbine..
It was Mary’s famous and loud vocal imitation of a bicycle bell that had alerted them to her imminent return from the Oxfam shop.
“Don’t they make bike bells any more?” Dave boringly wondered as he carried on reading the new life of Emily Dickinson “A loaded gun.” He thought it was an army training manual,but,hey,mistakes don’t matter!Or do they?Read the next instalment yesterday at your local newsagent or here free of interest,hope or love.Any additions welcome.
All donations to Oxfam.

Mary crosses the road,alas.

Dotty cats
Mary had spotted her 98 year old frail yet virile husband Stan; he was across the main road talking to a young blonde and beauteous woman with a pink briefcase and a set square
Mary ran over the road in front of all the traffic as she was terrified of Stan getting another mistress as well as Annie
Hi,I am Mary, she said boldly yet a trifle nervously as well.
I am called Sabrina. I’m a mathematician too, like you, over for a year from Babylon and Babel University USA
Why,hello,Sabrina.Stan loves clever women and any other sort,artists,cooks,teachers,… and in your case,you also have great beauty,she said indiscreetly.
Hi Mary,Stan told me you were out buying some vaseline in the pharmacy down the other end of the town.He invited me to coffee.
Oh,damn,I must have had a senior moment.It was that Jazz Band that distracted me.I forgot about the Vaseline..
Come on,ladies,no arguing,said Stan as he led them into a brand new coffee shop staffed by delightful smiling Turkish people.He ordered three cappuccinos plus some milk for Emile who was in his backpack with his head sticking out snoozing and dreaming of seeing the Queen in her Palace.
They all sat down by the windows and gazed at the folk passing by in some rather unusual clothing.Emile was sad there were no other cats around but hippies there were a plenty.Has 70’s fashion come back?
Sabrina was wearing a short pink velvet dress on her curvaceous body and green high heeled shoes on her feet and nothing on her legs as it was summer.Even so she was a bit smarter than everyone else.
Don’t you find wearing velvet is too warm in the summer ?,asked Mary.She was wearing a long teal cotton dress and some open toed purple plastic sandals from Italy.
Well,it’s cotton velvet,Sabrina told her.Most in the shops is made from polyester now.I made this myself.I enjoy sewing my own clothes and darning moth holes.Viscose is good too.It drapes well.
I never took to sewing,Mary told her nervously.I was afraid of the electric sewing machine at school and my mother was very impatient with me.She seemed to think sewing came naturally to females. Still,it’s probably cheaper nowadays to buy your clothes ready made.But choice is lacking for older stout women like me,she continued .I like wool coats as padded ones make me sweat especially in the shops.And,it’s my face which sweats.I can’t put antiperspirant there…
No,it is likely to give you a rash and anyway the body needs to sweat to get rid of toxins,Sabrina informed her scientifically as if Mary had no wits.
I don’t mind sweating lower down, like on my legs or feet,Mary said.
But it’s embarrassing giving a lecture on why e is an algebraic number with rivulets of water running down my face washing off my foundation cream and powder..though do the students notice? And anyway the students don’t seem to care really about these amazing numbers.
Yes,that is a real problem,Sabrina said wisely.I never knew anyone still wore powder.I like creme de mousse foundation myself.It seems to stick ok.As for the students,maybe they just don’t let on that they care.
Meanwhile Stan sat and gazed pensively at Emile……..he rolled his eyes and Emile smiled in his cat manner; that is,he grinned.
I came here to talk lovingly to sweet Sabrina,not to listen to both women discussing sweat and antiperspirants.,Stan continued to the listening cat…Why did Mary have to spot me? I only wanted a word from Sabrina,
Well,life is what happens when we are busy washing out our pans,Emile told him peevishly.
I don’t think that is quite right,said Stan.John Lennon had that song…Beautiful boy,I think..was that it?
And I have already washed all the pans and hoovered the ceilings…
Well,you see, much of life is out of our control.That’s why people like to take the Bible literally.They prefer to think End Times are here, than to realise life is always changeable and unpredictable.Anything seems better than uncertainty or doubt.Yet that is mostly what we are subject to and evolved in line with in a very real sense,putting it at its most basic.
How have you found teaching topology,Mary asked Sabrina.Is it going down like a hot jam doughnut would to a starving gorilla,as it were should they ever be offered one which seems unlikely except in a zoo.
I find it’s more fun than teaching logarithms,she continued,and exponentials some people find that a tough topic,
Yes,I love teaching topology and functional analysis.
Blimey, thought Stan, this is even worse than sweat and antiperspirants.I hate maths.Why I married Mary,G.O.K.I guess it was her eyes.And her hair… and look at it now,,, she’s going bald.Still,she’s been a good companion.
I use lily of the valley soap,he cried,interrupting the ladies.
Why, are you a swinger? asked Sabrina with interest.
No,I just use whatever Mary is using.I have no choice
Why don’t you buy him some soap smelling of parsley or potatoes,she asked Mary.Or can he not buy some himself?
Why, can you get that? Mary responded.Coal tar is one we tried but he hates it…I think for men there’s not a lot of choice…
But,Sabrina cried,A man smelling of lilies of the valley might cause a disturbance,even a riot, in a small town like this.
Why should women have all the lovely smells and men smell of coal tar and smoke? Stan asked.
Men like flowers too,you know.
The ladies looked at him with wonder as they sipped their lovely large cappuccinos and ate their hot cross iced buns.
I never thought of that before,Mary said.We shall have a talk about it later on.
Neither did I,Sabrina added.. this is not related to my own work but my fiance is a psychologist and he’d like to know about it.I think it’s a new field of study for which a large grant might be available from this idiot government,
Alright,ladies… time to go.Emile needs his dinner and I do too..So off they went all wrapped in their thoughts like feathers stuck inside a fluffy pillow on a big bed.As Rasputin might have put it on a good day,if you catch my drift or take the hint.If not,please try again later.
Not what anyone had expected…but change is good for us,surely? It staves off boredom
Now we can wonder what sort of soap Dave,the delightful paramedic wears.. and does he use a 48 hour deodorant..?And if so,why?
Please wait calmly as excitement wears people out.I am not responsible if you fall over your own feet or get your head in a whirl nor if you go to bed with a milkman or woman.Good night.
G

How does your body react to the vaccinations for covid and what had it tell you about your immune system if anything?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-covid-vaccine-side-effects-can-and-cant-tell-you-about-your-bodys-immune-response

European breathed the sacred ash

In Bedzin and in Krakow they breathed in
What they denied in conscious thought or word.
The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin

Penetrating lungs so deep within
The dead unburied mixed, in air secured
In Bedzin and in Krakow, they breathed sin.

The nearby people turned to burial urns.
The human dust by breathing was allured
The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin.

So Europe took their human ash within.
A graveyard we became unknown, impure.
In Bedzin and in Krakow, more of sin.

And who they thought destroyed lived on in them
Controlled their lungs, their hearts their minds uncured,
The ashes of the Jews, borne on their skin.

Like a mass communion without words
We ate and breathed the Jews, the gays, the bared.
In Bedzin and in Krakow we walked in
The ashes of the lost, the glades of skin

Lost

I saw my house uprooted like a tree

Great roots were severed, how I ached to see

And all was tossed without my love and care

Bits of earth fell from the roots. now bare.

Barbaric in its mad intensity

I wept the tears of grief for you, for me.

Our home attacked,destroyed and I lie here.

Putting out the flames with profuse tears

Lamenting for my love who died within

The collapsing of my world now with no sun

The house a symbol of our marriage true

Cannot stand without a me and you

So my vision passed and I am here

My memories are my only souvenir

My Lancashire roots

Lancashire

Hennetwistle has a railway stop
The name is Viking now it’s usually spelled
Entwistle, where reservoirs fill up
Manchester wants water, here it’s held

Too Thirlmere is an artificial lake
For tea in Manchester, those thirsty folk
How much more d’ye think that they will take?
Hamlets drowned, dull cypress trees that cloak

I once passed through Darwen on a train
On the way to Ilkley with my aunt
No memory of bliss with me remains
Except the flowers so wild, their ghosts still haunt

Yet nowhere else gives me the feel of home
This landscape is my body and my soul

Fear of meditation

Zenphobia = fear of meditation.
Manphobia=fear of single men.
Ironpansphobia-fear of metal pans.
Lensphobia= fear of digital cameras.
Femaphobia-fear of females.
Criticismo’phobia= fear of nasty remarks from Irish men.
Tanphobia=fear of the sun
Tenphobia= fear of decimals.
Bigbenphobia= fear of the government
Fensphobia=fear of East Anglia.
Hensphobia=fear of being chased by hens.
Sinophobia= fear of Chinese sins.
Tinphobia= fear of tinned Fray Bentos pies.
Chartphobia=fear of diagrams.

Emile wants to be a nun

Mary went into the kitchen walking very slowly because she was wondering what to have for supper. Now that she was alone she had so much more choice but appetite had not returned after her husband has gone on holiday with his mistress Annie who live next door.

Well I suppose we all need our freedom at times but to do it so blatantly was wrong. Phil the fact that he’s already had an affair with this woman next door made it less surprising.

The problem was that he normally cooked the supper so Mary was not used to thinking about the menu. When she was a student she bought a

steak pie in a tin but she didn’t know whether you could buy things like that anymore and anyway Marks and Spencers and it’s chilled food was usually a lot more tempting than tins of meat pies. But she had not planned ahead. She had not remembered to go shopping. she remembered that emu had some very nice food which look like beef pieces in jelly.

Later Mary and Emile were sitting at the table eating beef pie made with frozen puff pastry.

It’s very good Mary cried. Do you like it Emile?

Yes I’m quite converted to pies I’d like a sardine tomorrow or how about making some bread dough and we could have a sardine and mushroom pizza.

So Mary said to him you know I don’t eat fish.

Well don’t worry I will eat the entire pizza for myself,the cat told her. I wonder if pizza express do them? You could have a vegetarian pizza mother.

Yes alright then we can have that tomorrow with one provision that you eat yours outside on the patio

Alright I agree I know that you want to spend some time alone because you are very angry with Stan and Annie.

But we all know exactly well that Stan died some years ago. Is Mary losing her marbles ?

Then the phone rang. Hello it’s Annie they heard.

I don’t like Blackpool much especially my being alone. So I’m going to come back tomorrow and on the way from the station I will call into Marks and Spencer’s food shop. I’ll buy some lovely food and bring it around tomorrow evening so I can tell you about my adventures in the Blackpool Illuminations.

Well am I going mad, thought Mary. Never mind no one will notice because I was already very peculiar but I’ll be careful not to speak to anyone who doesn’t already know me. Or I will take a vow of silence and say I am a nun. I’m going to build a hermitage in the garden.

Can I be a nun as well said Emile?

Will at the moment a man cannot be a nun but if the rules change I will let you know Emile.

Thank you ,mother.

And so say all of us