Month: July 2023

Where’s the Biro?

With a biro scribble down the lines

No Fountain pen,no Rorsach blots, no nibs

Lots of paper needed every time.

Words are are hewed from rock the’re never glib

Laptops message easier to write

Yet they use no muscles,axe nor line

No hands are wrung no paper pierced,no fight.

The brain is severed from the hand unkind.

If there is a written script it sells

It conveys it’s vision through the hands, the heart

It’s not just to the brain but every cell

Heal yourself by feeling not by charts

Walk about with pockets full of pens.

Every word on every line makes sense

Grenfell tower


[2017 recalled]

When ancient peoples sacrificed to God
They offered up the best of what they had.
The king’s own son would be the frequent choice
As insulting a God was seen as vice.

And when a man goes courting for a bride
He offers her a ring that satisfies
He does not give her tin or zinc or lead
But gold or diamonds glorify the bed.

Yet here in modern or post-modern times
We offer up the lowest as our sacrifice.
And so the wealthy shall go straight to hell
As murderers of the sick and poor who fell.

In the past, the rich gave to the poor
But now they burned them up in Grenfell Tower.

The town

T

The shops look all the same to me.
plastic human models with no heads
are placed in the windows
showing us how we might look
if we bought the latest “fashions”.
“
People walk, by dropping paper and cans
some look at me,most don’t
I’m invisible now ,I’m a ghost.
I haunt my familiar spaces
the library green and the path by the river

The phone shops tempt us with large notices:
Just £39 per month for the best of all,
the latest,the new maps and locations
faster access to email and photos.
Look ,here I am,another selfie.

The only beauty is a pigeon in the sun
and a black man with gentle,luminous eyes
smiling at me as he sweeps away the paper
tossed down by the blinded people
who jabber beside the coffee shop.

Emile gets his nerve back

  • Tabby-Cats3

    Wikipedia

    Stan was happy for a few moments when he woke up.Then he realized Emile was not anywhere to be seen.Mary had already gone out as she wanted to catch a very early train to London.She needed to visit the British Library.She urgently wanted to find evidence that Wittgenstein wore a hat in bed.
    Stan went searching around the house but Emile had vanished.Usually at 8 am he would be dashing about pretending to chase flies and giving a balletic performance worthy of Sadler’s Wells.
    I wonder who Sadler was,Stan muttered as he filled the kettle with fresh water and put some Earl Grey tea into the teapot.
    Then, a strange feeling came over him.He looked up and there was Emile
    crouched on top of the highest cupboard in the kitchen.
    Emile,he cried,What are you doing up there?
    I’m training to be a spy,Emile replied nonchalantly.
    But how could this kitchen be of interest to the Intelligence Services?
    Well,the cat murmured,I am practising hiding.
    You gave me a terrible shock,Stan said.I had this feeling I was being watched.I wondered if it was paranoia.Then I saw your gleaming eyes.
    So,I need to get some dark glasses,Emile said.
    No,I would still feel that horrible feeling.And how were you planning to get down from that high ledge?
    I’m not sure,the cat mioawed faintly
    Well,the first lesson for a spy or even a detective is,
    Never go anywhere unless you can make a quick exit,
    As it is,I may have to ring 999.
    Just then the front doorbell rang.There stood a man with a white beard and moustache.
    Hello,he said holding out his hand to shake Stan’s.
    I am called Peter Fried.I have just moved into one of the new flats across the road.I am a psychoanalyst.I have taken on another flat to use as a consulting room and a waiting room
    A psychoanalyst! Do we need one round here? Well,Good morning,I have just brewed some tea.Would you like to join me?
    How kind,said Peter.
    I say,old bean,did you know there’s a cat on top of your cupboard?
    Yes,that is Emile.Today he has surpassed himself in wickedness.How I will get him down I don’t know.
    My training analyst used to say,What goes up must eventually come down.
    That seems a bit weird for an analyst.To what was he referring… something to do with sex I don’t doubt.It’s all sex with you people.
    Yes, some of us are very peculiar…that’s why we enter the profession.
    What I meant was,if Emile got up he can get down.How did you get up,Emile?
    I leaped,answered the tense animal.
    Can you leap down?
    I’ve lost my nerve,replied the poor creature softly.
    Well, as it happens,being a therapist,I always carry few sparwe nerves with me.I’ll climb up this stepladder and pass you a new nerve.
    And without waiting,Peter climbed the ladder.He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a golden thread.
    Here you are,Emile,Catch this in your claw.
    Emile caught the golden thread and wrapped it around his neck.
    Can you leap down now? enquired Stan.
    Emile leaped down and landed in a bowl of hot water in the sink.
    It’s a good thing I wasn’t making chips,laughed Stan.
    Come here,Emile and let me dry you on this old towel.He put Emile
    in front of the fire and he and Peter drank mugs of Earl Grey tea.
    I have got a mistress,Stan told Peter.
    Well,do you want therapy for your conflict?
    Oh,no.I’m far too old for therapy or indeed for a mistress.I was wondering of you would perhaps be interested …she just likes to spend a little time with an intriguing man.. talking, drawing graphs, interpreting data,making tea,calling the ambulance.. you know what I mean.She likes the paramedic,Dave.
    Is she not married?
    No,her husband fell into the wheelie bin during the night and alas he was taken away with the rubbish.
    That is a strange story.Are you certain?
    No,it could be he grew tired of her and ran away.Then she invented this story,
    Well,this may be a quiet suburb but I can see there is plenty of material here for me to write my next book:
    Deceptive appearances and the fascination of apparent dullness.
    Oh,that sounds very unusual.
    Well,I’ve never believed in true dullness.There is always a story.
    See,I’ve just met you a man of 98 yet you have a wife, a mistress and a crazy cat.. and I’ve only been here for one day.Imagine 6156119_f260

    what else I may discover here.
    They heard a siren.
    Oh,no!We’ve not even rung 999 and here is the ambulance….
    Mary will be so angry..You see Dave is bisexual.
    My goodness,are you having an affair with him.
    No way,shouted Stan.My life is tough enough already.He can be bisexual or even trisexual but I’m not interested.
    What does trisexual mean,enquired Emile.
    I have no idea but I thought it sounded good,admitted Stan.
    Peter stood up.
    I think I’d better go home and start to see my patients.
    Now Emile,put your nerve somewhere safe.We don’t want you to lose it again.
    Thank you,darling cried Emile.I think I’ve formed an erotic transference with you already.
    Peter rushed out.
    Is it me or is it them?he wondered.
    I thought it would be quiet here on the edge of Knittingham but I think now wherever you are there will always be something unexpected happening.But I hope Emile will not begin to follow me around.I shall have to buy a lady cat and then Emile might fall in love with her instead.So off Peter went whistling a Bach cello suite and wondering how to cope with life in a suburb.. clearly it was not as dull as he had imagined.

The therapist and the cat.

What on earth

Into the washing machine… therapy’s disasters

Peter Fried,the psychoanalyst newly arrived in Knittingham, had noticed that whilst he was practising “free floating attention”
with his patients an image of a cat peering in the window behind the couch was troubling him.He hoped it was not some hallucination transferred from the Unconscious of one of his patients into his consciousness.
Still,having a black cat looking in the window was by no means the most unpleasant optical illusion he had ever suffered.In a way,it was quite sweet.
He was back in his “home” flat boiling some eggs for his supper when the doorbell rang.He opened it cautiously with a sort of furtive excitement.There stood a strikingly attractive woman wearing a purple coat and a red hat with matching red ballet flats and a bright green designer handbag from TKMaxx.[£29.99 and well worth it]
Hello,I thought I’d introduce myself,I live across the street next door to Stan and Mary..my name is Anne..How are you settling in?
She walked confidently through his flat and into the new teak kitchen with its gleaming work surfaces and marble pastry rolling strip…. though Peter never made pastry himself.
Eggs!Are you a curry lover?By pure chance and serendipity I have a tin of vindaloo sauce here.I could pour it over these eggs.
Should we not remove the shells first?Peter asked with a just hint of humour.
Definitely,leave it to me.I’ve brought some naan bread and some brown rice too
How did you know I was boiling six eggs?
Why Emile told me,of course!
Emile….is he black?
Some people call him black,others say he’s mixed race.
Let’s not argue about semantics,he replied discourteously.
I don’t even know what semantics, are she screeched into his left ear.
Well,that is no barrier to arguing about them,he replied diplomatically.
Well,it’s senseless, she answered kindly.”I am not a person who enjoys an argument.Go and sit down,read the paper and I’ll finish preparing the curry dinner.
Is it common around here to have an unknown woman come in to cook your dinner?Peter asked Anne.
No,it’s the height of sophistication,she said judiciously.
It’s just with you being new I wanted to meet you to see if you need any assistance in your work.I don’t need money,I like to serve the community in some way.Of course I am Stan’s mistress but as he’s in a bad temper today I’ve not seen him.I suspect he is growing tired of me.
Are you married,Peter asked her.
No,but I was once.My husband ran off with his brother’s wife,so we decided to pretend they were both dead.
That’s intriguing,said Peter,I am married but my wife developed an allergy to my skin.She could not bear to touch it so it became awkward… very awkward.
Fancy, and you a therapist too,she murmured softly,So where is she now?
Oh, she lives on the Isle of Man,near Peel.I do go to see her now and then… and there are lovely sunsets over there… you can see the Mountains of Mourne.
Are you lonely, she asked him very emotionally.
No,I see seven patients a day..
But that’s not the same as having a wife or a friend.
Since my wife’s allergy,I am afraid to touch another woman.
How sad,cried Anne…I have very thick skin.Would you like to touch me? she said seductively
Perhaps another time,Peter said in a kindly way,But thanks for being so generous.I am touched by your amiability and femininity and your
kindness in introducing yourself.
.
Let’s eat the curry before we die of hunger.
They sat down at the kitchen table to eat the egg curry when they saw some amber eyes gleaming at the window.
Oh, dear,There’s Emile again.
Will he tell Stan?
Probably,but actually Stan no longer wants me.Yet Emile adores me.He will be jealous… he’s a cat,but he has the feeling of a man.
And indeed Emile’s eyes were gleaming like those of a tiger… he began to speak through the window glass.
Would you mind if I had some curry?Stan never makes it… I love spices
Why not? said Peter.
Emil’s plan was to get near Anne but first he had to eat the vindaloo egg curry.He took a mouthful..my,it was hot.His eyes began to water and his nose ran…. all round the room.He mioawed piteously
I need a hanky.
We shall have to ring 999,muttered Anne.
What! Do they tend to cats?
They usually have some hankies for cats….
So without any further ado,she took out her Samsung mobile phone and rang.
I don’t know how I shall get on living here,thought Peter.
He ran across the room and jumped into the washing machine with the tea towels and kitchen cloths.
Will he escape?
Buy the next chapter…only three shilling and sixpence or free with the Daily Wail tomorrow…order now for next life delivery!

The tears again

can see there is plenty of material here for me to write my next book:

Deceptive appearances and the fascination of apparent dullness.

Oh, that sounds very unusual.

Well, I’ve never believed in true dullness.There is always a story.

6156119_f260

See, I’ve just met you a man of 98 yet you have a wife, a mistress and a crazy cat.. and I’ve only been here for one day.Imagine 

what else I may discover here.

They heard a siren.

Oh, no!We’ve not even rung 999 and here is the ambulance….

Mary will be so angry.You see Dave is bisexual

My goodness, are you having an affair with him.

No way, shouted Stan.My life is tough enough already.He can be bisexual or even trisexual but I’m not interested.

What does trisexual mean, enquired Emile.

I have no idea but I thought it sounded good, admitted Stan.

Peter stood up.

I think I’d better go home and start to see my patients.

Now Emile, put your nerve somewhere safe.We don’t want you to lose it again.

Thank you, darling cried Emile.I think I’ve formed an erotic transference with you already.

Peter rushed out.

Is it me or is it them?he wondered.

I thought it would be quiet here on the edge of Knittingham but I think now wherever you are there will always be something unexpected happening.But I hope Emile will not begin to follow me around.I shall have to buy a lady cat and then Emile might fall in love with her instead.So off Peter went whistling a Bach cello suite and wondering how to cope with life in a suburb.. clearly it was not as dull as he had imagined.

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Try to be sarcastic once a day

Try to be sarcastic once a day.

Honest and truth have never paid.

Never tell your secrets to a fool.

Never tell your children they are fools

Never go along with any crowd

Get fatter so the wind can’t knock you down

Don’t tell other people they’re obese

Never start a war to ensure peace.

Build a wall in secret piece by peace

The enmity of night

The darkness and the enmity of night

Invite the wild projections of the mind

The lack of trust the need for saving light

The nightmares of the deep that terror bringd

The promise of the dawn, the sun alight

Bring vomfort to my heart when I’m alone

And yet with hidden mysterieswe fight

We try to read emotion from a stone

The pilgrimage we need to make our life

From avenues to footpath to the fall.

Rewarding conflicts undo human spite

All together we shall hear the call

In the suffering dark we see the sparks

We catch the flames of love to heal the breaks

Singing still the ancient elegies.

Reverberations of the ancient elegies
The coffin carried by the four dark men
Agitate the mind with memory

He has gone and where will I soon be?
Am I to live and utilise my pen
Remembering all the ancient elegies?

I’d like to ask him what beauty he could see
Before he smiled and dropped his head again
Don’t agitate the mind with memory.

Hamlet asked, to be or not to be
But most go quietly when it is their turn
Singing still the ancient elegies.

Can we trust the darkness we perceive
Where god hides his greatest mystery, man
Don’t agitate the mind with memory.

Violently, with passion, the young burn
Then stone temples harden as they learn
Reverberations of the ancient elegies
Wound the human mind with memory

An unearthly glow

My face is pale,my hair is white as snow
In my eyes is an unearthly glow

I ate some salt beef and some bread today
I tried to write a poem very gay

The Government attracted scorn and blows
The wind is in the willows with Jon Snow

Israel is getting on my mind
The deaf can’t see and all rest are blind

Come to Gaza, on the beach we play
Some children just got shot, ought we to pray?

On mountains where the prophets heard the Lord
The vultures now await the battle scarred.

The United Nations cannot speak the Word
Apartheid makes me wonder who is scared.

Jesus was a man so we are told
God sent him here, we killed him feeling bold

Would you like Guernica again?
Say the word, we’ll kill for pay.Amen

In the deserts of the human heart
Are there wells where water can be bought?

From whom come our so called Human Rights?
And by the way, what of the children’s plight?

Would you take a break on the West Bank?
We have some Bedouin Tents,and many tanks

Jerusalem is holy, what a shock!
You can eat ice cream right on the Rock

Women cannot wail on that great Wall
They have no height, they need to grow more tall

Golden is the dome and bright the sun
Catch an “Arab” out and have some fun

If we did not believe there was a God
He’d go away and leave us just his rod

I hate her wooden coat hangers all cracked
Give me wire and let me be abstract

I found some shoes but they have dropped apart
Think of how that hurt my Bakewell tarts

The Sacred Whore, the Holy Demon’s plight
The Holy Ghost is not inclined to fight

I have a table here on which I paint
I look so pale, will I be forced to faint?

In the bitter depths of winter night
Boil the kettle, lose your human rights

If you feel depressed then eat our bread
It will remove the skull from off your head

Are you feeling lonesome in the crowd?
Buy our lipstick then men will be cowed

Did you think ceramic hobs were best?
Come to us and have your IQ blessed

I want a pan for halogen hot plates
I’d ask the cat but it’s out on a date

Does Confession really help the damned?
God have mercy as the Devil can’

Hearing his voice

Katherine 2012

I heard your voice outside the closed front door
I felt no shock or worry or surprise.
But there a man whose image is a blur
Handed me a box with friendly cry.

What part of me still waits for your return?
Why don’t I know you’re gone from this your home
What knowledge must my puzzled heart still learn?
Why do I get an urge to search and roam?

If we are conversations,as I read,
Then our exchange has ended with your death
And so I am not she with whom you laid
Nor she with whom you shared a common breath.

When deprived of hearing your response
I am not the self whom I was once.

Where is my skin?

1

The sun shines in the places that haunt me
Not the cave of darkness and despair
His empty chair ,his love,my memory

What I was and who I soon shall be
How my little time on earth will fare
The sun peers into places that haunt me

The beauty of the dark red maple tree
He wished to have his ashes buried there
Oh, empty chair the kindest memory

Regardless, violent , flowers will love the bee
I watch them start their silent love affair
The sun shines in the places that haunt me

I weep into my android phone, it beeps
Feeling shocked, I gasp ,I need more air
Oh, startling phone , who filled your memory?

11Oh, chance and fate,why blast my heart so bare?
Where is my skin, my boundary, the despair
The sun shines in the places that haunt me
His empty chair, the anguish, the repair

The patients’ association

Our purpose. To ensure that everybody can access and benefit from the health and care they need to live well, by ensuring that services are designed and delivered through equal partnership with patients.

https://www.patients-association.org.uk › …

How we see the world | The Patients

Elderly people and the NHS

Patients Association has been receiving calls on our helpline from people wanting to talk about the dreadful, neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel treatment their elderly relatives had experienced at the hands of NHS nurses,” she said. “These bad, cruel nurses may be – probably are – a tiny proportion of the nursing work force, but even if they are only one or 2% of the whole, they should be identified and struck off

The song of a tramp

Grandad’s Uncle who lost a hand and became a tramp [That’s what this government want the unemployed to do]


I lost my hand in an accident
Down in et old coal mine.
And now I can’t afford too eat.
They treat us poor like swine.

I wander round et roads and streets
Where us childer used to play.
And as I walk ahm wonderin’
Where I’ll get fed t’day.

Yet I know there’s magic for I saw
Ten thousand angels filled with joy
Their voices ,soft like molten gold,
Just as the Bible had foretold.

I saw three Shepherds cross our street
Though us folk have no flocks of sheep.
I saw three Magi comin’ here
They were stood right over there.
One had gold and one had myrrh,
Frankincense the third King bore.

As I’ve no job to tie me down
I followed them to Bethlehem town.
And in a manger lay the Christ,
As round the world,your rich men diced.

Mary touched my wounded soul.
Jesus’ life has made me whole
You see a tramp beg in your Malls,
You don’t see Jesus Christ at all.
Yet I, a tramp,a worthless man,
Have seen the heart of Bethlehem

What does it mean?

1. : mournful. especially : exaggeratedly or affectedly (see affected entry 2 sense 1a) mournful. dark, dramatic and lugubrious brooding V. S. Pritchett. the tour de force of lugubrious cliche is ten times longer than this review Martin Amis.27 May 2023

https://www.merriam-webster.com › …

Lugubrious Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Niceness is not kindness

Katherine

Niceness is not kindness it is fear.

Love is action, live and fully formed

Submission to another costs us dear.

Listen with your mind and not your ears

Write down the words as soon as they are born

Niceness is not kindness it is fear

Submission is a nightmare, horrors leer

Yet domination brings down vicious storms

Submission to another costs us dear.

Jesus on his crucifix was speared.

By the metal nails his hands were torn

Niceness is not kindness it, is fear.

Power is tempered by the holy fires.

As the sparrow floats by fields of corn

Submission to another costs us dear.

Can power and love be heated till they form

A metal never seen before the storm

Submission to another costs us dear

Niceness is not kindness though sincere

What is an aeroplane?

Katherine

An aeroplane is a flying bridge

An artificial bird

A whale of the air.

A defier of gravity.

A fierce angel

The saviour of the Yemeni Jews.

Incomparably inferior to the owl.

An energy addict.

The destroyer of the heavens.

The harbinger of nuclear war.

A schizoid dream.

A metal mother.

A defiant humans construction

People

Alfred wished his wife would make a cake.
He himself could neither boil nor bake.
Yet when Marie bought cakes in Marks
His eyes emitted orange sparks.
I saw their marriage was at risk
And so I undertook my task.
I bought a needle circular,
And now I knit round cakes for her.

Wilfred wanted clean sheets every night
Their laundry basket was a wearing sight
Yet when Annette rang the launderette
He swore right through the alphabet.
I thought that they might well split up
Then dear Annette would lose her grip.
I bought some lovely plastic sheets
And on his bed they look so neat.

Herbert like to use real handkerchiefs
And, fancy, he wore heavy cotton briefs.
When Mary Jane boiled all his stuff
He said his pants weren’t clean enough.
I thought their union’d perish soon
And she’d not find another groom.
I bought ten gross of paper pants
And now he feels quite exultant.

Gilbert liked his tea to be real hot
But one Sunday his troubled wife forgot
He screamed and yelled like an infant
His face was red and petulant
I thought Diane would strike him dead
And have nobody in her bed.
I bought ten insulated mugs,
A teapot, and by Jove they’re snug!

These little tales are meant to make you laugh
For I would rather read or draw a graph.
But if we do not help our friends
We’d go much further round the bend.
I don’t want you to suffer long
So I’ll come round and sing my songs.
I’ve got my handbag and my case
And now I’m coming ,full of grace.