Waxy flowers poking through
Snow so white
Flowers bright.
Made me think of you.
I see once more your just washed hair,
Soft as snow,
On pillow.
Now my bed is bleak and bare
,
Face alight,flower to sun,
I loved you.
Love so true.
Fear by love,overcome.
Cyclamen in the snow,
Pink and red,
Now frozen,dead.
Love was,oh,so long ago.
But never gone from in my mind.
Thoughts so deep,
Upwards seep.
Love was gentle,love was kind,
Always in my mind
I sat on
I sat on your old wall to see the sun
The wall is cold and makes my rear end chill
And all too soon each little day is done
The day is ending and I ‘ve not yet begun
To do my writing , let my mind be still
I sat on your old wall in winter sun
If we were younger we might have more fun
We must allow now what we cannot will
As all too soon each little day is done
Must we finish what we have begun?
We gazed at rampant water by the mill.
I sat on this old wall in winter sun
As a woman, I can love a man
Then to their rest with singing I may lull
As all too soon each little day is done
Today my heart with love is very full
And happy tears my features like to swill
I sat on your stone wall to eye the sun
As all too soon each little day is done
They sent me for some city scones
Are there good as sex rays?
It depends on the interpreter I believe.
Why does what you believe have anything to do with it?
Why don’t you believe?
This is getting too belligerent for me
. Why why do you bring woe into every discussion
I mean evening war. He wrote this great shovels.
In my opinion Lesbian Freud was more of a shoveler
You have to be very rich to shovel your paint on.
You should have been my wife getting ready to go out
Would you take me that your strife
You are so perspicacious
What’s wrong with youwhat’s wrong with youwhat’s wrong with you swallowed the dictionary again?
I thought it was a pork chop
That depends entirely on where we are eating
If we are Jewish it’s the dictionary and if we are not jewish it’s a pork chop it’s simple surely everyone could understand that even an income put like you
Don’t you think it’s wrong to fry a dictionary!
If you use very high quality olive oil it’s alright.
I don’t think I will ever understand your steamings
You mean my scheming ?
I don’t know where we are going to.
Is this is this the X-Ray and CT scan department?
I’m sorry it’s the CP Snow department.
How do they read that?
His books are all in English.
You could have knocked me up with a feather.
I wish that you would informed me earlier. I would not have a hole in my conman.
Oh very good. Everywhere with me I text none.
Looking at all that rubbish I can’t understand why I am here at all.
But do we need to know why we are here?
Well why did God give the ten commandments to Moses?
Probably not to teach us how to swim.
I don’t know how much further we can go.
Will we know when it’s the end?
I think so. My friend have Faith. She wants to get married as soon as possible.
I love her with all my heart some too shy who’s supposed she would marry me.
Don’t let shine it’s deprive you of life. It will be over soon
In my despair I felt that I was stuck
Paralysed by grief and guilt I failed
By the end I had tried every trick
From prayer unthought to deeps of logic black
My life, my engine ,juddered off the rails
I hated God and of “his” Church was sick
Starving and alone I was in shock
The death of one I loved had made me frail
By the end I had tried every trick
I felt love’s arms around me, death to block
I knew this goodness, why else would I wail?
I thought I hated God but Love had struck
Warm and golden light that did me hold
Where are you now when I feel still so cold
Sitting in an ambulance with your knees raised up too high.
Lurching through the traffic made me want to cry
I asked him for some water all they had was red bull beer.
I was too dehydrated to produce a single tear,
We saw the Northern suburbs0 were we going to Golders Green?
I thought we might see Jesus looking rather mean.
In my bright red handbag my phone began to ring.
I was feeling nervous so I nearly bit my tongue.
Hello my dear a woman said
We can’t see you today.
My appointment had been:been cancelled
I didn’t know what to say.
NHS unfunded do they want the Old to die?
Am I feeling anxious? Does a baby cry?
My brothers bought some jeans.
I was practicing the piano in the front room when they came in
Mum came home later.Screamed horror.
They bolted their bedroom door while I played Mozart
She took the axe and went upstairs
Then she hit the door. It wasn’t very strong wood
I can’t remember anything else but I got very good at playing the piano.
I don’t think I have the right sort of feelings.
Harold Bloom, Critic Who Championed Western Canon, Dies at 89 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/books/harold-bloom-dead.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Ah,rebellious spirit wanting space
With my finger on the map I paced
I climbed Helvellyn, fell off Striding Edge
Spent a lifetime hanging off a ledge
Then there was reality to find.
Was it is in the world or in the mind?
I saw the water cascade down steep hills
Joy came through my eye without my will
I wish I was a school girl with my dreams
Life is good but love’s not what it seems
O
Joy sings now in golden light,
Then after day comes deep,black night.
New moon is rising by grey trees,
The earth is where I want to be.
I want the day,I want the night.
I want the dark.I want the light.
I want to see and to be seen,~
And not to lose my precious dreamsThe sun has set, grey clouds turn black,
The day just gone will not come back.
I’ll rest in quiet reverie
Until the reaper’s scythe takes me.
And then I drop and mix with dust,
Till worms and beetles sate their lust.
And fall into ten thousand motes,
And dance, in sunlight, music’s notes.No more striving ,no more ambition
No more fighting,no competition.
Every particle’s the same
Without even a unique name.
And, side by side, we all are one,
The lusts of life have been and gone.
We dwell with dirt and grain and sand
At last we’ve reached the Promised Land
I run my fingers tentatively down your cheek,
asking you a question
with my eyes.
looking at each other,
you touch me too.
This is my skin
my boundary.
Yours is thicker,
like rubber.
I run my fingers down your chin.
what is this little bone?
I like it.
I like your skin
I like your bones.
I like you.
you please me.
you are tasty.
I like your taste,
your skin,your eyelids.
I like your eye here,
and your other eye .
Nice one!
I like the hair on your head.
May I touch your hair?
do you like hair?
Hair makes me laugh.
I have a fondness for laughing.
I love to laugh.
I enjoy laughter
I love your laughter.
If not, smiling is good also.
Or a gleam in the eyes,
showing the inside smile,
the smiling heart.
I like your inside,
Outside
and possibly
your backside.
your upside and your downside.
your side sides.
I snuggle you all around with soft wool.
I knit you into my scarf.
I’ll have to wear you round my neck now!
How unusual
How flexible.
How charming.
How alarming
How creative
How interesting.
What an idea!
what a notion
but you are too big for me to knit
So I’ll just touch your hand
with my fingers.
and you touch my hand
with your fingers.
What good hands we have
with such fingers.
fingers are for touch.
fingers are keen to touch.
I like touch.
what would we do
without fingers?
I like your skin.
skin is good
We love skin
We love.
I want skin to be ours
and yours
is mine
and mine
is yours
where is the edge of the world?
skin has no end
it’s infinity
au naturel.
what order!
what design!
What wonder.
what awe.
where is the world’s skin?
tenderly we touch the world
as the world embraces us.
We call it love.
Love.
We call it love
Tenderly I held him took him in
As though we touched each other skin to skin
Dying is what everyone must do
Even when it splits the Me from You
What we took for granted every day
Had its end like any mortal’s play
The length of life is just enough to lie
It’s not here forever, don’t you cry
We are on no plateau but a slope
Slight at first, so we don’t see and note
Gently we are led to where it ends
Beautiful and foolish like ourselves
How can we be split when we are one?
In deep darkness dies the winter sun
Copyright © Katherine Braithwaite |
So you are gone who once declared your love
For that phantasm conjured in your mind
For onto me you brought down from above
A torment bitter and some words unkind.
Used to friendship from within your books
You did not understand that I was real
Irritation grew as you did look;
You threw your poisoned arrows at my heel.
What once you loved then you began to hate
If not perfect then intolerable I must be
And then you cursed me with this sorry fate
Our child was born and him you’ll never see.
Illegitimate and born in desert grey.
I carried him alone from death’s dark way.
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;
Widening, centred,
pied geometer of flight,
sketch your height and descent.
Trees bunched by drystone wall
call heart home.
My room is warm and comforting and light
This feels like kindness , brings my skin delight
I remember being held in loving arms
And soothed by songs as sweet as any balms
Let the lamplight run across the eyes
Let them soften to a wider gaze
Let the hair be free from sprays too strong
Let the skin enclose us softly, strong
We can’t deny the skin is often pricked
Or beaten by a parent who’s too strict
More fragile than a leaf from any tree
This frail membrane is our boundary
Floating into sleep in reverie
I lose myself while God imagines me
I recently bought soft, wearable-at-night headphones (cozyphones) and started using (free) sleep/hypnosis apps. I would strongly recommend this to anyone who suffers from insomnia. Just try lots of different apps and you will find one that works. Some are noises, such as owls hooting, water rippling, etc. I don’t find these so helpful (although if I lived in a noisy environment, I think they would help), but the hypnosis apps are surprisingly effective.
Mary was in the teal coloured kitchen of her almost detached house making a jam sponge pudding when the doorbell rang.She wiped her hands on her new purple trousers because she didn’t want to dirty a clean towel.
She found her colleague Dr Rosa Benchez standing nervously outside shivering
Come in , Mary cried.
Would you like a cup of tea? You need to sit by the fire and get warmer
I’d love that, Rosa said politely but distantly
A few minutes later they were sitting looking out of the bay window watching a blackbird sitting on the fence;they hoped it would start to sing
May I talk to you,Mary? I have got rather more agitated than ever before
.I am wondering if I need counselling or maybe shooting, she joked morosely
OK,said Mary cautiously.Has anything unusual happened ?
Yes, my sister has had her driving license taken away because of big panic attacks she had crossing the Humber Bridge …. you know how huge it is.She got out of the car and screamed,Help! Help!
That was dangerous with so much traffic about
She is furious and says we live in a Nazi state and is writing to the Times
Well, it can happen that you lose your licence,Mary said,but when she has learned to deal with the attacks she can re-apply and get her license back.Simple things like not eating and being tired can bring that on so I have heard.And fear of fear, too.
As well as that,Rosa said,my son has got a recurrence of cancer and is going onto some new drug-type chemo.My ex husband is very distressed and so am I as it was unexpected.
And even worse my new fiance Prof. Charlie Blogge has broken off our engagement with no reason.I can’t think of any at all.Shall I ever trust a man again?
He said I can keep the ring which is a blue sapphire ,supposedly, but when I had it valued they said I was mistaken and you can buy them on amazon for £57 and less.
So she took off the ring and hurled it into Mary’s coal fire where it looked very nice as it got hotter and hotter glowing like a lighthouse off Portland Bill in a sea storm or a banger about to explode
Good grief, said Mary.No wonder you are agitated.We may have to phone Dave the bisexual lovable paramedic available on the NHS 24 hours a day.Or we could have our hair permed and dyed red instead, she murmured to herself
Which of these events bothers you most,Rosa? She continued gently while hoping she would cope.
It is my own feelings that worry me most.I wake up feeling very sad and nervous;I wonder if I am having a breakdown.Then I feel worse as I turn it over in my mind trying to decide what to do.Then I get up and get food into me and think it all over and over again while drinking my tea.
Well, you know it is normal to feel sad, anxious or distraught when bad things happen,Mary told her.
But most people look happy when I see them in the town , Rosa shouted angrily
That is because being outside they put on a mask.They could be feeling worse than you.Anyway, why bother about that? We are all different.Some people think I am very calm but they don’t see me when I’m not.I go stiff like a piece of wood.Then I pass out
So what do you do? Rosa asked her nervously,twirling a golden ringlet around her finger as she watched her engagement ring melt in the fire.
I don’t do anything,Mary said.This is one of the fundamental errors in our society that action is needed for so many things and especially for negative feelings.But it’s usually part of life.Things pass.
I pretend I have a big round box inside me and I let the anxiety live in there nice and cosy until my mind has absorbed and dealt with the pain.Once my box was quite small but it has grown bigger now and so it has room for mad or bad feelings.I do little tasks and listen to music.
Then if I feel really bad I listen to Leonard Cohen and tell myself, he had it worse.But he made money out of it! Not that you can make money out of yours. though it’s worth musing about
Well,Rosa replied.Thank you,Mary.I am glad I am not the only one who feels so anxious sometimes.I shall try to get a box like yours.
You are welcome,said Mary jovially.Come round on Sunday for tea.Emile is out hunting but he loves to see you and so do I
The women hugged cautiously and Rosa went out looking less cold and nervous as she bravely carried her box away .It was invisible to the people walking nearby
Mary dreamed she was riding her bicycle.She was going up a hill and then approaching a very complicated roundabout.
How can I look at the map when I am riding my bike,she asked herself.Anyway I don’t have a map and I’ve never been here before.She looked down and saw she was wearing some dark blue denim culottes and red suede knee high boots with laces.
I don’t remember buying these,she thought.She felt quite hot even though she wore only an olive needle-cord coat over a Breton T shirt.
Goodness me, she cried.I look smart.
Her spectacles clouded over as she was sweating.How will I know where to turn off when I don’t know where I am or where I am going to.
When she woke up she filled Stan’s beer tankard with tea.
What a lot of tea,miaowed Emile.
I thought it saves carrying the tea pot. I’m going to go back to bed as I feel a bit peculiar.
You have got a fleece nightgown on.Maybe you are too hot,he replied.
I am trying to save money on the heating,Mary answered.I see I can save even more money by buying 2 pairs of Hotters sandals for £97.Usually they are £127.
That saves £30,the clever animal informed her.
I think it’s quite misleading,Mary answered.It only saves money if you were already planning to buy them.I have such strange feet I don’t like to bare them.
Do you wear shoes in bed with a boyfriend.Emile asked.
I’ve not got a boyfriend.Emile.
But if you did?
Well.you know, an older man might not wish to go to bed with me.He might like just sitting on the sofa holding my hand and kissing me.
OK said ,Emile.It sounds a trifle boring to me.
Don’t be so cheeky, Emile.Talking to me is not boring.
No, he said, but it’s nice running up and down your legs in bed.
I could hardly expect a man to do that.He might injure me.
It was just a kind of example,he replied nervously.
Suddenly the back door opened and in ran Annie from next door.She was wearing a mustard coloured track suit and orange trainers with matching lip gloss.
What a horrible colour,Mary cried.
It’s the in colour now,Annie said kindly.I am getting my hair dyed too.
Bright yellow is better,Mary told her.Except it attracts insects.
Insects,I don’t want those.How are you,dear.You look flushed, she responded emotionally.
No wonder. I’ve been cycling all night in my dreams.Why can’t I dream of motor bikes?
Don’t ask me,Annie told her.I am utterly ignorant.Do you need therapy?
I don’t think so,Mary answered.I need to know where I am going.Do I decide or is it my Inner Wisdom or Higher Power.I could use higher power on that bike.
Just take it one rotation at a time, Annie murmured.
I thought it was one step.Mary answered
You can’t take a step on a bike.
I suppose not.But I could ride up a step on the bike.
Don’t ride up a step ladder,Anne advised.How would you get down again?
Let’s have some coffee,Mary cried.Here we are ,the kettle is boiling.
Let’s just sit and brood.
But don’t ruminate,purred Emile.It makes you ill.
Just let your mind go blank.
And so I did.
It’s not fuzzy logic but proof the human world is more like Alice in Wonderland than Principia Mathematica.
Or more like poetry than grammar
More like flesh than fantasy
This is a good game!
More like a jigsaw than chess
More like birdsong than an argument
More like love than indifference.
Quality not quantity
However folded rivers sigh
Watch fields of barley unreel red eye
Bad-mouth the world then eat the sky;
And thro’ the weald the toads run by
To moody glowering Havelot;
And chips in hand the fishes row,
Gazing as the matrices’ glow
Refine algebra with its flaws
The Geometry of My Blot.
Pillows quaver, aspirins quiver,
Little wheezes flush our livers
With two eyes mauve that gleam forever
By the cardinal’s email lover
Fleeing down to Grab a phone.
Fifty shades of grey ,balls powered
Overload the ovaries
And the silent male implodes
For the Lady, will sheNot?
Ar my jargon, pillows wailed
They read the heavy sheets in braille
Slow and blue the duvets failed
The dry mop shuttered silk and pale
Slapping down wi fi Hotspots
But which computer saw her glands?
Or at her thyroid wondered long?
Or is she known to heartless men,
The Lady M.A [aegrotat]
Only drapers, fold sincerely
In among the beds and parlours,
Hear a gong that echoes queerly
From the river bounding eerie
Down to showers for Camper’s Foot
And on the Lune, the sweeping fairies
Pile the leaves in uplands barely
Listening, whispers “‘Tis the lovely
Lady with a white Teapot
what brings you here
Not literally? [ could be autistic]
No, you are always here in a sense.
Well, you know English is not my first language [ excuses]
No, you were here before language.How hard to imagine.
I have come here because of my guilt [ trying to be human ]
I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury, said cunning old furyVery adroit [Shows off his skills]
What’s that?
The opposite of maladroit
Why did you send the Flood over the earth\~
I pressed the wrong button. [Teases me]
That is absurd. There were no buttons then
Not even on coats? [Pretends to be ignorant]
Well you should know
I don’t like little details in my creatiity [ Thinks he is superior]
Come on, tell me whatever comes to mind
I like playing with water and fire as well [ Melanie Klein come here]
You tell me
It’s such fun [ emotionally stunted]
Like War?
It was not so bad to start with { always an excuse…. lacking in adult responsibility]
What, even Cain and Abel?
Very sad but it’s just a story [ Derrida,Levinas, Enid Blyton]
Don’t tell me you are a post modernist
I can be what I want , for fun you know [ repeats himself]
I didn’t know God has fun
Well you do now [ Humour]Right that is £120
What, you think I should pay? [ feels superior]
I have to live,Lord.I have a family [ childish plea]
So did I once [Sarcasm and grief]
Well, any alternative?
I’ll give you an indulgence/
How about Martin Luther?
Should he have one?
Why not, he’s just human like you.
But Hitler?
I retain the right to silence [ knows the law]Well when you stop sulking make another appointment
Can no-one help me?
Don’t give up hope.
Goodbye for now.
A map’s a guide to find a world
Knitted by angels, plain or pearled,
And though you need a map as guide,
Keep your own eyes open wide.
I spent a year caught in a map
Until I found a big enough gap
I crawled out through this exit slit,
So here I am , like some half wit
Words can act like heroin,
You live so high, where I have been.
But onto earth, I gladly fall.
The air the sun the rain is all.
My senses are my lovers long-
My ears, my eyes, my skin my tongue.
The winds caress my naked flesh,
To dwell on earth is all I wish.
I’ll live with mice and birds and plants,
I’ll share my food with miscreants
I’ll keep my words inside a tin,
And only, now and then, go in
I’ll live with cats and spiders three.
And like a wild flower grow quite free.
I’ ll give my words to those who hear,
And eventually, I’ll disappear
Earth to earth, then ash to ash
When soaked with rain I shall disperse.
My atoms wing like butterflies,
And to the Flower I’ll fly, disguised
The dentist wants to charge in advance in case I die in the chair
Surely it’s not electric?
Not the first time apparently.
Is it not murder?
I don’t know I’ve never been murdered
Have you ever committed suicide?
That’s murder too
So that’s a No?
Yes.
How my heart speaks 