https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2yr0d3m1no

https://busybusylearning.com/how-do-you-play-as-an-adult/#:~:text=Engaging%20in%20hobbies%20such%20as,form%20of%20play%20for%20adults.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s life was beset by illnesses, opium dependency, marital problems, and a lack of confidence. He suffered from crippling anxiety and depression, which he increasingly treated with opium, which possibly led to his death of heart failure with an unknown lung disorder.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z8sf8mn#zjy97v4

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zg6dng8

Kick it, scratch it, bite it, sip its dew

Choose a heap of words and make a form
The words may not be right but such is charm
Once you’ve made a heap of stones, of brick
You can shape it with your poetics

Treat it like a sculptress does her clay
Hit it, mould it, make it go your way
But, oh, beneath its hidden shape and show
The poem knows such life you’ll never know.

Get it in your arms and so you twist
A pile of soft cement with woman’s wrist
Kick it, scratch it, bite it, sip its dew
The poem is having its own way with you.

As we wrestle in our clay stained cloth
We feel the rising of our hidden wrath.
So at the end, we mould it with our souls
The poem itself has shaped the dual goal.

Thus master, mistress none can take the name.
For inner demons, gods have swayed the game

To write a poem should take the entire heart
The mind and soul, our body and our dreams.
With trepidation,take a pen and start

Let preconceptions , though well meant, depart
Creative work evades such plans and schemes
To write a poem will shake the tender heart

We travel lands unknown without a chart;
With courage, trust the dark and deep unseen
For inspiration,take a pen and write

We bite the apple,bitter, hard and tart
Knowledge enters in perceptual streams
To write a poem will move each living heart

No logic,reasoning, signs, however wrought
Will bring to life the holy pattern’s themes
With each image ,still your dreaming heart

The earth ,the oceans, seas, the sacred scenes
Where humans live out daily what life means
To write our poem , we need a mystic’s heart
In solitude, we fill our pens and start

Those little words invented as we loved
Now have no other speaker but myself
Lost, unique, the husband, still beloved
The honeyed words, invented as we loved,
From my speech these words must be removed.
I can no longer use our words, our wealth.
The little words invented as we loved
Now have no other listener but myself.

Across the road I see the Tudor wall
In its cracks defiant flowers grow
The modern traffic sounds out a fierce wail
From the East a freezing wind still blows

In between the natural world and man
The space provides a habitat,retreat
Ancient yew trees grow without a plan
And in each little bird a heart still beats

Concentrating on the  ancient viewsk
Ignoring the red buses as they pass
Ignoring strident music , find the clues
Down comes peace and joy, our Holy Mass

Reversal of the figure and the ground
Brings out a new world where love is found

When love is nothing but a word,
When our deep feelings can’t be shared.
When joy and woe unwoven lie
When we can’t speak, except to sigh…..
When we are lost behind the glass,
When burdened feelings never pass,
When noone is a trusted friend
When we are scared but cannot bend.
When love embodied goes away
When we are numbed but cannot say.
When we are rigid with the strain.
When life has little but such pain
We suffer as our will has gone
And we’ve no task to lure us on.
We need to know we’re not alone
That love can penetrate a stone.
That like the Christ we rise to life
When we endure with will its strife.
When we accept that all is lost,
But wish to live despite the cost.
Then we are saved as are the flowers
Which decorate the fields and bowers
Though all shall crumble into dust,
While we’re alive we’ll slake our lust.

Autumn’s coming,geese fly by,
Autumn rust,red,gold,so gay
Drystone walls edging fields.
Apples gathered,holly berries
Flash so brightly
Look like flowers
Sun shines sideways,shadows long
Of trees appear.I dwell among
Woods where gentle beeches sing
Swaying with the sideward wind.
See their roots, all intertwined.
Feel their geometry in the mind.
Look up now into the sky,
See the V formation high.
Geese fly home at end of day.
My heart is moved by patterned dance
In this peace and great silence
My mind widens like the sky
And in this moment I would die,
So I would stay with this still vision
Of geese set out on autumn mission.
Snails in rain pools slither near
My feet upon the terrace here
Yet how swiftly life’s destroyed
When blind foot steps into the void.

Ads:
Weetabix,weetabix
Throw it on the ceiling to see how well it sticks.

Go smirk on an egg

Whack, keep off my leg.

Ladies, ladies:
Do you leak and fear opprobrium?
Buy our special pads then stick ’em on your bum

Forgot to wash your dirty hair today
Spray it with our Polywash, it’ll look like stacks of hay

Do you fear your private parts might smell?
Wash with our carbolic s, you’ll get eczema there as well

Why not buy a tube of our cortisone cream today?
It cures stuff like red nettle rash and sometimes men turn gay.

Heavy menstruation gives the government much tax
Take ibuprofen now and you won’t need damn tampax

Home office?

Short of needed space to store your paper stacks
Glue them to the ceiling with pre-owned, large tampax.

Running out of printer ink is an evil sin
Sign up with your provider here and meet your evil twin

Empty your inbox, forward all your mail
We can let you hire a thousand learned snails

OLDER PESTS? Press here. HERE

COLDER PESTS? Emigrate!

Don’t look at me that way,such looks can kill

Or fill us full of shame, against our will

As a child I knew looks such as these.

And other ones much worse that made me freeze

I wished I were a cloud that might dissolve

But then who would destroy our several selves?

I see the need that’s snails have for their shells.

Thus accidentally crushed too near the well.

We cover our own eyes but still that gaze

Eyes like daggers tempt us to our graves

Be strong my soul for human hate can sear

I will feel the pain and still be here.

And yet how tender are our human hearts.

If they harden  then the sentence starts.

That is the road to death and it is broad.

I must seek and find the hidden road 

Like coloured visions of the ocean bed

Thought, the vision of the inner eye,
Peers behind the mask of mundane view
A choosing from the symbols that come by
So into meaning many words are fused

Thought to me is vision without words;
Needs silent presentation and review.
The words translate the images that surge
Then fall back to the ocean where they grew.

Like coloured visions of the deep sea bed
Where fishes reel and dance, where life is new.
What we mean with difficulty’s said
Yet evocation summons it to view.

Let my words evoke love deep in you;
Answer me with many kisses new.

Wool   blend = 10% wool
Wool rich-         40% wool
Real Italian wool= 29% wool
A touch  of wool for comfort =1%
Very warm coat = 0% wool

When I see in marks and Spencer’s that a coat has got a touch of wool for comfort I know it’s not going to be a hundred percent wool like theirs used to be. But is it worth having 1% 5% or 10% wool?

I think if you are 50% wool it’s tolerable for winter. But for a real warmth you need about 80% wool

I think it must be two expensive so we are all now wearing fleece and other artificial fibers and it makes me wonder why we do not have fur like other animals do.

When we became human at what point did our fur disappear?

In some ways it’s a good thing because it’s very nice if you can afford to buy clothes made of natural fibers of beautiful colours etc but it’s also means you have to wash them

If I’m feeling irritable I get angry when I see these labels especially a touch of wool!

Momentous changes stunned the British ” lords”
Deceived by numbers and the usual polls
We deprived them of their powers and of their voice

They thought they had it fixed, we had no choice
The game changed when the young demanded balls!
Momentous changes stunned the British lords

Now they scurry, looking for new words
Their script is finished, gone their hateful goals.
We deprived them of their powers and of their voice

Now a new play starts and they run scared
Our politics is not for them alone
Momentous changes stunned the British ” lords”

The referendum made more racists heard
Since the Brexit vote, the people groan
We deprived our rulers of their powers, their voice

Now the truth is out, the cover’s blown
And Europe laughs to hear our “rulers” moan
Momentous changes stun the British hordes
As we cook our burgers on these flaming coals

I wrote this when Boris Johnson was prime minister

Illiterate and obese my cat is kind
Her fur is clean and shiny,she is groomed
She eats my dinner then she reads my mind

Shall I shame her,tell her she’ll go blind
Fantasising while she’s in my room?
Illiterate and obese, my cat is kind

She thinks that Boris Johnson has resigned
He will dance but only to his tunes
He steals my dinner, taxing is refined

When in doubt, attack the weak and blind
Tax their indoor bathrooms,feel no gloom
The illiterate and obese, I find more kind

All my words have vanished,I declined
Trust no other till you’re sure we’re doomed
Don’t taint my dreams, I’m paranoid, I mind

Now we’re governed by that Eton loon
He broke the law they’ll purge him very soon
Illiterate and obese, the poor are kind
They saw Jesus Christ get sent to Mind

If you buy a lot of cheap things you will still spend a lot of money in total.

Don’t we misled by the words,save thousands of pounds

Because you don’t save anything if you buy something new that you don’t need.

Yes if you if you were going to buy it then you will have saved but if you were not planning to buy it then you don’t save anything at all:the opposite is true.

Even very cheap things less than £1 each will still put a strain on your budget if you buy a lot of them.

On the other hand the economy will go bust if nobody spends any money so just make sure you buy things that you really like that you need and that you will use and that will help both you and the economy at the same time.

It’s not always possible to act perfectly but it’s better to try it some of the time than to just give in totally and spend your life in a queue for Le Creuset pots….or the equivalent.

It’s ironical (sic) that few people  cook their own meals at home nowadays judging by the amount of ready meals being sold in the supermarkets yet they want these pots to decorate their kitchens

What’s wrong with Pyrex dishes I ask?

The self that I thought wicked is my truth

What tortures I endured, the guilt the pain

And yet I live, though diffident, uncouth.

And can I now at last begin again?

The violent struggles of the gentle beast

Afraid of capture prison death and more

What i behold seems like a marriage feast.

And of my sins  they have not kept a score.

There was no way to judge true right and wrong

I searched their faces and the words they spoke

The truth I see and hear is like a song.

Who was it that burnt men at the stake?

It’s Satan who beguiles us to comply.

If we do our sacred soul will die

Jellied heels

Cod’s toes.

Speaking  breasts.

Dicken’s breast.

Smoked hands

Bunion Tart.

Stalking heads

Smoking beds.

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 had 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. Still 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 cats 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?

Well 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

Ways of thinking
about literature
made the writer’s muse smile
She didn’t like nuns and dog’s breakfasts
Her teacher at school became
confusingly unchangeable.
She wasn’t sharing
so we heard bells toll,
What to read and what to shirk
she dismayed us in her
uncertainty; books matter;
even that we revolved slowly
in some planetary action
for human salutations
This remade powerfully—
the way to live;
to live improperly was
to read
art works with the eye of truth
and they affected me,
and ironised
other ways of seeing
the ambitions of over-arching theory
and hence our being.
I was educated to love with all my heart

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.

Through the barbed wire fence, I saw a stream
Water washing down to  river wide
A field of daisies and wild grasses green

Inside my pulsing heart,  the blood did plead
That history and myth can take a ride
Through the barbed wire fence, I saw a stream

So lack of hope conspires to kill our dreams
And memories that lie can be no guide
To fields of daisies and wild grasses green

The silver birches light with sun’s soft beams
In their way, they are discreet disguise
Through the barbed wire fence, I saw a stream

About the cruelty  of human deeds
There is a library, shattered and demeaned
By fields of daisies and wild grasses green

Few can bear to enter and to read
What the minds of sufferers could mean
Through the barbed wire fence, they saw a stream

As Icarus was falling unperceived
Farmers tilled their meadows blithe, deceived
Through the barbed wire fence, we saw a stream
A field of daisies and wild grasses screamed

We climbed the stile into the meadow green

I saw the river winding by below.

But when I went again it was not so.

A meadow, yet no river  to be seen

The image lingered on inside my mind

And you had died and could not be my guide.

I stood alone in that great field so wide

With sadness in my heart, though grass is kind.

And then I found it in another place.

We saw the stile and then we saw the stream

A horse was drinking from the water clean

I stood there as the sun caressed my face

. Time and meaning wrapped around like lace.

Coincidence and love produced this grace

.

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

In spring it gives us joy, in fall we’re glum.

And so we play on in our little games.

The inbetween is hard to give a name.

Transitions, changes, fear of what’s to come.

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

Have the gods deserted, who’s to blame?

If we cannot share our hearts go numb.

So we play on in our little games.

The human heart and mind are often lame.

Angered by the movements of the sun

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

Can the spirits of our hearts be tamed?

Obsessive thoughts will linger and rerub

So we play on in our little game’s 

In spring life starts again, then what’s to come

But summer heat the flowers the bees that hum

The sky in spring and autumn looks the same

Round and round we go, for life’s a game