https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d841ff52-49bf-460e-bcac-4bf19d8f6a94?shareToken=20d171d4553337834a6ffe88d5ae92e7

Words can help buoy you up. Making every minute count. Making memories. Only the snobbish and arrogant, the ever so healthy, mock aphorisms as trite. When things seem impossibly gloomy, when I don’t think I can take much more bad news, I turn to another wicked old friend. In the past I called her the emphysemic pit pony, because she has short legs and used to wheeze when she pushed my wheelchair uphill. That was long ago, before getting old became unavoidable and before I bought a power chair for going any distance. Now she’s over 70, still has short legs, still smokes one roll-up a day and employs the most dogged, brilliant, multipurpose saying of all:

Every day above ground is a good day.

In our yard, we had a dog on wheels.

Its fur was almost gone,it was so worn

I sat upon its musty back,my steed.

I thought that he looked sad, he looked forlorn

In that house my grandma lived and died

My father was a child it was his dog

Rich as grass in meadows was its fur.

The rusty wheels were bright and pierced the fog

I see the yard the coal shed and the lav.

The green back gate my grandad coming in

The shed where bikes were piled up in a rush.

The cat jumped  up so fast on the ash bin

Dad went off then grandad went off too.

I see them coming home in polished shoes

You might be poor but still you could look neat

A Sunday coat,best shoes on polished feet

God has been replaced by our machines

We worship them all week, no Sabbath day

No need for leisure nor  the fallow field

No unconscious mind, no grace, no play.

No wonder little children want their phones.

They need to worship like their parents do.

Unlike God, machines can be controlled

Everything is fine, till dogs miaow.

Before the metal and the wire bow down.

Clean your Lord with disinfectant blue.

Keep all his brethren clean no need to pray

Meditations just another clue

Give your washing one more spin tonight

Eventually you’ll see that glowing light

My bonsai beech has blended with  the yew
And in it   little wrens have made a nest
A robin, so much  bolder,passed by too
In late spring the birds make us feel blessed

As a child I had no garden home
The  girls and boys  with balls and ropes make play
I laugh to think we went out with no phones
The cobbles in the  road held marbles stray

We had no trees,we had coal mines and mills
My aunties’ faces lined and worn  still smiled
With their sugared tea were bitter pills
Each a  single tear shed  by   the  Christ

Arsenic and opium combined
Which will win the contest for our minds?

 

Hello Katherine are you going to Mars on Sunday?

I was wondering about an evening bath.

Are you going listen to Beethoven’s trial in sombrero?

What about Mozart’s clarinet twin set?

I want to get a new sinful coat in the gales

Where is your mouse truncated?

He says who wants to paint your balls?

I hope he will change the sea lion.

What about the Hunt bore,

It’s illegal to count boxers.

Is your dog a large warrior?

Have you possibly exams on your whores?

I guess I was tight 

What sort of fear do you like?

Who wrote about the finality of evil,?

Can I have my own Korea?

What do you think of speech to vexed in 5 words?

What do you think of a bird being banned?

Could the Red Sea divide again?

What about Solomon’s twinkle?