Day: December 26, 2025

The sea has frozen

The sea has frozen off the Isle of Wight
So we don’t  need boats to get across
It’s just that there’s a shortage of street lights.

In the day time it’s been very bright
And on a cold,cold sea there is no moss
The sea has frozen off the Isle of Wight

There is a problem on a moonless night
Walking on the sea with thick ground frost
Because there’s a dearth of  yellow neon lights.

And there are no cafes  for a bite
I got a  dreadful feeling,I am lost
The sea has frozen off the Isle of Wight

My wellingtons  have turned a dirty white
Walking free, the fresh  air is a feast
It’s just that there’s a shortage of street lights.

My face with vaseline I have well greased
On a lead I have my wildebeeste
The sea has frozen round the Isle of Wight
Why are there no glaring neon lights.?

 

As the red sun dies

The glare of yellow street lamps on the snow
The thick green hedge where cats curled up to die
The ice and frost above, the worms below.

The tarmaced road,the sidewalks, seem to glow
No pleasure comes from neon lights so high
Oh, stare of yellow street lamps on the snow

As the red sun dies, our blood won’t flow
Take an aspirin, calm’s a good ally
The ice and frost above, the soul below

Bare my feet and numb are all my toes
My socks are holed.I’m darned if I know why
Oh, glare of yellow street lamps on the snow

My nails are thick like monsters’ fearsome claws
Podiatry is hard to get,I’ve tried
The ice and frost above, the souls sleep slow

The world is puzzled, minds are all awry
There’s nothing in a shop but rot to buy
The glare of yellow street lights on the snow
The ice and frost above, the dead below.


Between the wars?

Too old for cold,I stand, now ,against the hedge,
Watching the snowflakes in the glare of neon street lights.
Darkness has come early,and I think of country uplands and huddled sheep.
On Salisbury Plain,shepherds watched their flocks
Just as in Bethlehem two thousand years before,
And then,exactly when?
“Between the wars”,it stopped. Now we know there is no “Between the wars”.
And who decided
To cull the sheep and shepherds and the space for kindness ?
Now that same Plain still exists,but banned
And closed to human-kind,
For bombs ,not wombs
Nor for birth of lamb ,nor gypsy child ,nor Saviour
Where would He go today?

I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter

I have a wife, now male,I’ve been expecting her.

  I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter Near the Peaks and Pennine landscapes high

I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her

I married but never yet had sex with her

For she is cold and frosty ,can’t say why.

I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter She said that she was moving down to Exeter..

She’d changed her gender, good grief so must I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her.

Since I turned a woman.I’ve detested her She’s a man but tell me, does he lie?

I dreamed I escaped to Uttoxeter

I got my phone and told her, so bizarre

I’m a woman, hot with sultry thighs. I have a wife, now male, I’ve been expecting her.

I rarely tell the truth unless I lie. In the Peaks I love the Blakean sky

I want to liven up Uttoxeter

I have a wife, I feel much taxed by her.

I have a wife, now male, I’ve been expecting her.

I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter
Near the Peaks and Pennine landscapes high
I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her

I married he

R but never yet had sex with her
For she is cold and frosty ,can’t say why.
I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter

She said that she was moving down to Exeter
She’d changed her gender, good grief so must I.
I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her

Since I turned a woman.I’ve detested her
She’s a man but tell me, does he lie?
I dreamed I escaped to Uttoxeter

I got my phone and told her, so bizarre
I’m a woman, hot with sultry thighs.
I have a wife, now male, I’ve been expecting her.

I rarely tell the truth unless I lie.
In the Peaks I love the Blakean sky
I want to liven up Uttoxeter
I have a wife, I feel too stressed by her

The Guardian view on the festive season: a suffering world needs messages of peace, hope and goodwill

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/23/the-guardian-view-on-the-festive-season-a-suffering-world-needs-messages-of-peace-hope-and-goodwill?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

The value of art

Accept imperfection and it find what is of value

http://www.janandcoragordon.co.uk/

I recall now that I first came across ideas about gaps when studying art and what stops us from making it. Jan and Cora Gordon’s writing and Marion Milner’s books mention this.Even the best artists must have the experience of working on and even completing a work and finding that it is not what they had hoped for.

Certainly for beginners it can be very depressing and may be the reason why many people who did poorly at art in school never try again… as they felt this gap very painfully.But as with many of the painful aspects of life,it is better to accept and honour the gap.Strangely when we look back at some of our work we may find it has much more in it than we saw at the time.But wanting some pre-conceived notion of perfection we fail to notice the value of what we did in reality.

That may be true on other realms of life such as personal relationships.So don’t get divorced yet!

.

Turner’s late work was thought by some to be a sign of madness.This doesn’t mean our daubs are the next great advance in Art or Writing…. but we may need to be more tolerant of ourselves and our productions whilst also being genuinely critical or open to other’s helpful criticism.

Note on Marion Milner

9″She was also a talented painter, and in On Not Being Able to Paint (1950) she wrote an important book on creativity and on some of the forces that prevent it. As with so much of her writing, she was not afraid to reveal herself. Her authorial voice was itself an instance of her view that “the internal gesture needed is to stand aside”. The Hands of the Living God (1969), an account of a 20-year analysis, also focused on drawings and doodles, this time her patients’.” From her obituary