https://wp.me/p4qAhg-189

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.

https://www.spring.org.uk/2023/03/intelligence-and-anxiety.php#:~:text=Intelligence%20and%20anxiety%20may%20have,imagine%20what%20might%20go%20wrong.

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  dreams

The 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

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/28/why-being-wrong-really-hurts?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

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 |

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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

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-does-being-institutionalized-mean-how-could-impact-dan-whitehead

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 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 fury

Very 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.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/21/working-from-home-tech-self-isolation

https://www.johnwhitwell.co.uk/therapeutic_fostering_-and_therapeutic_care/what-is-institutionalising-for-looked-after-children-and-young-people/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/intimacy-path-toward-spirituality/201808/why-its-ok-seek-reassurance

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.

,
The rich may not be cruel, but they are blind
They don’t know how poor most workers are
They do not mean to sin or be unkind

We all have our defences, undefined
Unconscious of our malice, their despair
The rich may not be cruel, but they are blind

The unemployed, disabled, are maligned
Without a proper voice , this is unfair
Who does not mean to be at all unkind?

Men have toiled for years in dark coal mines
Glad to be at work but often scared
The rich may not be cruel, but they are blind

The poor are growing reckless, unresigned
Jerusalem, what has your Lord to say?
Which human does not mean to be unkind?

Ignorance is not the ideal way
Give money to the outcasts as they sigh
The rich may not be cruel, but they are blind
They do not know they’ve sacrificed their minds

I breath as softly as a little bird
Like the robin did in Arnside Wood
Quick yet calm, who for some food would dare.

The view from Arnside Knot is  broad and fair
The atmosphere is  pure, we see trains chug
The Estuary of the Kent will never bore

Further South the Lune runs like  old tears
Morecambe Bay endangers, how it floods
Behind the Pennines rise,   the edges  fierce

Dent is ancient, mobile phones won’t dare
To penetrate  the  music of  its blood
Nor bring   their tones to hurt the mad March hare

Hutton Roof , cathedral, how we stared
A gentle hand caressed my heart to good
Meek flowers grew in the cracks  as safe,as  pure

How my heart expands  and I am glad
For mourning heals and  I am no more sad
I breath as softly as a little bird
I tiptoe on the path  the peace is shared

Armageddon  comes and we don’t find
The time to stop and think and wonder at
The wrath of God, the thunder of his mind

Is he  the ground of   being undefined?
The earth where seeds are nurtured  by his  hands
Armageddon  comes and  we are blind

He is not  a sweet and compliant friend
Nor the lord of  rich and  fertile lands
His  the wrath  and his  the thunderous mind

As the storms washed men off Kentish sands
So God  hurls the energy he sends
Armageddon  comes and  we are blind

In these trials, whose hearts are refined?
Are  we open, can we each attend,
His  the sun and his  the mighty mind

As on the rocky path we wary stand
Below despair, we find the deep commands
Armageddon,  love and care are drained
The  grief of God, the  pity of his mind