Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

May you reach the promised Land

 

I have loved you and I’ve held you.
Many years,you have been mine;
As the time has come for parting
Let’s embrace for one last time.

You know you have to leave me,
Though you desired a longer stay.
Let me hold you in my arms now
For just tonight and perhaps one day.

Then I’ll watch you travel on,sweet.
We take this last step all alone.
I’ll be here beside you watching.
I shall feel when you are gone.

May you accept, may you surrender.
May  you reach the promised land.
Into this earth my tears will fall, love,
As I recall your tender hands

Make it rechargeable

Why do you think it’s inappropriate for people over 70 just stay in bed all day if?

Please keep out. I got some sex toys for Christmas and I’m trying to put the cat to sleep 0.,

It’s not my fault I’ve got so many hormones in my body. I got the wrong prescription

The strange noise you can hear is my vibrator. I’ve lost it. (Double entendre()

If you find me dead rest assured that I enjoyed the last 15 minutes.

My will is in the drawer with the tablet.

No it’s not the original one. But it looks exactly the same.

Having rheumatoid arthritis schizophrenia and migraine could not deter anyone from  seeking a sexual partner why not send them a contact lens?

I don’t see why men should enjoy my body more than I enjoy it myself

I had heard of trial and error and then in the art class a retired physicist said that they used to call it trial and  horror during the war when they were studying radar .

,,

Is it illegal to put sex toys into Christmas stockings? Not to mention nuts.

I didn’t realise  how looks could kill until I saw your photographs 

Humour and poetry

img_20190510_163949https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/04/humor-and-poetry

Extract:

In 1993, I took a left turn one day out of my MFA program and found myself at the National Poetry Slam in San Francisco. There I discovered several poets who were funny for the sake of being funny. Particularly Hal Sirowitz from New York (“don’t stick your arm out the window, mother said” and Matt Cook from Milwaukee (“it was easy to write the Great American Novel, back when there were only five American novels”) Both poets initially delighted me and confounded me: There are no similes, a voice in my head said. What would Tom Lux (my first teacher) say? the voice continued. Despite my resistance, I believe those poets gave me a kind of permission to explore humor a little more vigorously in my second book, The Forgiveness Parade (1998), for “I thought the word loin and the word lion were the same thing. I thought celibate was a kind of fish”. Perhaps in that book there were places where I was too vigorous in my pursuit: looking back there are a few poems that are just a little too jokey somehow, a little one-dimensional.

I am becoming aware of how some humor can set a roadblock for the poetic speaker, making it impossible for the speaker to get back to a serious place. And how some other (less frequent) uses of humor can leave that door open. I want to leave that door open

Perhaps I’ll call the cat Tamara Jane

We fell into a rhythm as we walked
Arm in arm we wandered as we talked
We looked into folks’ windows  as dusk came
Tried to guess their furnishings and names

Some had nothing but the ironing stacked
Others  had the furniture we lacked
I bought a chest of drawers for three pounds
We had a double bed where our cat lounged

I bought a little table made of oak
Fifty pence at auction, go for broke!
A few old armchairs covered in green cloth
Too severe to be a home  for moths

Now I look at pictures on the walls
I see the sun turn mauve as down dusk falls
Images both simple and  robust
One a choice the other  nature’s lust

I see my sofa like a treasure ship
I lie upon  it dreaming  humorous quips
I  dream of journeys on the little train
That signifies  what sleep means to my brain

The rocking chair is empty of the cat
I see one in my garden, not my lap.
I try to tame this immigrant  I like
I shall give him food and call him Mike.

Oh,dear that is my brother, will he mind?
I know he loves the birds, and cats do bite
He is not living here in my old road
Otherwise he’ll hear me shouting “Claude”

Perhaps I’ll call the cat Tamara Jane
In case they’re very sensitive to names
For I know not the gender of the beast
They may be quite fluid  at the least

Now my husband cannot calm me down
I’d like his verdict on my new nightgown
But all I can remember is that rhythm
I fell into walking  out  with him

Your face has faded but you are still there

The face that was familiar is no more

The image in my mind has faded now 

You seem as distant as a falling star.

When you died,I felt my own heart tear.

If such pain and suffering allowed?

The face that was familiar is no more.

Can the well of  tears help the repair

Who will help me comfort me somehow?

You seem as distant as a falling star

Let the mourning people hear your prayer.

Help them from the lake in case they drown

The face that was familiar is no more.

In Blythburgh church we saw the angels stare.

Lift me up or I shall see them frown

As icy  cold as  any falling star

Before the Lord all beings need to bow.

I feel with love my heart is well endowed.

The face that was familiar is no more.

I will look up up.and see the host of stars.

The face that was familiar

The face that was familiar is no more.

The world we made  seems empty and remote.

I do not feel the love I felt before.

I’m homeless world-less, comfortless at core

Wandering like the Jews with death ripped coats.

The face that was familiar is no more

Why can this man’s life not be restored?

I cannot eat, a lump has blocked my throat

I do not feel the love I felt before.

In my nightmares, I look for a door.

Or I search the lake from my small boat

That face that was familiar is no more

I beg for grace like some abandoned whore.

That time itself evaporates is gross.

I do not feel the love I felt before

The well is empty,like my husband’s clothes.

When they are gone, what can I then propose?

The face that was familiar is no  more.

The love I lost can never be restored.

Wider than a star

The mind is deeper than a well  and wider than a star
I lose myself in waters deep ,symbolic ,sweet and clear
I rest embraced by this  love and wish for nothing more
I dream I walk in meadows sweet
The daisies in my hair

The heart has reasons and desires as if it were a  mind
If it’s soft as cashmere wool then it will remain  kind
Yet if it’s hard then it may crack and we will split ,divide
I dream I walk by river fleet
With  heart and mind combined

The other self that dwells alone in privacy divine
Needs sacred care and sweet respect and peace from what’s malign
The inner nature of   us all is   given and then transformed
I dream I walk on long white sands
By seas blue crystalline.

I pushed  my sisters up our quiet street

I remember riding on his back
It was summer; I was only two
He had an old tweed jacket full of smoke
Woodbines, they would probably kill you too

Walking with my sister in her pram
Mam looked as happy as a summer lark
My brothers were pretending to be soldiers
We walked along, right into the deep dark

A few years later Dad was sat there crying
They never told me he was very bad
Eight years old, I pushed the baby
My sister walked while clutching at my side

I was worried Grandad would be angry
Seeing us three coming up the lane
We usually went there only at the weekend
On, on, on, went my brain

Going back home it was the evening
The sun had gone ,time to go to bed
I pushed my little sisters up our street
Auntie told me Daddy was now dead

No more rides on his thin shoulder
No more walking in the flowery park
Only the anguish of our feelings
Only children weeping in the dark

Satan for dinner

Are you a Catholic?

No I’m just practising.

Are you a born Protestant?

I’ve not been reborn yet.

Do you believe in rites?

Please put that in writing

Are you superstitious?

Give me the salt to throw over my left shoulder.

Is the left one right?

That’s what my Irish grandmother used to do.

When she broke the mirror?

Yes in case Satan was inside it.

Why, are you going to eat him ?

It’s a new economy Christmas dinner

Where we slept, my sister oh my child

In our double bed, mi dad had died
Mammy slept w’t baby, a release
Now I slept, mi sister by mi side

A wooden frame, flock mattress where I lied
Making up long stories for mi sis.
In the double bed, owa dad had died

Up the stairs, we smelled the bacon fried
All the food was cloaked with grief and grease
And I slept mi sister by mi side

I was trapped by guilt don’t you deride
I disobeyed mi daddy, now deceased
In the double bed, he thought to die

He punished me, I never even cried
We had no phone to send for the police
Did I sleep mi sister by mi side?

He wore a green tweed jacket and a tie
While his overalls dried hanging underline
In our double bed where daddy died
We kids both slept, my sister, oh my child

Whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another’s

June 30th 2015 : Funeral of my husband

My sister died unexpectedly 10  years ago.

Pray for the dead…. it can’t  do any harm
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I Know That My Vindicator Lives: Job 19:1, 23-27
A reading from the book of Job
Then Job answered and said: Oh, would that my words were written down! Would that they were inscribed in a record: that with an iron chisel and with lead they were cut in the rock forever! But as for me, I know that my Vindicator lives, and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust; whom I myself shall see: my own eyes, not another’s, shall behold him, and from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing

Christmas solitude

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/23/opinion/christmas-holidays-alone-covid.html

Few can better understand the challenge of self-love better than the orphaned and disowned. I belong to that club. My mother and father both abandoned me in my teens. As an only child, with no family in the United States, I endured the first of many solo Christmases my senior year of high school.

When you are forced to spend a holiday by yourself, the first inclination is often to ignore the holiday entirely. For years, I employed this strategy. I didn’t leave my home, because I didn’t want to see lights and decorations. Instead, I worked through the holidays and maybe watched some DVDs (no festive commercials to endure). But I always eventually learned: The more you try to push the festivities away, the more they’ll haunt you, like mischievous specters, until eventually you find yourself at 2 a.m. listening to Death Cab’s “Someday You Will be Loved.”

My first succssful holiday was an Easter. I went with the Sunday paper to a sushi buffet, and sat reading and munching on unagi for the entire afternoon. It felt ridiculous and self-indulgent, and that grandiosity was just big enough to shake off my grief over lost childhood traditions. Maybe, I thought, if I embraced the holidays but twisted them into something inventive and entirely my own, I could enjoy them on my own terms.

One Christmas Eve, I went to a fancy restaurant in my neighborhood that I couldn’t really afford but had always wanted to try. I ordered osso buco and ate it slowly, relishing it. The owner dropped by my table and asked why I was eating alone. I told him I didn’t have anyone to celebrate with, so he poured me a glass of wine and sat down. He said he didn’t have anyone to celebrate with, either. He’d been persecuted as an Alevi Kurd living in Turkey, so he fled to the United States, where he learned to cook Italian food and eventually opened his own restaurant. We swapped stories

Tips For Keeping The Elderly Warm In Winter | Wessex Care

https://wessexcare.com/news/105-keep-elderly-warm-in-winter#:~:text=Elderly%20people%20should%20change%20out,some%20extra%20heat%20if%20necessary.

For venturing outside, ensure that your relative wraps up warm in gloves, a scarf and hat. Elderly people should change out of damp or wet clothes immediately to prevent extreme coldness or even hypothermia.

Socks and slippers are essential for keeping feet warm, and a blanket over the legs can be used for some extra heat if necessary. If your relative suffers with coldness, electric blankets and hot water bottles can be a great investment to provide some additional warmth at night.

Waxy flowers in the snow

Waxy flowers poking through
Snow so white
Flowers bright.
Made me think of you.

I see once more your light brown 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

Oh,my dear sister what can you see ?

She’d never seem rainwater deeper than eyes
Mystery undisguised.
Round the big puddle she ran and ran;
Too much for her dolly’s pan.
By reflections of trees she was hypnotised.
Curiousity’s often so wise
Oh,my dear sister what see you there?
I hope it’s a vision fair.
What are these ships and the tugs and the tide
Where are the sailors who died?
This is an ocean and I’m in my boat
Come sisters dear,let us float.
We’ll never see daddy again, ‘cos he’s here
And down her face travelled one tear.
I see him afar off, he’s meeting the Lord
There’s the archangel with his sharp sword.
We cannot follow,no, we must go back
We each must stay on our own track.
Three little children with long  golden hair
On this road going to where?
Once three small sisters ,but now only two;
Eyes of one green, the other’s blue.
By the park gate by a pool of sea rain
We shall be three again.
One in a pushchair and one gripping tight.
I push my dear sisters into the light.
Keep hold of the handle and never let go
I loved my  sisters so.
Keep hold of my hands as Dad crosses the sea.
Don’t hope for what cannot be.
I told her it’s only a rainwater pool,
Held in God’s hand like a jewel.
But she saw the patterns and she saw the tides
Which all human beings must ride.
For nothing is “only” and nothing is “just”.
All we can live by is trust

Choose not death

The crushing  grief when  someone chooses death
When life had shown much promise and much hope
Turns the  ones who loved to  find new paths

Some may sin, encouraged by cruel wrath
Against the  one who chose the wicked rope
The shock of grief  at such too early death

Others freeze  and cannot take a breath
Scarcely moving as their mind elopes
Making  then impossible   their path

The mountains  of  deep grief I could not pass
Until  a  warm gold light caressed  my heart
The  wounds  of grief , the sacrifice, the Mass

Do not dwell in darkness  and distress
Follow me he murmured  while we start
I will help you find a different path

The golden light  had brought for me a chart
The sea of life had ripples ,brilliant sparks
The suffering and the  grief from such a  death
Turned the  one who loved  onto this path.

 

 

 

 

 

Formal Verse – Definition and Examples | LitCharts

Katherine did this .

Thisl two-line poem by Emily Dickinson is formal verse because it rhymes and its lines contain the same number of syllables (ten) with the same stress pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables: “In this short Life that only lasts an hour / How much – how little – is within our power.”

https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/formal-verse

An artist’s canvas stretched , a matricide

Saturday was shopping then a walk
Epping,Ongar,Finchingfield by car
Reading book reviews and chewing stalks
Buttercups and meadows,Henry Moore

Driving back from Chelmsford, cornfields flamed
Smoke and fire and earth, the sun dismayed
Farmers working hard,  a harvest, grain
The sky  through mist a cobalt  blue displayed

Standon with its fords and wandering cows
Little rivers,Essex, flowing down
The Stort joins with the Lea,a gurglimg sound
Water for the Thames  and mossy ground

The earth feels like my body sacrificed
An artist’s canvas stretched , a matricide

 

I remember this lesson in the art class

I was the only beginner in the class and I was terrified well also enjoying it to some extent. It is not as bad as I thought it was when I was doing it but I have no confidence at that time in Now I don’t mind what people think of it.

From the words of Jewish stand-up comic

Growing up, “instead of cowboys and Indians, we played Israelis and Palestinians. She would come over and kick me out of my house.” She said that gag often gets the biggest laugh in the show. “I try to find humor in the awful things that are happening to both of us,” she explained.

The revue features more Jewish comedians than Muslim ones. “Jews invented stand-up comedy in North America,” Eman conceded. “But it’s definitely booming in the Muslim community.” Eman, who’s appeared at comedy shows in Jordan and Israel and runs the revue with Jewish comic Jeff Schouela, said she’s encountered no tension in mixed Muslim/Jewish audiences. In fact, she said, tensions tend to melt away. “Last year, we were kind of worried. But I felt that the name of the event got almost 400 people to the venue. Our sense of humour is so similar.”

3 Unmet Basic Needs and Their Effects on Our Relationships

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/understanding-ptsd/202212/3-unmet-basic-needs-and-their-effects-on-our-relationships

Autonomy is defined as our ability to know who we are at our core, and to act on our own feelings, beliefs, and interests. Our development of self-love and self-trust is fundamental to having a sense of autonomy.

When a child’s basic needs for independence and autonomy are not met, this can create developmental “holes” where they may have gone unseen, unheard, or controlled as a child. If a child is not taught how to be autonomous, they are also not being taught how to establish a sense of self-identity, or how to trust their judgment.

The True Friends Guide:  How to Be a Good Friend | BetterHelp

https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/friendship/the-true-friends-guide-how-to-be-a-good-friend/?utm_source=AdWords&utm_medium=Search_PPC_m&utm_term=PerformanceMax&utm_content=&network=x&placement=&target=&matchtype=&utm_campaign=16929735023&ad_type=responsive_pmax&adposition=&kwd_id=&gclid=CjwKCAiA7vWcBhBUEiwAXieItvFBbkZMcBtYoXzUW8XPi9EhwAfsM1skGYjw0GkUK2UYJcch9Ei-ZRoCa4sQAvD_BwE

D

Trustworthiness

If you say you will do something and always follow through or are always there for support or a shoulder to cry on, you are a trustworthy friend. If a friend tells you something in confidence and asks you not to say anything, you need to keep that locked up tight in your brain vault. When friends find out that you told someone about something that was supposed to be private information that could be grounds for dissolution of that friendship. Friends need to know that you will keep information private and that you are a person of your word.

Support

Article Visual

When you are going through a rough patch, it is important to have someone to turn to. You may have a significant other who is part of your support systeml