Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

Seeing the light

I could have died when witnessing the sight

The great cathedral floodlit in the night

My legs gave way I tumbled to the ground

Filled with joy so great it knew no bounds

I rose from my collapse on those wide stairs.

No one saw this happen,no one was there

Later I saw Blythburgh in the light

I feasted on this vision every night.

Inside the church the angels sailed above.

Inside myself I felt immense sweet love

Lying in my bed when sick and ill

I saw a green cathedral on a hill

And so I soothed myself with visions fair

The goodness of creation lingered there.

If man’s creation causes such effects

Who was it wrote the script and who directs?

Love’s Labour by Stephen Grosz review – the truth about relationships

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/25/loves-labour-by-stephen-grosz-review-the-truth-about-relationships?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

He has only written two books and they’re in the form of stories I found it very interesting and his first book the examined Life I have reread and far more in it than I remembered.

Beautiful written as well

Mary was knitting

Spain

Mary was knitting a large shawl on a circular needle and following the pattern in her BBC knitting book from the 1970s she had to increase in the center of each row by one stitch or was it two stitches I cant quite remember.

When she got up to 228 stitches and was beginning the next row she forgot where she was and so she began to count from the beginning to see if she’s reached 114.

She got up to 98 when Stan who was reading the Guardian turned her and says,. have you read this article by Samuel Heeps today!

I don’t think so, she murmured as she began to count from the beginning again.

When she got up to 97 he responded

Surely you must know whether you Readvit or not.

Yes perhaps I will remember soon she retorted as Emile mewed silently.

The third time she got up to 101

The fourth term she got hooked to 103

Are you sure you don’t remember this article, her husband

Mary is a very patient woman but nobody is perfect so she stopped knitting said to her husband can you look at me please

So he did and then she said I am knitting this very big shawl but I am not an expert and sometimes I have to count the stitches so before you speak will you look at me and see whether I am counting or not please!

Oh I’m so sorry darling. I never speak when you are writing on the computer or reading the latest work of Adam Phillips in but I did not realize that you can’t knit something like that without having to look at it carefully now and then.

So then Mary began and got to the center and increase in the middle and stitch on both sides

And eventually she finished the shawl

And decided not to divorce her husband

After all, who would want a totally silent husband?

That’s a question I can’t answer

How to catch a train

The only sure way to catch a train is to miss the one before it

GK Chesterton

Of course this assumes that all the trains leaving your station are going to the same place

If not you might miss the trend from Oxford to London and instead the catch the train from Oxford to Slough

At my local station here all the trains go into London. So he would be right .

The most dangerous situation would be where you missed your train from king’s cross to Peterborough and git on the next train which was a non-stop express to Edinburgh

There are trains like that because I’ve been on one and I remember going through Newcastle very fast which I did not recommend.

Flowers pose.

How softly sweetly,gently flowers pose
Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.
For their intricate petals form a shield
Yet bees with striped force shall make them yield.
Appearances,both natural and contrived,
Mixed with the wiles of human nature thrive.
As knowing not, we pluck the apple rare
And bite its flesh,with teeth we have to bare.
We too deceive the innocent who pass
Not seeing watchers hid behind the glass.
The windows break,the deep earth quakes;
Seized is the maiden ,he her virtue takes.
Beneath the surface,force and fierceness thrive.
What fearsome, burning God enjoys our lives

A child eating an orange

Ezekiel sits on the floor eating an orange 

He has four teeth, he can stand up.

He can’t walk yet but he dances.

He’s as tall as the table 

What are you thinking Ezekiel? 

You are murmuring and muttering

You are singing and whispering

Speaking in words and sentences is in a way or diminishment of all this.

I can see what we lose as we grow older

Oh happy,Ezekiel, you like oranges.

You want something and it appears as if by magic.

It appears as if you created it.

Be our guest

The world’s hollow like a shell

I’m in deep now,never been this deep before
The world’s hollow like a shell and I’m out its door.
In so deep, the ocean has its own startled floor.
I’m down,down.down.never been so dark , so )

I can’t rightly tell how I got where I am
I think I had an accident,fell over, then I swam.
Sometimes it’s a loss, be times it’s my man.
I guess I only do it cos I know some folk can.

I don’t know if the joy is worth the pain
Would I choose to relive if, I was born again?
The deep joy is the amazing gain.
But the sorrow is damn sad, let’s admit it plain.

I’m in deep and it’s over my head
What was I thinking of,when I fell out of that bed?
I look up and the sea’s so turquoise like that mist is red
When we get good and mad and wish some loon was dead.

At first, it was all just black,black pain
But from the bottom of the well, I looked up with awed love again.
That’s when I recalled,feelings are deep and sane
Joy is much greater when we’re in the deep,deep zone.

I dunno if I’m ever comin’ out.
We can’t control it,ain’t that what life’s all about?
I’ll never love with innocence again,nor not feel doubt.
But I’m no teapot and the devil ain’t got my spout.

I’m swimming and the ocean’s so mysteriously bright
Down here we don’t have no day nor no night
Fish nudge me with big grins and teeth white
Sea flowers fondle me and whisper,turn off that light

Act yourself

huttonroof2017-1

Who did the gooseberries fool?

Why does hair gel?
Why do strawberries jam?
Must eggs lie on toast?
She fried her own eggs daily.

She even made her own bread
We had grapefruits bigger than the grapes.
Why do sheets change?
Do pillows have good cases in law?
Why get married when you can go to prison?
Why have a man when you could love a cat freely
Why marry a wo/man when you can go fishing?
Just relax and act naturally
My therapist is dead but I’ve never mentioned it.

She may rise from the dead but I don’t think yeast is sufficient to cause that.

Perhaps it was King David

Cats on the hill

Mary had been reading a new book called,” The Path” by Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh.To her surprise, vrshe saw it reviewed on her phone where she read the guardian news

.She had decided to get out of bed on the other side
When she awoke the next day, she remembered her vow.Unfortunately, she forgot she was inside a fleece sleeping bag with a zip on one side only.Should she get some scissors and cut her way out on the other side?Or was that a foolish idea since nobody but she would know she had failed her to keep her first new promise.
She heard a noise and them her friend Annie came in wearing a long satin nightgown and a green velvet trench coat.
How do you like this, she asked Mary?
Mary was very red yet silent
What is wrong, with you Mary?
I need to pee but I can’t get out of bed on the wrong side.
You have no choice, said Annie.You must not wet the bed or die from a burst bladder. Get out on the right side

But I feel a failure on my first day.
Maybe that is your lesson.Accept you can’t do it and get on with your day.
Mary ran to the bathroom.What a relief passing water can be to poor ladies who suffer afflictions in these regions.
Annie went down to the bijou yet complex kitchen and began to make some toast and boil some eggs.She gazed at the peach walls and melon cupboard doors unable to decide if she liked them.Maybe kingfisher blue might have been better.Too late now.Mary could not afford a new kitchen even if this one was really old.At least it was not orange as was common in the 70’s.
Mary came in with her golden hair standing up on end like candlesticks from the Synagogue.
I just got a shock, she said
I can see your hair is standing on end.Was it the electric socket?
No, there was a man looking into the window and I was naked in the bath.
Perhaps it was King David, Annie joked.Why don’t you have frosted glass?
Stan said it would frost itself in the winter.He was the least practical man in the world.
Maybe we could glue artificial frost onto it?
Who was the man, asked Annie her cheeks pinker than her perky pink lipstick by Licumb ; those lips which were so thick and sensual with a lovely curve.
Mary tore her eyes away from these lips.I didn’t have my glasses on, she said.Maybe it was a man from a hot air balloon?
Maybe someone fancies you at last,saidAnnie.
Do you think I’d go out with a man who does things like that?
No, you could stay in with him, Annie joked, as tears of mirth made her green eyeshadow and red mascara stream down her cheeks like rain after a nuclear explosion.No wonder men ran after her in the street.
You could succumb to his charms,Annie whispered.
I think I’d like a man more sensitive than that, Mary screeched.
Well, Mary, you are so lacking in knowledge the art of flirting you only notice men when they do something really wild or unusual
Like what, asked Emile who had just munched up a bowl of dried cat food and was full of energy.
Well, Stan kept pretending he loved reading Newton’s original writings which he bought from some unusual website thinking it would impress Mary. However as he failed O leve; maths 5 times he could not understand it.He sobbed and cried in the public library and Mary was moved by his grief.Later on, though, he became angry at her intellectual talent and took me as his mistress to get back at her.She never even noticed!
I don’t see how having a mistress is a revenge on poor woman who was given her genes by God, said Emile.
Don’t be daft, she buys her jeans from TK Maxx, Annie answered.
And so do all of us.

I can’t write any more right now!

The end of the affair

  • Stan has just got back from church.He helps to polish the pews on a weekly rota.He also embroiders kneelers.He learned in the Navy.Sailors used to knit whilst on long voyages and sew too.Now he’s home and making some coffee.
    Ah ah,the doorbell.He ignores it.Then Annie appears tapping on the window.”Hello,what’s up?” he enquires impatiently.Church seems to affect him that way……..odd!
    “I’m just a bit lonely as Emile’s come back to you.”
    “What about the bee you adopted.Bobbi?
    “”They’re affectionate but rather hard to cuddle,”she answered with tears in her green eyes.”They do look soft and furry but they are too small”
    “You need something bigger..how about a dog?”
    “I’d prefer a man,”she said softly and suggestively.
    “Why not give meditation a go?” Emile miaowed.
    “I’m a bit past it all now at 106,” Stan replied.”But, if you get some rainbow striped underwear from Ann Summers and some red bed socks , maybe that might help with the desirability aspect.”
    “I will not be seen dead in striped underwear,” she cried cunningly.
    “Well,why don’t you go on the internet?You could find someone younger and slimmer than me!”
    Annie looked very angry.”I’ve spent 20 years on you.Are you telling me it’s all wasted?”
    “No,it’s been useful to know how to ring 999,” he admitted wonderingly.
    “But my baking would have been quicker if you hadn’t kept coming in trying to induce me,reduce or seduce me.”he said confusedly
    “Are you losing your word power?” she asked curiously.
    “No,I said that on purpose.I’m training to go to a poetry weekend at East Anglia University.”
    “You are so daring,darling!”
    “Well,what have I got to lose? he riposted jovially.
    “And all the food is included.It’s only £3,000 for the weekend!”
    “Is that cheap?” “I don’t know.I need to look at the Index of Retail Prices or whatever they have nowadays.”
    They sat before the computer gazing at the government data and statistics with pen and paper in their hands.
    “I really enjoyed that,”said Annie,”It’s even better than sex!”
    “Thank God for that,” thought Stan with wry amusement.
    “Now I can keep her busy learning more about how to analyse data.I’m fed up with kissing her all day long.Now we can study for Open University degrees in mathematics and statistics and keep our minds lively.”
    “Quick put the kettle on Mary is here.”
    “Hello,Mary.We are studying government statistics.It’s so interesting.”
    “Yes,I know” she answered coltishly.”But a woman has another needs too.”
    “Oh,no!” cried Stan,”Not you too.” He fell onto the striped rug by the fire.
    “Oh,dear,I suppose we’d better ring 999!” said Mary to Annie.”How lucky you are here,dear.”
    “Well,I’ll make the tea.We’ll need it.”
    “By the way,Annie,your eyes are looking so bright.Like two emeralds.” Mary whispered.”Have you ever fancied a woman?”
    “No,darling.It never occurred to me.So many men.So little time.”
    “Well,do let me know if you are interested!”
    “Sorry,dear.I want to become a government statistician then maybe I can understand government the from within, as it were.”
    She ran out singing “Onward Socialist Lovers” to welcome Dave,the handsome paramedic who was at the door.
    “Dave,do you know any Statistics” she called.
    “Only vital ones,my angel,” he replied coolly.
    “How’s Stan?”
    “Not dead yet“Stan called spiritedly from the blue lambswool, hand washable Mary Quant rug.”Get me some fresh tea and we can all discuss the latest health statistics.”
    Anne laughed merrily but she looked truly insincere.At least according to Emile ,who was hiding behind the television in the corner.”I wish we could have our dinner,” he murmured.But no-one heard him.
    Cats don’t like tea but nobody seems to know.Emile is hoping to write a book soon.”Cat against tea.”

We draw with human hands

The vital line is drawn with human  hands

When all the force of art is gathered in

The heart , the arm the fingers with the brush

Create a mark and then we can begin.

The other self will help us if we ask

We fear to lose control, we hesitate.

With our courage ink and paint will flow

Through our being truth and love relate.

Creating symbols new is very hard

We risk our vision, fear that we will fail

With wary hands, we tremble to begin

The still small voice, the the centre of the gale

Ecstatic moments, flood our souls with grace

In that littlle crack we find god’s face

The mind needs just a hint to see the whole

The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke
The way the back leant curving into space
The dance and danger both are thus evoked

Like a play, a drama, fire and smoke
A dance performed so swiftly and with grace
The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke

The heavy bull is pounding,is provoked.
A threat, a man,  intrudes into his space
The dance and danger both are still evoked

See, the  matador throw out his cloak
A   dash of black, and here we see his face
The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke
The mind needs just a hint to  see the whole
We fill the present with our past distaste
The dance and danger, mirroring dark smoke
 Acting both dramatic and displaced 
The artist may still love what she forsakes 
The vital line was drawn with one brush stroke 
he dance and danger ,life and death evoked

Emmanuel Levinas: a snapshot – The Philosophers’ Magazine Archive

https://archive.philosophersmag.com/emmanuel-levinas-a-snapshot/

O

Levinas’s philosophy is clearly governed by a deep-seated pacifism. In fact, it is one of Levinas’s central contentions that Western philosophy is wedded to a counter-ethical process of conflict. It is this radical idea that underpins Levinas’s first magnum opus, Totality and Infinity (1961). This treatise opens with a discussion of war – an all-encompassing, as well as literal term for conflict. Levinas states that it is the Western preoccupation with the truth that generates this conflict. In short, if one is able to apprehend the truth, one is essentially self-sufficient or “total”. For Levinas, this reassuring sense of totality is disastrous for it harbours an underlying antagonism towards others who are liable to challenge one’s authority.

Levinas traces this conception of totality back to the teachings of Socrates and Plato. According to classical authority, the self is literally self-contained – it is able to contain the truth. For Levinas, this spirit of autonomy was perpetuated in the work of philosophers as diverse as Plotinus, Bishop Berkeley and Hegel. In addition, Levinas also detected a return to this spirit of self-sufficiency in the phenomenological work of his former tutors, Husserl and Heidegger.

In an attempt to evade this tide of thought, Levinas turned his attention to the constitution of subjectivity. For Levinas, far from being self-sufficient or total, the self can only exist through reference to the non-self. In short, self-knowledge presupposes the existence of a power infinitely greater than oneself. Echoing the famous Cartesian cosmological argument, Levinas thus suggests that the subject is indebted to the idea of infinity. In direct opposition to contemporary continental thought, Levinas thus reinstates the subject – a subject that encounters itself through the mediation of an-Other. According to Levinas’s intricate argument, such an encounter precedes the disastrous desire for truth.

Crucially, Levinas argues that the encounter between the self and the Other is always passive. In slightly different terms, one welcomes the Other as the measure of one’s own being. It would seem to follow that one’s subjectivity depends upon a non-aggressive or non-violent interface. Given its passive nature, Levinas concludes that this interface is a proto-ethical moment that precedes all other ethical discourse. In this way Levinas undercuts traditional ethical debate.

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Today, Levinas’s ethical thought is frequently discussed in relation to diverse academic fields beyond the traditional boundaries of philosophy. Disparate fields such as sociology, literary theory, historiography and anthropology have all benefited from the priority Levinas accorded to “the Other”. This ubiquity stands as testimony to both Levinas’s profundity and growing contemporary relevance.

At the time of writing, Lawrence R Harvey was teaching and completing his doctoral thesis on Levinas and the ethics of representation.

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SHARES

Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

A day with my own self, such peaceful hours
The inner seas make music as they roll
And in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

The rain comes down in cold but gentle showers
Desiring  to  give moisture to all souls
A symbol of  the value of quiet hours

In Northern hills we looked for  Durham owls
They hunt by day to keep their bodies whole
While in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

My loved one was a native of those towers
Highcliff Nab and Hasty Bank  called home
My days with him a-wandering there for hours

As he died , deep in my heart I howled
I held his hands, remembered , paid the toll
While in the ground the worms digest  the sour

Lying in the heather  we had roamed 
May God  have mercy on his  homing soul
Now I enjoy   in reverie our hours
Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

 

 

 

Praise the kettle

Oh, lidded kettle boil me water fast
I cannot live without your heated blast
Your spout is small but perfect for its use
And, as your lid is hinged. it can’t get lost

An electric kettle made by Russell Hobbs
A teapot with a spout and lid with knob
Are what the Britons need in times of storm
If crisis comes, we need tea hot,not warm

I don’t object to diverse kettle brands.
We had a coal fire once with kettle stand.
Its metal black from soot and burned by coke
We made our neighbours tea which seemed to smoke.

Ah,kettle ,instrument of civil life
We cannot boil our water on a knife

Everybody needs to be bad enough

My own photograph

Are you a bad enough parent? We’ve heard of good enough mothers through the work of Dr DW Winnicot, but surely mothers need to be bad as well and fathers do but how bad do they need to be?

Murdering their children will be too bad, but never disagreeing with them will be too good

Be bad enough to others to make sure you are respecting your own boundaries you know it makes sense and you read it here first in a similar manner you need your baby to be bad enough because if the baby is too good she will be ignored and made use of by unkind parents

Everybody needs to be a little bit bad enough to preserve their own self while living in this curious unequal society

You are not bad enough

I had a heart attack but when I got to the hospital the doctor said

It’s not bad enough but you can come back if you die

I went to the dentist but he didn’t do anything because he said my teeth were not bad enough. An abscess has formed on the bottom of one of my teeth but he said it’s not big enough 

I wanted a hip replacement replacement but the surgeon said it’s not bad enough

Come back when you can’t  crawl

I was very depressed so I was sent to see a psychiatrist and he said it’s not bad enough yet wait till you can’t eat sleep speak read or write.

So I decided to go to hell but when I got there Satan said you’re not bad enough. Go away and commit some sins..

So I went to heaven and it’s really lovely but you have to die first

I had a ready meal in the fridge but it looks as if it’s a gone bad that my husband said  it’s not bad enough to throw  away so we ate it and were sick. But we were not sick enough to go to a and e especially at the North Middlesex University Hospital

I will soon empty Britain when I’m the prime minister

I promise you that when I am the prime minister I will deport two million asylum seekers in the first month.

And after that it will go up exponentially so I will deport 4 million in the second month eight million in the third month in 16 million in the fourth month

If I continue in the same way how long will it take to completely empty the country?.

After that I will start with the illegal immigrants such as all those descended from the Normans .

Keep Britain empty especially from deserving asylum receivers.

Don’t waste your vote

The Unconscious Self Has More Answers Than We Think | by Thomas Oppong | Mystic Minds | Medium

The Unconscious Self Has More Answers Than We Think | by Thomas Oppong | Mystic Minds | Medium https://share.google/tiIF4dHRFVbUgXT5v

Cracked shall be the golden bowl

Soul making is a phrase from Keats.{ link to article by Jeffrey C. Johnson in Paris Review]

We saw Wolf Hall on TV recently and it is so wonderful.I am just writing down a few  of my thoughts not  about that but about Anne Boleyn… I meant it to be funny but I could n’t manage that after seeing the play.

ANNE BOLEYN

Anne Boleyn withheld to win
As Henry lusted in his sin.

Once a virgin,sweet Madonna;
Henry turned in rage on her.

She bore him but one living child,
For her quips,she was reviled.

Henry knew not the fault was his
It seems the king had syphilis.

Or Anne was rhesus negative
then just her first born child would live.

We women make our worst mistake
When power for love we wrongly take

Our strength lasts but till we submit.
We need less love and far more wit.

Whatever lusty men may say,
their “love” dies when they get their way.

And they will take their wife by force
As cannons pound on oaken doors.

As for women,we must not
Promise gold we have not got.

Conception is a game of chance;
We come to be by happenstance.

we sin in pride in promising
What only God or Nature bring.

We deceive and trick and charm
At last our hearts bang in alarm

The man who begged upon his knees
Chops off our heads when we displease.

For Emperors and Kings and Lords
Wield fearful power by the sword.

Yet when for judgement they shall stand
How will point the knowing hand?

And just like us they’ll ashen be
When true majesty they see.

Into dust and crumbled ruin
they will go by their own doings.

Each day create with grace your soul.
Cracked shall be the golden bowl.

Keats wrote this extract below [read all by clicking on soul above[ and he died when aged  only 25 years:

I will call the world a School instituted for the purpose of teaching little children to read—I will call the human heart the horn Book used in that School—and I will call the Child able to read, the Soul made from that school and its hornbook. Do you not see how necessary a World of Pains and troubles is to school an Intelligence and make it a soul? A Place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways!

Oh, gentle Light

I ‘ll try to get it right for one more time
You did not converse with me in words
You were simply present in your Light

Nowhere did I feel your power and might
You were no eagle, but a strong wild bird
I ‘ll try to get it right just one more time.

Who made our language with its subtle rhymes?
The ancient people had their well trained Scribes
You were always there,oh gentle Light

You gave me warmth, you changed my too fixed sight
A comforter , a Spirit, how describe?
I ‘ll try to get it right a final time.

The agony inside me lost its bite
I wanted to go on, to be alive
You do not always show your golden Light

We do not know when we at last arrive
We do not reach this meeting place by strife
I ‘ve tried to get it right this final time
I never saw such Gold until that night

Love is waiting

At the very edge of human sight
Places we don’t go, till in despair
Love is waiting like a golden light

The world in panic, will the virus bite
Noone ever said this world is fair
At the very edge of human sight

Is there really danger of such might,
Where our hidden fears emerged dark ,bare?
Love is fading where’s the sun, the light?

Panic like a virus can ignite
Responses that are worse than germs out there
At the very rim of human sight

Our defences that are usually adroit
Now lie like dead young soldiers unrepaired
Love is fading to a weaker light

The still,small voice is quieter than a bird
The storm is passing by, will it be heard?
At the very edge of human sight
Love is dying,looks like candlelight

THE MEMORY LASTS

midsummer days evoke the trancelike past
where children played in joyous, daisied fields
with buttercups so bright the memory lasts
a freedom that our conscious growth will steal.

those stones and leaves and many coloured flowers
were gathered into images that glow
yet later we forget those treasured hours
when for a while we lived in life’s deep flow

we did not look and see,but felt at one
we lived as did the birds high in the trees
now we write , experiencing has gone
we cannot live like flowers filled with bright bees

to lose ourselves in nature is a joy
which to our adult selves we must restore