Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

How to Be Better at Stress – Well Guides – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/guides/well/how-to-deal-with-stress

It’s all good

Changing your perception

With stress, the mind and the body are intrinsically linked. You can view stress as something that is wreaking havoc on your body (and it can) or as something that is giving you the strength and energy to overcome adversity. Here’s a quick way to think about these two very different views of stress. Read the statement, and then think about your own reaction 

Algebra

By Katherine

My friend did not like algebra

She did not like the letters

When she wrote in capitals teacher said that’s wrong.

And when she felt like humming she hummed a little song

The teacher said it’s very rude

To sing before your betters 

I don’t mind if they sing first my friend said with a smile

I think you did not interpret me the way that I intended.

Yet mother often used to say least said is soonest mended.

Oh do say more the child cried out, go an extra mile.

The teacher soon got very shy her face was red as beet.

She asked herself what have I done this child has won the match.

Be quiet she called I heard the news and I know there’s a catch.

Rishi Sunak won the draw and I think he’s quite neat 

The headmaster was passing by walking on his feet.

 He turned his head and looked right in the children all turned pale

it’s very hot today he cried

 How would you like some ale?

When he looked into the room he saw a flock of sheep.

Oh mother Mary Jesus Christ am I going mad?

The picture on the wall glared  down, a ram came to the door

but when he trying to look again  he counted 44

He fell upon his knees and prayed, the sheep called,

Kiss off,Dad 

How to daydream better

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/stress-tips-daydream-brain-covid/2021/03/11/7af22dda-80ef-11eb-ac37-4383f7709abe_story.html

One thing that’s been hard with the pandemic is that we’ve lost the future, in a sense,” Erin Westgate, an assistant professor of psychology

The magazine

How to harass yourself and others without really trying.

How to lower your IQ in one week.

How to look as if you are meditating and other useful deceits.

How to study mathematics and become very trying.

How to commit venial sins more easily on Friday night.

Other useful tips to prepare yourself for Saturday night confession.

How to seem sincere and apply venomous tricks

How to Improve Your Mental Health in 2022 – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/well/mind/mental-health-advice-2022.html

In the hierarchy of human suffering during the pandemic, a canceled prom or vacation or lost time with grandchildren may not sound like much, but mental health experts say that all loss needs to be acknowledged and grieved. We need to give ourselves permission to mourn, Tara Parker-Pope wrote in an article about disenfranchised grief. “Once you accept that your grief is real, there are steps you can take to help you cope,” she said. “Consider planting a tree, for example, or finding an item that represents your loss, like canceled airline tickets or a wedding invitation, and burying it.”

Read the full story:

It’s OK to Grieve for the Small Losses of a Lost Year

Fear and anxiety about the heating bills for the coming winter

With the latest predictions of how much gas and electricity will be costing us

It may be a good time to emigrate to a hotter country.

That’s hard to believe at the moment because we don’t need any heating because it’s 28 degrees outside and rising.

It’s too hot but we can’t save that heat.

Everyone here here is getting very anxious about it. I am already in debt because of some errors in my electricity readings.

Can I take a sleeping bag to the public library?

It might remind you you that during world war II a lot of people in London had t0o sleep in the underground.

At least we are not being bombed at the moment ;who can tell what will happen with Russia?

My feet are getting thinner

Trees in my garden Katherine

Since I lost weight my fingers have gone thin

Now my toes and feet are joining in

My red shoes are too big and fall right off

If I even try to have a cough

My wedding ring is now a size too wide

Must I marry now, I am no bride.

Maybe I could marry my own self

Although I will not bring gigantic wealthy

It will rationalise my longing for a ring.

Am I egocentric what do you think?

The the haystack was a liar

Mothers are familiar with bums

With bitten nipples colic in the tum

Was it for this they wore a wedding gown

Bore a heavy child without a frown

Fingers stained with nicotine and shit.

Now stir the dinner wash the baby kit

They did not know the nearness of their Doom

In the haystacks sunny afternoon .

Father in the coal mine black with dust

The tin bath waiting mother filled with lust.

There has to be a cat before the fire

A blackened kettle bows,it’s Lancashire.

Tea that makes your hair curl help them on.

They stumble up the stairs to bed again

What’s satire to the rich with their plum tones

Is near the truth, the rickets in the bone

What’s the Best Way to Cope in an Anxious World? Do Something. – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/well/mind/coping-with-anxiety.html

My view is that life is always uncertain as another young person in my extended family Ihas been diagnosed with cancer. But you can shut these things out and carry on with our work and life but now there is so many things happening that we get overwhelmed but we are still better off than most of the people in the world and than our ancestors. In this country we still have the NHS but it’s taking longer to getsmv things done because of covid-19 Katherine

quot

This week, the American Psychological Association reported the results of its annual Stress in America Survey. Worries about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and global uncertainty were high on the list. Psychologists say that nobody should be shamed or feel guilty for feeling anxious. People with anxiety who have been triggered by world events should seek support and counseling. Medications may also be prescribed to help people manage anxiety.

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The ancient wall

It pleases me to see an ancient wall.

Inside the garden hear the blackbirds call.

How we we used to sit there in the sun.

I sit here waiting but you cannot come

For your time on earth has now been done

Not a prison sentence not locked up.

I said goodbye with kisses on your lips.

I still feel your presence in the night.

I can feel your warm just by my side

How to waste money without really trying

Ladies why not buy a Bogner phone bag for just £169?

Or one could restate this as: why buy a phone bagv that cost £169. that is more than I paid for my phone which is perfectly adequate and could be cold in in a small cross body bag costing £14.88?

  Touch me again

He went away.Away.

I didn’t know where

where

he had gone

where had he gone?

The call came.:

call came….

Man,white,good health

Has died.

Has died alone

Died alone in an hotel room.

So a stranger would find him.

Man alone;

man alone in hotel room.

there was a man

alone

in his hotel room.

Not wanting to be any trouble.

trouble,no trouble alone

in his hotel room

not his room,you see.

not a shared room…

An hotel room.

Tall man with light brown hair

alone in a small hotel room

with no TV.

We had no smartphones

Smart

Phones

No,don’t tell , not me ,not yet.

Not me.

He was all alone.

He was behind glass

glass walls

windows

a window of glass.

I could never touch him.

I could not touch him.

not touch,no,never,

Man alone.

Solitary man.

Tall man with brown hair.

Beds for love

Beds for leaving.

Don’t you die alone

in that hotel room.

Don’t die

Don’t go

You wanted to be alone,

I thought…

you were

afraid to feel.

Thin skinned and pale like a torn petal from a wild plant.

You were alone again

And you left me all alone;

alone without you.

Now I’m alone

in my hotel room.

my room.

Someone knocks.

I’m dreaming of you

wishing you were near me.

dreaming,wishing,

lonely for you.

He was all alone,they said.

In an hotel room.

His doom

In a lonely bedroom.

Don’t leave me yet.

Yet you were never here

behind your window

I see you

but can’t touch you.

Can’t touch you.

Can’t touch.

Touch me.

Touch me again.

Love me…

You were all alone

alone.

Why did I not break the glass?

Break the glass;

The glass.

Touch me again

Don’t leave me.

Lock sticking

Irregular motions of the flesh

Bring them here to have them blessed

Impure thoughts do you have too few?

Boris will look after you.

Are you man or are you woman?

Pick your own then zoom your cousin

You can’t have sex when you’re at school.

But go ahead and break the rules

Teachers are not very good

They sin daily as we should

If you want to go to Oxford

Don’t swear air and scream when you see breakfas

Has the penny dropped today?

Financial Times will soon decay

We are not insured come if you are very hungry

Roasted glass buttons on a bed

of pure new wool

Artificial eyes in spices with super rice

Daffodil bulbs in kitty litter

Potatoes painted with mascara on a bed of noodles

Invent your own dinner choose any three of the following offers .

Duffle coat buttons

Shetland lace shawls

Gentlemen’s hats

Recycled plastic balls

Macaroni and old tomato soup

Old leather boots with brown owl +dead

The promised land

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

Wild geraniums

 Stepping through the door

I am assailed by perfume
Wild geraniums.

I ease these flowers
Out of  the    patio bed
For they cover sage.

They cover flowers-
Blue geranium and saxifrage
Rosemary  sprawls now

Lavender’s nearby.
Now  inside,  I hear singing.
Bird by the windows.

A robin came in,
Looking for my old man
I said,he’s not here.

Embodying soul
Sacramental  life in scents
Flowers are themselves.

How I’d like to lie
In the poppy-filled meadows
With my beloved.

Or splash through the ford
Near the open air display
Work of Henry Moore.

The topology
Of his sculptures moves my heart
Vast,holy, peaceful.

Massive like  unto God
They transform the soul and body
Into one being.

Then we are all one
With the sloping green meadows
And the wind bent trees.

Most of all,I know
Wildflowers are God’s darlings.
How he dwells in them.

Low,modest beauties
On the verge of the main road
See ,even here, smiles.

To lose one’s own self
To become a wild-flower
Grace will sanctify.

First, grow an ego
Then lose it in these green woods
Unselfconscious, Eve.

Sculpture as metaphor

Sculpture makes a metaphor look real
We can use more senses than our sight
We see the body hollow where we feel

Seeing, touching,sensing all appeal
If there is sufficient sun and light
Sculpture makes a metaphor look real

We feel it in our gut, how can it steal
The feeling of our innards in the night
We see the metal hollow where we feel

The heart has broken up and disappeared
No more time to love or lust ignite
Sculpture makes a metaphor too real

To admit another’s sorrow makes us fear
Denial as the cock crows ending night
We see the body’s hollow where we feel

Oh, will such bald agony take flight
Can we hold the grief in our insides?
Sculpture makes a metaphor so real
We see the grieving empty and unpeeled

From Quora

Why do people say you’ll be fine?

When you say, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” you’re not acknowledging what your child is experiencing (distress, concern, fear, etc.) and are giving in to the reassurance his or her anxiety – or “worry bully” – wants.25 July 2018

https://joannahardis.com › 2018/07/25

Ask Joanna: A Therapists Advice

Chuckinging under the chin

to touch especially a younger person in a friendly way under the chin: “Cheer up,” she said and chucked the little girl under the chin. Showing affection. affectionate. affectionately.5 days ago

https://dictionary.cambridge.org › c…

Meaning of chuck someone under the chin in English – Cambridge Dictionary

By

Emotions

My heart feels like a boiling sea confined.

Bring the teapot, I’ve grown tired of rhymes.

I went to the writing shop today

I bought ten pens my laptop has gone grey

My heart is not a warship on sick pay

Put me on some medicine I pray

Her eyes are like two pools of of water dull .

The words she utters are well-known in Hull

My heart is aching get the Algipan

Rub it on my boson if you canv

Can a spasm of rage kill an old man?

Her eyes closed and she seems to sleep again.

I’ve stilll not made my mind up it’s my brain

There’s nothing worse than a le creuset pan.