Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

· Daddy’s coming home

At three o’clock, we ran across the park
Then up the Wigan Road, we children roamed
Past the houses and along the fields
Looking for our daddy coming home
Looking for our daddy coming home.

I was only  two or three  at most
We passed our church and saw the Pope in Rome
We climbed a fence and walked by fields of wheat
Looking for our daddy coming home
Looking for our daddy coming home.

From the distance came a tall thin man
A ladder on his shoulder, hair well combed
A bucket full of paints and all his tools
Look, Paul, is that daddy coming home?
Bernard, I think daddy’s coming home!

A look of shock, a smile, a cry, my loves!
He rushed towards us, happy and transformed
What about your mammy does she know?
Yes, yes, yes it’s daddy coming home
Yes, yes, yes, it’s daddy coming home.

Oh,Mammy had no idea   of  it at all
She thought we were just playing by the wall
Children were much bolder and more free
 But Daddy  went to Heaven after that
Mam was   so depressed   she killed the cat

 

Happy in the golden fields  of joy
Happy with no money  with few toys
 Daddy never walked that road  for long
I missed him so I  cut   off my own tongue

There’s always cake

white and blue floral table lamp
Photo by fotografierende on Pexels.com

What a great thing Food Banks are.You can meet people like yourself and if there are enough tins of  baked beans you can ask someone round for tea.I expect if there’s no bread there will be cake

 I hope there will be some PG tips tea.I hate foreign food even tea. and   want real tea made in England and well brewed

Gosh even if you are rolling in money you can still trawl Charity Shops  in Hampstead  for cheap designer wear.The poor don’t need designer clothes.I mean, they don’t even know what they are, do they?And they are hardened to the cold.Why in my mother’s era they had no shoes and when you think about it. why does the government not ban shoes for people on benefits?

I  think it’s wonderful of the people in Vietnam to make a hundred T shirts a day for 10 pence
I mean, it is a job  all is said and done.I once worked as waitress and it  is such fun during the vacation from Oxford.We are only there 24  weeks a  year so I need to be occupied but only with my consent.My mother is descended from King Charles 2nd! He had lots of mistresses, such a naughty boy.Bring back the mistress but don’t marry her

The words were wise, the sentences allured

Once an Empire ,  once an admired place
Great Britain should now be in outer space
We lose connections, cut them with  a sword
No-one  seems to know where dwells the Word

We had  a language rich and full of grace
Apostrophes and commas knew their place
The words were wise, the sentences allured
Shakespeare could  quote  music  sung by birds

We were not wrecked by theories   so base
Enjoyed by French  professors , what disgrace
Sentences should ring  out  and be  shared
The circles  of  our culture can’t squared

Where have gone our manners and our strength?
Where indeed has gone the National Health?

 

We have no  reverie,  we have no time

Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall
The words predicted death  and so it came
The mightiest king is not  preserved from falls

Is there  wisdom  in the deep that calls
True scholarship  is hard , to name unnamed
Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall

 

Even  blatant  evil, none appals
We have no  reverie,  we have no time
The mightiest king ‘s no  safer    with his gold

 

Counted,weighed,divided, aren’t we all?
The words in Aramaic  were  no  rhyme
Belshazzar saw the grave  there on  his wall

Once old ladies smiled  knit  infants shawls
They had joy  though death  came wandering by
The King  of Babylon  deserved his fall

Being alive seems  near to a  great crime
God may die yet love burns its small flame
Belshazzar learned the writing on the wall
The  humbler people are,  the  less the  fall

 

 

e

 

Problem pupils

What shall I do with  a dilated pupil?

a) Send them to the Headmaster

b} Give them a shrinking glance

c) Look away

d) Go to an Eye Clinic

e} is she  having a baby? How can you see her cervix? Are you a doctor?

My glasses are reading  any advice?

A} You have schizophrenia

B} You are a witch

C} You  need an eye test

D) They are a surveillance device.Throw them in the bin

My lenses are plastic

a} You have had cataract surgery

b} You are deluded

c} They are  ruining the environment.Hide them if you can get them out of your eyes

4} You want attention.? Ask for a glass eye next time

I inherited 11m pounds unknowingly

You tell me  how I can do it too.Are you a Royal bastard?y

The  optician also takes wax out  people’s ears  but it does no harm and  we all have our neuroses.He makes candles out of it so he says

I saw my father running after the bus

We saw the trolley bus, small, like a child’s toy
Passing the bottom of our street
Once we went out on that bus to a park
Coming back,I was sitting at the front
Four years old
 watched them all get off
But I stayed still; as the bus moved off
I saw my father running after  us
He was shouting, but they went to the next stop
I felt no emotion except interest.He got me

The houses up the top had faces watching us
They were at an angle 
The geometry was  not simple
There was the back street we went on to school
 My brothers left me,I was running
A bicycle boy rode   over me
Nobody came
I was five years old

He lived on  a steep hill, my 6 year old boyfriend
He had  lovely  red hair
He let  me ride his tricycle
He had to catch me  before I hit Wigan Road
Which was  busy by the standards of the time
I was not afraid.He was under my thumb
I was six years old

When the cat has screamed

 

 

 

cats on sofa (1)I

I see I’m very smartly dressed today
My jumper’s striped in black and clotted  cream
I have  a  black skirt with embroidery

This outfit was not planned in anyway
I got dressed in  the bathroom,  the cat screamed!
I see I’m very smartly dressed today

The skirt is from a pricey place’s sale
The jumper ‘s M and S, is that obscene?
I have  a  black skirt with embroidery

The opthalmologist admired my taste
I seem to dress just like our much loved Queen
 I see I’m very smartly dressed today

I feel  so happy , that   is no  disgrace
From  my chair I see the sun’s gold beams
I have  a  black skirt , flowers in their place

I used to wear a T shirt and old jeans
When I was teaching maths  and  losing dreams
I see I’m very smartly dressed  again
I  have  a  black skirt  on, is that depraved?

 

To hear your voice

img_20191122_203051

The music

of

your voice

I shall never hear.

I shall never

play a duo with you.

Would we harmonize?

Or find some compromise?

Does one need to hear

the sound of someone's heart,

transposed into verbal music..

Or can we manage without it?

Ideolect

Sociolect.

Circumspect?

Words reveal the lost soul.

But not the whole story.

Play it again

But this time

Speak it.

I want to hear the music

Of you.

Copyright

Meditating over the dale’s edge

short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale’s edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.
on wind-side,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,
sphere without center,
pied geometer of flight,
oh, swift descent and ascent.
trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home

So you don’t like J C ?

 

 

Clement Attlee founded the NHS.He was a Labour PM who did good things

 

https://whitstableviews.wordpress.com/2019/12/04/so-you-dont-like-jeremy-corbyn/

“You like his policies. You want railways and other utilities back in public hands. You don’t see why foreign-based state-owned rail companies should be taking profits from our subsidised rail system. You want to see our Health Service properly funded. You don’t want to see it sold off in a trade deal with the Americans. You don’t want to see our nurses using food banks. You think that corporations that use our infrastructure should be properly taxed. You are against tax havens and tax cuts for the rich. You are fed up with foreign wars.

But you don’t like Jeremy Corbyn.” End of quote

What would Jesus do?

We wounded hide away

10363756_491792187620581_3914824934932227777_n (1)If I could see your heart and soul and know your feelings past 
 and if you knew mine
 we could   guess why our expectations go so wrong
 because at that moment what was said seemed right but looked at from a wider perspective 
Some  words we said were  errors
or at least not expressed in a way that communicated what we really  meant….
And how painful it is to hurt a beloved person…
Beloved…….I don’t believe you after the cruel you wrote…….
this is the confusion of the human condition…
when fear for a  time eclipses the  warm sun of love
when everything seems dark and  one can only wish to hide away.
…… to protect others from knowing……….
yet the message they get does not say that  the intention………
to protect them and it seems like a total rejection…..
I’m not good enough for you……
I don’t want to hurt you.
Don’t hurt me.
Yet the eclipse will end the sun will shine again………
 and it gives us compassion for others ……….
We don’t take an eclipse personally…………
but with people………………… it’s hard not to do so……
 yet there’s so much we don’t know……… or can’t know
so trust is all we can do….
trust what we once saw………….
and take down the barbed wire we put around our hearts………
 let ourselves be touched and touch.
 When words are not enough…………
we have a rich silence….
 the gaps between the words can say so much.
……to those gifted with understanding
When words refuse to come…….. 
we can share our silence ………
and keep it empty not full of dread or images of fear
until words begin to flow…
like tears.. welcome after a drought,,,,,,
when  our  words hide…. we will find them………….
so much is unknown…………….. we can’t know………
and past losses and rejections   haunt us………
filling the pregnant space with pain.
Yet words can comfort too…console, c
caress,
make communion possible
….words………….
they are all we have…… we‘ ll make them enough somehow.
…..learn their ways and how to use them to touch gently the other’s heart.
……and show, and share our love
………….not use them as a sword…………..
 use them with care….to show care,,,,to show love..
.and regret our faults and failings … but not attacking ourselves cruelly
 stop punishing ourselves….~
have mercy on ourselves 
Have mercy on others…..
We are all vulnerable
We  may miss so much because we are afraid
Wounds can heal,will heal

Have mercy
Accept the pain until we are healed
Then we start again

English idioms maze the minds we lost

English idioms maze the minds of most
Every cloud is  lined in silver cloth
I put my foot in it now I’m divorced

If I’m  late the wife will have my guts
What on earth is meant by the Lord’s wrath?
English  natives speak in  words and grunts

 

Straight from the horses mouth,  seems  rather coarse
If you  want    to  bid, you merely cough
I put my foot in it now I’m divorced

There’s no fool like an old one , shall we laugh?
The tea could hardly crawl out of the pot
English  natives speak,  we’re twice as daft?

She looked as nice as pi … is that in maths?
Her wardrobe was the envy of the  gods
I put my foot in it now I’m divorced

Ever seen old boots, well she is not
Ever been  on  Tubes, well mind the doors
English idioms bruise the minds of hosts
I put my foot in it ,now I’m divorced

Spent a lifetime hanging off a ledge

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

Meanwhile our kind teacher twittered on
Thomas Hardy, Hopkins., we were numb
She never mentioned she saw my escape
The way the nuns  hurt me, the bitter rape

I slipped  on High White Stones and almost  dropped
My feet were dangling off the  fearsome rocks 
No-one knew for I was climbing last
Know me  please but never learn my past

How quickly life has  run since I could climb
Now I merely sit here draped in rhymes

The cyclamen, the lily and the earth

The cyclamen, the lily and the earth
The potted plants ,green leaves , distil the air
The lily is for peace. the rose for worth

Let no human live in pain or cursed
Let the golden light enwrap  them here
The cyclamen, the lily and the earth

The waxy flowers of cyclamen bring mirth
Bring  gratitude in winter when all’s bare
The lily is for peace. the rose for worth

I feel my hands are reaching for a brush
The watercolour paints    bring their allure
The cyclamen, the lily and the earth

Then I see a flower trod on  and crushed
It seems to bleed like Jesus,tears my eye.
The lily is for peace. the rose for worth

Nature has its truth and so do I
Many times I weep, bewail and cry
The cyclamen, the lily and the earth
The lily is for peace. the rose for birth

I didn’t know about the horrible ads

 

 

person wearing yellow shoes
Photo by Dids on Pexels.com

I have changed to a paid for account here as a friend told me there were ads for foot fungus remedies and images of ugly feet

I am sorry about this.I didn’t  get any  money out of it and I would never  do that for money

My website is now [ if my memory is correct]

https://words-cat.com/

I’ll check this and correct asap

I stood  like a stone

Down the kitchen  stairs they carried you
Two men were enough, the coffin crew
I wanted to take off the lid to see
If Daddy was  asleep. had not left me

Mute and frozen I stood  like a stone
In this the place we  loved and made a home
We knelt down by the fire to say night prayers
The flames  stood up like  fingers  in  the air

The soot fell down, we had a little brush
To sweep the ash,remains of  forests crushed.
Later grand-dad died , my brothers  pale
Carried  his dear coffin down the aisle

 Imagined  into being by the Mass
Jesus whispered   when the storm   had passed

As long as I can see  your love and you

 

I  must have shrunk my spectacles fall off
When I bend or when I have a cough
Then it’s hard to find them  on the floor
I stagger to the spare ones in a drawer

I rarely throw most older  glasses out
For  eyes may change and older ones might suit
I’m wearing ones from 13 years ago
No wonder I keep seeing heaps of snow

I wish I could see better but  make do
As long as I can see  your love and you
As long as I can read and choose my clothes
I shall be   patient,silent on these woes

For some born blind will never see the flowers
The eyes of infants, trees and sun  and showers

Love me, love me, someone hold me tight

You were angry ,I was much too bright
You taught me to play chess,  then felt regret
The man must be the one who knows the rites

I didn’t know you minded my insight
When I won the game,  you were upset
You were angry; I was   madly bright

I think you loved my  body in the night
You loved my  golden hair both dry and wet
The man must be the one who knows the rites

At least you did not scratch nor did you bite
I weep for  I  just found   that old chess set
You were  dying but I managed all the rites

Love me, love me, someone hold me tight
I’m crying  for his touch,  my face is wet
The man might be the one   who must depart

I  shall live my future in your debt
You gave me all you had with no regret
You were angry, for an hour,  then  you were calm
As Gd came down and wrapped you  in his arms

 

Stan and the angel

  • \
  • imageedit_13_4106504267Stan had eaten too much pizza because he was extremely ravenous from doing the washing. and hanging it up on the mulberry tree in his long garden Now he felt lazy and haphazardly dim and other worldly and liable to have visions..
    Now and then he saw an angel whom he called Yael in his home.But having looked up Yael on a website he realised she was not a very nice woman unlike his dear wife Mary.So he was planning a new name for the angel with her permission
  • Do you mind if I change your name,he enquired gently when Yael came in through the French window.
    Well,what to? Yael asked him familiarly
    How about Ysabel? Stan offered.It’s got just an extra b and s.
    Or how about,Sybael?
    You seem fond of b and s, the angel answered in confusion.
    It was just mere chance,said Stan somewhat defensively.
    Ok I’ll take Sybael,the angel said loudly .

    I want to change my name too, said Emile the cat of Stan.
    How about Mebiles or Melibes or Eimbles….
    I don’t know, pouted the cat haughtily.
    How about Semile,said Stan.T
    hough it has no letter b in it, he bragged.
    They all pondered quietly as the sun shone in through the window and made a lovely lacy pattern on the wall.

    In came Mary,Stan’s sweet old wife and his computer aided extension too.
    You are very quiet,she murmured.What’s going on here ?
    We are trying to find a new name for Emile,Stan told her as Sybael waved her wings about.
    It seems very draughty in here,Mary said.
    And Emile can’t change his name because it will change his personality.
    I didn’t know I had a personality,the little cat purred.
    It is what is most characteristic of you.For example, if you always hurt those you love then you have a cruel personality or you have got diabetes.Some people want love but they are too harsh and demanding.
    So true,Stan added pensively.
    Anyway,I have some awfully strange news,Mary went on.
    You just won’t believe this but Dorothy Grey who lives at the bottom of the hill has just had a heart attack.
    How come?
    She had an online love relationship with a rather peculiar but intriguing and clever elderly man who turned out to be a sadist in disguise.So when she ended the affair he flew over and attacked her with an air gun and some cat’s claws which he had bought from a cat market
    Is he a wizard,asked Emile.
    No, he flew on a stolen magic carpet from Persia.
    Persian carpets,I’d love one here said the cat greedily
    Actually it’s a kind of plane,said Stan.
    How boring ,said Mary angrily.
    Anyway Dorothy was so shocked her arteries spasmed and she is in A and E now on morphine,she added…
    What a shame that she got that instead of a spasm elsewhere….Stan muttered thinking of Freud.
    But who’d have sex with such a horrible old man? Mary asked.
    An equally horrible old woman,maybe? Stan riposted.
    Any way it all goes to show the dangers of online love, he informed the room.
    It’s not real love,is it, because in real love the other person is as important to you as yourself.Mary said theologically.
    Well. now Eros is a kind of love,too.But many old men just want their washing done and a companion.Eros has departed from their world.
    Sybael smiled and then flew out of the window.

    What was that noise, said Mary anxiously.
    Just an angel’s wings,said Stan quietly
    If only Dorothy had seen an angel instead of that harsh old man she might be much better now.Mary mused.But not everyone can see them.Their world seems full of horrible old men and beautiful young women
    Emile winked at Stan and then ran out to chase a butterfly amongst the scented tulips.. there were lots of angels there every day but only he knew.
    Angels don’t like big modern cities but they like old abbeys and cathedrals and places where such things used to be before post modernist architecture took over.
    And cat’s claws are not meant for scratching your loved ones either.And online dating should be avoided except with atheists and agnostics.They are less judgemental about women’s place and roles.It’s strange how harsh many religious people are.Harsh and unforgiving.

We’re not supposed to say

You know the widow’s sad and can mourn and grieve all day
But the anger and the hatred,she’s not supposed to say
She can cry  upon the duvet, she can scream under the stairs
But the rage and  irritation are  not to be declared
She can order man size tissues in boxes multiplied
But the venomous ,vindictive  imply that love had died
She can  be  dissociated, she can be without affect
But if  she says how well  she hated him, everybody’s vexed
Who can live so closely for forty and five years
Without needing a  dressmaker to sew up all the tears?
Who can  be accepting when money and time’s scarce
There’s a war inside the heart of us,   everybody knows
Scratched and bitten daily,   struck by falling stars
Who  knows what we’re feeling . what is out too far?

His love was all too clear

I  am angry he has died and left me  here
He hated my intelligence unwise
Yet while he lived  our love contained our fear

He loved whiskey even more than beer
He loved my skin and  even my great eyes
I ‘m angry he has died and left me  here

He did not have much money that was clear
But oh he sees a bigger car, then buys
Yet while he lived  our love contained our fear

He drove too fast when angry, I was scared.
He brought me  lovely gifts as a surprise
I ‘m angry he has died and left me  here

He woke before he died and uttered  here
You are a brilliant presence,Katherine, wise
And while he lived  his love contained my fear

I was a trophy wife, what will men  try?
He liked my looks but  not  how bright my mind
I ‘m angry he has died and left me  here
Though while he lived   he drank  my nectar dear

 

 

 

He is in the dark

I have nightmares, is that a surprise?
The time is coming for the new bright Ark
What one  might love another one might  hide

My husband drags me  out  so we can fly
To  where he chooses,I have made no mark
I have nightmares, is that a surprise?

I resist,I fear  more UTIs
I’m unwell but he is in the dark
Where one  might live another one might   die

Some fiend attacks us,   danger is no lie
I cannot fight, my weapons are too sparse
I have nightmares, is that a surprise?

Another night, it’s insects dark, malign
Then my husband leaves me ,won’t converse
What one  might show another one might  hide

Is my life a list of times adverse?
Of sleeping and of waking, which  is worse?
I have nightmares, is that a surprise?
Where one  might laugh another one might   cry

 

 

 

The Second Coming

dublin night reflections sea
Photo by Picography on Pexels.com

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming

 

The Second Coming

Launch Audio in a New Window

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
n/a
Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)