Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

I make my submission to the dark

A dozen needles penetrate my skin
Circling round my navel like  they’re sharks
What comes out will  pacify what’s in

Is having acupuncture, like, a sin?
This circle is  a little needle park
A dozen steel pins penetrate my skin

The emotions  stumble, make a din
But not like any song of the Skylark
What comes out will  magnify what’s in

Once I lived in panic  and was thin
Like a cat that thinks she has to bark
A dozen steel pins penetrate my skin

Oh, evensong, oh music, oh Compline
Why is life so painful and so sharp
What comes out will   indicate what’s in

I make my submission to the dark,
From this grave, will rise the living spark
A dozen needles penetrate my  heart
Take them now and let me live with doubt

 

 

 

 

 

Kim meets Jesus. Her cat Louisa wants to go to Mass

Cats on the hill

Jack had just taken early retirement from his job as a maths researcher in Knittingham University. His large collection of maths books was overwhelming the home he shared with his excitable, chic and sharp-tongued French wife Simone.
Simone was still working at the university cleaning computers heads all day long.. so she claimed. Now she was hoping that she and Jack could do more entertaining…..if only he would get rid of some of the books! No-one could climb over them to get into the dining room unless they had climbed the Alps in early life.
After Simone left for work wearing pink cord trousers and a dark blue denim knit jumper with a long lasting beige foundation from Max Factor covering her red face, and blue mascara to match her jumper not to mention her blue and black striped leather trainers.
Jack gave the cat, Louisa, a hot bath in goat’s milk. Now instead of being grey she was cream coloured!
I’ve been dyed, she shrieked politely but Jack never replied…he was daydreaming….
He pondered, as he dried her what to do with all his maths books. He had thought of making a large collage but who would want it?
Or he could donate them to the university or have a fire in the back garden.

Suddenly he looked up and saw a very charmingly pink-faced woman peering into the window.
It was his neighbor Kim whose husband had disappeared last year, possibly inside a wheelie bin, though no-one was sure.

Hello, Kim, did you want me?” he cried nervously… only realizing the double entendre too late

.
I thought you might like some company for morning coffee. What a pretty cat………..what is her name?”

Louisa was wary of Kim. Maybe the purple trousers and orange jumper might give the cat an epileptic fit… she was a sufferer, just like St Paul. She hoped to be converted but so far was disappointed. She longed to see a vision of cat food in the sky.

Can cats go to Mass? she miaowed to Jack.
Yes, but they can’t have Communion, he responded shyly.
Well, we don’t eat bread but I love wine!

I’ll mention it to the Pope next time I see him, Kim said with a roguish smile. Her make up looked to be waterproof as the drip in the ceiling was right above her head and heavy rain was falling.

But first Louisa, you would have to confess your sins. All your sins
I never did a thing wrong, the cat replied haughtily.
Well, you know the Church is only for repentant sinners,so if you never sin, you can’t repent…
so it follows indubitably that you can’t join the Church!I studied Aristotle once that’s why I get all logical with emotion.I only wish I’d got to Wittgenstein.I could have loved that man….though now I seem to recall he was gay…still, who knows perhaps I could have charmed him?

If that were true about the Church, would Jesus be allowed to join?
Certainly not. He was perfect and also he was Jewish. So why would he want to join the Christian church?
As he began it, he might like to see its holy life, Louisa purred loudly.
Really, I think this is a very odd conversation murmured the parrot, Felix Semper.

Not so odd, responded a tall dark man who just appeared from nowhere.
I am called Jesus he said, but I’m from Malaga.
In Spain many men are called Jesus, he continued mellifluously.
Is that so, cried Kim murmured tenderly
I never met Jesus before.If you married me it would give people a shock if I said I was married to Jesus! she whispered loudly behind her hand.

Marry you! Is it leap year? Women have never proposed to me before.
I was just thinking out loud, she replied demurely.
Nuns used to be married to Jesus and wore a silver wedding ring.
I was educated at a convent school. That’s why I’m so very neurotic.

Are you really neurotic? Jack, screamed uninhibitedly
I have a whole shelf of books by Karen Horney here.Self Analysis is just one.
I could give it to you now….

Not in front of Jesus, she muttered chastely.
Have you no moral feelings?
No, I’ve never had any feelings of any sort. but it’s done me no harm.
I’ll ask Simone when she gets back, we’ll see if she agrees!
I’m just like a computer with a human body.
I sometimes think I’d like a suit of silver armour.
Bless you, my child, Jesus murmured kindly.

When they looked up the tall dark man was gone.
They looked around but he had left no footprints.
Should we call the police? He came in with no permission!
How disgraceful.
How dastardly.
How disgusting
How damnable.
How divine.
How dumb.
How deplorable.
Soon they murmured until it was time to cook lunch..
Sardines on toast for three… surely they could have fed Jesus with some loaves and fishes…that’s what he liked

Different points of view

SuttonCourtenay-2.jpg

First posted on September 24, 2015

The old red wall is dressed in stems of wood

In wintertime, we see the ancient bricks.

In springtime come the tender flower buds.

We see no more of  Jack Frost and his tricks.

Which vision is the true one, we may ask?

Just as with the faces we each show.

But is there any virtue in that task?

Reality is impossible to know.

Each perspective gives an insight new.

The more we see, the more we realize.

Other cultures have a different view.

The argument is futile and unwise.

As when and where we stand gives us our view.

l shall perceive life differently from you

The Lord transplants the Burning Bush.

From  desert sands to burning bush;
Moses  on Mount Horeb learned
The ten commandments, bold in truth

By Canvey Island, waters rush.
The Hasidic from East London turn
No  desert sands nor burning bush

There are reasons, I’m bemused.
Will God be with the tidal turn?
The ten commandments hauled in truth

In their memory of  Negev
For  hot spaces they may yearn;
Ache  for sand and burning bush

Sand a-plenty they will have.
On Canvey Isle, their innards churn.
The little children tease with love

Over Canvey, cherubs blush
For they too  have felt the pain,
Ache  for sun and burning bush

Now joyous children freely play
Who would think they’d come this way?
By Canvey Isle,  Thames’ waters rush.
The Lord transplants the Burning Bush.

Wear flat shoes and never laugh.

  • I love men, but not the Toffs,
    Nor the ones with hacking coughs.
    I would like an artist most,
    Especially with hot buttered toast.

    I love men,do men love me?
    There’s only one true way to see.
    Do your best to put them off,
    Wear flat shoes and never laugh.

    Study Wittgenstein and Kant,
    Study all that’s difficult.
    Parse Quantum theory as a hobby.
    Learn long words from the dictionary.

    Dance with Riemann,  swing with Joyce;
    Read Ulysses in a Rolls Royce.
    Enjoy Chess, Trigonometry;
    Weigh down your mind with  Geometry.

    Look around and see who’s left.
    That’s the man who loves you best.
    Once you’re wed and have a home,
    You can free your mind to roam.

    Throw away your library,
    Let your senses all run free.
    Wear bright clothes and enjoy some fun.
    Your second life has just begun.

America in crisis?

Allen Ginsberg’s 1956 Poem “America”: a Lost Ending

Extract

The most famous line in all of twentieth-century American poetry can be found in Allen Ginsberg’s 1956 poem, “America,” which was published in the Pocket Poets series by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights in the volume titled Howl and Other Poems. That famous line reads, “Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.” It’s addressed to America itself, and it has been quoted and popularized by anarchists, communists, beatniks and hipsters over the past 36 years.

The poem ends on a whimsical note, “America, I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel,” a not-so veiled reference to the poet’s homosexuality, and his sense that though he was queer he had a role to play in the society as a whole.

 

 

The music and the line

The perfect violin and artist fine
Soften hearts as hard as an old oak
Make the music holy and sublime

In a shop, I looked at new designs
Music played, I even felt it spoke
With perfect violin and  artist fine

If only such great moments came again
Kiss them as they fly or deftly float
May their music holy  be divine

As the trees smell sweetly in the rain
So in darker times, love is evoked
With  open  heart and   sentiments, each fine

 

Love and justice need to be aligned
Played on like an instrument, they speak
Make their language holy and sublime

 

Punishment for blindness  comes with time
The innocent offensiveness of rhyme
The perfect instrument, the art, the mind
May our music  be the texts   we find

Fascism and post-modernism

“A world view quite similar to Nazism, Fascism was a pagan religion with worship of the state….main arguments…..
Like postmodernism, fascism promoted the view that reality is a social construct and that all cultures determine their own values. Vieth wrote: most people do not realise the tenets of postmodernism have been tried before in a political system, cultural determinism… The rejection of the transcendent, the rejection of Reason and the revolutionary critique of the existing order are tenets not only of postmodernism but also of fascism.”

Triangle

Writing poetry is like trying to jump onto a wild horse as it goes by.
Or trying to get out of a  big vat of honey when the bees are angry
Or dreaming of wild tigers now tame for a moment
Getting a cat to wear a lead and go for a walk
It is unnatural, dangerous and mad
But I like it.
There.

I’ll sing like him all day,

 

I look up our small street,
To see if you are coming.
I don’t know what time it is,
But I think I hear you humming.

You sang sweet songs for us,
And you could whistle well.
You wore an old tweed jacket
You loved us, I could tell.

I look out there each day,
But I can’t see your tall, thin shape.
I saved your Woodbine packet,
It made me feel some hope.

What does death’s door mean?
Where has Daddy gone?
When will be the welcome day,
When we hear his songs again?

I’ll sing like him all day,
I’ll dream of him all night.
I hope he won’t be angry,
If his cigarettes won’t light!

He can’t write his own songs now.
He went too far away, too soon.
I’ll write down what I think he sang,
And I’ll invent the tune.

I hear him singing now,
He dwells inside my heart.
And though I still can’t see his face,
I recognise his Art.

Oh, culture,  joy, oh  friends,  oh fragrant air

Oh, culture,  joy, oh  friends,  oh  fragrant air
What delights our eyes and brings new life
Summer comes  with sun and visions fair
 Heat and leisure, trees all  green as May
Buds of flowers entice us each to spy
Oh, culture,  joy, oh  friends,  oh  fragrant air
Smiles and laughter, hands held, eyes that stare
Love  erotic, love  of friends, love ripe
Summer comes  with sun and visions fair
Skin to air and skin to skin  declare
From the inner feelings, none escape
Oh, culture,  joy, oh  friends,  oh  fragrant air
As the blackbird sings, so should we pray
Until we see at last  our  true landscape
Summer comes  with sun and visions fair
All our  thoughts  must now evaporate
Until the deeper Mind life illustrates
Oh, culture,  joy, oh  friends,  oh  fragrant air
Summer comes  with gold and visions fair

Shivering on the peak

Shivering on the top of  sheer hillside
The effort is made worthy by the view
Here where lambs  won’t play nor goats  make strides
Shivering humans  love a sheer hillside
My whole self rejoices, is renewed
As with body, so it is with mind
Shivering on the peak, I stand astride
The effort  makes me worthy of this view.

The triolet

LangdalePikes2019-1https://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/personal-updates/triolet-an-easy-way-to-write-8-lines-of-poetry

 

“Today, we’re going to look at the triolet (TREE-o-LAY), which has 13th century French roots linked to the rondeau or “round” poem. For over a year now, I’ve been trying to find a way to use the repetitive line heard so often in airport terminals: “The moving sidewalk is about to end.”

The triolet is perfect for this kind of repetition, because the first line of the poem is used 3 times and the second line is used twice. If you do the math on this 8-line poem, you’ll realize there are only 3 other lines to write: 2 of those lines rhyme with the first line, the other rhymes with the second line.

A diagram of the triolet would look like this:

A (first line)
B (second line)
a (rhymes with first line)
A (repeat first line)
a (rhymes with first line)
b (rhymes with second line)
A (repeat first line)
B (repeat second line)

So for the construction of my triolet, I already had my first line: “The moving sidewalk is about to end.” So after some quick thinking I decided to make my second line: and I’m not sure where to go. Pretty good (and true), since I usually don’t know where to go in airports. At this point, my poem looked like this:”

When we cannot pray

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The cello has a tender singing voice
Allows the feelings which we cannot say.
Among composers,  Bach would  be my choice
The cello sings   rich lyrics  with her voice.
Rostropovich , Prague ; he wept of course.
Soviet armies  marched, the Czechs  were  flayed.
The cello has a sorrowing truthful voice;
Speaks our feelings when we cannot pray.

My car goes too fast for Lent

I’d love to gamble with the  lambs if only they had arthritis
He rambled on for so long  he got to Carlisle  before he noticed we were on a railway line.Dent  and Dent again
Dry your tears faster with  the new tumble-in dryer.
Save your tears to water the lawn.
Stumbling home took rages to achieve.
I did let my seat melt on once.
My car goes too fast for Lent
Ash Wednesday… we had ash every day in the fireplace!
I saw faces in the flames ………He burned all my selfies.Expensive to get a new laptop but he is my husband after them all.
We saw faces in the wallpaper.My father leaned on it often after being down the pit all day.He made a big impression on me.
I think confessing sins is a good idea, starting at the top with Mrs T May and Boris….don’t forgive them,Oh Lord am I evil?
Not really.
The cows don’t want us sucking their bladders all day. What did I say?
I’d like a  lion, say Judah?

Life  can be  much  gentler  in a groove

How to sort your life out in three  moves
Begin by  writing  wisely of  your aims
Life  can be  much neater  in a groove

Don’t keep wondering if  your   friends approve
Do not  give your life  up to get fame
How to sort your life out in three  moves

String quintets on records will disprove
Old collections are just for the  lame
Life  can be  much  gentler  in a groove

Should we give up fantasy too lewd?
Is it better to admit what is not tame?
How to sort this life out  while it  moves

Sadness  may be joy, oh blues imbued
Do not let depression steal  its name
Life  can be mute misery in a groove

Look into the mirror, be amazed
See the lines where  laughter  has long grazed
How to  turn  life over  with  a heave
Life  can  turn too black stuck  in  that groove

 

Writing

When you wrote your book
The cat  lay across your shoulders like a prayer shawl
Through your window, you saw the trees
The Blackbird sang.
Now the chair is empty and   our cat has died
How could you leave me?
I’m lonesome  in that room
The birds are nesting again
The sun is hot
I’ve not opened the desk drawers
But I found your tie on my bed
Where can you be?

Dave is creative

white brown and black med coated cat laying on gray ottoman
Photo by Buenosia Carol on Pexels.com

Mary was making a beef and beer casserole.But her casserole dish lid was too high for the small oven on her gas stove
What shall I do, she asked Emile.her cat?
I don’t know, mother, he told her.I never cook
I’ve told you before,I am not your mother.
Well, you feed me and wash me and keep my bed clean
I did that for Stan.I hope he didn’t think I was his mother
He was older than you, the cat informed her boldly
Yes.indeed he was 50 years older than me!
I know what to do, Emile mewed.He  stood by the phone and pressed 999
Soon the bell rang. In ran Dave, the transexual  transvestite paramedic dressed all in white as if for tennis
What’s wrong now, he enquired?
I can’t get this casserole dish into the oven, said Mary
I know what to do. Have you got either a pyrex plate or a cake tin with a loose bottom?
Mary looked into her cupboard and found a 6  ” plate
Dave put it on top of the dish having removed the high domed lid.
There we are, he cried. What number shall I put the oven on?
3 please, said Mary. You are so creative, Dave. Brilliant
Would you like to come back in 3 hours for a meal?
I’d love to, Dave cried. Unless I get called out by someone who needs me to find a knife and fork so they can eat their dinner
Would people really do that,Emile whispered?
You would not believe what people do

And so say all of us

 

Allergy to dusk

With my broken-hearted syndrome and my allergy to dusk
With my head inside a bottle and my body  still unwashed
I don’t know my arrival time;my soul’s got  a new desk

I need a  pile of money, I wonder should I busk?
I need a sturdy saviour  as  Jesus  has got lost
With my broken-hearted syndrome and my allergy to dusk

I saw a few pink elephants but none had any tusks
I  need   a lot of money and a salad that’s been tossed
I don’t know my arrival time nor if my soul’s got  frost

We used to go to cinemas and consume  big bags of  crisps
Now that we are ancient we need a defter wrist
Mend our  potty syndromes and  the fear of  musk and dusk

 

The hair once long and silky  has  matured into small  whisps
The eyes so blue and singular   turn red when I am pissed
I don’t know my survival times nor if my soul loves rust

I  was looking for a husband but I found an  iron fist
Oh, men, you don’t need armour in the bedrooms of the lost
With my broken-hearted syndrome and my allergy to facts
I don’t know my arrival time, the timetable’s been wrecked

 

Oh silence hissing

Silent, arms and legs  akimbo, floating
In a cloud of photographs and files
I must not think there  is no solid  ground below
The act goes on but I ‘m not reconciled

 

No one speaks to me, the alien woman
I see the fence, invisible the door
Floating with my feet like hands  contentious
I   must not think there is no second floor

Silent with constriction in my larynx
Flying  with the wind an awful presence
Where the edges. where the strapped up artist?
Where the place such silence starts to lessen?

 

Floating through detritus, not existing
Not the journey ‘s end, oh silence hissing
,

Much more flippantly

The wind blew fresh leaves
Across my pale countenance
I did not need that

The trees are swaying
Not as ballerinas do
Much more flippantly

They do not keep time
With human clocks and watches
A different drummer

The storm hovers here
Like an eagle on a cloud
Deciding on prey

Why use tarot cards
When we have sky and sunshine
When we have neighbours?

Sylvia saw a yew
Sylvia , a rook, the rain fell
Feathers gleamed like coal

Oh, Ariel  runs
Sylvia  becomes a myth
Knee and heel, the ride

Into the hot sun
Into the ennobling flame
The alchemy of  fire

Gold from coal dust comes
What good is this to children?
The cauldron bubbles

The orchestra played

I am fortunate
If I can find two gloves now
One left and one right

The other problem
My hands are misshapen too
Ladies’ gloves might not fit me.

I can be a man
If I decide I want to be
There! I wear your gloves now.

But I prefer scarves
Made for women, with flowers
Embroidery, silk, cashmere.

My taste is quite good
I know  I like your image
You stand on the bridge in Prague

In Wenceslaus Square
The orchestra played Ma Vlast
The Elektion

Holocaust Museum
Children’s coloured drawings are
Butterflies for God

He died too with them
So we have no  floor to stand on
Everything’s trembling

I forgot I am.
I was lost somewhere other
How I stand on air.

As I rise enriched

As I rise enriched  from deeps of grief
I feel alone as  if my old  world’s gone
Though trees still  flaunt their  newborn coats of leaves

The passing of the years, our  life seems brief
Oh, love, oh death, oh fear, oh lost my own
Must I retreat from darker depths of grief?

What new space must you and I conceive?
How shall I live where  my love was  undone
While trees will   haunt with   summers of green leaves

Our latent wishes, frozen,   must deceive
Oh, Freudian world, oh, Foucault, oh Lacan
Must I leave the holy depths of grief?

Like the flowers, most die  on graves of  grief
Oh, Shakespeare, elegaic, oh John Donne
See trees still    image life  in   shining leaves

 

Misfortune strikes, still love  and heart shall win
As we cling to life with threads so thin
When we rise enriched from depths of grief
The  trees   delight  in  mantels of green leaf

Discord or harmony

Clematis-macropetala-Wesselton

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/discord

Extract

    1. 1.1 (of things) be different.
      ‘the party’s views were apt to discord with those of the leading members of the government’
      More example sentences

Origin

Middle English: from Old French descord (noun), descorder (verb), from Latin discordare, from discors ‘discordant’, from dis- (expressing negation, reversal) + cor, cord- ‘heart’.

Pronunciation

discord

NOUN/ˈdɪskɔːd/

discord

VERB/dɪsˈkɔːd/