Axe it
Author: Katherine
Poetry writer and author
Who I am
I wanted to be good and thought that meant
I need only wish to make it so:
I was what I desired in my intent
I suffered from strange tortures throughout Lent
I dropped a boiling kettle on my toe
I wanted to be good and thought it meant
On my birthday I was quite absent
Any joy, I thought saints did not show
I was what I desired in pure intent
I thought God lived like Moses in a tent
I feared Hell and saw the rosy glow
I wanted to be good yet turmoil rent
As I grew, neurosis in me sent
The fires of hell to cause my overflow
I was by men desired though not fluent
I realised too late how I don’t know
Who I am nor whither I should go.
I wanted to be good and thought that meant
I was what I desired with such intent
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Choose the courage of the human heart
This life is just a film where we play parts
If you take a trip or bad luck hits
Choose the courage of the human heart
Love’s the root of all the good that starts
But power will hide in love until it’s hot
This life might be a film where we play parts
Love and power are sometimes both inert
Yet from real love, the human is begot
With what damage to the human heart?
In error then we falsely do deport
The souls whose ignorance is a woeful threat
This life might be a film where we learn art
In Stalin’s time, the people wrote reports,
Were spies in networks friendship made unthought
With death to courage and the human heart
Of the love of mothers, we forget
Before we spoke she was the heart we met
This life is a great play with many parts
To enhance the courage of our shuddering hearts
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Can poetry really be translated
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-lundberg/can-poetry-really-be-tran_b_109618.html
” Mohamed Enani, who translates the Bard into Arabic, actually admitted to the latter. In an interview with the “Al-Ahram Weekly he said, “it was not until … for five months I was practically incarcerated in a room in a French hospital — that I gave the matter serious consideration.”
You’ll understand Enani’s challenge if you’ve watched a performance of the storm sequence in Shakespeare’s King Lear, wherein you can hear the violence of the words—a violence which complements and heightens the meaning. To come close to effectively translating that effect, you would not only have to carry over meaning, replete with all the wordplay and metaphor, but also replicate the aural impact in the new language. No doubt a lot of this gets lost.”
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Nokia was a maiden fair
You can’t have your iCake and eat it too.
Nokia,with tea, bread and butter
Nokia was a maiden fair who roamed with daisies in her hair
She looked through the Windows phone at me.
I had nothing on at all except a tampon.Well, it’s not exactly on, you know what I mean? It’s in there… you know.Why did we not learn the names?
I want a you-Phone.Or a superego-Phone
Sam will sung,Sam shall sing.Sam had singed.Sam had sang.Sam had sung.That sounds wrung.English, ain’t it splung?
Remember blind people can’t see you when you are glued to your phone…. so they will beat you.I have a white stick already… but I ain’t blind! Just blind drunk…. on air.
Hair on a G string… that means they still have their hair down below?
Preludes and fugues.I though fugues were when you forget who you are.Like married love.Or maybe adultery but I can’t commit that now.I’ll have to get married again
Dead and never committed effrontery!
He shall feed his flock?Did they have mattresses 2,000 years ago? Is flock alive? No wonder some folk can’t sleep.
It’s funny, you can lie on the sofa and drowse all day but go to bed and worry.Am I asleep? Will I go to sleep? When? Shall I get up and watch TV? No,we haven’t got one yet!How unfair is that? Will I stop thinking?Why not? OMG I wish it was tomorrow.It is tomorrow OMG I’ve ben awake all night.I should be a cab driver and do late shifts.Except I can’t drive.
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Don’t let them Due you
Now a Conservative MP has been suspended for using the phrase “The nigger in the woodpile”.
As a child I heard people say when going shopping, Don’t let them dew you.I didn’t realise they meant “Jew.” I don’t know if adults did but I am ashamed to say it was used very frequently.As a woman, I know all who are not white men are considered defective is some way and even men don’t have it easy if they are poor, shy or nervous.
As a teenager my brothers refused to let me read the Sunday paper as ” women shouldn’t need to read about politics”, they refuse to let me put a record on the hi fi as” I would probably damage it”.I had to iron their clothes while I was doing exams at school.Of course an adult could have intervened but they didn’t and it does have a bad effect.I was 25 before I could afford a gramophone and play my own 2 records!
While we did homework in the front room one of my brothers played Wagner all the time very loud.I’ve hated it ever since.I was glad to be able to go to college where I was treated well by everybody.It was wonderful.
And it’s not as bad as what some go through but we don’t reflect enough.
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The Flames
The tent of shelter refers to the tents used by the Jewish people wandering for 40 years in the desert after leaving Egypt.This is now remembered at Sukkot,The Feast of Tabernacles.It is in the autumn so also links to the ingathering of crops
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A different version of :Dance me to the end of love
In the Science Museum, the mirror cracked
Watching Plato shining torches into blackness,
Wandering through the galleries,
Sepia paintings of pines,
Pain came to the emptiness once my heart,
I sat picturing screaming Popes and babies.
Eastward, looking for fresh instruction,
My mind unpleated, like a pair of curtains
~Hung out to dry in equinoxal gales.
The bells of Satan’s cell phone
Rang again, startling in this silence.
“You had your smear done yet?”
“It’s me, hinny”
“I’m having coffee here in “Costa’s.”
Then I awoke, a man appeared.
How apposite,I need you, Ludwig!
I can’t fly my kite.
In the Science Museum, the mirror cracked
And from it stars flew out,
Adorning cars and bicycles and buses.
The building gently fell into its own reflection.
People flew out like gasping rockets,
Illuminating the blankness,
Calling “Is today the day?.”
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Is fame worth getting depressed for?
After the 50th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death by suicide people are still puzzling about her.Was she schizophrenic? Was her husband an hypnotically attractive demon who betrayed her.And her mother… was she too close and burdensome or too neurotic or too far away?
Well, I have an idea.. that it may be some of us work too hard, push ourselves too hard; value ourselves only if we achieve perfection in all spheres of our lives.And this can make us profoundly exhausted…. and then we get into a downward spiral.Sylvia Plath had 3 pregnancies in 3 years.~Her mother was far away in the USA and she had no family here.
She and her husband worked very hard at their writing and she produced many poems even during those childbearing years.And they also moved home several times.
We sometimes live as if we have no body; we get ideas of what we would like to achieve and e.g. get up at 4 am to write for 3 hours before the children waken up.And such women are unlikely to serve ready meals for dinner.It will be a fancy dish from Fanny Farmer or The Joy of Cookery.Then they decorate their own homes and entertain many visitors at the weekend.
To be blunt, in my view, the fatigue is the main problem and forgetting we need time for ourselves.You cannot usually have it all unless you can afford to employ servants of some kind.And they need supervising
We need to care for our physical well-being and defer that work that will make our name or the money we need to build a big extension on our house.
It’s quite ironical here that most people have fantastic large kitchens but buy ready meals and even MASHED POTATO in the supermarket.Better to have a small kitchen and less debt so less worry on your mind.And cooking, if not too ambitious can be a form of meditation if we do it slowly
You are probably not going mad… you need more rest and to learn to relax.I am not a doctor so these are just my personal views.If Sylvia Plath had not pushed herself too hard mentally she might be here today.And if you don’t have some time for relating to Nature and other people what’s the point of life?
For me the point of being alive is to live and be aware that we live; to savour the days ,the friends.the flowers ,the food.To perceive and to dream as well as to work in our jobs or in our homes.Otherwise we are like automatons
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When love is offered like a sword or threat
When love is offered loudly like a threat
When tact is missing from the offered words
It fills my heart with terror and with dread
We all need boundaries on our estate
But to a stranger, they look bare and blurred
Then love is offered loudly like a threat
Can we imagine, share a stranger’s bed
When all our fears of overwhelm are stirred?
That fills my heart with terror and with dread
Slow and caring is the way to meet
When humour and true dignity are shared
Then love is offered kindly to our sweet
Elusive is the path to the unsaid
A trip into the briars may leave us scared
The journey makes us stronger, eases dread
An unknown force within my soul has stirred
And to that mystery I am allured
When love is offered slowly, it’s no threat
It takes away my terror and my dread
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Sins
Say, Father, give me your blessing.It is 40 years since my last confession
Well, it wasn’t your last, was it?
That’s rude
What do you want?
I’d like obsoletion for all my sins
Absolution?
No, I want all my sins to become obsolete.
What are they?
Adultery
Bad temper
Raising my voice
Sleeping with onion tarts
Telling the truth in Parliament
Well, the last is obsolete.But I can’t make acts obsolete.It happens when people lose interest in them
Well they are obsolete for me
Do you repent?
No, I feel deprived.
Repent or I can’t carry on
I didn’t know you did carry on!
Well,you do now!
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Obsoletion
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obsoletion
Definition of obsoletion
plural
obsoletions
-
: the act of becoming or condition of being obsolete
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Wendy Cope
-
Differences of Opinion
Source: Poetry (February 2006)
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How poetry helps in difficult times
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/still-poetry-will-rise/507266
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/still-poetry-will-rise/507266/
“Garber: Do you think, given all that, we’ll see a continued rise in the public’s general interest in poetry—as people keep trying to make sense of the world’s turbulence?
Share: I do, except that I think all times are turbulent—it’s just that they’re turbulent in different ways, and for different people. Poets are always swirling around in the maelstrom, whenever there is one, and in a way we know there always is one. Take everything going on, for just one example, in Syria. Poets have been writing about that forever. And our problems in this country, long before they entered the debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton—the poets were writing about what goes on in Flint, and in Detroit. A poem we published a couple of years ago, Jamaal May’s “There Are Birds Here,” was saying that what the media show us is often the bad side of something, but poets are here to say, “There’s beauty here, there’s life here, there’s brightness, redemption, love for the landscape here—there’s potential here.”
Garber: Are there any other particular poems that seem especially relevant to you right now?
Share: The work of Danez Smith has been shared a lot in the past couple of days. And the work of Ocean Vuong. And of Javier Zamora: He’s writing about how his family, basically, traveled through a desert to get to this country, to get work, and to become citizens, and to become documented. But are there so many more poets. And they are all coming from many kinds of backgrounds, and in a way, they are the fabric of the country. And they’re being heard from. And that’s in part because they’re speaking to what’s going on right now—and they’re good at it.
Share: I think we should. It’s interesting that you have that feeling, as so many people do, because it actually applies to poetry. Because if we think about politics as its own realm, and assume that it doesn’t affect us—we’ll soon find out that we are mistaken. And poetry is like that, too. Obviously, for people who don’t spend a lot of time reading poetry, they might think of it as something that exists in a kind of corner of experience—and that’s okay; it’s natural. But the reality is that poetry isn’t “somewhere else.” That’s kind of why it exists. And poetry and politics are inevitable, yet strange, bedfellows. Because they’re both trying to address this basic human question: Why are things the way they are? Why aren’t they different? Why aren’t they better?
People who are poets are often very political; they’re often activists. We talk about political poetry as if it’s a kind of effusion about something going on, but the truth is, the heritage of poetry includes politicians. I mean, Yeats was a politician. Our greatest poets, really, have been active in what goes on in the world. And great or unknown, poets are participating in what makes a difference in the world. If you perceive that politics is a way of making a difference, and you engage in it, then you can get something done. And the same can be said of poetry.
Garber: I’ve been thinking a lot, in the past months, about the basic idea of empathy, and the way it factors into (and also, sometimes, has explicitly failed to factor into) the American political system. I figure I know the broad answer to this, but: What role do you think poetry can play when it comes to encouraging empathy?
Share: What poetry does is it puts us in touch with people who are different from ourselves—and it does so in a way that isn’t violent. It’s a way of listening. When you’re reading a poem, you’re listening to what someone else is thinking and feeling and saying. It’s not a debate, where somebody punches back at it. You have to think before you speak. You have to think before you write. You have to think while you’re reading. And poetry keeps the intensity and the passion of a point of view, but in a forum where people aren’t hurting each other. It says, “Here’s what it’s like from my point of view.” All you have to do is listen to the poet.
And, in that, you don’t have to be anything other than what you are. The poem is a catalyst where you’re bringing two different kinds of people together. And at its best, when it works, there’s a kind of spark, and everyone comes away illuminated by what the spark has ignited.
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Who decodes the angels’ wings, now crushed?
If you’d like to write a villanelle
Try simple rhyming verse to start you off
You need two lines that rhyme and scan as well.
I like Dylan Thomas Celtic’ soul
Do not go gentle, go out very rough
If you’d like to write a villanelle
What’s the topic, whose the need to tell?
Penetrating words like bullets rush
You need good lines that rhyme and scan as well.
In your writing, do the words compel?
You need to read, then haunt a burning bush
If you’d like to write a villanelle
Reading feeds you words that shape and mould
While songs fine music time will never crush
You need good lines that rhyme and scan as well.
Who can see the fire in god’s real love?
Who decode the angels’ wings, now crushed.
If you’d like to write a villanelle
You need two lines that rhyme and scan as well.
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Snow fell on the sea at Easter time.
It was snowing on the sea at Easter time
We climbed a hill and saw meadows aswirl
North East Norfolk’s never been the same.
We, astonished at the sight, did not complain
Across the sea, red fishing boats set sail
It was snowing on the sea at Easter time
The snow went but the cold and chill remained
We clung together on the bed of nails
North East Norfolk’s never hurt the same.
Of others, strangers, who will call our name,
As up the hills of life, we try to crawl?
Snow shared its cold love at Easter time.
Other years, we knew the sun and rain,
The hawthorn blossomed in the April gales
North East Norfolk welcomed us again
Life and love are like a vessel frail
The occupants emit their woeful wails
Snow fell on the sea at Easter time
North East Norfolk, history in flames.
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Stan and Mary peer through windows.
After dinner Mary and Stan often went for a longish walk.They liked to go to a road where the richer people of Britain lived.,where there were some Georgian houses and one Tudor house.
At dusk they would stroll by looking into the lighted windows to see how the rooms were decorated.And if the front garden was large sometimes they crept in to see more
One beautiful house they liked from the outside was spoiled for Mary by the garish tartan wall paper.
What sort of people would live there, she asked Emile who was in her handbag.with his head peeping out
Well,they have a cat called Percy,he mewed softly.
Why Percy?It is a noble name from the British past of course,she answered…
Earls of Percy were involved in affairs of state.
Well.Percy is Chinese,Emile said to her wittily.
He ought to be called Hu Ar U then,Mary joked ,or tried to as her sense of humor was somewhat lacking or maybe just odd.Still she looked lovely despite her moth eaten clothes bought in Sales in colors nobody else wanted like purple and lilac and bottle green.
She and Stan crept slowly up the garden path and peered nervously into the empty sitting room trying to identify the paintings on the walls.
All of a sudden, a woman who was completely naked came into the room and lay modishly on a sofa as if she were a trained dancer.She was a sight for sore male eyes.
Are they about to have a drawing class,Stan whispered.
She must be a model for a Life Class or an abstract woman ,with cat ,if Percy gets into the frame,Mary mused
Percy might scratch her then.Stan muttered.She could scream.
Suddenly a loud voice was booming at them.
What the hell are you doing in my garden?
There stood a big man in plus fours and and an oversized red jumper with matching cheeks
We were admiring your wall paper,Mary said.I think it is very unusual.
He smiled in gratification.
I chose it,he cried.All by my self.
But why is there a nude lady on the sofa,Stan enquired.
I am so annoyed, the man told them.My fiancee likes to walk around nude but she forgets to draw the curtains first.
Does she want to make an exhibition of herself,Stan enquired hopefully.
We wondered if it was for a life class, you know,students learning to draw and become artists of note.
Well,that’s a good idea said Arthur thoughtfully.
The woman got up and came over.She opened the wondow.To their astonishment she was Annie,their neighbour and Stan’s mistress too.Stan might have known but he had kept his face immobile after years of practise.
Fancy seeing you here,Annie whispered creatively in her sweet little voice
I am trying to seduce Arthur but with no success so far except a marriage proposal.
You need to be more discreet and indirect, said Stan.
If you act like this he will think you are an artist’s model and likely to be featured in the Tate Modern Annual Show of Infamy .Now, would a man like this marry or even sleep with such a woman as you appear to be walking around like Eve before she ate the apple?
I don’t know said Annie but my clothes are all in the tumble dryer,anyhow.
Did you wet yourself? Mary asked her kindly.It’s nothing to be ashamed of.We all do it now and then especially since public conveniences were shut down across the UK.And now ,even coats are machine washable.
Well,I knocked over some lemon barley water in a big jug and so I decided to wash all my clothes. while I was here as Arthur as a tumble dryer
That’s a very strange tale Arthur told her.You look ravishing hanging out of the window with your nipples pointing up.Let me take a photo of
you.Say,Cheese
But will you put it on Twitter,Annie asked anxiously.
No,dear.I am not so cruel.Why don’t you get your clothes and make us all some tea .
I can’t make tea,she yelled and without pausing she dialled 999.
What is it Fire or Ambulance the lady receptionist asked politely?
It’s a kettle.
Is it on fire?
No ,it won’t boil.Can you send Dave the paramedic,please, as he makes good
please, as he makes good tea.
We are quite busy so it may be two hours or more she was told.
I thought this was an emergency service, Annie said.
But who defines what an emergency is? the lady asked her philosophically.
I will die without this tea, Annie informed her in a ringing tone
Ok , hang up and I will send the ambulance now.
Arthur seemed a little surprised
I have private medical insurance,he cried.But they don’t make tea not even for old people.
Well,in the UK tea has always been essential to the National Health
But it will soon be drying up and we shall get flasks from the dustmen on Sundays instead.
I just don’t believe it, Arthur said and he then passed out on the rug which stood in front of a bookcase full of leather bound volumes of poetry.
Will he live?Read more tomorrow and pay the price… a few minutes of fun and gaiety.
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Dance me to the end of love
Leonard Cohen said he was moved to write this when he learned of the orchestra in Auschwitz.
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I’m gonna be an engineer
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Make sure to contract me daily.
He pointed his astute camera at me
I have a contact camera, it’s a phone too.
My camera is so big, I have to press the button with my foot.
Meanwhile, Rocky has a fidgety camera.He can’t keep it still for life.
Don’t shoot without warning.Pointing is illegal.By order.
I can put my camera in my locket.That’s a woman’s privilege.
Don’t plug me into your pocket.I have a personal charger in training.
I made some good lead.Well, that was how it felt after I baked it.
Remember to keep wholly on the Sabbath.Sleep the rest of the week
Fasting is cheap till you die.Make sure you don’t grow in a pauper’s grave.
Make sure to contract me daily.
Do phone me gayly.
I love people to fits.
Don’t keep wringing me every hour.
The dog won’t baulk at anything
The cat is laissez affaire.
Well,it said it was an unpacked camera but it’s galling in creases.
I do like to sing as I flirt.
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In the kitchen with Stan
Stan had decided to do a some of baking.
The larder was empty
the cupboard was bare
he looked in the cake tin
but nut nothing was there.Sorry about that!
Stan had flour, eggs and sugar and of course milk and butter.Emile was under the table waiting for something to drip out of the bowl!He loved baking days.
Stan had bought a load of blackberries in the market so he was thinking of blackberry tarts, blackberry crumble.
He picked up the bag which seemed very heavy.Putting his hand in …..he pulled out a Blackberry!He went to the market
to buy me some fruit
and now he’s got Blackberries
he’s going to shoot!Annie his next door neighbour was coming to the back door.”What’s up , Petal?”
“Oh, dear.I seem to have made a category error.”Stan answered philosophically.”Well what category would you put me into?” she asked petulantly.
“Why are you so egocentric? Not everything is about you!”He said fluently.
“Well if I’m narcissistic it’s because my infant grandiosity was ruptured too suddenly and I was not held and contained in a suitable manner.”
“You’ve been reading that Wilfred Bion again.” Stan said admiringly.
”No , not just him.It’s some American chap as well.Would you like to read it?”
“No, thanks, I’m finding Julia Segal is more than enough for me.I find Bion is a bit too mystical.I don’t think I can approach you without memory or desire.To be honest, without memory or desire I wouldn’t want to approach you.”
“Wow, ” she said stupidly, her large green eyes staring avidly at him inviting him to fall into their salty sea like depths.
“Shall I ring 999?I can’t think of anything to say.I’m lost for words.”
“Perhaps you have reached that mystical spot beneath language mostly only known to babies, the mad, or meditators?
I do feel a bit mad today
“Is that why you have purple and orange eyeshadow on clashing with your alarazin crimson lipstick and your light beige, but not too light, foundation by Lancome of Brixton and Blackheath,Paris,Rome, and London?”
“I suppose so.” she replied indifferently.I feel as if I’m behind a glass wall.”
“Oh, don’t worry.That’s the new window!” Stan explained courteously.”You really are behind a glass wall.”
“You’ve been reading schizoid processes again on Yahoo,”
“Yes,” she admitted her face blushing violently.”It’s those new people who’ve moved in across the road.They are both psychoanalysts so I wanted to feel up to their level of knowledge.”
“I didn’t know they were psychoanalysts.How did you find out?”
“Well, first of all, there were two large sofas, and then hundreds of knitting needles and a lorryful of wool.And I thought, ”Hello,Hello,It must be one of Anna Freud‘s followers.”
“So have you met them?” he asked laconically?
“Yes”, she confessed animatedly.I went over and said,
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
“And what did he say?”
“Are you all mad round here?”
“So I thought,”You’re not getting hold of me that easily.””
“ I said “I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m am an admirer of Melanie Klein,”
“Oh, how did they react to that?”Stan quizzed her jovially.
“He was so rude.He said,”Are you telling me you’re a lesbian as well as a lunatic?”
“Oh, dear.No wonder your makeup is all running off your face and disappearing down your cleavage.Why don’t you pop upstairs and have a bath?”
“Well it’s either that or ringing 999“
“My self is totally divided.”
“Into equal parts?”
“I can’t say” she murmured.
”Oh,well” said Stan “you sit there with Emile and I shall make a Victoria sponge and a lemon drizzle cake without the lemon…I’ve only got bananas and they don’t drizzle.
“Why not adapt to reality and make a banana loaf?”
“Is that wise?” Stan inquired.
”Wise or not, it seems to make sense.” she whispered coyly.”Get a move on or Mary will be back on her Raleigh shopper bicycle and there’ll be no cake for tea.”Thank you, honey.”Stan replied.“I am filled with memory and desire.”
”And quite right too,”mioawed Emile from his basket.”I’m like that every night!””And so are all of us, ”Annie twittered on one of Stan’s blackberries.
Oh,yes.
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No wind to destroy peace nor rain to flood
A mood of stillness like a nesting dove
A lack of wind, vast silence gives repose
Symbolises blessings from above.
These trees mature now form a holy grove
The sorrow ruling me has been deposed
To give me stillness with the nesting dove
In such moods, there’s space to think, compose.
To learn the ways of energy and love
Symbolised by blessings from above.
In the crowded Mall, some shoppers shove
The special mood of peace then us eludes
We lose the sense of silence and the dove
In public life, we quarrel and oppose
We lose the way to our loved treasure trove
We lose the symbols and the deep repose.
Give me your hand.without its heavy glove
As we caress, to love we do allude.
A mood so stilled, oh, fluttering of the dove
No wind to destroy peace nor rain to flood
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About Wordsworth
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryplace/thepreluderev2.shtml
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Wordsworth and The Prelude
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryplace/thepreluderev2.shtml
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To bring proportion to our doubts
Inside my heart, this sacred place
Where freely mingle truth and grace
Where friends and enemies alike
Are viewed as equals for love’s sake
Inhabited by deeper self
In touch with all that in me dwells
I leave my failures gladly here
I will not live in morbid fear
I don’t insult the force divine
By pride in any good that’s mine
For willpower cannot birth virtue
But can attend to the eye’s view
By trusting in the vast unknown
We turn attention from the known.
Our eyes relax and gaze without
To bring proportion to our doubts
Trust, itself. will widen gaze
And enable us to find our ways.
With terror, fear or loss of pride
Constriction comes to human eyes.
Perception is the highest good
By what we see, we choose our road.
The blind rush like the swine to hell
In patient, watchfulness let’s dwell.
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“Look on my works, ye mighty and despair.” I looked and there was nothing there.
Pride isolates us from our human friends
The dignity is false , we’re stiff with shame
It makes us lonesome when we cannot bend
We all come to nothing in the end
As poets wrote of kings from long lost times
Pride isolates us from potential friends
Everyone has feelings they must tend
Pluck the weeds, be by flowers beguiled
We are lonesome when we cannot bend
Be not ashamed when you’re at your wits end
These seas have been explored by other minds
Pride isolates us from aspiring friends
If Darwin’s right from apes we all descend
And apes do not drop bombs on their own kind
We are tortured for we cannot mend
Poetry will change us with its rhythmic lines
We can dance our lost ones from their chains
Pride isolates us from our human friends
If you’re lonely,come now,try again!
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Sinead O’Connor
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Undo souls
The villanelle is like a song in form
Though it is no music but its own
Its repeated lines will make us calm
Singing is for many souls a balm
When their sorrows overwhelm the soul
The villanelle is like a song in form
Yet some writing can do all wicked harm
Mein Kampf is such and it is not the sole
Though soft repeated lines will make us calm
Some write lies ; they anguish,even maim
The hearts and souls of those who are disowned
The villanelle could be a curse in form
If we always find some other is to blame
Our hearts will freeze and splinter our deep soul
Soft repeated lines might make us calm
Some seek ruin like the poor seek gold
Others are hospitable to all
The villanelle is like a song in form
The singer makes its affect undo souls
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No satire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire
No satire can do justice do our state
Where rich folk ridicule the very poor
And seem oblivious to their dreadful fate.
Satire needs some space to tolerate
A second look at what is happening here.
No satire can do justice do our state.
Now comes the hour yet now the man is late
Now sink the homeless into death’s deep fear.
The government of today degenerates
Where is the opposition to negate?
Where the observers who alone make clear
The rules by which the powerful demonstrate?
They call it chance or destiny or fate
Hoping we will think from God it emanates
Satire might do justice do that state.
The hill of shame exists and will endure
Its watchers are increasing by the hour
No satire can do justice to that state
We seem unmindful of our lack of taste
Faith?
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Mary’s feet
Mary was sitting at her table reading a piece in the Guardian Family section When she had finished the sad interview with a woman whose son had shot dead 5 children in a school, she tried to get up but the decorative buttons on her shoes had become entangled and her feet were tied together.
What shall I do? she asked herself nervously.Very soon the answer came.. to slip her shoes off and then pick the linked pair up.
How stupid it is, she told herself, to make crossing one’s ankles so dangerous.But with her brilliant yet agitated mind, she had solved the problem and not died at her laptop.Perhaps, in that case, nobody would have realised her shoes had caused her death, implemented by her stupidity at not recalling she could take them off!
She went into the kitchen where Emile had knocked over the pedal bin to get a piece of chicken left over from dinner.He had also got a large ball of rough twine and knocked it round the room creating a big tangled mess.
Just wait till Stan comes back, she told the wicked cat.You know quite well the bin is out of bounds.Look at the floor!The doctor will blame me for this mess.How will the doctor know? asked Emile politely.
Well,it’s just he seems to be around quite a lot nowadays.I think he liked my Earl Grey Tea.Or else he is anxious about me.He thinks I am too thin…
Is he planning to hug you, asked the little black cat.
Oh, no.He can’t do that.I believe it is forbidden by the Zippocratic Code even though my blood pressure falls if he holds my hand.
I’d have thought it might rise ,mewed the naughty animal.
Now then , Emile.I am beyond caring about men.Or women.I have no desire for desire if you understand me.
I don’t understand , cried Emile, because cats never lose their desire!
Well,one thing I know for sure, I am not a cat, Mary informed him.I am a human being.
Well, may I sit on your lap said the cat.
Mary sat by the window watching the trees sway against the grey mauve sky.Emile rubbed against her bosom as if expecting milk to flow.
Stop that Emile. she shouted.I am getting aroused.And you are no use to me in that way.You are getting beyond the boundary of taste.
Maybe it’s good for your circulation, the cheeky animal whispered.
Anyway I am stuck.Your necklace has hooked onto my collar.
Oh, my Lord said Mary.Don’t say you will be hanging around my neck forever.What shall we do now?
There are a few possible answers,Emile said.
1.Take off your necklace
What and leave you dragging it round the garden.I’ll have you know it cost 15 and six,Mary said mournfully
Was that before decimalisation or is it some other mathematical model? Emile said noisily.
2.Undo my collar and take it off me then we can try to separate them.
3.We could lie on the bed and gaze into each other’s eyes all day, he finished.Unless you need the bathroom.I am happy
Well, charming thought that sounds I am not willing, Mary shouted foolishly.She tore off the necklace and by some miracle, it came away from the collar and freed Emile who was not totally happy with this quick release
So you are not in love with me, he yelped like a small but jealous god.
Well, I do love you, sweetheart. But I am not expecting marriage.In any case you would have to be transgender first and I don’t recommend it
How about trans-species ? he murmured seductively.
Even the most demanding folk in Britain have not yet requested to be made into cats, she told him half consciously.
Emile began to cry softly
Whatever’s wrong ,dearest, she asked him mindfully.
I was hoping you could become a cat like me, Emile said in his Cockney accent which had picked up from the TV.
That is very sweet, dear but how would we pay the Council Tax and get books from the Library?
We would go to the old greenwood and live the life of freedom,he said.
Well, you are used to it, said Mary, but I like to think about Wittgenstein.I wonder if he’d like to be a cat if he were not dead.Would Sylvia Plath have been happier as a cat? We shall never know.But it could have helped her a great deal if Ted were just a randy tom.
Thus Mary , lounging in her red chair, fell fast asleep in her warm blue woolly dress with Emile on the dining table beside her eating some Wensleydale cheese she had forgotten to put away.
Mm, very nice Emile mewed.I hope the people in Wensleydale have made some more.
And so say all of us.
For it’s a jolly good seller.
So say all of us.
