Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

Please wear a cat when out of doors.

the-river-in-colour-2P

Please wear a frown in bed,especially when harried for more than ten years.
Please keep your head bevelled..
Please keep your stare on all night and every right.
Please have clean sex everyday, especially on Sundays.
Please change your underwear gaily.
Please wash your aunts every night especially in summer time.
Please feed the sprat on schedule.
Please take your anti-riot pills handy and do finish the coarse and smooth out the mirrors
Please keep your cuneiform safe and bound.
Please wear a cat when out of doors.After all Jesus  liked a miaow
Please take your hand out of my biscuit box.
Please carry your loves in winter.
Please take your trews off before entering.
Please be a delight at all times.
Please play chess alone as you are too clever for birds
Please do not let your no’s glow.
Please remember you are not abreast.
Please nip envy in the blood.
Please use your body as I would.
Please do not get into a double bind unless over the age of consent.
Ferried couples can have twin leads

We’re just a pair of porcupines

We’re just a pair of porcupines who  want  to get more close
But  when we do we get a wound made up of tiny nicks
You caught your spikey walking boots on my new blue  hose
I kissed you on  your bristly beard and got ten thousand pricks.

We separated and returned because our love is fine
We slept apart,we shared  a  bed ,we hoped to share our hearts
We ate our breakfast separately but combined  when we  dined
I longed to give my  heart to you,but you  would soon depart

You like to have your sacred space inviolate and calm
I like my own space as well, for I feel like you feel
We  might have found a proper home  where we could settle down
But then you said you hated me for you felt quite unreal

You went up to  the arctic  to find a  better zone
Then emailed me and asked me up ; admired me with  wild zeal
I couldn’t afford the airline price so you came rushing home
For you said a porcupine’s  more loving  than  a seal

Some days you found me beautiful,some days you found me wise
I backed off with  an over-whelm,for you could tantalise.
I ran away to   Italy and found a Latin  man
Maybe you can do the same ; catch me if you can!

BT email

 

 

img_0042I have been having problems with BT Yahoo Mail.Like I can change my password which I did,but cannot read the mail.I also had to install a new printer.It even has an email address.I printed a photo of some trees in black and white which came out superbly.But all these things take up a great deal of the day and my mind is not into writing poetry then.But I posted two poems I like from  the website Writer’s Cafe

Keeping a diary is good for you

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/feb/15/psychology-usa

“Those who wrote about an emotional experience showed more activity in part of the brain called the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which in turn dampened down neural activity linked to strong emotional feelings.

Men seemed to benefit from writing about their feelings more than women, and writing by hand had a bigger effect than typing, Dr Lieberman said.

“Men tend to show greater benefits and that is a bit counterintuitive. But the reason might be that women more freely put their feelings into words, so this is less of a novel experience for them. For men it’s more of a novelty,” Lieberman said.

The study showed that writing about emotions in an abstract sense was more calming than describing them in vivid language, which could make people feel more upset by reactivating their original feelings.”

 

 

“Too Much Yappin'” A Poem by barleygirl

Too Much Yappin'conversation is overrated . . .

 

 Used to be a young whippersnapper

rarely inclined to zip my yapper.
Nowadays I don’t have much to say
a random poem on a lucid day.

With millions competing to be heard
nobody gets in an edgewise word.
Half the time everybody’s yellin’
nobody hearin’ what anybody’s tellin’.

That’s why I’m livin’ way off the grid
keepin’ it simple, keepin’ things hid.
Not a damn thing for me to eschew
just me and my fur girls anyhoo.

Always ready to deal with dangers
but ain’t no dealing with some strangers
that happens to be the country way
so scram if you got too much to say.

Genuine Solitude by Ted Kniffen

Genuine Solitude

A Poem by Ted Kniffen

 

http://www.writerscafe.org/Tedk1946

 

 

sunset_sea_beach_221767 

Genuine solitude

is little more than the sound

of gulls and the sea.

 

When the wind’s restless razor

slashes the mist draping the dunes,

and crabs in their peculiar dance

scuttle through the Wax Myrtle,

then here, the sigh of the storm

muffles the scream of lost ships.

 

Which of these,

whose bleached ribs poke from the sand,

met her fate in the grotesque

grasp of typhoon;

and which perished beneath

the white moon on calm tide?

 

True isolation remains

the moan of wind through dusty bones

and the shriek of gray birds

from tall cliffs.

 

From these calm harbours,

the weathered homes of lost seamen

echo the wails of new widows;

on a night when a highway

is paved by moonlight

on the face of the sea.

The last rose of summer

Trees with pale trunks
A chair of driftwood
Late flowers in sun
Smiling sister
Coffee
Roses
A hum of traffic
Narrow country lanes edged close by sspread out roots  of large trees
Rabbits playing
Getting lost in a garden
How nice to give up control.
Sunshine and talk
Hugs meant. not just a formality
Sister driving me home
Took my old printer
Goodbye for now
Autumn equinox

Piscis saltantem


Piscis saltantem cum dilucidis frills.
Flandered ego solus ut nix blose
Quod sleats in excelsis per inaccessos, et biles,
Vidi in omnibus Seance cuculla
In Spiritu Sancto, et hilden waffotills;
Detide in blke, Coneath pulices,
Et murmur pluttering in zophorum
Conpenfed septati, ad plana sextarium
Et in swondleon mockiray,
Et nunquam aciem lapidem in briched
Per gargins texebant quasi radius:
Maxilla mihi mille decem et ruo,
Wessing eorum in shads Golightly spance.
Daves planced inuicem in eis; sed Loy
Et dixit: parkling in aequore Schlee
A paite non glay TURBAMENTUM
In juce a fecunda timpanee:
Glaced- glaced- et ego modicum ploat
Migale quod placitum clight nealthy crabrones:
Poft enim, cum ego in meo Louch Wight
In racant extensivo vel in aqua,
Et fulgura super drat innard plie
Efflantes in Blass de molotude;
Et tunc accincti quietem branchiis,
Piscis saltantem cum daffofrills

To torment butter with sharp knives was fine

 
So you  have  phoned who once designed my  glove
For that  opera conjured  and  refined
For in your glee you wrote a song of love
To torment butter with   sharp knives  was fine
Amused by  friendship with  your  friendly crooks
You did not understand that skin  couls feel
Yet imitation grew  the more you looked
You threw  Arabian raisins  at  bike wheels.
With me,  your love, then you began to mate
If not ideal , then tolerable, I  agree.
And then you  liked  a nymph   to  mediate
Our child was born  by whim of God’s mercy.
So fine, mature ,yet born indecently.
Thank God, Augustine Hippo  could not see.
St Augustine thought original sin occurred because a baby touched that evil place, the vagina,during birth and was contaminated.Feminism,where art thou?

Different points of view

 

The old red wall is dressed in stems of wood

In wintertime, we see the ancient bricks.

But in the springtime come the flower buds.

We see no more of  frost and  slippery  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

For reality is impossible to know.

Each perspective gives a vision new.

The more we see ,the more we realise.

Other cultures have a different view.

Argument is futile and unwise.

As when and where we stand gives us our view.

I shall perceive differently from you

Mary hears a strange noise

 

donald-winnicott

Western fashion

 

Mary heard a  very strange sound as she came  delicately down the newly  polished  carpeted stairs of her bijou  detached home with its soft  blue  cosy furniture and deep  navy blue  thick pile wool  carpets.It was a loud two-part shriek, that was intermittent and so more irritating to a lady’s  delicate  ear
I wonder if that’s the new answ ering machine, she thought  to herself as she went to put the kettle on to make a few  more pints of tea.She heard it again,but it was not continuous.
Well, it’s not the carbon monoxide detector either,she told Emile who was eating a sardine.Then she remembered hearing it before.
It’s the old phone handset with a flat battery,she murmured as she suddenly began to  wash her hair in the kitchen sink with some Persil Silk and Wool detergent.
Annie came to the side  door
What’s that strangely disturbing  beep ?she cried.And why are you washing your hair here,not in the bathroom?
See if you can spot the phone.I can’t find it,Mary told her.I wash my hair sometimes just to clear my brain besides my hair is so limp it needs it especially when we get a truly hot summer
Well,why not keep some  real shampoo here or that new wash and condition in one  bottle as you  really need it; Oh,gosh,I have found the phone.It was  in the waste paper basket!But you can’t put it in the  ordinary rubbish bin,can you?
Well ,I could but it’s illegal.I will have to pay £20 for a cab to the recycling centre,Mary said philosophically.
I’d better not leave it “by accident” on a bench  in the Mall given the current climate of fear and Brexit hatred
Well if we remove the batteries it won’t shriek anymore,Annie told her kindly.
How is the new phone doing ?Is it good? she rambled on  guilelessly like an old lady  with a lonely life
OK.It has a special button  on the front so you can block someone after you have picked it up.There is some much fear now about WITHELD NUMBERS.At one time we only knew after we picked it up.If I use my phablet my sister hates it.Mary disclosed.She refused to have more than 2 numbers for me so it comes up as UNKNOWN
What is a phablet? Annie enquired sardonically,her little soft  eyes crinkling with laughter which showed off  her turquoise and orange  eye shadow    made from  pastel sticks from her art box!
It’s just a small tablet but you can make phone calls with it.Andi f it gets lost you can phone it!!
I didn’t know you had one of those!
Neither did Stan,Mary said with a touch of sadness.I only wish we could phone heaven from earth.
Wow,said Annie.Maybe it would spoil heaven for them
How true, her friend responded thoughtfully
.Let’s hope they have some attitude that   makes them  have a different point of view from us. Now,I’ll dry my hair and you can tell me why you came.
Oh,dear,said Annie.Let me drink some tea.I can’t remember except that  your wisteria has climbed up my rowan tree.
Was it shopping? Was it Dave?Let’s ring 999 and see what he has to say.
We’re all gray here,no fuss
We’ll all go play with puss,Emile,Emile

I ache to know what special meal she loved

 Apologies to SIR THOMAS WYATT
Pray, please, for me, you  who my cooker  broke
With faked food,  hot frying in my chamber.
I have seen them griddle, flame, and leak
That now are  cold and do a  lamb dismember
Sometime they broiled  their food  inside my Aga
And  flake bread  on my hand; where now they graze;
Busily baking  buns with   their  new range
Blanked by government  fools so  very wise
Twenty more times cooked on ribboned  lace
On  these thin oven trays we twinkled  spies.
When her apron from her neck did fall,
She  caught  a fish   for me in her arms thrall;
Therewithall  while sweetly  we drank Kirsch
She softly asked, “How do you  like your fish?”
It was no dream: my  bread was    duly baking.
But all is  bleak now ,as I ‘m  cookerless
Entering   strange new future of non- creating
 Yet I have  this sweet yeast to raise  and bless
And she  promises to use  fat cookery books much less
But since that I so kindly am  now served
I ache to know what special meals she loved

Fish dancing with their lucid frills.

I flindered lobely as a  blouse
That sleats on high o’er biles and phrills,
When at a seance I saw a fowl
The ghost, of hilden waffotills;
Depide the blike, Coneath the blees,
Pluttering and strancing in the  frieze

Conpentred as the  hores flat pont
And swondleon the mokiway,
They  briched in never-blinding stine
Along the gargins wovt a rey:
Ten thousand jaw I ater a  flounce,
Wessing their shads in glightly spance.

The Daves deside them panced but loy
Out-did the sparkling waves in schlee
A waite could not clutt ie glay
In juch a fezund  timpanee:
I glazed- and jazed- but little ploat
What  gealthy wasps shrew  thlee  had cloght:

For poft, when on my louch I suy
In racane or in rensive slood,
They flush upon that innard plie
Rich is the blass of molotude;
And then my gwart with  leisured gills:
Fish dancing with the daffofrills.

A first attempt at nonsense

It was porrey to philow in the phlark
Meotonic  bears flancing young starks
Net the grambles and critches
Met cyre’s in the flitches
Who thries when they wiven the pharks

The lidle was not in the hace
The ovington bired the ild flice
Bat wren it was fyte
To lardin in lyte
We doddled the ciryient mace

Easy ways to write a sonnet

DanewayLgeBlue2016http://classroom.synonym.com/easy-short-steps-write-sonnet-poem-1660.html

 

Extract

Shakespearean Sonnet

The Shakespearean sonnet is the easiest sonnet to write. It consists of three quatrains and a couplet. The first stanza has the rhyme scheme of “a-b-a-b,” while the rhyme scheme for second stanza is “c-d-c-d.” The third stanza’s rhyme scheme is “e-f-e-f,” and for the couplet, it is “g-g.”

About the Author

 

How to write a jabberwocky style poem

http://classroom.synonym.com/write-jabberwockystyle-poem-3395.html

 

In addition to being an author, Charles Dodgson was a talented logician and mathematician.

In addition to being an author, Charles Dodgson was a talented logician and mathematician.

“Jabberwocky” is a poem written by Lewis Carroll, also known by his birth name, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. It was first published in the pages of “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There,” Carroll’s 1872 sequel to his 1865 bestseller “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” In the novel, Alice, likely dreaming, happens upon a book that can be read only when held to the surface of a mirror. Within is “Jabberwocky,” one of the most famous examples of nonsense verse ever written.

The Crocodile – Poem by Lewis Carroll

funLewis Carroll (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898 / Cheshire)Share on Twitter

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

 

So you are gone

So you are gone  who once declared your love
For that phantasm conjured in your mind
For onto me you brought down from above
A torment bitter and   sharp words unkind
.Used to  friendship from within your books
You did not understand that I was real
Irritation grew  the more you looked
You threw your poisoned  arrows  at my heel.
What once you loved then you began to hate
If not ideal ,intolerable I must be
And then you cursed me with this  sorry fate
Our child was born and him you’ll never see.
Premature and born in desert grey.
I carried him alone from death’s dark way.

The Fall spread across the world

When you struck me,I vibrated like a kettle drum
then as smaller percussions and repercussions
echoing from all the glassy surfaces
creating a balletic geometry of sound tracks
in space and time.

When you knocked me down,
I fell against her and her and her;
we were like a row of skittles
and we all went down with the lifeboat;
the infinite chain of being is.

When you hit me,the Fall spread across the world
Now there is no Vertical
All is undivine and graceless.
By the Rod it’s ruled

When you left me,I left myself,the world,the rocks,dry land
I weighed down sank to the ocean bed
with coral eyes
gazing.

When you struck my mind
I became an instrument of a foreign power
Singing a song I didn’t kmow.

When the glass was smashed
the splinters flew into all our hearts.
You didn’t know what we couldn’t see.

I lay on barren ground and gave birth
To my own Creator in the desert.

Focus is sharp when we hunt.

When a  child’s born ,she usually cries

As the stimulation of birth  has its price.

Yet we must leave mother’s womb

Then create  a cocoon

Where our psyche a world may devize.

 

Metaphors spring up like  spring flowers.

Similes enchant by the hour.

How rich our own minds  may be

When we perceive all we see.

For relaxed eyes  don’t  enjoy being  narrowed.

 

Focus is sharp when we hunt.

Yet maintained it can too often stunt.

We need a  broad view,

As the owls always knew.

If only we saw back and front!

Use politeness instead of fear.

This is based partly on something I read years ago and partly on my own experience

Image

Relate to a painful emotion with curiosity,interest,acceptance or politeness instead of fear.

And do the same with people….

Because fear tightens us up and lessens our ability to perceive.And perception is  crucial in decision and judgment.Change your perceptions and you change yourself without force.Will power is force which often cannot achieve our longed for wishes and hopes.Snow will melt and fires will go out.But Wisdom is always here for those who can see

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Related articles

Can you say “I was wrong”?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_J._Harris
 Sydney Harris often used aphorisms in his writings, such as this excerpt from Pieces of Eight (1982):

“Superior people are only those who let it be discovered by others; the need to make it evident forfeits the very virtue they aspire to

 IMG_0053.JPG

The owl can see with wide and narrow view

The owl can see with wide and narrow view
Focuses that poets and artists 
The broad sweep on the canvas makes a 
Where details and designs can have their space.

What God endowed the owl with such excess;
And all her progeny to enjoy bliss?
Is evolution but a narrow miss?
What  exquisite accident  made this?

Eagles,hawks and owls must kill to eat.
No blandishments nor kindness make them sweet.
What God could make an Eden this deceit;
Where lambs are snatched up while their mothers bleat

So God himself destroys to fill his leisure;
Such fearsome revelations show his measure.

SPINSTER by Sylvia Plath

 

Now this particular girl
During a ceremonious April walk
With her latest suitor
Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck
By the birds irregular babel
And the leaves’ litter.

By this tumult afflicted, she
Observed her lover’s gestures unbalance the air,
Her gait stray uneven
Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower.
She judged petals in disarray,
The whole season, sloven.

How she longed for winter then! —
Scrupulously austere in its order
Of white and black
Ice and rock, each sentiment in border,
And heart’s frosty discipline
Exact as a snowflake.

But here — a burgeoning
Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits
Into vulgar motley —
A treason not to be borne. Let idiots
Reel giddy in bedlam spring:
She withdrew neatly.

And round her house she set
Such a barricade of barb and check
Against mutinous weather
As no mere insurgent man could hope to break
With curse, fist, threat
Or love, eithe

Butterflies can light upon a rose

Butterflies and the clock

Butterflies can light upon a rose
And sparrows miss the prickly holly leaf
So thorns deter most larger, useless foes
Bring safety to small birds instead of grief

The butterfly is symbol of the power
That weakness has in entering Sacred ground.
A butterfly can fly through hail stormed bowers
Their wings send waves across the world by sound.

A cat too has its claws as well as fur
Yet cats do have a a modicum of choice.
For those of us for whom they have a care
Claws are held ; miaows or purrs are voiced.

Am I a holly tree or fragrant rose?
Am I the cat who may unsheath her claws?

Two simple habits of writers who succeed

 

 

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The two painfully-simple habits of highly-successful writers

 

 

Writers also love wandering. “My springboard has always been long walks,” said Thornton Wilder, playwright and author of Our Town. William Wordsworth mythologized walks through the English countryside,

 

Different points of view

IMG_0074 The old red wall is dressed in stems of wood

In wintertime, we see the ancient bricks.
But in the springtime come the flower buds.
And 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.
Is there any virtue in that task
For reality’s impossible to know.

Each perspective gives a vision new.
The more we see ,the more we realise.
Other cultures have a different view.
Argument is futile and unwise.

As when and where we stand gives us our view.
I  must perceive quite differently from you