Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

Who thinks of death as weakness, is a liar

The sun sinks but it burns like a  great fire;
All the sky’s aflame with  fierce intent;
Who thinks of death as weakness, is a liar
Before the end  our glory must be spent.

The  graphics of the branches look Chinese
As  blackened brush is drawn across red silk
Infinite yet countable  my days
Running like a river without silt

Thus I am not transcendent in myself
But joined to all that lives I feel I am.
So in conjunction we will find our health
Ambivalence contains both lion and lamb.

The fire of  orange leaves me with a glow
As into night I with all creatures go

Imperceptibly like this we too will change

The sky is bright and yet behind  black trees
The dark orange of evening   has begun
This sight is free to all  without a fee
Yet we must wisely  choose or blind become.

Soon,too soon the whole sky will be dark
Incremental changes come to fruit
And then it will be black without a spark
Except  for stars whose light we cannot loot.

Imperceptibly  like this we too will change
From glossy youth to hunched and weary crones
And yet  we must refuse to be deranged
As  all our body weakens from its bones

As long as we can see or touch or feel
Life is  worth the eating in this meal

This orange has a depth like a great sigh

My camera  fails to catch the orange sky
Through those maple trees beside the fence.
The orange has a  depth  like a great sigh
This makes my heart  feel turbulent and wrenched.

I want to capture  color so intense,
To graze on it when winter traps me in
Yet is   a photo with whatever lens
The way to store the colored light within?

Would struggling to mix colors of my own
Even if I failed to get the match
Ensure  I retain what this light  has shown
And one small painting equal camera’s batch?

The watercolor  mixing makes me look
At what I cannot see in any book

I’d sooner write a dirge for a sea shell.

If I wrote a villanelle  could readers tell?
We don’t need names to recognise   there’s form
I’ll write a  villanelle   and do it well

I’d sooner write a dirge for a sea shell.
The edges of the  sea shore   bring me calm
f I wrote a villanelle  could readers tell?

I’ll blow my trumpet and ring   a huge handbell.
My laughing eyes will bring to you much balm
I’ll write a  villanelle   and do it well

Please keep your counsel as in hermit’s cell
For false reports of doggerel  do  me harm
If I wrote a villanelle  would readers tell?

I’ve got as much appeal as little Nell!
What the  dickens happened to my charms?
I’ll write a  villanelle   and do it well

In a poem there’s  never need to yell.
No point in causing panic and alarm
If I wrote a villanelle  could readers tell?
I’ll write a  villanelle   and I’ll feel  swell

 

 

 

 

 

Twee.. what does it mean?

Bee collecting pollen
twee
twiː/
adjective

BRITISH
adjective: twee; comparative adjective: tweer; superlative adjective: tweest
  1. excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental.
    “although the film’s a bit twee, it’s watchable”
    synonyms: quaint, sweet, bijou, dainty, pretty, pretty-pretty;

    informalcute, cutesy
    “a town full of twee little shops”
    informalsoppy
    “the lyrics are stomach-churningly twee in places”
Origin
early 20th century: representing a child’s pronunciation of sweet.

Contemn and contempt

Contempt is derived from this
 contemn

The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins

  • Hopkins was a Jesuit and his training took place in St Asaph in Wales.He was much influenced by Welsh poetry and some of his innovatory techniques like sprung rhythym are thought to have come from that.

WINTER LOVE BIRD

To Christ our Lord
I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom
of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in
his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl
and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shèer plòd makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold vermilion.

 

Pied Beauty by G.M.Hopkins

 

Glory be to God for dappled things –
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                Praise him.

What is a spondee?

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/glossary-terms/detail/spondee

 

Spon·dee  from the Free Dictionary

(spŏn′dē′)

n.

A metrical foot consisting of two long or stressedsyllables.
[Middle English sponde, from Old French spondee, fromLatin spondēum, from neuter of spondēus, of libations,spondaic, from Greek spondeios, from spondē, libation(from its use in songs performed at libations); see spend-in Indo-European roots.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

If this be truth

No-one could have  told this state to me
Experience is needed which I lacked.
Just as the spider can’t live as a beee
A wife can’t  know of widowhood’s impact.

At first the pain is like a serious burn
Though stricken ,we must plan the funeral  rites
And, yes, that pain  does lessen in its time
Alas then other pains alight.

The grey confusion,  though it is not vile,
Makes one feel an isolation cold.
A puzzlement  of grief makes weakness  wild
And noone wants the story  to be told.

No longer human,I stare at the sky
If this be truth, then  where  is her ally?

Dactyl

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Dactyl
ˈdaktɪl/

noun

PROSODY
noun: dactyl; plural noun: dactyls
  1. a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables or (in Greek and Latin) one long syllable followed by two short syllables.
Origin
late Middle English: via Latin from Greek daktulos, literally ‘finger’ (the three bones of the finger corresponding to the three syllables).
http://phrontistery.info/index.html  

 
dactylioglyph engraver of rings or of gems
dactyliology study of rings
dactyliomancy divination by means of a finger
dactylogram fingerprint
dactylography the study of fingerprints
dactyloid like or resembling a finger
dactylology study of sign language
dactylomancy divination using rings
dactylomegaly condition of having abnormally large digits
dactylonomy counting using the fingers and toes
dactyloscopy comparing fingerprints for purpose of identification

So now I am buying two rabbits

 

 

IMG_0009I’ll have to declutter my bedroom
For I have found a new man
I can’t let him  discover
The cat’s prints on my bedcover
Or I’ll be back where I began.

The first man was very discourteous
He said  my ideas were  all sh*t
When I said please don’t say that
He struck me with a cricket bat
His eyes glowed as if they were lit.

The next one was almost  perfection
It’s just he  got drunk every night.
An addict with obsessions
About my possesions
Which I confess are a beautiful sight

The third one was  so good on the dance floor
He did it alone in the end
For with my poor vision
I brought down derision
And that was a very poor blend.

So now I am buying  two rabbits
In case this new man dislikes  me..
I’m unsure about mating
Do rabbits go dating?
Perhaps I’ll make do with a bee.

Yet with your eyes you made a final call

 

The pattern of your speech is in my ear
Although I do not hear  you speak  out loud
Shall I say ear or is it heart that bears
The form   that  made  your speech have its right sound?

Wherever in myself I find your trace
I long to keep it even when I grieve.
As though, because I do not see your face,
I never wish by sound to be deceived.

And at the end you did not speak at all
Like the baby  while inside its  nest.
Yet with your eyes you made a final call
As contented as a baby   joined to breast.

And so you went, but left your patterns here.
So with  fine prosody, I feel you near

God can’t NEED our worship

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A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell. C. S. Lewis
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/worship_2.html

 

If we knew a human being who demanded constant praise and admiration then we would think they were a bit odd..mayube children need it  and it’s nice to get a litttle but if God needed it all the time he’d be  a narcissist which is illogical with regard to God

We worship God because it’s  in our nature to worship and so we  need to worship someone  or something which is good.Otherwise we will worship the Queen new kitchens,copper pans, handsome men,lovely womem,loft conversions.expensive food…my calves,my eyes,my mind,your mind,arguing,war,sex,drugs etc,halogen cooking hobs, washing machines,

Better to worship trees if God is not your  cup of tea

And I believe many people feel being grateful for the beautiful world is good for us instead of complaining all the time.Gratitude and  making up quarrels is good for our spirit.I think it must be terrible for people who commit murder especially because even if they are sorry they can’t bring their victim back.In such a case  praying and meditating might help.Sadly most murders take place at home and it seems children are often victims.That is something I  don’t know enough about but povery and lack of work  for men seem factors..Husbands and wives always quarrel and it’s not beyond imagining we might pick up the bread knife and wave it about.
If I were God I’d  prefer people to try to get on with other people instead of worshipping me.In the past the idea we might go to Hell was meant to stop us doing bad things but I don’t think it worked as people in difficult situations lose control and now it is never mentioned.

What is most puzzling is why Christians like the Crusaders thought it was alright to murder  hundreds/thousands  of Jews and Moslems as they approached the so called Holy Land.You don’t have to be THAT  intelligent to see that  if God exists he made them as well  as us.So why would he want  us  to kill them?I don’t know whether on balance Christianity has done more harm than good.I fear it may be so….Jesus would be surprised if he saw the Vatican… he is surprised,he told me just now… why not sell it?Give the money to the poor… well,it’s there in the Bible.. the still,small,voice

Jeremiah,why are you here?

Dinner tonight

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Starters

Marmite jelly
Melon and nape salad
Avocado pair  in  shoot
Carrot and Roisin salad
Jew’s carp in olive oil and lemon dressing

Main

Farmer’s liver and peasants’  unions fried in dripping
Grief stew with Jersey rotators
Lamb crops with mushed rooms and potato flakes
Lasagne and chips with Efra’s  genes.
Vegetarian salted  and  foiled with butter with bacon
Nut and spider loaf with  green ballad
Chef’s hat stuffed with nuts and raisins in whiskey

Dessert

Cat mousse with whipped scream.
Lemon rice with bastard
Apple tart and gay harlot.
Volvo tyre in cream sauce
Chocolate iced cake  fried in  rum batter
Fresh fruit in belly with half cream ice to follow

I wrote this villanelle before I died

Could you write a poem if you tried?
It’s just a few black patterns on the page.
I  wrote this villanelle  before I died

Would you write free verse,  just on the side?
Or would the lack of form  make you enraged?
Could you write a poem if you tried?

Do you  know what manners like to hide?
Would you keep your black  dog in a cage?
I wrote this villanelle  before I died

Has your ink got all glued up and dried?
Does your handwriting  fit  on the page?
Could you write a poem if you tried?

Write all day and weep  when you decide
My cat and I have now become engaged
I wrote this villanelle  before I died

Do  not let the critics you deride
At the worst, you ‘ll start a brand new page
Could you write a poem if you tried?
I  wrote this villanelle  before I died

 

 

Don’t ask

She’s as easy  to hug as  it would be kissing a bee on my crown
Life’s not easy
when I  see ghosts smoking without ashtrays
I feel uneasy as  your pie made me queasy.
Poisoned by gum
Beat lead.Buy a  fountain pen today.Qouink!
He sits like a broomstick at a wedding for dummies
Shall we beat my cat… or hunt hares?Is cruelty good? Then ban hunting,for God’s sake.He made all creatures…if he exists
It’s  treat  to  see your gun;catch my swift driff?
Why not eat your own dog’s food and leave mine for me.It’s all I have since the cat  died.
Eight hundred men caught one gorilla which took a bus into town..Now he’s been given a free Mass in the cathedral.Sorry  a Free Bus Pass ex cathedra
Why no elephant in your room? Are you in need of brass monkeys?
Are you on  an imaginativre roller coaster?Join our club for the highly imaginative person
Now you must empathize with the wrong willed yet able to get the country off my knees.I am worn down by the dichotomies
I say, an empty flattery battery.How discharming
The cat ate my enchillado so I shall eat its mice on rice fried dinner…..take that!Sweet revenge
I said re your novel, Send over the end,not,Go round the bend!How can you work that way.. it’s real neat,you say.On your way
These friendless words are neglected so I shall eat them.Or shall I swallow the whole dictionary?
The agenda   fructifies  my daydreams into real works of art.. or cunning at worst.
Even a wild tomato finds a beefburger and fries good once in a while.
Keel over and I’ll snatch you up.I can’t wait.I love your dough so.Give me oil for my lamp keep me churning…. no more spurning

Tree under the new moon

Image

What  ceremonious geometry

Can describe the sympathy of the parts to the whole.

What self can contain the feelings engendered by

the response of the heartl of the tree

to the space and  light offered

and how the clouds float away on the wind

as I stand ,hand on my throat gazing

and the new moon points me out

Drinks available:Bottled hauteur.

Dandelion and Scared Duck
Nettle Fear
Hyena Tea
Sail on Tea
Trap Water.
Bottled hauteur.
Real Coughy
Lemon Darling’s Water.
Orange Rush
Fetish Beer
Risky on the Rocks
Brand me and saunter.
Tepid Wee
Rhyme Juice.
Appled Aid Her.
Steal Irish Finish

She loved her adverb more than me

P1000324

My wife has left me for an adverb.
I don’t know which one it is!
Is it slowly,quickly, nearly?
Life should not be like a quiz.

She told me that she “nearly” loved me,
When “dearly” was what I had hoped.
Life is full of lost illusions…
How do deserted people cope?

I think I should have kept it secret,
For now I sit and sadly grieve.
Do you think my wife is cruel?
What a strange excuse to leave!

Would she leave me for a pronoun?
Would she leave for a full stop?
Would I leave you for a quote mark?
Would I fall into a dot?

Come back,darling for I love you.
I have learned I must take care.
I will go for grammar lessons.
I am sure I can learn flair!

We can write a poem together,
You can choose the topic,dear.
I will hold my pen and write for
They say true love drives out fear.

Did I fear her? Did I love her?
Was she worthy of my heart?
Did she dislike my hairy nostrils?
Was that why we had to part?

Come back Mary,come back Mavis.
Come back Sunny, come back Sue
Without my wife I feel quite lonely.
What is a poor man to do?

I admit I was unfaithful.
God made men to procreate.
Yet I loved my wife the best…
And how I loved her homemade cake

Flowers for the numb

Cats nigh!
Foxes’ gloves
Damn,de lion!
But her cups?
Pull her podium
Car Nations united
Dream grass of home
Blue Belles are here
Pull her,go now’m?
Wild nasty hermans in my garden
Baying  tree.What next, singing fogs?
A lorn? Come live with me and be my love.And I will never mow [n] at all
Where were the Japanese in April? Acer,trace her but don’t deface her I bee see choo choo

The problems of sin when one’s partner has gone

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You know, I  think I want to go to church again and I must go to Confession before I go to Mass.But the trouble is that when you have no partner your opportunities for committing sins are greatly reduced.Especially if you don’t fo out much
You can’t have a row with them about what TV programme to watch or which  side of the bed you sleep on nor about whether they pull the duvet off you in the middle of the night.So you can’t blame them  when you feel tired.
You can’t get angry when they ask you to wash their  trousers again either or about them wearing a cashmere sweater in bed.Also you see less of their relatives and they were always good for producing sins like envy,rage,jealousy and so on.In fact their relatives change and become saintly so it’s even worse.I suppose that might make me sin.
It’s really hard,though, to commit a sin now so Iam wondering   if I should get  a partner purely for the purpose of becoming a sinner who can them be saved by the Sacrament of Confession.I always thought it was odd because if God exists he must know our sins.. i n fact  he might know more than we do.He must.
With that in mind ,I wonder about going into therapy as surely that would make  me aware of all the questionable things I have done.Which is better therapy or getting married? I suppose if I married a rich person they could pay for psychoanalysis for me but it would be a sin to marry purely for that reason.Is that Russell’s Paradox?
Or if I got 2 cats  I could be unkind to them and  not let them sleep on my bed.But I have to admit I cannot be unkind to cats.And I don’t like dogs in the house.Too much work.You might as well get married again as have a dog to care for.Although dogs don’t wear clothes and can’t shout and scream and demand sex at 3 am.Barking is not quite the same
.I suppose I could become a Quaker instead because it might be  tough to find  husband  who is happy for me to study Wittgestein and Sylvia’s  Wrath.My hair is no longer what it was.. my eyes are still blue  but now I have a scar on my face.I thought maybe no-one would notice but the dentist said,Wow,he’s done a great job hasn’t he? Fantastic,There’s just a little lump here…. what little lump? She’ll have me back in Dermatology as soon as take my teeth out.It was a  little lump that began the whole damn business as it was a bit like a Russian Vine invisibly covering [ part of ] my face.Well I can proudly say I had 23 injections of local anaesthetic  in my face but the surgeon was very handsome.Greek…
Anyway I went out today with no sun cream on and that is really wicked when you’ve had what I had but the hypothalamus gland needs sunlight so my brothet tells me.I have three brothers plus my aide P so I have plenty of men to tell me what to do or not to do.Still you can’t marry your brother can you? I wonder what the priest would say about that.I rest my case.By gum,it was heavy.I’ll take to drink

 

I am in the depths of repair

There’s many a true word spoken by pests
A rolling stone blathers no rot.
How many rooks are boiled in broth?
If you don’t grow there  now,you never will
I am in the depths of repair.
My therapist says I am schizogenic. He wants to take my photo but I am keeping it in my vest
Why was Freud not very observant?
Jung was taken in by the Nazis.They were his shadow.
Heidegger wrote “Being and Time” ans he took his time leaving the Nazis.If that’s intelligence  what does it say?
My husband asked me if I had any  cigarettes.I was smoking mad at his mistreatmentI  said  don’r need cigarettes.I  am  a cigarette so he picked me up and sucked  my big toe.IHe didn’t try to light it fortunately.I could have exploded and the whole rehabilitation centre would have been blown up which is what it needs when they put dying men there with no doctors , no drips and no common sense.

Title  : Boy in Blue Bandages Author : Larry Chamberlin

From Poetry and Quotes

wd950408
– – – – – – – – –

Along the boulevard medium
(we call it the neutral zone)
Lacy Blue Ribbons
mark each oak as being
aligned with children
fending off abuse.

Do people even know?
Or do they misinterpret,
not caring about message
or whether another child
ends up in the ER
wrapped in bandages?

Perhaps if the children
were encircled instead
in bright blue bandages
and set along the road
pitiful and helpless
passersby would get it.

You’d hear then
a momentary sigh;
“Oh well, what can be done?
I mean, there’s just so many”
and they, each and every,
will drive on by.

Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person’d God

 

BY JOHN DONNE
Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Riemann’s Mind

480Riemann had a very fine mind.
But he found it hard to unwind.
So he became very disturbed,
And his mind was perturbed
By his colleagues, who were very unkind.

He invented a new kind of geometry.
For surfaces convex with cacophony.
Euclid was  dethroned
Though it was not really known
Till we saw it all kaleidoscopically.

Until Riemann we believed in absolute truth.
Mathematics and theology called a truce,
It depends where you stand,
On the curvature of the land.
Our weak minds are undeniably uncouth.

Truth depends on the way that we look.
We can focus too much on our books.
We need new perspectives,
Which provide a corrective
To old views which now must be forsook

Look to the owl as he flies,
Like a god winging across the wide skies.
His broad yellow gaze
Lets attention be paid
To all that surrounds his fierce eyes.

We dare

George Boole's House and School, Lincoln, UK
George Boole’s House and School, Lincoln, UK (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Loose in the fields of green…
Oh, my own lover!
He was such a bold flirt;
with his love unclaimed,
he could recite George Boole
he was one of the old Cool.
He never reached his goal.
so with my bling and some flair
I hoped he’d open the enchanted bud
To the music of his lyre.
I’ll pray this for him:
that he should find what he wreaks
and write it down with a stylus.
Really he is the allurement of angels
He was my epiphany
Make it up, as the clocks clang..
It’s not really you…it’s just an affliction.
I can do nothing for my calves
It’s because of all the punning I did once.
I can’t even lump a stone over a wall now.
My arms are as weak as Trojans.
I never suffer viruses to be declassified.
Like I said,just wink and say a prayer..
In God we dare.