Author: Katherine

Poetry writer and author

Other minds

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As I was growing up I found I was attracted to certain minds..
. nearly all of people no longer living.I could not understand much of what they wrote but I definitely had a strong instinct about who they were.One difficulty was they seem to be mainly men.That’s because it is much harder to find women who had the time and talent to create and become part of  the culture. But how strange is it to feel kinship with someone when you cannot understand much of what they wrote
I liked
 Blaise Pascal
Spinoza.
John Donne
Andrew Marvell
Wm Wordsworth
Wm Blake
Soren Kierkegaard
Rainer Maria Rilke
Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The people who wrote the Psalms.
Montaigne whose diaries are still read.
Paul Klee
Marion Milner.
Leslie Farber.
Stephanie Dowrick.
There are more.
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These people seem to have some kind of feelings which resonate with me. were not usually scientists and Pascal attracted me because he was a mystic as well as a mathematician.So it’s something about how to relate to the world….with the heart and soul not the intellect alone
I also read many novels which is/was my favourite activity and I could not discuss that here as I have read thousands and re read thousands.I like the Chekov of suburbia ,Stanley Middleton after whom I named Stan in my stories…… despite his limitations.
I may write many funny pieces but I am a deeply serious person following a trail left by someone unknown…I recognise it when i get the clues.But who leaves them for me?
Here is a passage I like from Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
“Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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Amateur writing.How I became an internet poet

 

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I must have had a wish to write.Because for many years ,I studied books on poetry and creative writing.I began to collect images and events which affected me  emotionally in a notebook.Then one day I asked,When do I write?I had to start,  unconfident as I was. Time was passing Here is the first poem I wrote.[January 2010]

CHRISTMAS SNOW:

Too old for cold,I stand, now ,against the hedge,
Watching the snowflakes in the glare of neon street lights.
Darkness has come early,and I think of country uplands and huddled sheep.
On Salisbury Plain,shepherds watched their flocks
Just as in Bethlehem two thousand years before,
And then ,exactly when?
“Between the wars”,it stopped. Now we know there is no “Between the wars”.
And who decided
To cull the sheep and shepherds and the space for kindness ?
Now that same Plain still exists,but banned
And closed to human-kind,
For bombs ,not wombs
Nor for birth of lamb ,nor gypsy child ,nor Saviour
Where would He go today?
_
Image,s

From the first poem, I can see my mind was wondering if there is any space in the world now safe enough for a creative happening.After I wrote this,I was unsure if I’d get any more inspiration but I did

Here is a slightly later poem

SUN PAINTING
Bright sun
Paints a shadow picture
On the white wall
Dried stems
Of Michaelmas daisies
A leaf caught in a cobweb sways
To and fro.
I gaze.
Silence.

After two years or so I began to write sonnets which I had never believed I could do

 

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It looks and speaks just as a sonnet would

This poem is written in the sonnet form,
And yet I have my doubts about its shape
Though nearly to that structure it conforms
There may be holes where nightmare faces gape.

It looks and speaks just as a sonnet would
And talks of metaphysical concerns.
Do we conclude, as poets and readers should,
That in our schizoid age we cannot learn?

For humans may be decked in clothes of wolves;
And lambs be dressed in lions’ fearsome furs.
Thus, sense is tricked and problems are unsolved.
Landscapes etched, yet details seem quite blurred.

It looks like one,it feels like one,it speaks;
Yet from these words, does human feeling leak?

How I began to write my blog

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When I was at University I spent 6 years studying mathematics.But I always liked poetry and novels.My school thought I should study English Literature,but to me that was not a creative activity.The way we were taught was to criticize books,plays,poems by many famous writers [mostly men!]

Three in one

I didn’t want to criticize only.I wanted to write but I never thought I could.I followed my career as a mathematician until my vision deteriorated.I could not read mathematical symbols anymore.Still it had earned me a living

YOU IS SO MUCH FUN,ME IS NOT SO DONE YOU IS SO MUCH FUN,ME IS NOT SO DONE

I began going to an Art Class as I wanted to  see as much as I could. in case my vision got worse,I was so  very  embarrassed because all the others were very good whereas I had no idea what all the terms meant [Even for pencil drawing ].I was afraid but I kept going and did learn to look at the world differently.At that time I .I had not got a computer.Later I could not get to the class but did more here at home

Two cats

I bought my laptop and after some time, I discovered digital art.I had no books about it so I just played.I found Microsoft Paint inviting and simple.Later I found Artweaver and Paint.net which I used to manipulate my photographs

Lily pond

I only took photos because by error I bought a phone with a camera on it.Next time I’ll tell you how I wrote my first poems

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I like blue

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Private thoughts?

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We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”

― Alan Wilson Watts

Menu

Roast teeth  and Larkshire floodings
Flicking pie and  debaters
Trod in  the hole with green pleas
Stoop of the day and home baked dread
Fish in  matter with drips
Cheese plodding and ballad
A vegetarian fried in dripping with please pudding.
Wiltshire spam and rocket potatoes
Cornish nasties and chips

Devon scream tease.
Bastard  tart
Coffee dream
Jellied  sprouts and cream
Chocokate plunders
Carrot Flan with my wife free

A stormy sea

Between the wish for  changelessness and thrill
We seldom will be satisfied for long
Neither is controlled by human will
As into  stormy life, we all are flung

Self-deception  shields us from our doubts
We choose to pre-select what we will see.
Pretend to know what our life’s  all about
As in little boats ,we ride a stormy sea.

Then  later we choose danger for its spice
And with daring climb the mountain with no ropes
We resist the offer of    advice
Till ,with broken bones, we sadly mope.

Reality’s too little or too much
So ,on our path, our hearts will often lurch

 The soul with grief and love is weighted down

The soul with grief and love is weighted down

And does not know directions nor the time.

Winter sky of  darkness   wears a frown.

The soul alone is waiting as I rhyme.

 

 

To escape our grieving would be wrong.

To  drown ourselves in liquor is a waste

But now I hear a subterranean song.

The offerings of the Lord I surely taste.

 

The music wells up slowly and rings out

I sing as sweetly as my chords allow.

The riches of the mall are of no clout.

The angels  gather round me gently now.

 

Grieving is not evil nor corrupt

Grieving can our hollow lives disrupt

Trust the unknown force that grew you

 

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 Photo  by Mike Flemming.Copyright

“All shall be well,and all manner of things shall be well”
St Julian of Norwich

 

Trust the unknown force that grew you,
From the joining of two cells.
Act of love, of self giving,
Thus to grow a newer self.

 

Trust the dark,the unseen aspects
Of the life we all do live.
Trust that there is wisdom elsewhere,
To your emptiness to give.

 

Wait in patience for the time
When inspiration comes at last
Trust in darkness,silence,lowness.
Opposition forms the cross.

 

Pain is bearable in lowness,
Like the worm in earth I dwell.
When I look I see the sunrise
And I trust all shall be well.

A stifled cry

 

A stifled cry,
A leaking eye
A tenseness in the muscle tone
A look aghast, a muffled groan
A posture altered
Hands that falter
Mind uncertain
Heart a-lurching
Sharp neuralgia in the face
A litttle trace
A lost embrace
No one  reflects my face to me
I’ m not a person now, you see
The overlapping on our maps
The understanding sharing grasps.
I keep emotions all within
For my existence is a sin.
In this way, I squeeze up tight
As if to space I have no right.
A look can kill
Destroy the will
Turn to stone and mute the groan
I’ll be a statue and admired
My marriage licence has expired

When true love’s gone

When true love’s gone and doom hangs over head
When life runs like a river to the sea
Then shall I take new lovers to my bed?
And with their carnal touch consoled be?

When my love lies,so breaks my tender heart.
When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path.
Then, shall I my life of evil start?
And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

When true love lies and wrecks all loyalty.
When puzzlement makes all my world seem mad.
Then I shall upend causality
And let myself do deeds which make me glad.

For I have love’s sweet child inside my soul
And I shall tend her till at last she’s whole

Circuitous

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When doubts and drawbacks struggle in the mind

When doubts and drawbacks struggle in the mind
And certainty seems but a demon dream,
When the faith to love is what no-one can find
And even when asleep, the mind still schemes.

When darkness and defeat seem close at hand
And lights dim even as we pray for peace;
When wrecks and ruins rile the native sands;
When in this life we feel we've lost our place.

Then at the saddest depth we see the light
Surrounding with such warmth,with love adorned.
The path that seemed so wrong now leads us right
And in our hearts, warm feelings are new born

Within each storm there is a calm still eye
From there we see the fearsome clouds pass by

What is doubt?

Leaf buds

 

  • I see a light fuzz of hair on your head

    like the softness of just opening leaf buds in spring.

    The chemo is over,and you wait relieved and letting that

    take you for a while before you start to face the next stage.

    Will your Spring turn to a warm enchanting Summer

    or has the cancer,as they say ,”spread.”

    Just for now,you’re in that lull

    so in three weeks time you will not be

    arriving for another session of drugs

    and days of sickness.

    I see the light fuzz which reminds me

    of how the cat’s fur grew back after her surgery

    and she,being unable to reflect or question,

    leaped from the fence top onto next door’s kitchen roof;

    no thought in her mind of stitches breaking.

    How beautifully the patterned fur returned

    and the vulnerable skin was covered again.

    Oh,to look into those eyes and see you dream

    about mice that live behind the shed

    and how you sat watching for hours

    and how you were alive till the very last moment.

    Then , all of a sudden,you were gone.

    Pray it will not be so for the fragile,loving human

    now waiting and living,hoping for what you took for granted…

    a “normal” life span Or maybe just three quarters of one

    would be satisfactory;would be a beneficence

    such as trees feel when the sap turns and begins to flow back.

    bringing life out of the darkness of earth and soil.

    And another Summer comes at the right time

    and we find it, shall we say, satisfactory?

Trees

  • Trees are the mainstay of the natural world

    Standing up high over the grass,the flowers,the shrubs,

    Exerting a strange and powerful fascination.

    Accepting the insects and birds that dwell on them,

    It’s the Kingdom of Trees,the Heaven of the Garden.

    On the red maple’s trunk about five feet from the ground

    I see the marks whee Daisy sharpened her claws.

    [She died just before Labour lost the Election,1992.

    Twenty years from now

    Those marks will be 10 feet high.]

    A gentle cat,

    She found peace in

    This green shady garden,choosing which tree to scratch,

    Whether to climb into the old apple tree extending its branches far out towards the holly tree

    That is the habitation of sparrows,safe and sweet.

    Cat could only watch them from her perch.

    Oh,what are we doing wasting our lives shopping malls,

    When we could take instruction from the trees?

    We could take lessons from the birds that dwell there,

    And ask the advice of flowers,or directions from honey bees.

    What could the ants tell us if we had time to hear.

    The garden is a holy place.Trees are good at being trees.

     

  • Think about it

 

He promised to kiss me and love me and vacuum me

Oh dear what can the matter be
We  sometimes  hate our own family
Oh,dear send for new batteries
My husband is flat with despair.

Oh,dear what can the matter be
Ambivalence strains all the flattery
Oh,dear, drive to the cattery
Alfred has lost all his hair.

He promised to   lie on my lap until Saturday
He promised to eat his food   and to chat to me
He promised to kiss me and love me and vacuum me
I’ll  have a hot bath   and prepare.

Freud says that all relationships are ambivalent.We hate those we love sometimes.It is  normal in the sense that we are vulnerable to them.But we live with it

With a chosen few

I’d love to write a sonnet but I  daren’t
For in this steamy heat it’s much too hard
So please don’t send me messages that taunt
Nor with disdain compare me to our bard.

.For  not all people have poetic skill
And  what I have will sometimes fall to dust
Like virtue  writing’s not made by the will
Await the grace ,as saints and mystics must

In  the mind an empty bowl of space
We keep to catch the offerings of the gods.
It’s more like contemplation than a race;
For freely, quietly we receive the good.

The lady’s not for   turning words to gold
But with a  chosen few she loves to mould

Sunday supper

Main course

Cheese on post
Beans on coast
Eggs in fright sauce  with lice
Battered  bacon  cutties
Sausage bowls and ballad
Holly berries with nuts and phrasing
Foxglove salad and Lancashire fees
Cheese bones and beetroot
Quiche for Men  with double chips
Odd bits of meat minced and fried in dripping on white dead

Dessert

Trifle with men
Rice flooding
Hot dreamy desert
Yoghurt from the beast
Jelly ice scream
Apple part  and lusted
Mirthday Quake
.Fat free sponge cake with strawberry and my wife

 

Do we have a “true self”?

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Carl Jung was a pupil of Freud until he broke away over the issue of sexuality;he did not accept that it was the most important factor in neurosis.He began his own type of psychoanalysis.When reading his books I discovered he thought that the development and separation  from others  of the individual in western society was a great thing.In the past we were defined by the groups we  belonged to,religious,family,town or country and  .He wanted us to develop our own “true self.”
That concept is now disputed by many people!.”I or me” is  not a secret core waiting to be discovered.I suppose people might identify it with the soul.Some psychoanalysts say it is to be dwelling in  our body fully and that requires care from our mothers or fathers.He also introduced the terms introvert and extravert which are now part of everyday language.Some people say that we don’t have  stable identity.We can be  introvert in one setting and extravert in another.But we do tend to be more one o than the other.
I am mildly introvert.I find too much time with people is  tiring.But I do  like to talk to people in a small group.Or one to one.I also find some people don’t like female intellectuals.But I don’t find it difficult to  talk to anyone regardless of social class,intelligence and other attributes nor do they have a problem with me
Two things are a surprise about Jung.First he has been accused of  sympathy with the Nazis as unlike Freud he was  not Jewish so he remained in Germany  during the Nazi era.He did write an article saying the Jewish psyche was not so creative as the Aryan which is ludicrous.
.Secondly he had sexual relationships with some of his patients……………..that is usually frowned upon in therapy.The client may develop powerful feelings for the therapist but this is meant to be contained  .I think it is conceivable that it might be beneficial in rare cases however  where there is a power imbalance it seems dangerously unfair.When it happens it appears to be heterosexual.I wonder what a therapist might do if he or she felt a gay patient needed a sexual experience with him or her?We don’t seem to hear much about that,do we?Would they subjugate themselves to satisfy the patient?I don’t tik so if they were not already gay  or bisexual

Algebra of new media

xxxx = I like/love you/it

yyyyy=I can’t understand it.

zzzzz= I feel sleepy after I read your writing.

uuuuu= You are self absorbed,narcissistic or an egoist.

vvvvv= I want to view more

wwwww= I want to wee urgently but postponed till I read this.

xyxyxy= Love it but it’s incomprehensible.

xzxzxzxz-= Love it and feel drowsy and relaxed

yzyzyzy== too tired but trying to comprehend

ahahahaha= funny

bbcbbcbbc= too mainstream

bcbcbcbcb=before the common era= out of date

wowowowowow= amazing and painful

howhowhow= puzzled

hmmhmmhmm= thinking about this.

To the world of others we are blind

What we see is partly who we are
In winter snow we see the beauty white.
To homeless people ,it may bring despair
At night the cold and frosty air will bite.

Flowers of startling beauty are now here
Yet even these will make some people ill.
A scent which an asthmatic man may fear
Is most desired as perfume by the well

The adverts which may irritate the rich
May start up envy’s poison in the poor.
Good and evil to our wealth are stitched
All is context, virtue is not ours.
The world I see’s constructed by my mind
And to the worlds of others we are blind

Sunday dinner

Starter

Mermaid  jelly
Mock turtle loop
Avocado paired with mandarin lozenges
Melon with whinger
Grape and melon ballad stung by my wife
Wheeze on toast  plus free handkerchief
Sycamore leaf and holly salad.With cherries.

 

 

Maimed course

Roast pork with crippled sauce and baked rotaters
Roast man with hint sauce and vegecradles
Roast beef with Yorkshire rubbings and Navy.
Gammon with  courage  source and boasted vegetables
Vegetarian in cream cheese and Rhine

 

Padding

Fruit belly  and s whipped cream
I scream raspberry flavour
Spotted Dick and bastard
Steamed ram sponge
Sponge fake with cream home made with my wife

Beware the man

 

No woman ever can be what he dreams

Nor can such give comfort on the road.

Yet every night he plots and thinks and schemes.

And rarely does he ever go abroad.

No food he eats will satisfy his tongue.

The best wine is as naught to mother’s milk.

He grumbles and will not admit to wrong.

I ‘ve known more men than him of this same ilk.

No bed can be the right one for his sleep.

No sheets and pillows suit his wary skin.

He often has made gentle maidens weep

Crying out they’re fat or boney thin.’

Beware the man who never can adapt

For inhis  own lone wishes he is trapped

The mind makes healing medicine of a leaf.

 

I lie back in the weather-proofed green chair
To gaze up at the flowering maple tree.
Now, touched by sun,lungs full of scented air
I embrace with joy the beauty I now see.

Old celandine show brightly by my feet
Neglected currant bushes straggle round the path
There is no birdsong yet a silence sweet
Soothes my heart and quietens my wrath.

For my heart's sore and anguished is my mind
Yet in this little wood I feel deep calm.
My eyes are shadowed and my face is lined.
May this green spring bring me a gentle balm.

For even in depression and deep grief,
The mind makes healing medicine of a leaf.

Sun in the evening

The sun glows orange
The sky is grey blue  and soft
Sun is too bright for my eyes.

Mend a camera
Wondering if I can eat
My insides are sore.

Anti-semitism
Makes me feel sad nowadays
Will it ever go?

I got the runs bad
And I can’t run any more
I feel young inside though.

That sun still glares out
Sylvia Plath could deal with it
But it’s too strong now

It’s the sideways burn
The direct line to the brain
Red hot retina.

Mine are a problem
Yet I can see the lines of your face
Love you more  and more

You are absent now
But I can remember love
Cleveland Hills pull hearts.

Lying in heather
Never noticed the hot sun
Only your buttterflies

They floated by us
All afternoon;later  found
We lay near a cliff!

A woman drove us
To Teesside by  old Yarm Lane
Out of sheer kindness.

 

 

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