Category: confusion

Cheap therapy

Digital art  by Katherine

I think the tide is on the turn.

Yes I saw that ship come sailing by

Are you going to be on your own for Christmas?

No, I’m going to my cleaning lady’s.

Don’t you know anybody else? do you actually want to spend Christmas in a stable?

I thought it seemed more Christmas like to be with the humble and the poor. I will buy the food of course but she will cook it. I don’t know if she’s got an oven but we can always have something like hamburgers on garlic bread with a side salad for one or two only one pound fifty in John Lewis . To be honest I prefer Weetabix to Turkey and I prefer the humble to the rich.

Make a Weetabix stuffing then. Just some sausage meat parsley and some mashed up Weetabix stick it in the turkey and Bob’s your uncle. Don’t you have to cook the turkey then?

Not if you’re an eagle.

Do people eat eagles in other countries? 

Well I’ve never heard of it yet but I suppose if there’s nothing else then they will try but the eagle may eat them or at least kill them and then we have the vultures coming.

I thought we were talking about Christmas

Well it’s a bit like psychoanalysis you start talking about whatever is in your mind and you don’t know where you’re going to end up.

What would a psychoanalysts think of me talking about eagles?

It’s impossible to say unless they’ve got to know you very very well and they realize that eagle represents your starving child self driven mad by rage.

I think that’s unfair on eagles actually.

Well they don’t know, do they?

But it might get back to them. Then what would happen if you live in your London suburb?

I don’t think there are eagles in the Chilterns

But what about Whipsnade Zoo though?

I know they’ve got tigers but I doubt very much that they have eagles in there

It makes you realise though doesn’t it how wrong it is to have a zoo

Donald Trump likes eagle soup so they tell me m

What rubbish you’re thinking about mock turtle soup

Do you love eagles?

I don’t know any  but I know Terry Eagleton.

He believes it was a mistake to publish iris murdoch’s poetry that was found in the attic of her house in Oxford

Once you’re dead you have no control but why didn’t she destroy it? I suppose she didn’t know it was going to get dementia and when she had that then she wouldn’t have been able to do anything sensible like destroying her poetry

Now there’s a thought at least she didn’t publish hers on the internet

I don’t think she had a computer it would have been anathema to her. She would want to feel the pen moving on the paper and that would connect to some part of her brain

Will Terry Eagleton change his mind or will Rose Mather win the booker prize!?

I have never heard of her before

Neither have I

You must have heard of her or why would you have said her name?

I’m just making it up as I go along

You could say the same about God sometimes.

Oh dear what can the matter be?

Trump’s got Zelensky strung up on the judas tree

Oh dear what can the matter be

Do you think we need Tony Blair?

Guilt in Eden

Digital art by Katherine
By Katherine

For three weeks I had a virus so could not exercise.I was concerned because my muscles are not in the ideal condition

I mentioned it to someone who said

But it’s not your fault

That is true but our muscles will get weaker if we don’t use them for ANY reason.Whether it is our fault or not

The body does not know why we don’t move It just reacts to how we use it

Oh for the happy days when we could fall over and get up again

With no injuries

Do not go

Those I thought were friends now slide away

Hiding in the shadows with no light

No mirror can reflect the sun today

Maybe it’s my eyes that cannot see

Blinded by the shock of what I read.

I thought that we were lovers you and me

The looks and glances, what you nearly said.

As for all the others let them lie.

I shall not hear their words my ears are shut

My heart has shrunk, and slow the time goes by

I feel the knife blade but I cannot cut.

Do not cast your friends off with no word.

We do not like to feel the world’s absurd

Coming in my direction

I’m waiting for it to hit me.

It’s far away but it’s coming

It’s a dagger with a sharp point

Thrown by some errand angel

It’s a flat pebble thrown by a fisherman

It’s a stiletto heel broken off someone’s shoe

It’s flying through the air and its destiny is my heart.

When it hits me….. the shock will be unmeasurable.

Don’t go don’t go I can’t believe you’re going to go.

Now they say you’ve gone but it was only in a text message there was no phone call.

Someone far away fired a shot

The bullet’s not found me yet but it’s got all the technology needed to find it’s true destination

So I’m like a dead Man walking

It must have hit me already but I haven’t felt it yet but one day this numbness will wear off

You see I’m dead already but my legs keep moving my hands still floating in the air

Still breathing and then the slow collapse

It was only a few minutes but it seems like hours,.

Then I’ll be with her again

I knew she would die but why did she have to shoot me right at the end like that?

The world itself has cracks across

Infinite the drop between one step and the next.

Is it better not to look down?

We can’t control everything.

There’s a crack,a smack a loud thwack.

It was just me passing

If you are English your Northern accent may prevent you from being promoted into the high levels of the civil service and other places too

Since I read this article in the times newspaper I have been wondering how much further ahead I would have gone in my career if I did not have a Lancashire accent.

On reflection it seems a mistake to wonder about what might have happened but instead to concentrate on improving the future

I realise that what I could do do instead of learning the queen’s English I could learn to speak with a foreign accent instead.

I am very fond over the singer and poet Leonard Cohen and I have listen to him for hours and hours since being bereaved. He has a Canadian accent.Since a I love him it will be a tribute. So what I’m hearing him singing I try to to feel in my mouth and throat what he is doing with his.

I have got the accent for a few of the words but it’s taking me a long time, and now I have an accent which is a cross between Northern British, Canadian and Cockney.

It will give some researchers work because I won’t fit into one category,: when I was teaching in a university some people thought I was from the USA, other thought I was Dutch.

My name also causes problems because it’s Danish from the Vikings and it’s very hard for certain people to pronounce it or even try. Unless you’ve been living here only a few years you’ll be very puzzled. Someone who had come here from Eastern Europe asked me where I came from because she was sure my name was not English.She was trying to do some one-upmanship over someone who was less capable of adapting to life in the UK.

Is Boris Johnson English? I don’t think but he went to Eton so he has mixed with the the Royal the aristocats and the wealthy. So that is the accent that has learnt

Shall I keep my accent and it’s mixed sounds or shall I try to become totally Canadian? That does not have an answer but it has made me live longer trying to reconcile these differences and I suppose it would have been easier to go to an efficient teacher and learn to talk with BBC English or received pronunciation. That sounds quite religious as if Boris Johnson had climbed Snowdon and received the tablet from God tell ng him how to pronounce vowels.

Which way?

My path has been obscured by heavy rain

Tangled ancient brambles bite my flesh.

I am lost, will I get home again?

No one here will help me they all laugh

The rain that fell was not a cleansing wash

My path has been obscured by heavy rain

I did no wrong but still I feel ashamed.

My mind and my emotions sadly crashed

I am lost I can’t get home again

Wandering on my own without a path

Have I become a beggar, poor unwashed?

My path has been obscured by heavy rain.

Life is not a jigsaw nor a game

Did anyone at all ask where I was?

Feeling lost I can’t get home again

I must find a way I have no map.

Take me, take me, take me from this trap

My path was washed away by heavy rain

I’ve come so far, I wish my route was plain.

Jesus must be free

Jesus does not live within the church

Like the wild birds of the sky he’s free

Jesus is in no parrot with a perch

Nor does he require a bended knee

In the ancient buildings there’s some air

Quiet years of prayer have left a mark.

Yet its sad destructions caused despair.

The abbot of old Glastonbury stark

The restless ashes spread as in the air

The winds of love are heartless yet demure

Would it be a way to make things fair?

If there is a God he must be there.

Not with those who scandal eyes the poor

Soon they’ll have no shoes nor much to wear

Whores do not pay tax, oh what allure.

Christ and Mary Magdalene come by

How economics causes men to lie

The power of mathematics made the bomb

Soon the the earth shall burn to kingdom come.

Buying the blue coat

In the year 1989 I learnt that one of my students a young woman called Heather who was married to another student was diagnosed with cancer of the bone.. she had told me in the summer term that she had a pain in her thigh.

I think I may have told them if I had surgery on my foot in 19 78 for a tumour between the bones

When we started the autumn term Heather told me that she has cancer and she was going to the Royal Marsden hospital for treatment that was the end of September l

ByChristmas time Heather has died leaving a young husband devastated

Before she got so much worse I went to see her in her flat on about the 20th floor of a tower block.

She was sitting at the table Open in front of her a text book and she show me that she waskeeping up even though she could not come to the classes.

When I was coming back from seeing heather the last time I went into Marks and Spencer’s and bought a blue coat.

I had the urge to take something in because I was going to lose someone.

It would have been more rational to give the money to Jeather who was very poor or to donate to an appropriate charity.

I remember after leaving Heather’s tower block I had to walk along the street in a very rough area and young men were swearing at me even though tears were running down my face like rain.

But Heather had never complained about that. But I realise why she had bought a dog

If I had not bought the blue coat I suppose I would have forgotten about it but we don’t know do we ?

Do you remember?

Do you remember before type C USB cords?

Before robot vacuum cleaners

Before swiping

Before digital cameras

Before smartphones with cameras

Before you could charge 4 things at once

Before you could charge anything.

Where we had telephone kiosks

And we got paper envelopes with letters inside

Before we could have live chats

With British gas or e.ON

When the children playing out of doors

Were we arguing about which TV programme to watch

When now we have our own screens

When will we stop having sex with another person

Yet we will have to fantasise or look at porn

There will be no exit from our heads

The vacuum cleaner will still work night and day

Do you remember?

Do you remember before type C USB cords

Before robot vacuum cleaners

Before swiping

For digital cameras

Before smartphones with cameras

Before you could charge 4 things at once

Before you could charge anything.

Where we had telephone kiosks

And we got paper envelopes with letters inside

Before we can have live chats

With British gas or e.ON

When the street was busy with women at home and children playing out of doors

Were we arguing about which TV programme to watch

When I know we have our own screens

When will we stop having sex with another person

Yet we will have to fantasise or look at porn

There will be no exit from our heads

Goodbye

I thought I loved a man with all my heart

Until I ate your famous apple tart.

I thought that I could live inside his arms

Till your heat destroyed his little charms

I was too kind so now I shall be cruel.

You must fight a sex fiend in a duel

I needed to escape his lassoo long

So I burst into a moralistic playgirl song

He could could afford no golden ring for me

He banks with only HSBBC.

I said he had to save me on his Drive.

He hates Google,ain’t that a surprise?

Never ever coming home again

Strong at the broken places by Katherine copyright 2007
Trees by Katherine Copyright
Blue by Katherine.Digital drawing

I’m going to give you medication now

To keep the sugar in your blood quite low

He fell, the War Memorial was, his doom

Broke his nose, not coming home

His eye bled and his brain

His cheekbone did complain

Oh, he’s never,never, coming home àgain.

In the ambulance they screamed

Whilst his blood congealed

He’s never never coming home àgain

They asked him could he count

Dying,I lament

God don’t mind dementia in the Saints

O cruel sun

The sun appeared but now has left us here

With dull grey sky and trees as cruel as spears

We control our homes as best we can

But. Nature is a Force more strong than Man

Even in our bodies we feel pain

Thus evil is around us like a stain

Why does God all powerful not step in?

When children die,when wars begin again?

When every state has weapons for mass kills

Jesus dies with victims of our Will

We allowed the government our tax

So our evil to the worst is matched

O cruel sun

The sun appeared but now has left us here

With dull grey sky and trees as cruel as spears

We control our homes as best we can

But. Nature is a Force more strong than Man

Even in our bodies we feel pain

Thus evil is around us like a stain

Why does God all powerful not step in?

When children die,when wars begin again?

When every state has weapons for mass kills

Jesus dies with victims of our Will

We allowed the government our tax

So our evil to the worst is matched

God is in and with the suffering not in church

By Katherine

One friend became an atheist till her grandson got cancer

Then she prayed

Let him get Better and I will start going to church again

Do we think God needs us to go to church?

He needs us to help the poor starving, suffering, lonely

Going to Church is for the Church

Power.

Did Jesus plan to build a Church?

It is ridiculous

Do not die my catheter is dry

I caught the tube for urine on my toe

The catheter is hurting more and more

I want to run away but I can’t walk

Mother take me home, it’s getting dark

I paid my monthly phone bill with a card

I must talk to friends when life is hard

I never thought I’d live to be so old

My chilblains disappeared, it’s not so cold

How I suffered as a little child

My brother was aggressive,he was wild

Recently he died, he got away

I miss him, I forgave him for those days

We both missed Daddy, how can Daddies die?

God is stranger than a mother’s

Sigh

I don’t like God nor calculating Pi

I should have studied music it was Gay

Dancing on the. Altar we decay.

The Holy Spirit’s fled in disarray

The words

Every Time I see a four letter word I add another letter

Oh,fluck the Men are here where is my frock?

Oh fluck, why not shriek English


What creap for dinnrr

He writes too much cramp for me

You tweat, you broke my heart

You twist my swords

What shirt you speak at home

You are shifty

Blondy hell,Africa is me

I am damed if I will swear

Where did the count go ?

What count?

The beast one.

You are e-vile

You are e-book

Himmler scholarship

Not to be outdone by Oxford, Cambridge has been offered money to fund a Himmler scholarship by a 5th cousin of the Nazi to find out why Himmler had been so evil unlike

the rest of his family.

Maybe it will produce new ideas to teach us important facts about human behaviour.Or is it too late ?

Is there any hope ?

Too literal?

Keep safe,,….. Kill yourself now

Lost your head? You are better off without it.

Don’t believe me ?

He is that loseth his life shall save it. Jesus

Let go and relax.Die of starvation.Free to all in the Third World Claim it now

Drowning in words

I have a theory,which I cannot test,that some of the symptoms of “mental illness” are a way a person who feels herself to be without power [in a family, a society] can say what is on her mind in a manner which is almost uninterpretable bythe people around but it has a meaning….that if ahe had more power she could say directly.

Someone tells his doctor his mother is trying to poison him.He is diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Yet in a metaphorical sense it may be quite true.She may dominate,oppress and refuse him freedom and for some reason he is not perhaps strong enough to walk out. Some of the cryptic sayings such  people make do convey in a scrambled way the truth as they see it.And it can apply to old people who are diagnosed with dementia…I have a good example friend’s husband had major heart surgery.She was warned that during recovery  his brain might be affected temporarily and sure enough he began to talk about Kruschev,Stalin,Moscow etc and seemed agitated..she told me about this.It passed.Later he told her that he was trying to tell her she was ordering him around too much and dominating him.he felt,whilst he was ill.No doubt she was anxious.He was trying to communicate to her he did not like her behaviour towards him.So his mind was not gone but he was too feeble to get across what he meant.And she was afraid already .. so became more bullying.Sometimes old people are said to be demented.One test is to ask them to count back in 7 from 100.So if I were you  i’d memorize that!Most people find it hard when younger.r

Imagine if someone told you they believed a piece  of bread has been turned  into Christ‘s body.You might think they are crazy but luckily it  is a common belief in the Western Christian mind…so it’s not a sign of madness and yet a man might say something similar and be called psychotic.

I went the hard way,you know,

on that road with no kerb

Picking up the demons you let out of that woman’s handbag

I feel so sick,you are a Jezebel.

Keep away from me,the voices warned me

That America would start a war against error

And that Jesus would help me to beat them

Let me go.Who stole my coat with the astrakhan collar

that showed I too was the son of God

Like you did before,you want to crucify me

and to eat cake and say,This is him you know…

Even the icing.So keep away.I’ll hit you.

rocks,cracked rocks and a finger

pointing to  the mistakes you missed

putting the blame onto me

and for that,I must die a thousand times

Will you call it my church or my tomb

My tomb of dough will rise and god will bake me

and eat me for his tea.

Thank you,nurse.I love Largactil

As it makes me ill

~and so I know i have to be locked up my

to protect the town from my germs,worms and viruses.

I go numb

Keep away from my arse.

Leave me alone with an old stone

From the grave of my youthful hopes.

You’re all crazy… but you outnumber me

So,I must be mad to fight.

Schizophrenia they think!

I know better.

Related articles