Category: feelings

Where God’s in hell

The sadness of the television world
Where actors have no character to share
Where all is flat and perfect but unreal
Where God’s in Hell,  and yet it is concealed

The sadness of a toddler with a phone
Eyes near focussed like he is alone
Where he can see a Zoo in Montreal
Or hear hyenas  as they  make their calls

The sadness as we toss out ancient books
And never teach our children  how to cook
The imaged food is perfect in   young eyes
But when we live on that I think  we die

The sadness  when our neighbours  have blind eyes
The sadness as our culture slowly dies

Over burned spaghetti and red wine

God has made men suffer making me
As beautiful as morning by the sea
Because I’m only interested in maths
I have long since left the garden path

I never look in mirrors  or deep ponds
Narcissus eat your heart out in ferns’ fronds
I  never used to wonder how I looked
When my eyes were glued on a textbook

What irony that men would love me so
I   thought myopia  would  make them shy
I thought they’d like to talk  of Wittgenstein
Over burned spaghetti and  red wine

But now I’ve learned how beautiful I looked
Lying on the sofa with a book
Alas it is too late for any more
I see the edge of Heaven by the door

God  may seem ironic, it’s a test
I may kiss you once if you insist

After him

The gravity of loss brought me to earth
Beneath the rotting leaves, I lay with worms.
I wondered if I were of any worth

No more to be enchanted by love’s mirth,
I  with unnamed particles was turned.
The weight of loss bears down the heart to earth.

The weight of  love has readied us for birth
The fragments moulded with the love that burns.
I learned we need  not wonder  over  worth

My sorrow brought no guilt nor fear of wrath
I am both  sharp eyed eagle ,twisted worm.
In my little grave, I  loved the earth.

Like the adder, shocked into rebirth.
I from silent underworld had learned
Not to judge my soul nor think of worth.

I shall not  fear the flames of hell that burn.
When blackness is accepted, may one learn?
The weight of loss breaks down the soul to earth
With dusty shredded leaves, we then convers

Feel the woodland beauty as in prayer

The hurricane has turned into a breeze
The sun shines on a squirrel leaping high
The  birds are hiding in the holly tree

Every human being will agree
We’d better live, if soon we  knew we’d  die
The hurricane has turned into a breeze

Soon will come the butterfly and bee
And every little insect that can fly
The  birds are hiding in the holly tree

I like hills.my lover likes the sea…..
Different people different loves arise
The hurricane has shrunk into a breeze

Lilies hide, so deep, love’s mystery
Then  its offspring decorate our days
The  blackbird sings  atop the holly tree

Feel the woodland beauty as in prayer
Trust the unknown darkness at its core
The scary wind has turned into a  breeze
The  doves are  cooing from the maple tree

Touching

I let my entire being take you in
Surround you like  it were second skin
I made an astral cloak to give your peace
Where I could  share the burden and release

How hard it is to find the  words that say
How we live and die  afresh each day
When we  get a foothold on the hill
We must not hurry , pressed on by  our will

Every instant,every time we breathe 
Eternal life  is here, we’re not deceived
God appears and disappears ,he flames
The Burning Bush, the  prophet and their rage.

Enlightenment  comes after we  have crossed
The  avenues of suffering   and  the cost

I dreamed I rode a tricycle last night

I dreamed I rode a tricycle  last night
Large and painted blue without  a bell
Then I met my doctor,what a sight

He told me he had lately seen the light
And wished to be a monk inside a cell
I dreamed I rode a tricycle  last night 

Ted Hughes had gone out fishing for a pike
The army in my head was doing drill
Then I met my doctor,what a sight

I see the almond  blossom, what delight
My sister thinks I’ve left her in my Will
I dreamed I rode a tricycle  last night 

Yet I am weary with my oversight
I am rarely mad enough to kill
Unless I met a doctor  out on strike

Because of such a strike I lost my sight
The Eye emergency  was  left too late
They say  that if I sue I’ll feel a chill
Surgeons  with knives on my window sill

 

 

Quivering in the meadows of the heart

We saw the cows at Easter freed from barn
We were on a hill beside our lane  
They were running in the meadow’s  fresh green charm

Renting a small cottage on a farm
Dorset  has its literary fame
We saw the beasts at Easter freed from barn

Beasts will share their feelings  and their heart
Not for them the clever,wordy games
But dancing  in the meadow’s   alien charm

These images annihilate the harm
Suffered by the sick and by the lame
We saw the beasts at Easter freed from barn

The green of spring, the green thoughts, the great calm
Thus poverty brings us emptiness for gain
Running  to shelter of your arms

Was it not a right to be insane
Freed from prison  when the summer came?
We saw the cows at Easter freed from barn
They were  quivering in the meadow while I yearned

 

The unthought known

by 
photo1401
There is a very strange concept now in psychoanalysis called
” the unthought known”,
I think it refers to something in the patient which they experienced and so know but they had not then learned words ,so if it was too painful it constantly bothers them  yet they can’t explain it or tell anyone.This is why psychoanalysis takes so long and even then I am unsure if a therapist can supply what the mother couldn’t
Perhaps if we know that we will never understand some of our feelings and worries but can accept them even if we don’t want to. then we can live with them

The churchbells shuddered

When God came down , the rivers overflowed
Great trees were floating ,angled and exposed
The houses broke up like a loaf to crumbs
The hearts of humans  trembled  till they hummed

The winds deceived, the gusts unmeasured stung
The churchbells shuddered then untimely rang
The power was cut and all our screens were dark
Where were the rulers, where the saving Ark?

The women  giving birth were paralysed
The babies in the womb took ill and died
Their cradles rocked the world,  they swung so fast
And in a moment all of life had passed

In the void, God started  his new  world
Rich and strange,  the grit and then the  pearls

 

When you’re lonely

img_20200128_105515Mary was feeling lonely on Sunday so she decided to go to the Urgent Care Centre in a cab.There were not  many people there but enough to give her  2 hours  in the Waiting Room.Having signed in ,by claiming to have a  UTI, she took off her red coat  bought  in 1992 in  a Sale, and opened her phone.What to read?

Hitler’s Downfall
Quick Cakes
A few novels by Margaret Drabble
Freud the Fraud
Sex  crimes in  therapy
The rise of Fascism in Europe
How to care for a husband
The Second Sex
Feminism and Sexual Orders
How to enjoy your body before it is too late
Differential operators and their followers

After 2 hours Mary went to the Unisex toilets.While inside she hear her name called
I’m in here, she shouted.
Take your time
She handed the kind doctor her sample which was very pale
He went out and came in again
You have a nasty infection, he said calmly
What shall I do?
We have some antibiotics here on Sundays.The pharmacy is shut
Thank goodness
He went to see what he could find and  handed her a box of pills
It wa nice to meet you doctor, thank you.No wonder I felt odd
Yes, it makes you feel confused and  less smart
Indeed.I  meant to  go to Church but came here by accident
How lucky
Mary went outside and  ordered a cab
Well, that was a blessing, she told herself until she saw Annie dressed in purple velvet running down the corridor followed by Emile on a bicycle
Well, that’s what I saw before I took those pills

Happiness was like a golden shawl

The pebbled beach  on which we walked at dawn
The sun was dancing  singing  stone to stone
The sea was pale as silk and gently ran
The tide was coming in, the day began

Why is my memory so deficient here?
I remember little but you near
I remember Portland Bill at dusk
The sea was wilder then with many thrusts

Happiness was like a golden shawl
A  world like Eden, man before the Fall
Today they say, illusion, I say, no
What matters  is where this insight makes you go

The fruits of meditation are its test
May we be generous, may our souls be blessed

The astral body

Tenderly I held him  took him in
As though we touched each other skin to skin
Dying is what everyone must do
Even when it splits the Me from You

What we took for granted  every day
Had its end like any mortal’s play
The length of life is just enough to lie
It’s not here forever, don’t you cry

We are on no plateau   but a slope
Slight at first, so we don’t  see and note
Gently we are led to where it ends
Beautiful and foolish  like ourselves

How can we be split when we are one?
In deep darkness dies the winter sun

The labour and the  hurt that life will cure

I found a pair of knickers on the chair
They must be mine,oh dear, that is bizarre
I did not take them off,I am quite sure
They make the entire room seem quite impure

Yet why are knickers   thought to  be like porn
When they adorn the  place where life is born?
If you  hung the washing out to dry
You might see an angel in the sky

Most of us traversed the  holy path
We suffered pain but hope it did not last
Mothers too have struggled and endured
The labour and the  hurt that life will cure

The simplest items, pretty, well designed
Tomorrow I shall hang them on the line

Fortunately, he cannot bite

I dream  at nights of my old friends
My husband and his loving hands
I dream of all the cats we  had
Alfred who slept on  the bed
He laid his head upon my foot
As I wrote  a poem of love
Jimmy who was small and black
She  bit my hand if I got up
I did not wish to wet the bed
She did  not understand  a word I said
The last night  here she gazed at me
I think she knew  she would  not be
Lucky was the nervous  one
Black and white , apartheid none
He liked my husband’s shoulder dear
He draped  himself  and lost all fear
Now the cats have all gone off
I am frightened by a cough
My husband comes to me at night
Fortunately he cannot bite
He  touches me with tenderness
Smiles and wished me,God Bless.
When I waken I feel lost
So I have to wear a watch
I seem to have no solid self
I feel nervous of an elf
I don’t mind an angel sweet
He could rub my aching feet
I will have no other man
They  are frightened of women
They don’t like to lose at Chess
They don’t like  to wash my dress
They will brush my winter coat
Never ask me what I wrote
I do not wish to anger men
They might shout  and bawl again
I think maybe I will turn gay
Ask a lady, what to say?
They may not understand my needs
Killing flowers to  help the weeds
Talking all the weary night
On the whole they’re parasites
Also they may menstruate
I can’t  give them seeds  to  take
So they will leave and  get a man
This is where it all began
Eve and Adam,God and man
Cain and Abel, apple flan
Noah and his Ark so fine
I wish I had one in the rain
I wonder when the world will end?
I am old so be my friend

The more we hide

More defences make us feel more pain
As if by building walls we  make more real
The  fantasies  we’ve formed in our own brain

The murderers and the thieves all know our name
They  watch our door to enter and to steal
More defences make us feel more pain

We need a  lock or two but more won’t gain
The peace of mind, the peace we wish to feel
Not  fantasies  we’ve formed in our own brain

Ten locks on a front door might break the frame
Send the message we’re well heeled
More defences make us feel more pain

The more we fear, the more  fear we obtain,
The world is our perception ,it seems real
Not  fantasies  we’ve formed in our own brain

The less we try, the less we learn  to feel
The more we hide  more  poignant is our shield
More defences make us feel more pain
Those little  fantasies  we’ve grown in our own brains

 

 

Rain

I’d like to melt into the slanting rain
Be mist or fog so I  may feel less pain
The   raindrops on the window tun like tears
Who is weeping,  has some death occured?

The strange eugenicist  just hired  has  gone
According to his thinking he’s not won
We’ve heard of racial purity before
This opens up a deathlike dangerous door

When I’m rain I’ll  have no need to  think
Into the earth with all  the past I sink
No more to  hear the News of  Government
The newspapers each  rotting  with dissent

Words in print are given special powers
We  think we’d   like  the truth but  we are cowards

We see what we expect

We are not false and neither are we true.
We’re not propositions,I’m not you
We have our different selves which are displayed
In our manner  and in what we say

To the teacher we may be polite
To a shy young man we show our heart
With the priest we feel  the breath of God
Dying on his Cross misunderstood

We see what we expect not what is here
Eyes are muddled by our wish  and fear
We need each other so that we can share
Perceptions and emotions we can’t bear

Getting new ideas we can grow
Don’t think we just know it  all,t’ain’t so

I don’t like  the odour of your shoes

I am good and you are evil now
I decide and you must  just agree
I am  your superior and how!

I must be the bull and you are cows
You are blind but I can truly see
I am good and you are evil now

By  good fortune, I am well endowed
I make better cakes and better tea
I am  your superior and how!

I don’t like  the odour of your  shoes
All  I meet will  certainly agree
I  shine  bright and you are duller now

I know  that  God himself was born  anew
I will  learn his language  for a fee
I feel so superior in the  pew

I am the python  in the apple tree
The adder shedding skin, the perjury
I am good  but boring too I know
Where are the shades,  the LSD,the glow?

Is politeness false

Do we have a  more real self inside,
Fully grown and  smart  without  cruel wiles?
Is politeness false and not just kind?

Unlike kittens we are not born blind
Yet  we speak in only screams and smiles
Do we have a more real self inside?

If the Chapel’s Lord with me abide
Turns to gossip with the usual trials
Cruelty and  abjection are on file

Does the real self speak  and is it rude?
I don’t  like  hearing people  being vile
Do we have a hidden self inside?

We have our dispositions , it is true
But we  grow what’s  a self from mother’s  guile
Is politeness false  or  is it kind?

Can we adapt but not so much  we fail?
Be  a true friend, not feel we’re on trial?
 We don’t have a more real self inside
Courtesy’s the oil that soothes and guides

 

Inward

My eyes look inward as I concentrate
I’ve lost my glasses,camera and my mate
When I forget to mourn,I lose  far more
When I weep again,they are restored

I am not present to the world of sense
Attention will be paid, it is intense
Gathering wordless cues  to guide my mind
As  by  flame,by  fire I am refined

What I seek I cannot tell in words
It would make no sense  to those who heard
I will know it when it comes to me
The  jade and turquoise wreckage of the  sea

When the time is right I’ll tell my tale
Until then I  hide,I wear a veil

Like children

We once rolled  like children down a slope
We stopped the car to climb the grassy bank
As if we were reliving some lost hope

Ecstasy  is way  beyond my scope
My mind is always veering to the  blanks
We once rolled   our  children down a slope

We laughed and laughed  till our ribs nearly broke
The grass was wet  and soon so were our flanks
As if we were reviving some lost joke

Back to childhood then  we grew  and wrote
Mainly  to our others to give thanks
We once rolled  joy’s children down a slope

From a bridge, we dropped the paper boats
The Lea is pretty  ghastly, never  punk
In the eighties  Ted Hughes  told a  joke

Crow or wolf or magpie, what a hunk
Waiting for a vision, hit, distinct
We  sold books in moonshine  to the Pope
Feeling wild, enchanted   by new hope

 

The things you can practise

You cannot practise dying, though we want to do it well
We don’t want to appear foolish when we might  be in hell
We can practise smiling and opening the door
Unless like me you’re crippled and you’re feeling  very low
You can practise  music, you can practise Art 
You can practise hiding in the burrows of the heart
Then you get to go on stage and  do it all for real
Dying ain’t for  dummies but allow yourself to feel
You can practise for your wedding, your baptism and your fall
In the hall of mirrors where God lives off the wall
You can practise  speaking, you can do it many ways
Then you must stop practising,  and say the words today
In the little spaces  in between the sounds
Let yourself be  emptied, you are on the Holy Ground

Norfolk

The sun shines but the sky ahead looks dark
I sit on someone”s wall to take a rest
The winter has come late, the  heat is sparse

Down the road, comes  wind,  the antic force
Who knows what the weather will do next?
The sun shines but the sky ahead looks dark

I remember well the  scent of  lemon gorse
Beyond  the stripey cliffs, we walked the beach
That was Easter, warmth began to course

I can feel the tears drop unrehearsed
No sea will wash my lover to my feet
The sun shines as the sky ahead falls dark

Below  the ground  the  tiny seeds will burst
The holiness of crocuses will greet
Winter  is no  match for Nature’s force

Come, my lover, pull me to my feet
Norfolk landscapes  offer, we receive
The sun shines, yet the sky ahead looks dark
The winter has come late but is no shark

 

 

 

My cat Ben

The first cat,Ben, was tabby, with great eyes
On Sundays we took him riding in  our  car
I used to wrap him in  a woollen scart
For he was very small and very blyth

Ben grew  up so he went out all night
Hunting round the flats for  mice  or hens
Cat suck eggs and don’t care who or when
They run and hunt until the sun arrives

No doubt they  find a mate to  play with, as one might
Father kittens, scatter their seed wide
Ben followed me into the road at five
A rushing car hit my dear cat, Ben died

Soon  my husband’s father went as well
We could not cry, for dried up was the well

What it seemed to be

Mourning has broken
Imbibe with me
E bay in a manger.
Type to say Goodbye
O come all ye wrathful/awful
They sent baiting for our partitions
Guardian angels,  Telegraph demons
All on an apron even.
Enhance me with the sense of love.
So long,carry on
The  tipsy wife.
Alexandra heaving
Three wise men…. send them here
Idolatry is love
Go spell  it to  the Pope

Give us back the seats in public space

When in pain, the world is made of seats
Where one can gain a moment of relief
Ignored are flowers however fair and pure
When pain  grows strong,we cannot  gaze,revere

But since the homeless lie on  seats at night
The council have removed them from our sight
The bus stop , seats of plastic , hurt me sore
Till I am wracked   with pain  I once ignored

I need gardens with low walls of stone
Where I  may sit and softly, clearly moan
My coat is spoiled  and now I feel  my rage
I’m no longer on the human stage.

Yet bees die if they sting us in  defence
Little in the world makes any sense

Strength needs flexibility and give

\
When of the world of doctors,I am sick.
When diagnosis is not any aid
When from the choices given,
I cannot pick
Although I feel my deepest debts were paid.
Then off from thinking I must take my mind
To gaze upon the beauty of the woods
And feel the sun not fiery, even kind.
It warms and heartens even my cold blood.
The trees are calm for they have grown deep roots
Though storms may strike their trunks and branches too
Breaking off new tender green tipped shoots
They sway and take it without much to do.
Strength needs flexibility and give;
With no such, the brittle shall not live

To heal the earth

Hellebore_2020-5We are not the ones to judge our worth
God’s    attention is  for this alone
We  love and find vocation  on the earth

Some are born with what feels like a  curse
Others have  been keen to cast sharp stones
We are not the best judge of our worth

Accidents of time, of place, of birth
Lack of vision,nowhere to call home
Disrupt the  virtue of our life  on  earth

Important  to love God and  enjoy mirth
To  laugh at our pretensions, grin and groan
We are not the best judge of our worth

There is no linear scale. we should not stress
Some may discern value  we don’t know
Acceptance is the aim of  life on earth

And when we’re stricken by a heavy blow
Inside our little hearts is one who knows
We are not the best judge of our worth
We must love and  work  to heal the earth

 

 

 

 

 

In such a moment all thought dies

A beam of light passed through my eyes
And showed to me a world disguised
So near,yet far,we do not see,
Unless by gift of grace redeemed
That world is full of peace and calm
Its colors mingle,like a balm.
In such a moment all thought dies,
Revealing Love which underlies.
Colors caress my naked eyes.
Sunlight blesses new designs.
I stand enthralled,and do not wish
For one delight,other than this.
My breath slows down, and filled with joy,
I rove my eyes with bliss to toy.
Everything is just itself.
This is now my living wealth.
Beneath the noise of city traffic,|
This mellow joy,love soporific,
This depth and peace, is always near
When we choose Love and turn from fear

The secret self  shrinks and  the falseness blooms

Time when life divides, it has two streams
One is on the surface, one  below
The secret self, the other one assumes.

I  walk on as the gap grows wider,screams
One shakes hands and one hides,  stamping low
The secret self, the other one assumes.

Can I  link the two or must I dream?
Times when life was gentler and more slow
The unknown self,  the outer it consumes

Now one is riding high to crash and bloom
Will death be the outcome,I don’t know
The secret self, the other they assume

The longer I go on,  the  nom de plumes,
The silent axe, the present danger grown
The unknown self,  the outer it consumes

Cannot   someone sew  me ,mend my holes
Help me, Lord,I have no place to go
Time when life divides in its two streams
The secret self  shrinks and  the falseness blooms

 

 

 

 

Aching

My skin is aching,tender, loss  has pierced
My heart needs walls, its boundary has gone
I miss the touch of love from him so dear

A belt of metal pins  brought me tears
Why suffer this till I  am quite undone?
My skin is aching,tender,  by loss pierced

We forget that grief is close to fear
Then alone, we panic, what’s to come?
I ache without the love from him so dear

Psychotic with no unity, who steers
My head  is so remote,I have no plan
My skin is aching,tender, by loss pierced

Cursed be the One who made our sphere
Since Eden went,by  so called  sin undone
I ache without the love from  someone dear

I should   get my cell, like Julian
Hide inside the church wall, will Love come?
My skin is aching,tender, loss  has pierced
Uncaressed by him  whom I held dear