I forgave him everything last year

My brother kindly set my hair on fire
He stole my food  from off the plate   or floor
So for a man I  had repessed desire

He took me fishing in a pond close by
I loved him very much,indeed adored
My brother madly set my hair on fire

We went in  disused brick kilns, we were spies.
Of his company  I never  tired
Yet for  new men I feel not much desire

Now his time has come and soon he’ll die
I forgave him everything last year
His voice is weak, he thanked me  and I cried

I did not plan forgiveness  nor to lie
“God ” filled  me with love ,  our lives restored
Yet for new brothers I   feel  some  desire

Who left Daddy’s matchsticks near my boy?
He could  not know he would destroy my hair
My brother hurt me, set my hair on fire
We choose to love until we  both expire

 

 

 

 

The eyes were open still, I saw.

He was on his bike and they ran him down
He had dared to go outside
The  law is  the law and  the law is a clown
The punishment  can  beat down the crime

They thought they’d go out, they were getting bored
The police felt the same  so they  claimed
Maybe a fine wth some warning words
Ths is the day that they died

One was a singer and one was a fraud
 Which one was which I don’t know
The police came down like the wolf on the fold
The eyes were  open, still I saw.

Women must  bear the young   men beget
But what does  our society  affirm?
The policemen   have guns and   they owe us a debt
But  will they ever,ever learn?

They could not wear bikinis on hot sands

In the Jewish ghettos and Death Camps
Did Jews complain they  had no holidays?
They could not wear bikinis on  hot sands
Nor did they ask for somewhere they could pray

We can’t go to Spain  nor Singapore
We must stay  near home,oh  such dismay
I ache so for the poor in tower  blocks
Where violence and harsh words  erupt each day

We can get our food if we have friends
We can read  or write or even pray
Why  complain, the poor  bear heavier loads
Will we be sympathetic on such dreadful days

Our sadly narrow views  don’t serve us well
When other people  in  confinement dwell

Evoked  death sentences  while still unborn

Oh,mother was it my fault I was born?
You conceived me in a country waging war
So once for sure you did not sleep alone

I was too thin, the doctor was alarmed
My sin of prematurity was scored
Oh,mother was it my fault I was born?

Thank you for your milk, your breast, my home
In sadness wish you’d loved me or adored
Dad  once said  you did not sleep alone

I could not be an infant, was forlorn
While  you weaned me  in my rage I bawled
Oh,mother, why the judgement  of love scorned?

I frightened  you by   reading  minds  and bones
Evoked  death sentences  while still unborn
I’m glad you did not  always sleep alone

Why keep knocking  on the oven door?
Sylvia Plath  used gas ,that Nazi porn
Oh,mother  reason  can’t  prove I was born
But you helped  the human race   and kept some warm

 

 

 

Wreaths of smoke

Daddy where were you  when I was sad
I bought you Woodbines in the corner shop
I carried your boiled egg with salt on plate
You lay in bed   adorned with wreaths of smoke

Uncle Herbert  died when I was five
Not  many   of Dad’s brothers left alive
But Bert was old and all his children grown
He lay inert, the coffin dark, the stone

I saw yours and Grandad’s too, false oak
The  Cemetery   filled  with  men and broken     jokes
So baffled  by affection we  would seek
And for her mother’s  grave, we  often looked

We  too will be broken, wordless earth
Worms will do their work. the lungs, the breath

Wet diamonds 

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Beware the delivery pass they sell

For I ,so foolish, for one fell
It says I can order every day
But  guess what folks, they make me pay
I  tried to do one this weekend
But in 6 days I have sinned
I bought 2 loaves just for the ghosts
Foetuses, and  heavenly hosts
Though  my babies never grew
I have  shawls both pink and blue
O mother, mother, come here now
I need your arm ,these thoughts hurt me
My  linen closets ready yet
I know my babies can’t come back
Now I’m old,I’d like to see
Their eyes  so gentle smile their plea
Tantrums, shrieks and other noise
I would welcome any voice
And one might look like my dear love
Why did God take them above? 
Mysterious are his ends and days
How can humans  know his ways?
The Lord may give, the Lord  may take
Blessed be his wounded Face
For God himself does suffer too
His eyes wet diamonds ,  polished dew

For men may come and men may go,

white brown cow
Photo by freestocks.org on Pexels.com

 

 

Dr Smith that  lucky man.
Had a wife called Mary Anne.
He gave her children twenty two.
How ever did this woman do?

She had many helping hands
To take her children on the sands.
They swam in batches in the sea.
And then she took them home for tea.

She had triplets,she had twins.
She even had one set of quins.
So loneliness was quite unknown.
And all were trained to use the phone.

She was a very sturdy wife.
She worked  very hard at life.
But once a week she went to town
And looked at bags and evening gowns.

But Dr Smith did not go out.
He was dusting , have no doubt.
At night they went to bed and loved
Just like a pair of turtle doves.

In the morning she rose up
And made some tea in a big cup.
She had a tiny chunk of time.
For such a one,this is no crime.

We all need a peaceful break,
To sit by our own inner lake.
To see the fish and watch the sun
As gold and glowing up it comes.

So if you have many children too,
Take heart from this small tale.
She took her time to meditate…
And her heart never failed.

For men may come and men may go,
and likewise children too.
You need to have some free “me time.”
Whatever else you do.

Never write a letter full of spite

The consumer age is passing   with the dead
I tried to shop  again but Sainsburys have said
You can’t shop twice a week or twice a day
We will have to learn once more to play

Learn another language,read good books
Help another,  teach them how to cook
Go outside and  breathe the   purer air
Write a poem and then write one with flair

Walk around the street when it is clear
Drink from cans  filled up with   freezing beer
Take a photo of a tree you   like
Never write a letter full of spite

Surely we can gradually adapt
If we survive the madness and the traps

Shame is bitter, wrecks our feeling heart

I see  down in  the  valley of the Lea
Tower blocks  and numerous tiny homes
Here the Vikings came, oh, savagery
The valley is so ugly it alarms

As I look at  my books, it’s unfair
I feel sad for children who have none 
Our average reading age  grows lower  every year
I   feel angry at our leaders nothing  done

During Lockdown where shall  children play?
Those who have no gardens  shut indoors
The  end point of  such suffering is dismay
Humiliation grows   right in a  heart’s deep core

Shame is bitter, wrecks our feeling heart
A home for Satan made with   thoughtless art

I wish you had a bookcase in your head

I wish I were in Venice in a boat
My lover has just tried to kiss my goat

Why is love so pure a threat to men?
Tender feelings flow, I’m home again

Should I eat a pancake for my tea
I’ll text you  when the boat is out at sea

I want a  man who smells like apple pie
Oh,Lord send  one  here quickly  or I’ll die

I did  once see someone turn the other cheek
But  now he has arthritis so he weeps

I wonder is it legal to keep sheep?
I’d like a small one  near me as I sleep

Some get married, some still  live  in sin
I  want a man  who loves a wheelie bin

I cut the hedge with clippers, next my hair
Difficult as I have little  there

I once taught Econometrics blind
The students passed,  and then I lost my mind

I prefer topology  to food
After that I might say something lewd

Did you ever  laugh when fast asleep?
My husband was so merry so oblique

Keep on swimming

Constant rumination kills the soul
I never  think  and so I am more whole
I  write the sentence  down, just like I  speak
I find my native tongue lets symbols leak

My mind is  like a small holed metal sieve
I hope I shall be kind and will
forgive
What remains is worthy of a place
As for my mistakes, I   beg your  grace

Some minds are  deep,clear streams their thoughts  like fish
Other minds are  tortured ,spin and crash
Keep on swimming like the drowning frog
He turned the milk to butter as he trod

Do not linger long on cruel thoughts
Scruples come from Satan, he’s worth naught

A rondel

I feel you presence and I almost see
The face  that was  so loving .sadly gone
There may be millions but you were my own
The anguish and the joy were all for me
As we walked the white sands by the sea
Picking sea shells, seeing washed white bones
I feel you presence and I almost see
The face  that was familiar,strangely gone
We had a home, we had a nutmeg tree
We grew apples,rosy in the sun
Flavour  vanished  like the honeycomb
Yet salty flavours linger in the sea
I feel you presence but I  cannot see

The face  that was  so loving,  known by none

 

Even in  the rain, light gave him joy

The first warm days, the birds sing in their nests
So brilliant is the sun it seems new born
In the shady green I take my rest

The art of living cannot be a test
Nor can it leave a lover all forlorn
The first warm days, the birds sing in their nests

When surprised by joy, we regain zest
Despite the costs of living and its storms
In the shady green let’s take a rest

Before he died,  he sat,he gazed  out West
Even in  the rain, light gave him joy
The bright, warm days, the birds sing in their nests

I remember Arnside, green and blessed
The hills across  the bay where we  have climbed
In the shady green let’s  dream and rest

In our childhood there the patterns form
Hope  to harvest now the rich, ripe corn
The clear blue  days, the birds  keep warm their nest
In the shades of Arnside  let me rest

 

Hidden lives

Georgee eliot

“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
George Eliot, Middlemarch

I came upon this by chance

Sleep with Shakespeare

It seemed a good idea at the time.But the timing was wrong.Shakespeare was my boyfriend’s friend.To be honest he was a cat.So to preserve my modesty I slept with the cat and not the boyfriend.Just another natural disaster in every day life.

Still,a cat has eyes unlike a flea which is what I sleep with now;I know only because it bites me in the night!Possibly it was from the cat and became a multitude like my sins .which are mainly of omission.A  few are cultivated and the rest grew like weeds.I feel such shame when I think of my life,sleeping with everything but  a human being. Intimacy with moths does not contribute to literature or any other human undertaking and yet it saved a man from torment loving a woman with such a strange personality.So that is good.I also wrote a few plays

A midsummer night’s scream.

Julius seized me.

Richard the Blurred

King Fear

MacDuff,the pudding

Hamrent

Hamerous

Hams of old England.

Nymphs and Leopards.

Liebscreamsche

Nietzsche’s word was my father.

Who won the Bore?

England’s screaming peasants blend

Death ,where is thy King?

Foreigner’a rile us.

Boldlock the beloved

I  made a few dollars selling myself to  an owl.Beyond that my life is herstory.

Can I get bail?I hope the judge is  lenient

Thinking can be just worry and if so is usually useless

Thinking can be very bad for you if it goes round and round in your mind

Of course in the Christian Bible we read:

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Wild flowers, Holy Land [Israel]

Matthew 6:25-34

American Standard Version (ASV)

25 Therefore I say unto you, be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?

26 Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value then they?

27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life?

28 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

American Standard Bible

Never think in bed

If you feel lonely in bed remember there are probably a few insects on you or if not millions of microbes inside you and take comfort from that..If you are lucky you may even have bed bugs.They bite but so do men sometimes.Tf that worries you boil your mattress every week. I said boil,not oil!Do listen,,,We used to boil them in a pan.Oh,no,that was our hankies.Well,boil them and dry them and then make the bed… there’s some wood in the shed.

Am I thinking?

What or whom to go to bed with after thinking?

What animal can comfort a human being standing at the edge of their world looking over a precipice? Just another warm human animal who does not speak but holds with strong arms without denying  what we have seen as we fall into the depths of our dreams

Could you love an insect?

We were told when Robert the Bruce was in prison he survived by studying a spider creating its webs,It consoled him.So the spider helped him but was hardly a pet.First it was totally independent and more important,insects don’t have faces.They have eyes but no expression.And they are too small.A cat may feel like a baby…but a fly will not

Which makes me think we love  animals and even birds because we can detect a personality or imagine we do…….we can ascribe feelings and love to them.Perhaps we make them into mini human beings?

As insects are so different and smaller generally,as they are cold blooded,they seem too different to become pets.I have been known to address a spider as I help it out of the bath but I can’t distinguish that one from another.With cats,even when they are the same color,we can recognise their eyes,And they are very aware of our feelings…and wish to comfort.

But with insects we can get benefit by see how different they are and studying their lives .Ants are very kind to each other and carry a damaged ant back to the nest,for examplle.So they can provide food for thought..