Category: reflections

The pleasure of Confession

Fritillaria-meleagris-2020

 

Pray Father,I jave no sins to confess.What is the most common sin you hear about?

Hurting the feelings of loved ones or strangers by projecting our ill will into them and

then attacking them.

How about adultery?

Is that a proposal?

You naughty  little animal!You know what I mean.Don’t tease me.I am sensitive but I’m ok.I sleep all night and sin all day.Is adultery common?

It is very common and shows poor taste ,so if you want to be less vulgar leave it out.

I am long past adultery now.I am too stiff for sexual athletics.Though with more

acupuncture,one never knows.Besides I am not married any more.

Surely there is something else wrong you  must have done recently? You are only human

To be honest,Father,I believe we are often blind to our faults and we would need to bring

some other people along here to say how we have treated them.And then we’d find out

our sins more easily from them.

Well,there is some truth in that but we only need a random sample of your sins.

One will be a metonym for the rest.

Is that the right word?

Well,if it’s not it’s near enough,my child.

I am older than you;you must know.

I am sorry to say that is not a sin,my dear lady.Try harder.

I suffer from scruples…………… is that bad.?

Very bad.What are they about?

Doubts.

Give them up.Believe  you did your best.

How can I be sure?

Well, we are never sure of anything in this life but we it will kill us to  brood all day

Well, it does sound selfish when you put it like that

Now, drop  that heavy bag of  worries and run about the garden 

I can’t run but I will  have more fun

Now you’ve got it, my child.

Thank you and good night

The whisper

I walk in sadness as fish swim the sea
I can’t  rememeber  how life felt before
The foetus  and the feel of gravity

Death  will come with ,without decree
The other world   a room with a   closed door
I walk in sadness as fish swim  the sea

The pain, the blood, the whisper and the grief
Could any woman wish for any more?
The foetus lost, the ropes of gravity

What  is human dies without a plea
Ah, the garments in the baby store
I walk as sad as fish flow with sea

From such  anguish,  we may wish to flee
Unless beneath our  feet there’s solid floor
To hold the foetus wrapped in love. oh, thief!

Life may cackle like a randy whore
You can’t buy babies in the liquor store
I walk in sadness as fish fill the sea
The foetus  drowned, the  urgent grave, now you.

 

 

Uncertainty,unease, a maverick flu?

The government  may need one maverick
In addition, we may need a  leader  new
Too many , they  try  out ingenious tricks

In Great Britain there are many eccentrics
Inventing light bulbs, rifles and beef stew
The government  should have one maverick

Did we invent that much used  red clay brick?
Did we shoot  down  birds and peasants too?
Daft M Ps  who try  out  madmen’s tricks

If you’re wearing boots,let noone lick
Cov19 may  kill them, just like flu
The government  should have one  maverick

Everyone agreed that we are sick
Post-modern  theories  stick around like glue
To our M Ps  they are a  subtle threat

Some days I feel well,I think you do
Uncertainty,unease, a maverick flu?
The government  may need one maverick
Too many , they  wear out the new Chief’s Whip

 

We don’t see what is there,we see ourself

The eye is not a  camera taking shots
Our mind affects  the aspect we  perceive
And what it feels important it will spot
Give grace or hatred,cause us  all to grieve.

When we are afraid ,we see the worst
We see disgrace or ruin as our fate
As if our self  for horror has a thirst
So all the little details we collate

Yet when we  love we see before us joy
The flowers sing, the birds dance in  the air
We see no evil  nor with  hatred toy
All aspects of  our world appear more fair.

We don't see what is there,we see our self
To learn ,we must employ all human wealth

In deep water, luminous as fog

If I should live again, I’d be a frog
For tadpoles ,insubstantial, cause no fright
Yet they change but not into a log

They change their being, leap up from the bog,
As bread is changed by holy, priestly rites,
If I should live again, I’d be a frog

In deep water, luminous as fog,
The frogs live on the edge of human sight
Yes they croak but not till we’re in bed

As lovers lie down naked on their rug
They tempt the frog, the adder, the termite
Then they rage upon the death of God

As the wheel turns, see, it drips with blood
The human race is ground up, we’re a blight
Yes, someone, somewhere, once did something good

Oh dark, oh grey, oh where is the new light?
Seems like the frogs, the Lord leapt out of sight
If I should live again, I’d be your god
I’d save the world by turning us to frogs

Green flowers

 The  bowling green, the clack of ball on ball 
Across the grass as perfect as  the dawn
We sit down on a bench,new painted too
Lumpy paint  but good enough to do

Round the edge, the dahlias  bloomed  like suns
No irony was meant nor overcome.
Goldenrod, geranium were bold
The earth was   hot and rich in summer’s hold

Past virgin rhodedendrons , children  played
Swings and see-saws, all somewhat decayed
Painted with the same paint as the bench
I saw my father fall, I felt the wrench

Where shall we sit, my sweetheart, by the lawn?
I have lost your face. my heart lies torn

Senseless we will suffer, we are sick

We believe  just what we want and then we find
All unaware, unconsciously, within
The evidence we need to close our minds

We might as well be deaf and if not, blind
Perception lies, conception is then thin
We believe  just what we want which  we  then find

We justify our actions, are unkind
Cast    first stones as if we never sin
With evidence invented by closed minds

By the blood of others our own soul is stained
Starving children  grovel in waste tips
Affectless we look, we cast off blame

The widespread wars, the  rage, the napalm aimed
The slaves who make our clothes, who feel the whip
Are evidence  we  choose to close our minds

The punishment for blindness will  now stick
Our souls and minds degraded by one click
We believe  what suits us and then we  surely find
The evidence we need to shut our minds

 

 

 

God  is murdered daily, we perceive

How precious is the life that we will lose
The joy of senses open  like new leaves
The  holy sun, the air,  our attitudes

Our boundary, our skin  protects, is bruised
By those who  claim to love but soon deceive
How precious is the life that we will lose

The mind  and body open  for new views
Are vulnerable, yet glad, as they receive
The  holy sun, the air,  our attitudes

And Jesus came to Earth, a holy Jew
God  is murdered daily, we perceive
How precious is the life that we will lose

We are   torn apart, love, hate ,confused
Yet every  moment, God   is re-conceived
In  holy sun, in air,  in gratitude

First we love  our neighbour , then believe
The web of  holy actions, who can weave?
How precious is the life that we will lose
The  holy sun, the air, its magnitude

Then opening  like a smile 

Forsythia  hangs ,oh flexible and flowered
A wig of  natural hair by breezes stirred
A budded branch  has caught my face and eye
While squirrels laugh from woodpiles yet unburned

We are sick but garden flowers will come
Pushing shoots into the mad March air
So eager to find light, to  patterns grow
Then opening  like a smile  its flowers to share

Now  my friends are all awayI’m sad
I see  the falls by Buttermere  in dreams
Not the mills and dirt of my  home town
In Buttermere we first saw those clear streams

Silence  has its joys and  lets us  hear
The  still, small voice, the whisper. the blessed ear

I eat cartoons for breakfast with a knife

I  lack the skill of mimicking   a cat
Mimesis  makes me copy  acrobats
I cannot do the crossword in the Times
If I’m free, I marry many  rhymes

A cartoon left me cold,I needed words
I preferred  to talk except to  birds
But now I reach the higher slopes of life
I eat cartoons for breakfast with a knife

In mathematics we use little signs
The science of pattern  circles all my lines
We learn to write  what others knew by craft,
The hand precedes the brain, the warp, the weft

The Scribes were groups  who wrote what others said
Scroll by scroll the Hebrew Bible’s read

Never get engaged on a whim

How to get rid of your lover
Tell them you’re carrying a germ
Spray Dettol around your home
Put deodorant on your  comb
Ask if they wash all their sperm

Nobody likes a rejection
But sometimes it’s better to leave
Be polite  as your part from them
After all they’re gentlemen
No need to make men aggrieved

Would your prefer an arranged marriage?
My doctor says it worked for him
Remember you’re ugly
Though very snugly
Never get engaged on a whim

 

That God who weaves me

The world is woven  in such different ways
Struts the vertical, the flat below
Oh God who weaves me shall by me be praised

Oh, shall the mystic reach what she may crave
When all  the strings release and she falls low
The world is woven  in its different ways

Timed by ritual Lady Lazarus rose
And all the eyes that gazed were burning slow
Yes, God who weaves me shall by me be praised

There is a hollow  only Ariel knows
As horse and rider as one being flow
The world is sensed  in  wholly different ways

The body ,home of mind, will   run astray
Oh, what seams of evidence forego
  Fallen God  who unacknowledged knows

Beneath the sea of green the undertow,
Spirits sidle  deep like melting snow
The world is woven  in such different ways
That God who weaves me shall by me be praised

 

How can  a fake virus make men cry?

Fake news,  fake life, fake thought,fake love,fake bug
How  can we know what is a genuine lie?
And I cannot greet you with a hug

Be sure to boil some bleach in every mug
Pour dettol on your head before you fly
Fake news,  fake life,fake love,fake songs,fake bug

Should we tell the children we’ve lost God
New creators seem  in short supply
And I cannot greet all with a hug 

As he drily coughs, peach Don feels  odd
How can  a fake virus make men cry?
Fake news,  fake life,fake love,fake  cries.fake bug

Fighting in the aisles will do us good
Mass may not be said  though  priests may sigh
And  they cannot see God when they would

Self  isolated, God hears babies cry
He withdraws his favours saunters  by
Fake news,  fake life,fake love,fake other bugs
Would a polar bear safe to hug?

 

 

 

Living in our daymares out of bed

Clematis-armandii-2020

Thanks to Mike for allowing us to meditate on  his images which aid the hearts of the suffering and add to the joy of life for all who gaze upon them

More dangerous than our weapons are our minds
The fantasied revenge will do no good
Some kill a neighbour even  when they’re kind

I never thought that I’d ring 999
But why wait  until I lose my only head?
More dangerous than our weapons are our minds

We have  eyes to see  yet we are blind
Living in our daymares out of bed
Some kill a neighbour even  when they’re kind

Though people starve, are tortured all the time
I must not be so  passive in this bog
More dangerous than our weapons are our minds,

Instead of fighting fantasies, let’s write
Slowly choosing words,combined for good
Though humans  torment   friends  and their own kind

Onto Jews we  cast  our shadowed bad
Then we killed our souls to shed their blood
Why were fascists not made into swine?
Where is the precious water and the wine?

I think what others  have suffered when I feel self pity

 

Take your mind off

If you live near a psychopath
And can’t run
Then it will take your mind
Off the coronavirus

And if you have a UTI
You will want to die
Don’t kill him  yet

Strange how a bodily pain
Feels like torture
Like houses  had faces
And pictures of the  three bears
Hung in your lounge
Suddenly when you were five
Turned into a bridge with  three arches
Over a river

We truly believe
Then it  goes.
The eyes are windows
The mouth is a door
There never was  nose
At least we never  heard it sneeze
It  didn’t cough
Sometimes the chimney set on fire
But girls didn’t put it out

Fear of illness

The wasted years  of  our uncivil war
Continue as we fight for toilet rolls
All too soon will come the blood and gore
The bulls escape,we trained no matadors

Tins of soup and packets of  dried meat
Fly from shelves  to baskets as we queue
Fear has grasped  our throats  with its deceit
The faces of the old are  turning blue

Still there is a palace on the hill
A forest where the princes ride  each day
Doused by rumour,fear  that watchers kill
What worth is there in  turning now to prayer?

Stupid and corrupt  we miss our lives
Our children cry,  our  heartfelt anguish writhes

I get drunk without a single drink

I did not  know my mind was strong a sin
My wickedness was choosing to be thin
My ringlets  seemed  far wilder than cats’ screams
The torture and the vividness of dreams

I picked up books and read them in an hour
How could I guess  the wreckage of men’s power?
I made pastry, I baked cakes of wheat
To honour God , my father, the elite.

In my pram I gave the neighbours shocks
Electric was my verbal skill and luck
They asked me how to vote and who should win
I sucked my dummy as my thoughts all ran

 I  sit and listen by the kitchen sink
For I get drunk without a single drink

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

Before we have the words

The childish jealousy, the painful heart
The remnants of a past that live within
Which make my  skin  feel pain, that make it smart

Measured feelings  appear   on  noone’s chart
We hide our knowledge of our own dark sin
The childish jealousy, the painful heart

It  comes too fast, takes too long to depart
Before we have the words, can thought  begin?
Unthought knowledge,wordless,  makes skin smart

Can action makes us better deal with thought?
What protection helps the smarting skin,
The childish jealousy, the painful heart?

Can virtue, unlike love, be sold and bought?
Turn the phones off. numb the brain-made din
Unwanted knowledge peeves the soul and heart

Like the dangerous wall that cut Berlin
We defend ourselves,  don’t   let life in
The childish jealousy, the hating heart
Make my  very self  feel pain.I want no part

 

Meet your curse

How to manage your boss
How to damage your boss
How to savage your boss
How to banish your boss
How to seek for work
How to leak your worth
How to streak and worse
How to meet  your curse
How to beat  the curse
How to  bleat and shirk
How to write poetry and verse
How to import  forty whores
How to  survive jail and more
How to revive your faith when sore
How to stop selling slaves at the door
How to write a life sentence
How   to fight Evil and its allure
How to live well and be pure
How to  fib and sell cures
How to tell lies and  far more
How to differentiate the truth of calculus from quantu, mechanics
How to integrate panic
How to disintegrate with good manners
How to shorten your nerves [ my nerves are twice the normal size]
How to knit coats for bad nerves
Unnerving for swimmers in  life’s sea
Knit yourself well
Cat is my name, what the hell?

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

I suck upon this lump

I suck upon this lump, this errant growth
As if it were a sweet or tooth unbroke
It cannot be removed  but will it die
Ot getting spiteful ,will it multiply?

I suck on it though never on my thumb
Being deprived  by mouth will make me dumb
It’s cheaper than a cigarette or sweet
Next I’ll be a cannibal,my meat,

I suck it hoping I can make it die
And then the world will feel much less awry
I want back my own mouth as a clear space
Not this horrid monster of disgrace

Yet how divert my self from its own thoughts
Feeling toothless, humour can’t be bought

Little hands

Ten thousand words, a million diagrams
Noone can know others nor themselves
Nor the errant ways, the  wavering spans

Flee the fluttering of a diaphragm
Blind  the eyes and ears to all this wealth
Ten million days, a  thousand diamonds

Fifty million cells in a doll’s pram
Life is  touch and go and needs our stealth
Not the errant ways, the  wavering  plans

No matter how I speak I can’t command
The instant  of his death,his plangent depths
Ten thousand gasps,  the weight  about a gram

God below, with worms he understands
He needs no words, no pictures, nor  new hells
The trains to Auschwitz,  had no waving   hands

By  Dunwich Beach we hear submerged church  bells
Golden angels   fly  from one, Cromwell
Ten  mighty words show less than one diagram
See the watery   childrens’ little hands

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

The King’s Head!

applewe

You’re looking well, the doctor said ironically as I stumbled into his office
Don’t mention it,I replied,It’all Greek to me
Are you drunk, he said solicitously
No and I am not a tart either,I lied truthfully
What a pity,I fancy an apple, he shared
Doctor, keep you voice down.The patients will think you are a pervert.
Well, one tart is as good as another to a dead man
Is that a trope or a simile?
What a pointed question.
But not disappointed?
Who was Adonis?
Mrs Thatcher’s husband  with a Lancashire accent
No, it DIS I am thinking of
You seem to be imitating a racist film
Fancy  that, without even knowing!
Well, you are a real doctor,I hope
No, but I am rational
I’m afraid you can be counted
But who could count an infinite set?
It’s in theory
That’s intellectuals for you.It can be done in  Theory.But where is Theory?
Where intellectuals hang out using their imaginations.
Well, blow me down
Why can’t you jump?
I can only do it in theory
Well, better get on with the surgery.Which head are we cutting off today?
The King’s Head!
Well, it is his turn now….how  will he take it?
Under his arm
Like a deodorant?
I can think of better alternatives
Not a pig’s head?
No, an apple in his mouth
See,apples again.Why not go to an Art Class and paint some?
Because  my wife won’t eat them painted
How will  she know?
Because I have no artist’s palate
Well, it’s never to late to grow your own
I have my own palate
How is that?
It’s like  a bed before beds were invented
How come?
It is a bag of straw
But nowadays  they don’t sell straw
In case it’s  china?
How can  one sleep on china?
Go to a Tea Service and ask the Vicar
Ooh, you are artful
You do look well today
Am I the doctor or not?
I don’t know Not
You know Nothing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 God came down

We may know what’s right and still do wrong
Greed and envy run our inner world
Like a crazed drunk bee we like to sting

Even as the blackbird is in song
The darkness of the heart will on it fall
We may know what’s right and still do wrong

We love to think we are the Queen or King
Perfect in our power , oh iron the walls
Yet crazed drunk bees can float on high to sting

The hurt inside the heart can last too long
The self retreats , the matador has failed
We know the end , the bull will kill the throng

When God came down, our spies soon had him nailed
The burning bush , the little voice, the tales.
We may know what’s right and do the wrong
Take pleasure in our violence, kill and sting

Your sacred smile

fritillaria_pontica2016-1

Embraced  entire , your sacred smile held me
Until we  both were one deep in  our souls
As still as a white dove  held tenderly

 

For a little time so warm and free
As if your smile contained  me, made me whole
Embraced and loved , your sacred smile  touched me

As  we  cross together the  dark sea
I wish this sacred love could  always hold
As  gently as a dove ,as tenderly

And if I felt the  brilliant light  touch me
My eyes would weep,my tears would turn to gold
Embraced and loved, oh sacramental  tree

Would that humankind were truly free
That in the darkness, we could find our home
As dies  the  fragile Word on Calvary

We fear  the Tempest and we hear the Storm
The still small voice  will whisper , not perform
Embraced  entire , your  smile   encompassed me
As still as a white dove, as tenderly

No words

If we had no language,we’d be good
No communication but by sense
What devil conjured up the  demon word 
Made our dealings complex and intense?

No Tower of Babel, nothing but mud huts
Caressing,kissing,kicking,  real contact
Boxing,wrestling,killing the unjust
No law except the fist. no guilt.no wrack

No religion but  a sense of awe
The rising sun, the moon, the distant stars
Oh,bow before the Cedar and the Oak
Anything that is taller than we are

No  books, no news no media,no war
It makes me wonder what live words are for