We have to be breathing right to hear the silence from which all song arises; we have to be breathing slow and gently We have to be breathing right to feel it, the tenderness in which we are held by nature. We have to be breathing quiet and soft and to be looking receptively, No desire for objects
We have to be breathing right to recall it the music we heard when there was silence. We have to be being breathed by the world We have to be part of the whole..
and so,we forget it as we are pounded
with the noise of radios and traffic and people talking loudly on cell phones walking by the green fields and river past the secret heron and the coots nest past the daisies
When I am dying I shall think, Why was I not breathing right? Why was I scarcely breathing? Why did I forget those moments? Why did I not live
more deeply? Why did i not sing more sweetly? Why did I nor love more dearly? Why did i not listen more carefully?
Why did I not sing more sweetly? why did I not see more completely?
Why don’t we talk more gently? Why don’t we look more intently?
Why were the poppies growing so wildly? Why were the battlefields growing nightly? Why did we murder men so lightly? Why did we not love more rightly? Why are the poppies covering the soil so politely? When did the young soldiers leave so frightfully?
Mary heard a very strange sound as she came down the polished stairs of her bijou home.It was a loud two part shriek. I wonder if that’s the new answering machine, she thought as she went to put the kettle on to make a pint of tea.She heard it again,but it was not continuous Well it’s not the carbon monoxide detector either,she told Emile who was eating a sardine.Then she remembered hearing it before. It’s the old phone handset with a flat battery,se murmured as she washed her hair in the kitchen sink with some Persil Silk and Wool detergent. Annie came to the door What’s that beep ?she cried.And why are you washing your hair here? See if you can spot the phone.I can’t find it,Mary told her.I wash my hair sometimes just to clear my brain Well,why not keep some shampoo here or that new wash and condition in one go I have found the phone.
It was in the waste paper basket!But you can’t put it in the bin,can you? No I will have to pay £20 for a cab to the recycling centre,Mary said philosophically. I’d better not leave it “by accident” on a bench given the current climate of fear. Well if we remove the batteries it won’t shriek any more,Annie told her kindly. How is the new phone doing ? she rambled on unthinkingly OK.It has a special button so you can block someone after you have picked it up.There is some much fear now about WITHELD NUMBERS.At one time we only knew after we picked it up.If I use my phablet my sister hates it..Mary disclosed
She refused to have more than 2 numbers for me so it comes up as UNKNOWN What is a phablet? Annie enquired sardonically,her little soft eyes crinkling with laughter which showed off her turquoise eye shadow which is actually a pastel stick from her art box! No longer can she goes to Wigan for divine makeup It’s just a small tablet but you can make phone calls with it. I didn’t know you had one of those! Neither did Stan,Mary said with a touch of sadness.I only wish we could phone heaven from earth. Wow,said Annie.Maybe it would spoil heaven… How true, her friend responded.Let’s hope they have some attitude that they makes them have a different point of view from us. Now,I’ll dry my hair and you can tell me why you came. Oh,dear,said Annie.Let me drink some tea.I can’t remember except that your wisteria has climbed up the rowan tree. Was it shopping? Was it Dave?Let’s ring 999 and see what he has to say. We’re all gray here,no fuss We’ll all go play with puss,Emile,come back and.
Will Annie ever save up enough money to take the train to Wigan to buy some Eva St Laurent lipstick? This is one of the mysteries of life on which there is no point in thinking
After all she could buy some lipstick in knittingham for less than the train fare to Wigan!
But that’s too easy because don’t you realize that we enjoy things a lot more when we have had to go to trouble to acquire them? And Wigan is near Southport which is a seaside resort so maybe it’s that which attracts the women. Oh it’s a very superior place. The sea may no longer come to the promenade. Who is interested in that?
Well if I get cancer and don’t live very long it will it will save me from much anxiety,
Will I go blind as I’ve already lost one eye? Don’t worry I didn’t lose it on a night out
Will I end up in a wheelchair in my arthritis gets worse?
Will I always have problems with food?
Will I forget how to write a villanelle?
At least when you get cancer you won’t be worrying about whether you will get cancer. But then I can always think of some other aspects of life to worry about like it comes to remission will it come back and after permission for another act.?
As Mary ate her Weetabix, she felt a pain in her left leg rather like a toothache gone awol Emile, what are you doing? Emile crawled out looking dusty. And he had just had a bath. I was trying to bite the hairs off your leg, he miaowed plaintively There are no hairs on my leg, she whispered. Oh, dear,I must have walked into a cobweb I wish Stan had got a cobweb brush, she muttered. But do we really need a different brush for everything? Soon we will have one for each tooth. That will be expensive She felt in her pocket for her Tablet. She wanted to draw a diagram of her brush cupboard using an Android App. But her pocket was empty The back door opened and in ran Annie wearing a yellow nightdress and matching slippers Hello, she cried. I wanted to catch you before 9 am Why, asked Mary? The postman will be here by then. He has got a parcel for me. But I put your address. What is the point of secrecy when you live alone. You have no man to question your expenses, have you? Nor a woman either Well, Emile might ask me to explain. Just because Emile is male it does not give him the right to tell you what to do All my life I have obeyed men, Annie cried Yes, after you have manipulated, seduced and terrified them That is very cruel. I was only trying to help them. Well, you may have done, but why not help yourself? How can I do that? Tune into your body and see what comes to mind Beetroot, Annie responded. So you must need them, get dressed and we will go to the greengrocers You have got very bossy, said Annie. Did you have a nightmare? It was more like a night-tiger, Mary revealed. Something bit my foot and it hurt Oh, mother , cried Emile, it was me! You, Emile. What made you do that, she said angrily? It was in my way as I crawled under the duvet, the cat whispered Surely you could have gone further down. I wanted to see what you tasted like! That is evil, not to say perverted, Mary told him. I shall take you for therapy or would Confession be better? Is it a compulsion you cannot help or is it a sin? Annie was silent. She did not like questions nor any kind of prolonged thought Don’t ask me, she finally said. Maybe Emile needs a man in the house. I don’t want any more men, Mary said sadly. They seem to die Well, Stan was 128 years old. Annie informed her.I saw his birth certificate once. Unless it was 12.8 years Don’t be so ridiculous. How could he have been 12.8 years old? It must be a miracle, said Annie. Tell the Pope and he might be declared a saint soon St Stan of Knittingham, Patron Saint of Almost Adolescents. The bell rang. In ran Dave. He was dressed in navy. I am ready to take you to Church, he told the ladies To church? I’d rather go to Wigan Pier Oh, the sea is not there on Sundays! Is it there on the Sabbath, Annie muttered? No, it’s not, Dave said quietly Wow, two more miracles, she said as she fainted into the Pantry How annoying, Mary said. I just classified the jam Well, things could be worse, said Dave. She’s not broken any and cut herself What, she falls and breaks nothing. She must be very light. Yes, she nearly is electric, he quipped Whatever next?
Inside my mind I dream of pearls, Caterpillars,snails with whorls. I dream contented, all enwrapped; With reverie and dream I’m lapped. The inner seas will comfort me, While gods open my eyes to see
Oh,sweeter than confectionery Is my Oxford diction’ry. The words whirl round then fall to shape The sentences which my world make. This furnishing is rich and strange And magically self arranged.
Oh,sweeter than the love of man Is reading works of poets long gone; Feeling deeply their dark tides . Upon which our boat may glide. The sea infinite we float upon Is the same warm sea the ancients swam..
Sweeter still is the spring air And the blossom spreading fair. We’ll drown our selves in grassy fields To the gods of poetry yield. We’ll rise again and spring up tall To grow more rich until we fall
In. England bitter, wild winds blow and grow The blossom’s thrashed, knocked off the living stem As if for a new catastrophe we’re due.
This week, this world, imagine what we know As Terror and Election come again On England frail with fighting what to do?
The little nesting birds sway in their tree Summer is suspended, voters groan As if for fresh catastrophe we’re due.
The common people quarrel violently An abscess bursts and then hot poison rains On England now the wild wind snarls anew.
The cold contempt divides us into two The only good is that we can’t buy guns When for a new catastrophe we’re due.
Saturday, the News struck Britain dumb The blood and guts of sacrificial victims ran The death of God calls forth barbaric brews Can we change, embrace a better view?
Never finish a sentence without ending it Never write too clearly to a man. Never begin a sentence without a word Never end one with but. Never free associate in writing nor in speech Never take a horse to bed. Never mention Adam Phillips unless in the LRB Never be over-cautious. Never end a word with a letter. Never give your name to the paper Never fall in love with a duck. Never pass water.Have a drink. Take a random sample of your dreams to a psychoanalyst Never cut your own hair while typing on it Never believe anything you read in bed
I saw this painting at the art exhibition and I told him it resembled a strangulated Turner.
She said that my financial affairs were calculated to harm her
She was a lapsed Catholic with a prolapsed womb and so would you if you didn’t use contraception can you be a prolapsed Catholic!
Isn’t it strange that many fully qualified doctors are nervous of doing surgery etc and yet someone pretending to be a doctor with no qualifications and very little experience carries out many operations on the NHS before it’s discovered that this person is a rogue?
Forgot to put an appendix to my thesis and now I’ve got appendicitis instead of my degree
But they told me my thesis was much too long. I can’t seem to win really. Thank goodness Dirac is dead. Is that blasphemy?
They were impressed with the breadth of my knowledge but not with what I had written down I don’t understand it. I copied it straight from the book. I haven’t written about myself but I had read it. It was published by a reputable company. The book has those topics in it. And no other book does at least in English why should I have to translate it from another language because I speak English see you will have to speak it it lol
I never realised it myself 2 later the God just wanted to spend three more years at university. Since dwells in my unconscious mind he had to move me to Oxford.
Killed my supervisor so I couldn’t stay where I was. Mysterious ways indeed. I had always wanted to ride a second-hand bicycle so that meant it was either Oxford or Cambridge. Is Norwich flat I could have gone there. Still I’m nearly 90 years old now so maybe I can move on after brooding for 70 years.
I’ll buy a car and then I can go to any University at all the morphology of the area will not matter in the long run. I just want to graduate before I die.
They have no petrol heating but they find the emotion heater very useful.
She said that she’s got a gas cooker but who eats gas?
She has drawers in her freezer and freezing are her drawers.
I prefer to wash up using the sink It was very hard getting into the dishwasher every night. And pretty hard to get out again
Waiting for the bread to rise was almost as difficult as waiting for my son to rise from the bed.
The biggest disappointment of my life was seeing the sea of Galilee.And the second one was the Dead Sea. I just couldn’t stop floating about.
I have no sense of sense of surplus In my everyday life. I am surplus myself so I think when I’m depressed.
Christianity is a very biological religion. The keep mentioning Christ’s body. What about hims soul I’d like to ask them. There’s something violent about it in my opinion. Life and death body and blood good and evil tennis and cricket football and rugby
Legs and arms
breed and stutter
Until in the final paralysis all is made one and one is all and that is how It Will be forever and ever on ever amen.
Was this the apple then, your mother’s breast Which father thought was his to oft caress? And when, in deprived rage, you bit to test In rage, he vowed to ever you harass.
So then you learned that you could hate as well, The punishment struck hard in your small heart. Your memory was unworded, could not tell; Though pain and anguish made your soft skin smart.
As unknown as the journey to your birth As shocking as the grief of unmeant wrong. As frightening as the gauging of your worth As sudden as the ending of a song.
Impossible to foretell or to prepare, The ambivalence of our hearts can start just here.
Please do not eat your own words at the table My eyes rolled like marbles in the gutter but how could I see? She was full of smart bones and loose joints but it was a bad idea to give her a date or ten The doctor seemed to put blue rubbers into my ear but they were a thermometer Since I was the only patient, I could not mate in the hospital Her eyes nearly came out of the bed Her eyes were like sharks teeth She muffled her cheeks in wool I did not suffer from my hallucinations.I found them very moving We used to meet at dawn or 8 am whichever was later I do wish he’d put his clock back. He swallowed my words. My voice was strangled He stole my vice and was transformed into electricity My eyes were so big he fell in Then we all fell out
I remember riding on his back It was summer; I was only two He had an old tweed jacket full of smoke Woodbines, they would probably kill you too
Walking with my sister in her pram Mam looked as happy as a summer lark My brothers were pretending to be soldiers We walked along, right into the deep dark
A few years later Dad was sat there crying They never told me he was very bad Eight years old, I pushed the baby My sister walked while clutching at my side
I was worried Grandad would be angry Seeing us three coming up the lane We usually went there only at the weekend On, on, on, went my brain
Going back home it was the evening The sun had gone ,time to go to bed I pushed my little sisters up our street Auntie told me Daddy was now dead
No more rides on his thin shoulder No more walking in the flowery park Only the anguish of our feelings Only children weeping in the dark
When I was 28 my husband bought me a tin of lavender wax polish for my birthday.I do love lavender After 45 years of marriage I found he liked me mainly because of my beauty. Of course I’d never really thought I was beautiful
When I was recovering from a serious operation ,he said, You are not very house proud, are you? I could hardly walk When he was near death he slept a lot in an armchair by my side.One afternoon he woke up and said in a very loud voice: You’ve got a brilliant personality. Then he went to sleep again. When we were first married we were out in the country.We were in a lane with steep grassy banks so we lay down at the top and rolled down! He rarely noticed if I went to the hairdresser until I had my hair cut very very short.He was annoyed because when it was long he liked to brush it in the evening.He could have tickled me with a feather duster instead but he refused.I didn’t have a feather duster but I am sure I could have bought one. He used to bring me a cup of tea in bed until he could hardly walk. After I had an eye operation I had no glasses for 6 months and for 3 months I had gas in my right eye so it was blind.We were in the car, approaching a junction and he said,Which way do I turn? I said,talk about the blind leading the blind Just after that a friend rang up and said she was very upset she had to wear glasses.How horrible .I couldn’t see. even with glasses.It made me learn how self centered we are
