I am glad you like these glasses

I’d wear a plate for you

As the moment passes

You really have no clue.

i saw your eyes were narrowed

Your lips were taut with glue.

it was my wife you had borrowed

And I’ll do the same for you

She played Patience on the monument and lied through her teeth.

She was aching in her fundament after seeing ten police

She was baking her condiments to get some relief

She entered the convent while cleaning her teeth.

Wonder of wonders she laughed throughout grief

When what was pleasure turns to excess strain

We need our friends to help us through the pain

Rain falls lightly in the winter wood,
Dampening stones that make a pathway through
The overgrown, the old trees and the new.
The scent of rain on grass is always good

I see the acers coming into bud.
The daffodils are waving as I view.
The lily pond is lonely without you.
We used to feed a robin when we could

After Mass on Sunday mornings then
We’d drive to woods and walk to ease our strains.
But now I cannot write, I clutch your pen.
My inspiration gives me life again.

Without your hand in mine, I walk quite lame.
The dampness on my face is tears, not rain

In the afternoon they iron our clothes

Then the bedsheets, comfort for our toes .

They give us cups of tea and watch us drink

So we can’t complain they gave us ink.

Some days I have apple juice instead

They say it’s quite ok to wet the bed.

I wonder how they dry these cotton sheets.

We dried ours on lines in our backstreet

Now there are no back streets any more

We had a water closet by the door

I was your chosen sacrifice.your Christ.

I did not deny you even twice

Hands drenched in blood

Who could allow theirself to know

( Oh crucifix of wood.)

What the murdered faces show?

(oh crown of thorns,)

Oh sacred heart torn

The baby was born

Ukraine

Chernobyl

Babi Yar

Kyiv

Children

Shell

This is not a War this is genocide.

Babi Yar

Ravine of mass murder

Come

Come

Come

Original Sin

Psychosis

Psychopathy?

Can any explanation be meaningful

What is meaning?

Hitler was in some sense a Catholic

Evil. grinning behind the hospital

25 premature babies

Orphans

Bombs

To Putin the other is not a person

But how do we act?

Are we people to each other?

We thought our found cat was a girl

Till we went to the vet with her tail

He said she’s a boy

I was covered in awe

He could see what we never swirled

I once had a doctor called Larkin

He had a dog fond of barking

He put the dog into Care.

As she learned how to swear

.Especially when she saw him parking

When Jesus cast his fishing line

Did he know the form

It was a neat parabola

As the sun rose up at dawn.

He knew the conic sections

The circle,the ellipse

He learned it in his mother’s womb

Not from wise men’s lips.

God must like geometry

And so do many folk.

God is in the atmosphere

He rises in the smoke

Mary was sitting looking at the execution of Mary Queen of Scots on TV while also mending some moth holes in her skirt.The only thread she got into the eye of the easy thread ne ftedle was blue but nobody was going to examine her with a microscope, she told herself gently
She also was thinking of her winter coat.
Was raspberry really a good choice?
Would dark grey not be more useful?
After all she often sat down on garden walls while taking photos or even on old wooden benches.
What she needed was a folding cushion or a small thick towel.No wonder women have such big handbags.
Annie her neighbour came in the back door with a bag of broken biscuits.
Look at these!We used to get them in the market years ago.So for old times sake I have hit these with a hammer!
What sort of hammer,Mary asked.
Why, are there different kinds?
Yes,but I expect yours is just the usual medium size.
Actually it was Ben’s.When he ran away he left it behind.
I suppose it was too heavy to fit into his suitcase.
Where do he run to?
I don’t know,said Annie but as his sister in law went with him they might have gone to Australia.
Do men in Australia often love their sisters in law? Mary pondered
Who knows? The point is nobody would recognise them.
Although if I went on Saga holiday I might!More people travel now.
My friend Jim went to Borneo last year, said Annie in a tone of wonder
So if we became lesbian lovers we could not hide in Borneo!Where could one hide now with all this travel?
Disguise might be best,Annie whispered.You could dress as a man!
You must be joking ,at my size.
Well, there are plenty of fat men!
But would they have a shape like mine?
So the two friends while away Saturday afternoon, both now darning Mary’s other clothes.
Why don’t you just buy new clothes,Annie murmured kindly.
I can’t afford this quality.I shall have to keep combing Emile until I get enough fur to make into a thread.Then I can knit a scarf!
How ridiculous,You’d need a herd of cats to get enough,Annie informed her with pity.
What a lovely idea,Mary cried
But Emile might be jealous.Or he might enjoy meeting a lady cat… or two.
I don’t think you could have more than six cats here and with food and bills it would be cheaper to buy wool
Still,a ball of wool is not so good to sleep by as a cat,Mary pondered slowly.
And it has no loving eyes to look at when one comes in from the shops.
I suppose just holding wool in the hand might be very soothing,Annie retorted logically.
Otherwise we could join Soulmates she continued fluently.
Would men be attracted to a lady with darned moth holes in her clothing? Mary enquired humorously
Well, it would show you were economical and thrifty,Annie cried sensitively
Surely that is not the main reason men choose a woman partner, said Mary wonderingly.
I suppose they like a woman with a gentle sensitive nature.Annie screamed
Well.Denis Thatcher didn’t,Mary informed her delightedly
So true, but was she different once?
No, he wanted to be dominated.Mary decided.
I wonder if he liked being whipped,Annie thought having read 5o shades of whey
She could have used the Government Whips, Mary chortled.
Both the women burst out laughing so much that the sofa fell over and flung them onto the thick red and purple striped acrylic carpet
That sofa us unstable,Annie shouted.We could have died
Perhaps it’s us.Mary shrieked
Emile ran out into the kitchen and bit a piece out of the Xmas cake.
I can’t help it, he mewed.They are both getting madder by the day
And so say all of us
Emlle’s a jolly good yeller
So pray for all of us.

Iris Murdoch wrote a novel

Living in her rural hovel.

I found the incest very queer.

So I drank a jug of beef.

I want to buy some mobile groans

You can hire my parrot.

Can he groan?

If you do.

Why don’t you teach him?

I taught him to laugh.

Can he giggle?

Why don’t you just do it all yourself?

It’s taking money from the poor.

They can groan alright.

But can they laugh,?

In a hollow manner.

Do you want a refugee?

I think I have a manger.

He might be grown up now

Well let’s not crucify him

I say,who is he Is,? Can he feed the 5000?

The five thousand what?

Ukrainians.

God isn’t here to do what we ought to do.

So why is he here?

We don’t know .is there always a reason?

Maybe not one we can understand.

And so say all of us.

Groan

My garden was a dandelion filled crack.

Or the little cobbles at the back

Grass and coltsfoot struggled for their life

As round the corner came a crowd of mice

Muce

E

There was a holy place made with the screens
Where lay the old man, trembling into dream.
His face was pale, his nose felt like white ice
An offering on the block for sacrifice.

The sacred place was marked by song and prayer
Made quietly so no-one else would hear.
He held my hand and whispered, please don’t go.
I held him in my heart, as his went slow.

A cocoon made in noisy A and E
A strange place for the Lady God to be.
Deep silence underneath the usual noise,
Pierced only by my child-like singing voice.

I saw his soul, my tears made stiff curtains
Hidden so, I felt the weight of pain.
I felt my heart crack, struck by loss and grief
Death had been there like a silent thief.

His pale face on the pillow seemed to smile
The kindness of strange angels did beguile

https://youtu.be/sOMg0eIrxK4