The first line is the hardest to compose
The mind flies here and there like a wild bird
Or settles down, enjoys a little doze
The first line is the hardest to compose
Breaking the blank page my fears arose
Until with my own ears the music’s heard
The first line is the hardest to compose
The mind flies here and there like a wild bird

I read a sad story yesterday written by a woman whose father died after waiting 4.5 hours
for an ambulance & he had covid 19
She mentioned that the first time he was in hospital they said his blood sugar was too low.She replied, that was impossible as he was taking all his diabetes medication correctly
This shows how little people know about diabetes
Diabetics have too much sugar in their blood.The medication removes some of this sugar
but it can reduce it too much.Then you can faint, fall etc
The tablets do not cure they try to control
My husband had this and had many falls some serious when he fainted onto the War Memorial
and injured his brain, broke his nose & cheekbone and damaged his eye
also left a large pool of blood which my neighbours saw coming back from work
I studied diabetes and possible various treatments
On the other hand my brother had it & after the best diet ,he was no longer
classified as diabetic.
If you are on such meds,carry a few sweets and if you feel faint suck one chew one
Then, as soon as you can, eat a sandwich with protein
If you go out for the day take a sandwhich as you can’t miss a meal
You’d better not believe just me.Look it up and find out for yourself

The sky is yellowy pink but tinged with grey
The sun is gone and we feel stark dismay
We can’t meet friends in person any more
Only shout as we stand by the door

I think the source of Covid  is just cash
Money laundered less, the notes unwashed
The coins are black as coal in devil’s  claws
Don’t leave  the tip that kills , nor money gnaw

I used to suck a shilling while I worked
I  tapped my  fingers  where it would not hurt
But now the sight of pounds makes   me feel sick
Never use old notes nor lovers lick 

Throw your money into a black hole
You may starve but this will save your soul

Today is yellow ochre,tinged with grey
Not much contrast from the soft silk sky
No birds nor any brightness, light won’t play

The ones who act so manic are not gay
If there is no truth, there are no lies
Today is yellow ochre, languid, grey

In the sun on Sutton Bank we lay
My acts outcry, my grief I shall defy
No birds nor any life. the light n’t play

Who is born a hunter.who the prey?
The lion has lost the unicorn nearby
Today is yellow ochre, damped to grey

I think of brexit, oh the blush,shame
The spirits flatten;rise up,do not die
No birds nor any life, the light won’t play

I wonder what the loss is or the gain
I wish we were in Suffolk by the Bly
Today is yellow ochre, soon to grey
No birds, no life ,I’m anguished, would you stay?

Creeds have danger, action is what counts
Love your neighbour subtly and with care
Tell the truth in suitable amounts
Good deeds are done in secret,God’s about
But views of him are hidden and are rare
Creeds are minor, action is what counts
Do not offend nor patronise nor doubt.
The beggars in the doorway room nowhere
Tell the truth in suitable amounts
Live a secret life but sing and shout
Write a letter clear and tinged with flair
Creeds are minor, action is what counts
Hunt no beast,admire the mad March hare
Tell the truth in suitable amounts
.f you meet a stranger, do not stare
If you meet an angel be prepared
Creeds have danger, action is what counts
Tell the truth in suitable amounts

My own art

Tersa Rima

I was almost drowned  by deep,dark  grief
I have wept  at home and wept abroad.
I lost my early childhood to these deaths

I have  known grief  spread like rivers wide
I ‘ve been  wracked  by   painful spasms of  tears
I have felt the absence of  my God.

I’ve known grief for  more than sixty years
My father and his brother were the first
I have met no  being who’s been spared.

Yet we have no permission  here to weep
I long for ritual like  my writer’s pen
I ache  to dream of them  while I’m asleep.

Like a fox hides in a hole or den
I would like to hide  when day begins
Uncontained  by  his love  again

As a tree mourns for each little leaf
As God mourns his human life so brief
I have been demolished  by  wild grief
I have  seen lost ghosts, yet still believe

I have got more and more incontinent.
Do stop admiring Europe

I don’t want to kill a virus.Jesus said: love your enemies
They had no viruses then

I love bacteria.Is that a crime?
Well, it’s hard to have sex with one but it may be a sin

Why do the government tell us to eat more fruit and veg?
To help evacuate he Common Market from our bodies


Why do the government not have enough beds in hospitals?
They can’t all go to sleep at once

Why don’t the government buy more beds?
For their castles?

Why are people upset by isolation?
They feel like lepers

Why do we eat food?
What else could we do with it?

Why are the fishing men so upset?
They thought Boris Johnson told the truth

Why do people think truth does not exist?
Soon they will stop believing even that!

Is logic better than emotion?
That is meaningless

I’d love to play the viola
And how long have you felt like this?
For years
Take these tablets and come back next week
Shall I bring the viola.doctor?

Elena,a baby wrapped in woollen clothes.
On the last train,Warsaw to Moscow,
[ change Niegoreloje.]
1939.Father,mother,brother
You passed through the Arctic Wastes of life.
Still as if travelling on a train
To an impossibly far destination.
As you left the German Army crashed into Warsaw
Lost,your aunts
Your cousins.
Your culture.
How does God select the damned?
You had your own baby,here in England,
Not lost like all those others.
Your father died by his own hand,
The hand of history;
The fingers twitching,
Not sure where to point.
Then settling into frozen grief
A sculpture only your mother saw.
You saw too,Elena.
You always saw,though you can’t remember;
The long journey, your mother’s breast,
Your father’s silence.
Only the dead know that silence.
Only the dead weep
With the rocks and stones .
And the ice in each eye
Fell like snow down your cheeks
As you held your own infant.
Warsaw to Moscow,
Moscow to Jerusalem.
Always journeying
Looking for what they can never find:
The home they left behind
The presence of the dead
Lying in gaunt heaps
Like rubbish
Your aunts, Elena.
Your cousins.
You never knew them.
But there’s a hole in your mind
Through which the Polish wind forever blow

←

The bricks of the old wall, while crumbling, live
Five hundred years of history passed them by
While plants grew in the cracks below, above
Apart from people, this is what I love
That ancient structures stand and do not die
The bricks of this old wall while crumbling live
A little beauty will do well enough
This cheers my heart and lifts my spirits high
Wild flowers grow in cracks below, above
We fill our minds and homes with shop bought stuff
Gaze on bricks and cracks, what will we spy?
The bricks of this old wall while crumbling live
Like old complexions, older bricks are rough
The Vicar cannot smooth them though they try
Holes for plants inscribe these cracks with love
From generations past, ghosts wander. shy.
Looking for their graves, they whisper,sighT
he bricks of the old wall still crumbling live
Tenacious weeds shall wave below, aboveShare

Oh,transcendental numbers, are you gods
You show the complex world that drives us nuts
If only the circumference could be
The radius squared, then multiplied by three.

How simple Science would be because straight lines
Could wrap round the “circles” well defined
All the world would be a different shape
The Earth itself would crumble as we gaped

Come to that we would not be alive
For women would have bosoms like road signs
The womb would be a cube and not a sphere
The corners would endanger life obscure

Our heads would be like Rubik’s cube in shape
Our minds would be aghast and emigrate
So here would lie the ruins of the West
No devious politicians could invest

Men and women could not join in sex
That would make the adults feel quite vexed
Procreation would be IVF
Look it up, it’s no fun for the guest

We would need no hats upon flat heads
A dinner plate would sit up there instead
But if we bring back pi, will all be well?
I cannot say while living in this hell

Stupid, evil men are on the loose
The air is nauseaous with a smell diffuse

feelings, poetry, politics, reflections, society, sonnet, story, 

Roman roads connected in straight lines
The cities they had built in wealthy times
The remains of one  goes past my garden gate
Do ghosts of Roman legions pass at night?

I like to see connections,maps and roads
Others  love  old cities ,walls and moats
My road ran to Lincoln  near the Wash
Migrating birds and swans  go there to rest

Going South, there is the Pilgrim’s Way
Canterbury, Becket,murder, prayer
Julius Caesar, Deal,  the Roman hordes
Boudicea,  and her fighting Lords

Layers of history, meaning,love and death
Still we argue  what should be our path

Axes are useful, real and imaginary.Does our earth have them?
Borrow one in sums.Not nice.Arithmetic sucks
Calculus is based on non-understanding of first principles which may not be understandable like certain j
Drawing graphs is an art and a science.
Euclid has frightened some and delighted others.And a  right angle to you as well.
Flatland is a book set in an imaginary two-dimensional world.Fractions frighten
Geometry gave way to algebra.Godel studied axiomatic systems.
God was a Word not a number……. think about it.
Hard as maths is, there is a non-sensual beauty in there somewhere
It takes your mind off the pain when you try to visualise 4 dimensions.Be aware some never return.
Jokes are not often found in our textbooks except the biggest.. that God likes jigsaws, geometry and juggling.
Kurt Godel went mad.He proved maths cannot have a complete set of axioms with no contradictions.So don’t go there
Logic is not identical  with mathematics.
Multiplication tables were sung by children at school in the past.Matrices are rows and columns of numbers.
Number theory is harder than one would imagine from counting one’s digits.
Operators are imaginary concepts which have an effect on other imaginary concepts which then contribute to nuclear physics, and a few other things like the end of the world.
Probability seems to be part of the nature of the world despite Einstein’s famous words. God does not play dice.
Quantitative methods were what they called maths to stop the anxiety students felt.But it’s a bad name.
Reason is only   part of mathematics
Straight lines can meet.
Theorems can be interesting if you know why you are learning them
Why? Why indeed.Wranglers are top mathematics students at Cambridge.
X or x is often the unknown we look for.
Y is like X  just by historical  usage
Zero as a concept with a sign is more abstract than One.Hence its late arrival on the human scene.
Nothing can be symbolised. Ain’t that  wonderfulStraight lines can meet.Straight lines can meet.Straight lines can meet.

Daniel Spinnett was a newly  homeless man in a horrible  wealthy but cruel country called the Reblighted Kingdom.He had been married once but his wife often  used to hurl his hot dinner at him if he was a bit late home and she also had four lovers into the bargain.When she was made Head of Uncivil Service UK he decided he was leaving her and hoped for a second chance and maybe a child as well with a gentler woman
At first he was truly happy in his new  commodious flat and also with  meeting women on the Guardian Solemates website; all too  soon his firm was affected by the recession and he ended up with no money to pay his rent ; his ex-wife was completely unsympathetic. though she was absolutely rolling in money and men or both !
He went to the Council to seek for cheap accommodation
I have nowhere to live.The rents in Lone-don are so high.. can I get a council flat?I am on job seekers allowance of £70 per week…
A council flat?The man behind the desk laughed sarcastically like a dying flea.
There ain’t no such anymore,mi duck…didn’t you know the Trying Lady sold them off.
Did you not build more using that money,he enquired courteously and logically. as was his wont
Sorry,chum, we spent it on wine, women and bling… gold watches, golf clubs, moats, you know
Daniel felt very upset so he set out to walk to Lightwebbs Forest a couple of miles away for a time of  green beauty and quietness…He fell asleep under an old oak ; he was nervously exhausted ,no doubt
When he woke up a huge cat was standing near him staring curiously
Hello, the cat said in a kindly but loud voice
Hello,I am Daniel from down the road
Well, the cat said,I’m a lion from the circus.We have escaped and we are living here in the woods.
But what do you eat? asked Dan.
Well,we forage around and we find food left out for house cats.;we also have learned to cook leaves and grass over a fire in a double boiler.
The lion smiled down at Daniel showing a light in his amber eyes
You look very thin.Why don’t you come with me to have dinner?
Daniel was  afraid of the lion but he had no alternative in mind.
After a circuitous walk they reached the deepest,densest  most magical part of the wood.There were four lions,two tigers and four  leopards all looking happy
Is this our dinner,they cried excitedly as they gazed at Daniel.
No,this is a poor starving man with no home.
Well.lie down Dan and eat this leafy risotto..
Absolutely delicious,awesome, he cried greedily as he used his hands like a child with no table manners
Then the first lion asked Dan to come with him to his own den.
When they got there he said piteously
I have got a problem and none of the animals here  can help.I have got a piece of barbed wire stuck in my tail and I need a human with fingers to untangle it..
Daniel looked and there was about 12 inches of barbed wire which hit  and beat the old  lion as he walked or ran.Dan managed to untwist it and uuntangle it.He got some water from the stream and washed the lion’s backside where the barbs had cut into him..I have no Elastoplast, he muttered anxiously.The fresh air will heal it, said the lion gently….

And that was how Daniel came to be living in the lion’s den.
He says he prefers it to living with his dominating wife.
He certainly looks fitter than before and is considering asking for surgery to change into a lion on the NHS as there is a lady lion whom he has fallen in love with.No doubt lions don’t get married in church but they do love each other very deeply.
Just go to the forest and take a look next time you fall asleep.
Now the lions enjoy even better food because Daniel has  recipe books and unlike the lions,he can read.They found some old sauce pans at the recycling centre so he can do cheese sauce using milk from the sheep on the edge of the wood,
If you knew what went on in our many woods,you’d definitely get a big surprise..I can tell you

How my heart sings

Poetry and lovely images

Katherine Thinkings and poems  

Václav Havel

The relativization of all moral norms, the crisis of authority, the reduction of life to the pursuit of immediate material gain without regard for its general consequences—the very things Western democracy is most criticized for–do not originate in democracy but in that which modern man has lost: his transcendental anchor, and along with it the only genuine source of his responsibility and self-respect . . . . Given its fatal incorrigibility, humanity probably will have to go through many more Rwandas and Chernobyls before it understands how unbelievably shortsighted a human being can be who has forgotten that he is not God.

https://jcrhumming.wordpress.com/

Donald said he’s coming back somehow
In a different form, perhaps a cow!
He made an error, ruining the States
If he is a worm then he’ll be bait
If he is a dog and bites a child
He will be put down like those reviled
So many on Death Row he ordered killed
The only benefit is to remind
Not all humans are quite human-kind

Katherine villanelle  August 11, 2016 1 Minute

I wish that I had kissed you ten more times
I didn’t know  how soon you had to leave
I’d   draw upon your lips my best design

I tell my love in words,  which is no crime.
I didn’t show you all you might receive
I wish that I had kissed you ten more times

If I had  bought you  bottles of best wine
Would you have stayed and  kept me unbereaved?
I’d   draw upon your lips my best design.

I know you were perceptive and read signs
Eyes a-crinkle   green as sun washed  leaves
I wish that I had kissed you ten more times

I’d  hold your  mind and  weave  your thoughts to rhymes
Until  the  truest love poem  arrived
I’d   draw upon your lips my best design.

I’d write  you letters ,much love I would leave
With my mind and body I perceive.
I wish that I had kissed you ten more times
I’d   draw upon your lips our own design

Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have;
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.”
― W. H. Auden, Collected Poems

“I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.”

― W. H. Auden, Collected Poems

I wish you a low Tier
Happy New Leer
Happy, need beer
Hippy New Flair
Happy, Loo near!
Aptly New Here.
Happy New Beer
Unhappy with Lear?
Snappy New Year
Cherry Xmas
Happy Mums R Us
We kiss you and say it’s Xmas, so happy you’re dear
Very Xmas to view.
Very Xmas with flu
Make a post of it.
Flay the dust out.
Hope to flee you soon
I can’t mate to go home.
Sorry I’ve not been in clutch.
Sorry not to sweep my promises.
We must be, this year.
Be good but impure
Have emotions in the flesh
Let’s get together with a SIM
I’ll see you with the Creator.
Are you any good with tarts
Flap both your ears
.Well, we were born with no lore.
I see men gnaw more.
Happy Low Tier
I feel I am queer

I started to write villanelles because after 2 years I was still suffering intensely
I decided to learn something new.I’ve written many villanelles now. I learn new things as often
as I need to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villanelle

 March 14, 2018

I have studied  and I’ve got my new degree
My heart has learned its lessons one by one.
I’m a graduate of the grief academy

I didn’t know how anguished one would be
When the man you love is here and then is gone
I’ve been studied, oh  I got the third degree

The tears I wept  could fill up the Dead Sea
Add more salt and scour the shore till done
I’m a graduate of the grief academy

I know now I must die,we cannot flee
We turn to dust and that is not much fun
I have studied  and I’ve got my last degree

It’s no  News, nothing for the BBC
Unless you’re Stephen Hawkings, that great man
We’re graduates of the grief academy

We can’t control life with a self made plan
God is gone though prayer  might well begin
I have suffered till I got my Ph.D
I’m a graduate of the grief academy

The face that was familiar is no more
Yet in my dreams he  is alive again
Without his presence, I feel lost and sore

The truth of loss, no human can ignore
It tears our  heart  to pieces with its pain
The face that was familiar is no more

Yet sentimental offerings I abbhor
When parted from the love with whom I’d lain
Without his presence, I feel lost and sore

No give and take of love, the shore is bare
The tide is out  so far the waves complain
The face that was familiar is no more

On the sea’s edge, we would walk and stare
Now I walk alone is this  my shame?
Without his presence, I feel lost and  bare

By my write the inner rhythm’s regained
The art of losing well  may be attained
The face that was familiar is no more
With him I   found sweet sea shells on  the shore

I’m in my cashmere hoodie
And I’m wearing cashmaere track pants
Polly Wolly Doodle, life’s a lay
I’ve got a folding Samsung
I think it has a stylus
Polly Wolly Doodle. life’s E bay
My sheets are very cotton
Like they were when slaves were pickin’
Polly Wolly Doodle’s in decay
So we lay on slaves’ productions
But we did not want to meet them
Polly Wolly Doodle, Jesus waves.
We were praying to the Devil
Dancing with the demons
Polly Wolly Doodle, we will pay
We imitate work clothing
But ours are fur and satin
Polly Wolly Doodle, who can pray?
The priests abusing children
The nuns hide babies dying
That was for Lord Jesus
They must all be unbelievers
Horror is the feeling I declare

I have been to the dentist.

Thank you!

I saw a book called Split:how to win your husband back.I wonder if it works when they are
dead?
Hey,Lord,I want my husband back.I’m sad by myself
Help some other sad people then
But I will still be alone at night
I know the feeling only too well
Oh,Lord.I’m sorry for being so egocentric
Everybody seems to be nowadays and even in the past Eve stole that apple
Yes, you’ve seen it all
There’s a lot more to life than that.The beauty and the terror
I suppose you also have felt the terror
No doubt, I did.
So you know how people feel when they are homeless and despised
I know some of it.
I hope I didn’t interrupt you.
I have plenty of time
Good night
Good night

Ferrets are the latest thing in pets
They need less food than any pussy cat
But if you have a rabbit hole nearby
A ferret will run down there like a spy
Their faces look adorable and sweet
But don’t let one run up a lady’s feet
Very soon they’ll reach her private parts
That will be the end for all sweethearts
On second thoughts I’d get yourself a snake
Or why not live alone and bake a cake?

1945 Auschwitz

The Gates of Hell