After the unusual November sunshine, Mary was happy  to discover her  underwear was dry. She took it into the sitting  room to  fold  up, ready to go into the drawer.
Although by nature she was very untidy, she did try to keep a bit of order in her drawers.
As she sat musing, with the pile of knickers  and bras nearby, the door bell rang.Quickly she pushed the heap  of lingerie under a large cushion and opened the door optimistically with a brave laugh
There stood the Vicar with a beaming  yet sultry smile, like a sun ray on Hellvellyn in winter
Do come in.I’ll make some fresh Ceylon tea, she murmured politely
She carried in a tray of tea and cake and sat on the sofa, after placing the tray on a small table nearby.
Why are you here, Father? she said  anxiously as she sucked her thumb
That was what God said to Elijah on the mountain, he anwered shyly
Well,I am not God but we all wonder now and then why we are here and think we should be somewhere else , like in bed with Leonard Cohen.
That never worries me, said the Vicar.I can’t marry a Jew, Leonarda Cohen or whoever.
So if Jesus was here you would not let him marry your daughter?
Even though  he was  the Son of the Most High?
Definitely not.He wasn’t a Christian.And imagine what it would be like when he was never at home  helping with the chores, but was fishing in the Sea of Galilee all day.And feeding hungry people.Not to mention getting killed…..
But he must have been very loving, Mary muttered nervously
God loves those who love themselves, cried the Vicar.
Er, that’s a bit narcissistic,Mary told him.I’ve never heard anyone say it before.
Well we   ought to love ourselves  or why should anyone else love us?
For our beauty, our mind, our  kindness, our humour, our cooking or our money.
Yet some a people are sadists and some are masochists.
Well, that is  unfortunate but, if they are willing, it seems acceptable  to me.I won’t criticise them if they enjoy it
Suddenly Annie,Mary’s neighbour,ran into the room  in her dark purple velvet trenchcoat and  shiny green vinyl  boots which matched her eye shadow and contrasted well with her terracotta lipstick and matching earrings.
Hi, she shouted.I’m here.Well, they all knew that.
Where is that  lipstick from,Mary quizzed her pensively
It’s by Lambscombe of Wigan and  Ilkley. Annie revealed furtively
I didn’t know they made  lipstick,Mary answered.It’s an unusual colour
Is it made from old bricks?
I don’t know, Annie cried petulantly.She   started to snivel and  felt under the cushion in case Mary had left a hanky or tissue there.
Her  hand reappeared clutching a pair of  bright blue  lace knickers
It was hard to decide who looked more embarrassed ,Mary or  the Vicar
What’s going on in here, Annie demanded
I’ve   never seen them before, the Vicar  told her manfully
Surely your wife must wear them, Annie said knowingly
My wife wears underpants.
Well, it takes all sorts,Mary mused.Is  your wife a man ?
I don’t know.We live a  life of  utter chastity.We have therefore had no children.We could have adopted I guess.
What a waste,Annie whispered.
You are a very charming and delightful person.~
I can’t believe  you are innocent.You persuaded Mary to take off her knickers so you could play Mummies and  Daddies but I came in at the wrong moment.
Mary fainted silently onto the rug

Emile mewed loudly and rang 999 on his Nokia1

In ran Dave, the fluid gendered,  transsexual and well dressed paramedic.
What’s wrong ?Why  has Mary fainted and why are there knickers on the floor? Is this an orgy? Why have you called me?
The Vicar went bright red with embarrassment and shock.
No, it seems Mary keeps a pair of knickers near her in case she runs  out of tissues.
Dave made some  Ceylon tea in the bijou violet and emerald green kitchen and used Mary’s art deco  mugs to serve it along with some chocolate  biscuits he found under the sink
Mary  rose  up  from the carpet and asked where she was.
Still here,in the EU….until Scotland goes independent and Ireland gets more Troubles and how about Wales getting big idea?
Oh, for goodness sake, shut up.I am sick of Brexit cried Emile.
Where is my tea? Where are my sardines in olive oil?Where is my pudding?
And so ask  all of us.

Even  being  mathematician did not make me think I had to wear trousers like most mathematicians did as they were men
I have no objection to trousers but I like pretty things and I love colour.Yet  a woman friend demanded recently to know why I was wearing a skirt.I should have said that my husband forced me to do!
Now another friend went shopping for a nightdress in  a her local  town.Some of the shop assistants didn’t know what she meant and asked of she meant an evening dress.She likes the beautiful Victorian style.But where are they?
Marks and Spencers still  have a few but they are often man made fibres.
Is it a bad sign when women think they have to dress like men to be equal? I don’t find trousers warm unless they are tweed.And tweed is hard to wash.Probably you can’t wash them.
Since the moth invasion I’ve been looking for a woollen skirt and succeeded in getting one in a kind of heathery mix which reminds me of the heather on the moors in the North.I expect it might look old fashioned but why worry about that? If we look at history a lot of people  in politics were superior to our present politicians.So don;t tell me I have to wear trousers.Let me have a choice.Thank you.
Similarly why must black women straighten their hair for success?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/02/ma-jian-interview-exiled-chinese-writer-free-speech-dissidents-novel

The beginning

The half blind  give advice  on where to look
The soft tongued sell us slogans of defeat
The religious read us stories  from old books

The  thieves  like  best to point to vicious  crooks
As we amble down the just vacated street
The half blind  give advice  on where to look

We win a gamble yet it is a fluke
We   love our loss, we like to be downbeat
The religious read us stories  from old books

The terrorists are now in charge of truth
The former rulers  in their slippers creep
The half blind  give advice  on where to look

The teachers are  afraid  of learning loose
The tangent to the circle is too steep
The aged read us stories  from old books

Love is rare yet sex is very cheap
Timers on the bed end duly beep
The half blind  want  to control where we look
The religious agonise about The Book

Looking in. we miss the  outer world
The  blossom hanging  from the vicarage wall
An old man’s hat which by the breeze is whirled
The toddlers skipping in the Shopping Mall.

Now coffee shops are where we socialise
No more to labour over stove and sink.
And listening, hear what would not meet our eyes.
When for one small moment they both blinked.

And  yet we  long for time to be alone
To breathe more freely, play within our mind
For being far less solid than a stone
Impingements to our boundary  we find

As we balance on this old seesaw
We know  no thing is static. life is raw.

If you are not a Muslim, you may be dressing in the style of Muslim women.For example they often wear trousers under dresses and so do we  now—- leggings?
So to make your  classic or old fashioned clothes look different:

Under your pure wool knife pleated check skirt wear some  black leggings and coloured trainers

Or how about a denim shirt with a  Mondrian patterned tie? Topped by a huge puffa jacket

A  headscarf or nun’s veil  on your head? Or a chrystal headband

Thigh boots?

Wacky earrings or pierced nose

A  modern colour block sweater and  shiney white vinyl  coat?

Brogues and tartan socks and a yellow sou’wester.

A handknitted Sheltand lace sweater

A wool cape

An apron dress. Or an apron.

A Brigitte Bardot sweater

I have loved you and I’ve held you.

Many years,you have been mine;

If the time has come for parting

Let us embrace for one last time.

You know you have to leave me,

Though you desire a longer stay.

Let me hold you in my arms now

For just tonight and perhaps one day.

Then I’ll watch you travel on,sweet.

We take this last step all alone.

I’ll be here beside you watching.

I shall feel when you are gone.

May you accept, may you surrender.

I hope you reach the promised land.

Into this earth my tears will fall, love,

As I recall your tender hands.

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/trench-duty

Trench Duty

Play, Father,it is 29 years since my last decision.
What was that?
Not to practice my Faith
Who is Faith?
I mean, like Hope and Charity
So why are you here?
Only God knows
But there are so many of us.Will he want to know?
Probably not but he has to know
Surely we can’t decide what he should do
So if he forgets us, then what will happen?
Just watch the News tonight
Fox News or the BBC
Do foxes have news?How wonderful
No, it’s a right wing place.
Oh,my.I like the Independent.
They want ad blockers turned off
No-one is totally independent
You can say that again
I refuse.
Be like that.
Have you any sins you want to confess?
Adultery, lies and envy.
Be more specific
I fell in love with a beautiful woman
Your wife?
No, it would not be adultery with her!
Oh,dear,Can’t you pretend?
I never thought of that.
What a shame,How many adulteries have you done?
Probably about 12 a year
You look old too
That’s why.
Are they demanding?
In a way.Why should I do it though?
What do you mean? Surely you should not do it.
Well, they won’t leave me alone.
What is it that draws them in?
My  eyes,I suspect.They are like magnets
Yes,I have noticed.
So I am tired with all these women and my wife as well
If you got divorced that would cut it down
But who would make my dinner?
You could eat out or get your lover to cook
I don’t know.My wife is a wonderful cook and also writes novels
What about?
Unfaithful men and  their secret lives
How amazing.Is that why you decided to be unfaithful?
I can’t remember.But after the first time it seems to matter less
So why bother?
I have no hobbies
Well, for your penance  go to Art Classes.
I can’t draw.
Once you could not commit adultery
That’s true.
Are you penitent?
We didn’t do Latin.
Are you sorry
No,I didn’t like French
I mean for your sins?

Buy shoe laces in a weird colour

Buy cheap jewellery

A new scarf?

Do some alterations… make a mini maxi

Wear your bra over your sweater

Buy a fake leather handbag [ lighter too]

Wear masses of eye makeup

Wear lots of moist lipstick

Wear your nightgown as a dress.

Or indeed wear a dress in bed [ washable only]

1.

With a dogstooth checked pleated wool skirt 34 inch long [  more since I have lost weight]

Wear bright green trainers,red tights and a yellow  and orange sweater

And an oversized down coat in  a strangely indescribable colour with my husband’s  hat if needed

2.
With some beige coloured trousers

Smart loafers in blue, a purple polo neck and a green and black anorak with hood in case I enter a monastery

3

With some very wide legged jeans
A giant size  Arran sweater in impure new wool and a loose denim coat and  striped scarf in brown and orange

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/what-is-a-poem/281835/

Extract

“There is at least one kind of utility that a poem can embody: ambiguity. Ambiguity is not what school or society wants to instill. You don’t want an ambiguous answer as to which side of the road you should drive on, or whether or not pilots should put down the flaps before take-off. That said, day-to-day living—unlike sentence-to-sentence reading—is filled with ambiguity: Does she love me enough to marry? Should I fuck him one more time before I dump him?

But such observations still don’t tell us much about what a poem really is. Try crowd-sourcing for an answer. If you search Wikipedia for “poem,” it redirects to “poetry”: “a form of literary art which uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as phonoaesthetics, sound symbolism, etc.” Fine English-professor speak, but it belies the origins of the word. “Poem” comes from the Greek poíēma, meaning a “thing made,” and a poet is defined in ancient terms as “a maker of things.” So if a poem is a thing made, what kind of thing is it?

I’ve heard other poets define poems in organic terms: wild animals—natural, untamable, unpredictable, raw. But the metaphor quickly falls apart. Such animals live on their own, utterly unconcerned with the names humans put upon them. In inorganic terms, the poet William Carlos Williams called poems “little machines,” as he treated them as mechanical, human-engineered, and precise. But here too, the metaphor breaks down. A worn-out part on an automobile can be switched out with a nearly identical part and run as it did before. In a poem, a word exchanged for another word (even a close synonym) can alter the entire functioning of the poem.”

https://archive.org/details/openmind_ep536

https://archive.org/details/openmind_ep541

I saw some mobile foam coming out of the bathroom.Then I knew

She said, what a tart phone

She sai,d  about thy lines

I have a war in  my bed robe

I got some kosher vitamin D today.So then it might be my far wits are……

I have my own Tablet so all I need is God.

Can we have  more athletics free with our newspaper?

I forgot we need washing but I ironed my soul today ready for the knight

So we bathed in the River Mersey  and oil came free.

I  can’t bare to turn off my phone in town

I have been smart myself at rhymes.

So  we all have cameras,  who looks at the world? Is there any?

My IQ is like infinity… it gets bigger and bigger and suddenly is infinite before coming back to zero from the negative  side.

You say I’m unbalanced.Yet I have smashed the wide hopes of  the Langdale Bites

We are all human.But not Gods. We are Gods’.

Travelling down these sentences we find
Unknown,unsought, unthought, but always real
A home where we can rest our  fragile minds

The people  dropped,the habits left behind.
The good, the mediocre, what we steal
While travelling with the sentences we find

The hate that frees,the love that too close binds
The heart, the soul, the body, how we feel
For homes where we can rest our  fragile minds

The touch that chills, the distances unkind
Unwished for yet demanding all the soul.
Unravelling are our sentences unblind.

The freezing looks,the glories undermined
Ill timed,ill gotten, ills both new and  old,
Hedge homes where we could rest our  fragile minds

I have never dwelt in realms of gold;
But there are many stories never told.
Suffering our own sentences we find
A  home that welcomes, our more liberal minds.

Image by Katherine

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/18/the-future-of-

Extract:

“The simplest and best answer I got at the event in Oxford was “for paying attention”. Judith Palmer, director of the Poetry Society, echoes that phrase. “One of the things poetry gives all of us is a way of developing an attentiveness to life, a way of observing the world, of noticing things and seeing them differently,” she says. A good poem looks closely at the world; does that Martian thing of trying to see it for the first time. Everything else – the emotional charge, the lyrical delight, the intellectual pleasure – is secondary.

The Hungarian-born poet George Szirtes, who teaches poetry at the University of East Anglia, says poems try to capture a reality that is deeper than language. “You’re trying to say: I know what this thing is called,” he says. “It’s called a chair, and that thing is a table. I’ve got this word ‘chair’ and I’ve got this word ‘table’, but there’s something peculiar about this chair and table which using the words chair and table will not actually convey.” Readers, he says, may race through novels because they want to know what happens, but they should look to inhabit poems. “Nobody reads a poem to find out what happens in the last line. They read the poem for the experience of travelling through it.””

The  doctor  took my blood and said
Are you alive or are you dead?
I answered boldly,I don’t  know
See what the tests and samples show

Meantime give me food and drink
I like milk and apples pink
I need protein,I need wine
I  need cigarettes divine

Then the undertaker asked
When he could begin his task
I said I can’t pay in advance
So now I’m  in a deep dark trance

Surely someone else should pay
I was still alive today
But now I wait  enchanted here
Drinking guinness, that black beer

I ate beans and then  they grew
I see one has attacked my shoe
Sausages and steak are meat
I am feeling indiscreet

The little  words invented as we loved
Now have no other  speaker but myself.
Lost, unique, the husband, so beloved,
These humorous  words came from our deep, sweet love.
In my tongue , these words no longer live
I  cannot  use  our words, our loving  wealth.
The chosen  words  invented as we loved
Now have no other   listener but myself

As all set out,storms set in,then we all fell out 

if you see what I dream.

I   am mean

You are as truthful as as a chorus of wrongs

 in rites of the Church choir

Don't leave me in the lurch.I'm a liar.

He’s as tense as a mournful frog in a bog in Ireland in wintery discontentll

It's all meant

As far as the wife can throw,I flew.

I shall  sue Sue.

I was flooded as a whole.

My emotions welled up and ran all over me like fairies’ hands..

Like elastic bands

I am honest as the day is wrong.

Give me a song

He was torn in three by tomcats with balls of steel

They will appeal

I have lost a whole stone and still no moss will grow on me.It grew on the stone!

Now I feel so alone

As Gluck would have it, music is heavenly singing by invisible choirs of cats.

He was bats

I sought him here,I sought him there.

I sought him with angelic flair.

But noone catches Tony Blair.

I am as snug as a lapdog in a bog

 with a brick on its head

Can I sleep on your bed?

She was as tender as an apple tart is round.

 and quite sound

As the crow flew,I had to fly as well 

to avoid it escaping me..I leave no crow alone

They usually get stoned but they won't share their drugs

https://m.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poems-times-turmoil