We are so near though yet so far apart
A wall of stone makes concrete all our fears.
For even if we change our minds and hearts
This wall and all its meanings will endure.

Even in suburban avenues
Men have knifed their neighbours in  red rage
We hate those people who have different views
And cypress trees too tall  feel like  a cage.

We long for closeness,yet we fear too much.
Invulnerable and strong we like to be.
Yet, without  open hearts, we fear all touch;
And into bright red flames , we  foolish flee..

No wall endures forever nor  does fame.
When we  reach our deaths we’re  all the same

1.Never wear your glasses  if you are myopic.If your vision is good wear someone else’s glasses so you become myopic
2.Use a white stick and  put a bandage over one eye
3.Wear a badge saying,I  have herpes and I’m ok~
4 Put some pine disinfectant on instead of perfume and walk sideways on the sidewalk.Ask questions rather than answering them.
5 Never reply to their emails and put the answer phone on
6. Run everywhere as fast as you can and look suspicious

1.Get drunk and propose to your partner.
2.Dig up the dead cat and give it a funeral.
3.Read Hermeneutics ,a short introduction
4. Make love not war
5.Drink two pints of  hot tea
6.Get suspicious and be kind to  the neighbours.If you have no neighbours then be kind to people here!

Now the Requiem precedes the war
And nobody knows quite what this war is for.
Unless it is to show the world contempt
From so called Christian leaders who’re hell bent

We talk about how great we are and fair
Yet  British soldiers roasted Kenyans over fires.
And who  has seen no burning child napalmed
Used in Vietnam  for peace and calm

We ,the warriors of Viking stock,
Conquered half the world  and natives mocked.
Now we claim we’re better than the rest
I wonder how the Holy One will test.

Judge  not all  by stereotyped ideals
When we ourselves have fractured what is Real

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/benjamin-britten-poetry-politics-and-sound

“But Britten’s most celebrated melding of poetry and music was the large-scale composition of six movements, War Requiem, performed in 1962 for the opening of the new cathedral in Coventry, built to replace a cathedral destroyed by bombs during World War II. Britten wrote the piece for three soloists, a chamber orchestra, a full choir and main orchestra, and a boys’ choir and organ. He used the Latin text of the Requiem Mass, or Mass for the Dead, along with nine poems of Wilfred Owen, the World War I poet who died just days before the signing of the 1918 Armistice. The somber and powerful work, which expressed the composer’s anti-war sentiments, was well received by critics and audiences alike.”

He said he’d like to see more of me,so I took my gloves off.
He said ,did I like music.I said I like to hear sharks singing. I
He said he’d like to get married so I asked him, who to?
He said he loved my eyes.I said,is that all?
He said I was like a cat,I howled all night after hearing that
He said would I like to see  his etching.I said most men have etchings,plural
He said he’d like to treat me.I said,how?
He asked me how old I was.I said I can remember being born but nothing later.So it’s indeterminate.
He said,did I have a degree.I said,yes, of caution.
He said which University did I go to so I said,at Cambridge we don’t ask questions like that.
He said he went to Oxford.I said,what for?
He said he did P.P.P so I said he should see a doctor.
He said I was very bright.I said it’s all due to washing myself in Fairy Liquid and then some lavender beeswax polish
He said would I like to get married.I said no-one has proposed to me yet.
He knelt down and kissed my feet.I said while you are down there you can cut my toe nails.
He said I was cute.I said,I can’t believe it. I’ve never been so insulted in my life
He said,I just can’t  say how much I love you.I said,why not.
He said,I’ve changed my mind.I said, this will be interesting.Where did you get a new one?
He said it’s a refurbished one.I said, that’s a bit dangerous.You might be Ghengis Khan or Moses.He said, that’s odd.I feel as  if I can fly.I’m an angel.So I said,well I definitely can’t marry an angel.He said,I have no gender now.
So that was it

1.Wear ugly.dull  greyish clothes.
2.Pretend to be very shy and inept,carry  red plastic handbags full of tampons
3 Tell people  you have periods every week but don’t say what sort
4.Never meet anyone’s eyes except for the police.Tell them they look arrresting
5.Never speak except to swear  and curse or mutter,I have no self esteem
6.Say your mother said never ever  talk to strange men, women or dogs
7. Tell people you have a dangerous or infectious skin disease.
8.Never go out socially
9 At work stay silent and strong.
10 Remember however horrible,boring,stupid ,ill dressed and ugly you are somebody is your  perfect match.So beware

Women must not give off natural scents
Deodorants,perfume,money spent
But men  can look dirty
Even when flirty
Is such distinction the sign of a gent?

Women   like wearing red frocks
As they tend to the sheep in their flock
For shepherds are handsome
They love to go dancing
Then you take them home  drunk in a box.

As for shoes, it seems heels have gone out
White trainers are in, without doubt
We all copy each other
But under the cover
We suffer from bunions and gout

I’m a secret agent,I’m a spy
I often will improvise lies.
I never let  men near me
As they may well fear me
I broke all the codes  in the guide.

I must not reveal my true  name
Or mention I voted,Remain!
I will be hanged,drawn and quartered
Illegally tortured
They’ll say I’m a Muslim insane

My photo is so stunning men rush
To entice me to hide in a bush
They   must want to  caress me
Or even arrest me
I’ll say no more now lest I flush

1.Look at yourself naked in the mirror before your partner arrives.Then be thankful someone fancies you.Then laugh at the humour of life and cry for the lost beauty
2. Put Maltesers under the pillows then scream when you hear them crunch.Then share them and another bag you keep in the drawer for emergencies
3. Let the cat lie on top of you both.He won’t need much persuasion.
4 Play “The Ride of the Valkyries” on your smartphone while you are in bed.Then play with each other.
5.Pray aloud for God’s help  to ne able to make love once more when your lover believes you are an atheist.Keep them guessing.
6.Leave a funny message on your answering machine  which is by the bed and ring your landline with your mobile.

A  new Word
There was no time to  think, to frame new  words
His breathing shallow as a gentle bird
It was the life force emptied,oh,this sign.
Although the doctors never tell their paradigms
Their eyes seem wise yet blind, they try to care

Behind my ribs, my heart was scissored, stirred
A Bach motet quite distant, softly held
A sacred image seemed to  be assigned
What  cruel word?

Oh, if he could have spoken, I’d have heard
If he should have wakened, I’d prepared
All our going’s are in nature’s reign
Down deep inside our hearts, we sense  God’s mind
Would that all sweet comfort  could be shared
And when  one Jew was sacrificed, we heard
The New,The Old.The  One, The Stuttered Word

1.Become  even more self centred and never listen to a person who is talking to you
2.Never have a shower or bath,Do not change your clothes  more than once a week.
3.Make your bed with dirty sheets and scatter used  tissues on the floor.Have pillows  with no  cases,
4 Never remember a  person’s name
5.Shudder if a potential  lover holds your hand
6.Boast as much as possible.
7.Argue about Brexit.
8.If people are atheists tell them  they are damned and if they are religious attack them as naive and evil killers.
9 Talk admiringly of Trump all day
10.Say Cain was right to kill Abel.
11.Keep going to the loo so much that nobody else can go
12 Get drunk and be sick on the carpet

First we are  one,then two,then one sometimes
When we love another human kind
Or lost  and grasped by mystic work sublime

Ironically we must lose to find
Absorbed in writing,there’s another mind
First we’re  one,then two,then one  at times

A gift, a word, a phrase a new wrought rhyme
With growing work,our minds are  furnished fine
We’re  swimming  in the mystic seas sublime

We dive into the depths, we rise,we dream
Add to our creations, line by line
First we’re  one,then two,then one  at times

The journey of the heart has major claims
Tempests,rages,do not love define;
We’re  making it  in mystic seas sublime.

Those who see not beauty must be fined
Criminals to Nature, cruel  before,behind.
We’re  all one,our human souls aligned;
To loose  and find, by mystic work we’re claimed

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/13/carol-ann-duffy-poems-ageing

“Peter Porter, whose Better Than God was shortlisted for last year’s Forward prize, has spent a lifetime making the difficult dazzle on the page. Fleur Adcock is one of the most formally skilled poets of our time and, along with Feinstein, Fainlight and Anne Stevenson, provided a role model for women poets at a time when sexism and tokenism were nastily predominant. Clarke is a tireless evangelist for poetry and founded Ty Newydd, the Welsh writers’ centre, one of the most idyllic places in the UK for studying poetry in week-long courses. Anthony Thwaite and Alan Brownjohn share her sense of altruism, sitting on committees that give awards or support to much younger poets. Linda Chase runs the flourishing Poetry School in Manchester. Maureen Duffy, well known as a novelist, has always kept poetry close to the centre of her writing life. To see Nina Cassian perform her poetry is awe-inspiring. Gerda Mayer and Lotte Kramer are fine poets who should be better known.

I invited the poets here to write, in any way they chose, about ageing. Our society, I believe, is turning gradually away from its obsession with “yoof” and “slebs”. We are beginning to realise that we face, at the very least, an uncertain future, one in which wisdom and experience – and respect – will need to be accorded a more important role. A good place to start is to read and listen to some of our most distinguished poets and, through them, to assert the importance of poetry in our culture. As poet laureate, it is a privilege to say to these poets, on behalf of their readers and the poets who follow on from them, a loud thank you.”

1.You are not unique,They may  treat everyone the same.They possibly have OCD
2.You keep doing stupid things.
3.They hate you and consider you should change to suit them.Or they need a scapegoat
4 They love you.
5.They are too shy to praise you.
6 They  think you are a foreigner because you have a Geordie accent,light hair and blue eyes.So you are  Polish.They may ask you if you have packed your suitcase.Do not reply.Just hand them a stamped, addressed envelope.

1.Get undressed  especially if you wear elasticated, skinny jeans which are hard to remove.
2 Have a bath
3.Make sure you know their name.
4 Put the cat out or….
5.If you have sex in the garden,put the cat in!
6.Grow a thick hedge in the garden as while it is growing it gives you time to find a lover gay or miserable.

Don’t let them take any photos unless you are married [ to them]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201408/the-30-most-common-reasons-people-might-criticize-you

1. They feel insecure and are overcompensating.
2. They think you are making them look bad in front of others.
3. They feel criticized by you and are counter-attacking.
4. They think they are genuinely helping you by giving you the benefit of their wisdom or experience.
5. They have strong opinions on a subject (e.g., politics, religion etc.) and see other points of view as less valid.
6. They are trying to get your attention or connect with you but lack skills, so they end up whining (e.g., kids, teenagers)

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/18/does-poetry-matter/poetry-is-hospitable-to-strangeness-and-surprise

“You may want something “practical,” so I’ll say this: poetry and science are kin; they share a series of principal labors. Those are 1.) observation and attention 2.) reflection and memory 3.) description 4.) imagination 5.) re-seeing and discovery. Both disciplines cultivate curiosity and interrogation.

Moreover, both disciplines are highly hospitable to strangeness and surprise. We don’t acknowledge this enough in science. We aren’t taught to enjoy this enough in poetry.

We don’t have to do much to make poetry “more relevant.” We just have to let science and poetry grow and change as they do. We just have to give them enough space and support to work in solitude but talk together too.”

You revealed the face within your face
Human, lowly, humbler than an ant
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The other face, defended, has no grace
With it , you appear quite confident.
Yet you revealed to me your hidden face
I know so well the suffering of your days
A fear of tragic pasts feared imminent
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The mental torment heavy all your days.
Yet you must hide from men intolerant
You revealed the face within your face
Like martyrs, you were tortured and disgraced
You wandered feebly, lost, itinerant
The pathos in your eyes makes sad my days
If Love exists then would that not embrace
The lost, the lonely, even the vagrant?
You revealed the face within your face
The pathos in your eyes made me feel base

My doctor is a merry fellow now
He is Hindhu so he can’t eat cow
I asked him if he likes to think
His eyes gave such a mighty blink
I still would like to ask him where and how.

His son has joined him  and they make a team
There  is a lady doctor to whom I have oft been
But I prefer a nature cure
And grass has such a great allure
The lawn tastes  wonderfully green

Soon  they will give me a jab for flu
They do not tell me what they plan to do
He crept behind me, seized my arm.
Fortunately ,I felt calm
So then he stuck the needle in with glue.

I try to go there only  if I’m dead
They can resurrect me from my bed
I find some doctors  can be kind
But sometimes  they affect my mind
And once it happened, so I stood and fled.