Mike Flemming

 

When true love’s gone and doom hangs over head

When life runs like a river to the sea

Then shall I take new lovers to my bed?

And with their carnal touch consoled be?

When my love lies so breaks my tender heart.

When life seems grey and rocks bestrew my path.

Then, shall I my life of evil start?

And on the world shall I bestow my wrath?

When true love lies and wrecks all loyalty.

When puzzlement makes all my world seem mad.

Then I shall upend causality

And let myself do deeds which make me glad.

For I have love’s sweet child inside my soul

And I shall tend her till at last she’s whole

She found an old and muddy mug of beer
The Tudor hunting grounds and Palace were nearby
The Roman street called Ermine passed by  here

Washing  dishes showed her love so clear
Despite the many tears and sudden sighs
She found an old and muddy mug of beer

Shall we test this beer, or should we fear
That it is full of mould and we might die.
By the Roman road called Ermine Street.my dear?

Our sorrow shared, the pain has been severe
But with another human, we can cry
Then drink  the old and muddy Roman beer

 

Shall we compare ourselves to summer’s leers
The solitude can be a strain allied
On the Roman road called Ermine Street.my dear.

What,  the beer has caused a  fearful fray?
I don’t believe you nor what else you say
We found an old and muddy mug of beer
The Roman street called Ermine passed by  here

 

Two broken lamps, a  painted china bowl
The table with its glass and wicker shaped
The sea shells we brought home, the sandy holes

Two mugs  each painted with a heart of gold
A cashmere shawl I bought too late
Two broken lamps a ache inside my soul

 

Do you believe that men are bold?
Do they have  thoughts they must negotiate?
The sea shells we brought home, their well-shaped holes

 

How do trees feel when the weather’s cold?
Do they feel a tenderness where branches broke?
Two broken lamps ache by   this china bowl

In my hands, my destination’s told
There is a fire but never any smoke
The sea shells we brought home, their salty holes

Your suffering face, your nose just like a hawk’s
Your sea green  eyes, how well they  used to speak
Two broken lamps, a  painted china bowl
The sea shells we brought home, where is my soul?

 

http://johntranter.com/prose/2004-mp.shtml

 

“These days it’s the Cambridge don J H Prynne who waves the flag of obscurity in Britain. Here’s a sample, from the book Not-You: ‘lank laces ready numb / or to touch at a cute burr segment, able / grains prevail in their bonus tear-off coupon.’

London editor Robert Potts has said that Prynne’s poetry is regarded as ‘hermetic, baffling, difficult of access, uncertain of interpretation,’ and admits that for years he found Prynne’s poetry repellent, until ‘the work itself changed my mind.’ The critic John Sutherland suggested that ‘only four people… can understand him’. Yet he does have readers: when his selected poems were published a few years ago thousands of copies were sold, and the book was nominated for a New Yorker magazine book prize. And in China, a translation of his oblique booklet Pearls That Were has sold more than 50,000 copies.

I found Mr Prynne’s poetry baffling until I came across his book of poems The Oval Window some twenty years ago. It deals with hearing (the ‘oval window’ is part of the inner ear, and other organs in the inner ear give us our sense of balance) and offers complex vistas of history, culture, economics and society, viewed from a variety of conceptual windows.

A few years ago I heard Mr Prynne deliver a series of lectures on poetry in Cambridge, and I was impressed by his wide reading and the depth and clarity of his thinking. His poems have an even greater range of reference and are more concentrated and multi-layered than his lectures. I have to confess that most of them go right over my head. But what’s wrong with that? ‘A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what’s a heaven for?’ The notoriously obscure Robert Browning wrote that, in his poem ‘Andrea del Sarto’.”

Mike has made this image from his photograph.I love the depth….so if I disappear…. look here!

I thought I had put my blog back online but owing to the conditions of my mind and    the UK I seem to have become confused.I am still here!

The old man standing by me in the bank
Fragile in the outfit of beige-grey,
Looked as if the News had made him sink

In this society, he has no rank
I asked him what he thought of polling day
This sweet man standing by me in the bank

He said that Corbyn was a fool and crank
Who must drop the  Atom Bomb  or pay
He looked as if the News had made him shrink

 

He sunk into the mud, I threw a plank
I offered him  a sandwich made by May
This dear man standing by me in the bank

 

As he walked away, he gave a wink
He may seek for a bomb with which to play
He looked as if the News drove him to drink.

I guess this country’s needs advice, so pray
For an alternative to Theresa May
I wish that old  man standing in the bank
Saw the News  as second to high jinx

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I’m feeling bored in the morning
If I’m feeling bored in the night
I  play with real numbers
While my partner slumbers
Then I fall asleep in the light

When one is bereaved and in mourning
That  makes one  feel empty within
It’s painful, not boring
To hear lions roaring
Will they bite a big hole on your skin?

Fill up the sorrow with learning
For study is rarely a sin
Unless it’s just chick lit
Or a very tawdry writ
In which case, then here is the bin

 

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/make-time-for-boredom/524514/

 

“One team of psychologists discovered that two-thirds of men and a quarter of women would rather self-administer electric shocks than sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. [10]”

 

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/poetry/gioia/gioia.htm

Extract

How Poetry Diminished

ARGUMENTS about the decline of poetry’s cultural importance are not new. In American letters they date back to the nineteenth century. But the modern debate might be said to have begun in 1934 when Edmund Wilson published the first version of his controversial essay “Is Verse a Dying Technique?” Surveying literary history, Wilson noted that verse’s role had grown increasingly narrow since the eighteenth century. In particular, Romanticism’s emphasis on intensity made poetry seem so “fleeting and quintessential” that eventually it dwindled into a mainly lyric medium. As verse–which had previously been a popular medium for narrative, satire, drama, even history and scientific speculation–retreated into lyric, prose usurped much of its cultural territory. Truly ambitious writers eventually had no choice but to write in prose. The future of great literature, Wilson speculated, belonged almost entirely to prose.

When I am talking to someone and they mispronounce a word,I do the same and do not tell them of their error [unless I am in a seminar room]
I feel it is hurtful not to.But am I right?

Stan was polishing the windows again with his blue cloth.The computer was on and as soon as he finished the sitting room windows he planned to look at a google document  he was co-writing with his girlfriend Annie.She only lived next door but they both liked sharing new techniques of various kinds. He sat down in front of his  computer and looked at his mail.
There was an email from Annie.
“Hi Stan
I didn’t really want to keep some of those remarks you made at the bottom of our documents when we were both online having a chat,so I have deleted them. They were not related to the topic we were discussing so I know you won’t be interested.
with my  love,Annie
Stan felt  angry and cross. He went very red.What was so dreadfully wicked about his remarks?He had only asked Annie if her dead husband George might have been bisexual.Stan had once seen him kissing a man round in the park.Annie didn’t seem bothered last night.She never gave the impression me she didn’t like it.
Anyway, she should not have deleted it completely without asking me first.
He sent her an email saying he was very angry with her for attacking his freedom of speech.It was unethical.It was too powerful .He must assert himself
So he was not going to work simultaneously with her on any more documents ever again nor chat on IM or Google chat
.
When Annie got the email she was stunned.She apologized to Stan immediately but he refused to accept it.Nothing she said could change his mind.So they were both feeling utterly dreadful.
Why did he want to know if George was bisexual?She wondered.Was he saying it to try to turn himself on or me?Or is he just interested in sex of all kinds like most people secretly are?
But it was not concerned with the document which was about ill-treatment of prisoners in India under the British Empire
We have so little time together, with him being so busy.I wanted to talk about us, not poor dead George.Whatever George’s sex life, he’s dead now.So leave him in peace.
Meantime.Stan was thinking about how women were always interfering in his life, correcting him and improving his grammar.Making him cups of tea when he wanted brandy.He liked talking about bisexuality.
It made him feel a sense of wonder at the differing habits and desires of humans.Why couldn’t she just go along with it or at least say something then rather than deleting his words secretly when he was off-line?
He was a man.He was not going to let a woman ride over him like a steamroller. Annie must learn her place in the scheme of things.
Where is that, asked his tom cat, Emile.
I’m not sure but it’s not above me.It’s either the same or lower.
Can’t you forgive her?She may be in another dimension, another space, another universe of discourse?
Certainly not no way.Stan answered,
But you love her, you said many times in here.I heard you
All the more reason to maintain some boundaries!Love is not the be all and end all of life
Next she’ll be cutting bits off me with her pinking shears, he cried in horror!
She’ll castrate me.She’ll turn me into a woman.
She won’t, she’s a woman, said Emile.She wouldn’t ever harm you.she’s very gentle.
She has invaded me, she has crossed my boundary.
Some people would be glad, mewed the cat.He was always hoping a lady cat would come by.
Meanwhile, Annie was sitting sobbing wetly in her bedroom.She really enjoyed co-writing documents and letters with Stan.Now he won’t do it anymore, she whispered softly to herself
She had not cut anything from the document, just the little chatty remarks they had been indulging at the end, but still, he was really mad at her.He must be feeling truly upset and aggravated beyond human endurance.She had assumed too much and now she was paying the price.She cried and sobbed loudly for a while.Her eyes were bright red and bloodshot. not attractive at all.She was so sad she had unwittingly distressed dear old Stan.Life is so tough she thought reluctantly.I wish I were somewhere else.
Still, there were those new neighbors who had just moved in across the road.Two brothers, both very handsome.I wonder if they like writing on the computer, she thought.That cheered her up a bit, though she was very fond of Stan.In fact she loved him greatly and had kissed him gently yet thoroughly many times though she had never actually gone to bed with him ; never known him in the biblical sense.Was that the problem?Too late now either way, she muttered balefully
So in her mind, she was moving from loving and adoring Stan to being puzzled by him.Was he afraid of being dominated by a woman?What would he be like as a lover?
But why try to talk about bisexuality?Could he not have thought of something else?
There was a new book by Betty Dodson teaching women how to have orgasms.Would he have enjoyed discussing female anatomy and pleasuring her naked female body and its organs of love and all the rest,[she always liked a kiss on her throat]?
Well, she would never know now.That was certain.Definitely.
Thank God I’ve found out what he’s like before things went any further.He might be a little too dominating or perhaps not enough?
In fact, she was so upset her thoughts began to turn towards women.
Would it be better all round to love a woman? Especially as I could show her how to have an orgasm having been studying this book for some weeks?Though she may already know, I guess.Still, a change is as good as a rest!
How do I find a woman who’s into other women, she thought.Can I find one on the internet?Will there be a club we can go to?How exciting!
So Annie grew more optimistic.A woman wouldn’t mind a few words deleted from a chat either.So a feeling of mild joy came over her and her sobbing died down.
Stan was sitting in his kitchen feeling superior and dominant.Except Annie had not come for coffee so it was hard being dominant all by himself.He began to feel depressed and morose.Should he change his mind?Would he lose his window of opportunity
Why is life so trying.Why are women so manipulative, why do they all turn out fakes, he asked Emile.
It’s partly one’s own character, Emile replied.
Hearing this Stan lost his temper and threw a cup at Emile.Luckily it missed but Emile stalked out and went off to the shed leaving Stan more alone than ever.
How hard life is Stan shouted. I feel like topping myself. i”ll jump off the roof.I’m going to ring the fucking Samaritans.
Just then his wife Mary walked in.
What’s up Stan?
Nothing dear.I just dropped a brick on my toe
Why have you got a brick in here, in the lounge?
I was playing with it.
With a brick?
Well, it has a certain cold masculinity, he replied.
Shall I make some drinks?
Yes, please.
Oh, look there’s Annie walking past arm in arm with a woman.
I knew George was bisexual but now I see she is also or maybe she’s gay!Were they both gay?Is that why she only kissed him and never went further?
Well,it’s not our affair, said Mary quietly.
Aha,thought Stan.That’s what you think.If only you could see inside my mind.
Inside his mind though , he was wondering if Annie would ever see him again.But I will not forgive her, I won’t.I won’t!
What he might have said more truthfully was “Can’t”
For indeed,it is hard to forgive people for trampling into one’s sacred space even if it is an accident or misjudgment not a deliberate attempt to dominate.but if not ………
Such is life, alas.
We are such fools as dreams are made of.

For us to feel we’re real it seems we need
To be original without the sin
To be embodied in our thoughts and deeds

So those who cannot write nor even read
May be ahead of scribes in origin
For us to feel we’re real , we have to bleed

God himself embodied was revealed
Some  feel they   encounter him within
We must feel embodied in our thought and deed

As we age our body’s life recedes
Yet right until the end, we drink  life in
For us to feel we’re real  we  have to need

Senses, oral,  genital  proceed
Until mature, we  hope for love  again
We must dwell embodied  for this deed

Raw  intellect can  plunge us into sin
We split into a thousand glacial  grins
For us to feel we’re real it seems we need
To  live within in our body full and green

 

 

Political correctness
Often truly vexed us
We texted for  ” men”
Now and again
I beg your jargon
You seem  very ardent
Mind my tongue?
Was it in the wrong?
These “men”  took out ads
As they wished to be lads.
Wanting new women
Who liked to go swimming.
But now the soul mates
Cannot ever state
Whether they want a man
Or a cat or a woman.
Is that really fair
Like Icelandic hair?
I guess in the end
Freud will descend.
You  have got hysteria
And you are inferior
I know it all
From the rise to the fall
Sex is the basis
For homeostasis.
Get knotted, mein herr.
Danke schon, Pa.

 

 

 

‘

The cauldron bubbles as the witches stir
The walls are convex, and the spoon  is steel
The population struggle without flair

There is too much heat and little air.
In such trials, our worst selves are revealed
The cauldron bubbles as the witches stir

A newcomer may see fresh ways to go
But will their new perspectives be concealed?
The population’s jangled nerves are bare

The length of  time, confusion and despair
Makes even nerves  of gold too hot to seal
The cauldron bubbles as the witches stir

The deep emotions feared cause many tears
And lonely are the sick who’ re ridiculed
We creep like frightened wolves into our lairs

The death of love, the elevated fools;
The calculations deviant of misrule.
The people stumble on the way to where?
The wild wasps sting and savage is the air.

 

 

 

Jam pan for sale.Pure silver lining and lovely copper exterior.Free to first socialist to make an offer.Otherwise, try TKMaxx .I did and I nearly won the  General Election.
Several high-quality women’s suits with rather short skirts.Suitable for short politician or woman who famcies herself..Apply quickly to 10 Downing Street.WC too.
A few new Apple Macs with dents or tooth marks in.Still in working order.Apply to the Daily Heil in writing.On paper.
778 pairs of leopardskin shoes with kitten heels.Some have jam stains.
£25 the lot
20  jars of face cream  for older skin [does not work  on face but good for renovating shoes]
The Sun is setting.All offers  considered

 

 

 

 

32o the lot

I have missed Alfred so much but he looks well!

The weight of loss that crushed me has been raised
My heart is light ; my eyes glow like blue pearls
By  my dear human friends, I feel  embraced

By my caring friends, I have been praised
My heart is lifted ; I feel love  return
The weight of loss that crushed me has been raised

Now I have refound my own true face
And by  the angels, I’m no longer spurned
By dear human friends, I feel  embraced

The past three years have maimed me in their way
The knife cut out,, the flesh beneath was  burned
The weight of loss that crushed me has been raised

I foresaw, but lived through dangerous days
I paid my debts and bore the burial urn
By dear human friends, I was  embraced

 

And yet I weep for him who has been torn
I feel the wound, the ache, which must be borne
The weight of loss that crushed me has been raised
By beloved human friends, I feel  embraced