https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chagrin

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/26/the-mindbody-revolution-how-the-division-between-mental-and-physical-illness-fails-us-all?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

In my dreams I travel deep and low
Into the loving world of long ago
The jacket on the chair ,it smelled of smoke……
The funny tales, he sang, he laughed, he spoke

So faint the memory, strong are its remains
Security and love in our domain
The brushes and the stipplers all stood by
For no-one told his tools that he would die.

On his shoulders, like a queen I rode
So safe and happy on the path he trod.
His voice was clear and he could whistle too
In those days men were used to do

And  love shone from him on my mother dear
She smiled and made us cakes for Sunday tea
What  tragedy to leave  his children five
But in that distant space ,he is alive

The fire as red as any glowing rose
We were dressed so well in  home made clothes
Too happy, needing no words to relate
Our sense of being in this  generous space

I can’t get back to them, I cannot swim
The passages too wet , the light so dim
Yet I feel it in my body faint and clear
Death is not the end of those so dear.

Deep inside our minds, ancestors live
And   to out hearts a depth and breadth they give
Yet missing him,I hover near the place
Where I might dive into his dear embrace

The  table where we  banged our little heads
The chairs so close together like a bed
The teapot  always full, the sugar bowl
The fire, the kettle , pussy cat and coal

The fireplace had its oven  nice and warm
Looking at hot coals made me feel calm
The children seem to play in that   far space
And all around  is love  and on  and on I gaze

“Your eyes are like deep pools in the Indonesian ocean” Stan murmured into his mistress Annie’s ear.He gently took hold of her and pulled her down onto his thin knee.
Just as he did , his new Habitat chair collapsed and they fell onto the floor.,the chair in many bits around them like a jigsaw puzzle in three dimenstions,
Have you got your smartphone,my sweetheart “he whispered romantically
“I think you’ll have to ring 999.
“OK,my angel” Annie prattled,
” Operator,it’s my lover’s chair .It keeps collapsing;can we bring into A and E to be fixed? Well he can’t get into to bed anymore as he is 107,so we really need this”
Just then a pebble hit the window,it was his wife coming back from Sainsburys” She’s lost her keys in her book bag yet again
Oh,wonderful,just at the right moment” he shouted,”Hello,Mary,here is Annie,she’s a chair surgeon!”
“Oh,that’s good”,Mary muttered enigmatically.
” Do you ever fix beds?”
“Why do you ask?” Annie cried sweetly
“Well, ours is always collapsing’it’s yet another of life’s mysteries.”
“Why,you are so beautiful, Mary.You are mesmerising.Come and show me your bed.We’ll leave Stan here.He’ll soon be in that ambulance”
“Annie,your eyes are like deep salty pools in the Dead Sea .”
“Have you both been on the same creative writing course?” Mary spouted satirically.
“I aim for satisfaction.Here’s my gun.I’m going to shoot you” Annie called
“But we have no guns in the UK” Mary whispered under her breath
“Well you have now.” Annie said logically.
Just then the emergency ambulance arrived with its siren scaring the cats nearby but not Emile as he heard it so many times.
“OK. which chair is it this time” the trisexual paramedic Dave enquired foxily.
“Have you ever thought of making it in the bath?We’re getting really worried about you in Casualty,at your age.”
“Worry no more” Anne screamed emphatically, firing the gun repeatedly into the chair’s remains.
“I’ll make sure he never sits in it again.And now Habitat’s gone bust,he can’t buy another.’”
“Cheers ,mate!”whispered the paramedic dramatically.
“Has anyone ever told you,your eyes are like deep pools in the Sea of Tralee”.
“Oh,no not another one!”Anne moaned tentatively,”You need to raise your whole game,not just change the name of the sea”
“You’re so intelligent too,lady.Can you teach me truly creative writing?” He yelled quietly,by the way I am Trisexual.
” What a funny name.Come upstairs” she murmured in reply, “and we’ll see what sea we can see up there,tonight”.
“Thank you so much and please send me home in a stamped addressed envelope when you are done with me.” he responded quixotically
“Whatever” she sighed spontaneously.”Let’s get on with it or you’ll be here all night”
Does it matter? he called.”I am paid by the flower”
Emile the little black cat who had hidden in the wardrobe was disappointed that the light went out as he hoped to take a photo.
And so did all of us

https://www.loveliveson.com/funny-obituaries/

https://www.google.com/search?q=origin+of+going+round+the+bend&oq=origin+of+round+the+bend&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCAgBEAAYCBgeMgYIABBFGDkyCAgBEAAYCBgeMg0IAhAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMgoIBBAAGKIEGIkF0gEJMTk2MDFqMGo5qAIOsAIB&client=ms-android-motorola-rvo3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&chrome_dse_attribution=1

As Mary was sitting in the sitting room she realized that when she put her jumper on she had carried out two operations

The first operatiob was to turn the jumper inside out.

The second was to turn it back to front so that the label was underneath her chin giving everyone who came close to her the opportunity of seeing where she had bought it. And of its composition

Now speaking as a mathematician she was saying to her friend Annie, Unlike many operations the order in which you do these things to your jumper does not make any difference

Trivial to you this may be, but in mathematics there are many operations which are not the same when the order is reversed

Even in ordinary culinary life this is the case. If you are making a cake the order in which you carry out a sequence of operations is extremely important

You do you do not begin by putting the cake tin into the oven for 40 minutes

You begin by creaming the butter on the sugar together by hand or with an electric beater

After this you add the eggs and it’s very important you don’t add the eggs before you beat the butter and sugar until they are soft and creamy

Suddenly Mary became aware of her train of thoughts

Why in the world am I thinking about that  she asked herself?

Really you don’t need to keep having an internal conversation with yourself it’s quite alright to be silent with yourself.

She knew she ought to write this down in her notebook but her notebook was full.

Suddenly her front door opened and she heard the voice of her friend Annie.

I had better not tell Annie what I was thinking because she would tell me that I need more and do something exciting like go to play bingo or to a dance hall if there are any dancehalls left in this area of Knittingham

Even hopping around the room on one foot will be better than thinking such useless though logical thoughts

No wonder I get tired she thought as my mind is burning up all my energy and really who was interested in whether I put my jumper back to front first and then took it off until this inside out and would it be the same whichever order I did it in

I’m not sure that it would though if you turned this inside out and put it on the label would still be at the back then if you turned it back to front, it will be at the front.

Now you understand the nature of obsessive thinking :that you might think you have stopped thinking but you are thinking wrong because you are still thinking all the time

For goodness set put the kettle on she called to Annie I’m driving myself round the bend.

It won’t be the first time you’ve gone around the bend Annie replied in her challenging manner

But what is the bend I mean which bend is it referring to?

Could it be the bend in the toilet?

My toilet doesn’t bend

No,it’s the outlet.

There must be some other bends in the house. Room  to room there are no bends in the bathroom except the u-bend in the sink

Well the bedroom has no bends in it

Maybe it’s not in the house maybe it’s referring to something historical or some famous Bend in history.

Does it mean when you’ve left the straight a narrow road and gone on the winding path to perdition?

When I was a child I used to wonder why there was no bus to Perdition

What about a skating rink?

If it’s circular you go off and when you reach the other side you gently turn around with the circle  and come back to the beginning. so you are meant to go around the bend

Well somebody must know about it; you had better ring 999. Ask them

Hello do you want the five brigade or the ambulance or the police

I’m not sure can you send all over them at once.

What are you or who are you. Are you a crazy person ?

Well that’s the problem I don’t know because I think I may have gone round the bend but I’m not sure what the bend is or whether I can come back from the other side.

If I was you I would go to see a psychoanalyst

Can you send one here on the NHS?

I’m afraid that they don’t work for the national health service although some of them used to do in hospitals for example Adam Phillips used to work in the children’s department of a South London hospital giving help to children in difficulties.

Well could I go there?

I’m afraid he doesn’t work though anymore because the changes that came in during the 1980s and 90s were so draconic that he was no longer able to give children the help that they needed. You see they can do it on computers now it’s called cognitive behavioral Therapy and it just asks you questions like

What are you upset about at the moment?

Well I got ipset about the big pile of clothing on the chair in my bedroom which is driving me insane.

So what does that make you feel like?

It makes me get out of bed and go over to the chair and start sorting it all out.

I’m afraid you are not suffering from depression then and you do not need CBT.

That’s not very helpful.

Health service only gives stuff like that now or if you want to you could catch flu and come and lie in the corridor on a trolley for 48 hours that might make you feel better when you see the suffering of other people around you.

I’ve seen enough suffering in my life already.

Anyway you shouldn’t be talking to me you’re only a 999 phone operator

Well you’ve got me all confused : do you want animal vegetable or mineral or fire or ambulance or the police

I’ll have an animal because my cat Emile is lonely so  I would like another cat.They have to be black and female.

Ok I’ll phone you when we get one in and you can come and pick it up or I can bring it around to you in a taxi if you like and the government will pay the taxu for you.

Oh it’s so wonderful now with this labour government:wait till I tell my friends about this.

No matter if you believe everything I’ve told you then you are really round the bend and you need to go to A&E on foot because I know there’s nothing wrong with you except that you need to get some mental health advice

But you have a lovely voice would you mind if I asked you have to have meal with me tomorrow when I’m not working? There’s a very nice restaurant opened about one mile away from here.

Well you can ring me tomorrow and see what I’m feeling like because at the moment I’m not accepting any invitations for dates or meals or anything at all except going to bed

Well I will go to bed with you if you like because you sound very charming and attractive

I don’t mean going to bed in order to make love and have sexual Congress with men I mean going to bed to sleep because I am tired of worn out and anyway I’m 91 tomorrow.

Are you really need it your voice sounds so girlish.

Well that’s the nicest thingsl anybody has said to me this week.

You need to go out and mix more

More what?

Mary put the phone down and picked up the cup of tea which her friend brought and it was absolutely delicious.

That has hit the spot she cried loudly

Don’t asj me what the spot is because I don’t know!

And so say all of us

I have got more and more incontinent every year.

. Do stop admiring Europe 

Why do the government tell us to eat more fruit and veg? I’m

To help to 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 did Boris Johnson have golden wallpaper in his flat

He thought it was in Jerusalem.

Why are prophets important?

Because they can read the writing on the wall

How many members of parliament are good?

It’s not the number that counts.

Why do hens lay eggs?

Because they can’t lay pipes

Can you delay an egg?

Not everything in life is reversible.

Why is the unknown in algebra called x?

Because it’s nervous and shy

Does God like pillows a fire?

It seems apt

Stan awoke feeling very thirsty.My, this bed is too hard, he thought.He put out his hand and felt some wood not far away.It was his desk Emile was lying on his stomach purring You fell out of bed, the little cat miaowed.Luckily I clung on with my claws and I am ok sleeping down here….I can see any mice better.Well ,it’s not ok with me,Stan informed him gently .How can I get up? He picked up the Cambridge Companion to Sylvia’s Wrath and banged on his desk softly. Mary was awake and heard a strange sound.She got up and found Stan lying on the floor with his head by his wooden desk. Emile wanted to sleep by the wall, you see.,he told her. Then he rolled over and I fell out. That is logically and scientifically insensible,Mary told him. Surely Emile is not so big that his weight was enough to knock you out of the bed? Anyway, why don’t you get up? I like it down here, the old man lied to her. OK, Mary said,t hen she picked up the phone and rang 999. Hello, she said.My cat is very upset as he feels guilty for pushing my husband out of bed. How terrible for you, the man answered.I’ll send an ambulance right away. Mary opened the front door and left it unlatched whilst she lit the electric lights with a match. How do you feel Stan, she enquired. I am thirsty, give me so brandy, he ordered her in that way men do. They said not to let you or Emile drink or eat. Bloody ridiculous, he told her gently. Soon the ambulance arrived and the paramedics were running up the stairs. Mary fainted so they laid her on the bed whilst they comforted Emile. Then they picked up Stan and laid him right next to Mary. Why don’t you have a bigger bed, one asked Stan. Bigger than what, he responded academically. Well, if you were any fatter you’d not be able to get in with your wife. True,he replied but I am 96 you know.I have erectile mal-conjunction already and soon I’ll be bowled out. I shall make you some tea, the female paramedic told them. Well, you don’t seem to be hurt, the other one told Stan, but the cat may need therapy or counselling because of the guilt he will feel. He’s not a Catholic I hope. No, he’s Jewish, Stan shouted hopefully. That’s alright then.He can have concubines.How do cats get to be Jewish? It’s their souls, Mary said…they are all waiting up there for a suitable place to be reborn and some choose to be cats. But how can you tell? he asked wonderingly. They miaow in Hebrew, Mary said. Do you speak it? No, it’s just he hates bacon and pepperoni and always wears a hat so it seems he must be one of Jesus’s friends, but not Judas of course.I suppose Jesus wore a hat but it’s never been found as yet.Not even being sold as relics. Well, that’s intriguing.Do you think Emile might be the New Messiah? Oh , dear.We never thought of that.Will he have to go to Galilee and catch fish? No, he can go to Rome and tell the Pope that the Church is not what God planned. I hope they don’t kill him, Mary cried… God will not be very happy. I didn’t know God had moods, Stan said. He has post-creative depressive disorder….no wonder when we look around the world. Still, they did try, I’ll say that for him or her. And so say all of us For he’s a very good yeller, he’s a very good yeller. A cat’s life is a fuss.Miaow.:)

I’m a loud speaker.

My,my. Are you really?

I’m a gramophone needle..

Can you speak?

If I couldn’t I wouldn’t be able to answer

Your clothes are very gay.

No, your eyes are too sharp

Can you turn up my hem?

That’s a change from looking at your etchings

Where is the button off my shirt It can’t speak or phone.

Is public speaking easy?

Nothing public is easy. Even silence.

What is the agenda?

We didn’t do Greek at my school

Why is weird right? Should it not be wierd?

It used to be wyrd before the Normans

That’s a relief.

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,sigh
The bricks of the old wall still crumbling live
Tenacious weeds shall wave below, above

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/jan/23/secret-lowry-gravedigger-eric-tucker-northern-life-factory-pub?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Pray father give me your blessing

Oh we don’t do confessions anymore and the Catholic church.

I don’t care what other people do I want to confess my sins now.

Oh well if you insist carry on but you’re supposed to be in the confessional box so I won’t know who you are

Oh don’t worry about that.

Well what have you done wrong?

I used the wrong cutlery when I went to a meal in a hotel with some clients but that’s not a sin is it?

Well it could be a sin if you did it to try to humiliate somebody even to humiliate yourself.

But why would I want to humiliate myself?

Well you know people are very strange and many people are cruel to themselves

Well that is me something to think about. Making myself suffer all these years thinking it was a good thing and now I find it’s a sin.

Any other sins?

Well I need to look at a list really because I probably haven’t heard of some of them for example adultery.

Well you must have heard of it otherwise you wouldn’t have said it would you?

Very true but so many years I was puzzled about what it was I thought it was something that adults did which in one sense was true but I didn’t realize it was anything to do with sex.

Well what else could people vdo that was wicked?

They could hit somebody or swear at somebody or steal the housekeeping money from the wife’s purse

Why would you give your wife  housekeeping money and then steal it back?

Well you wanted her to think that you were generous so you will give her the money but then in the night you could steal it back and she wouldn’t know that it was you

So it’s a combination of deceit and lying and theft my goodness in this carries on I’ll have to take you to the police station

The police weren’t bothered about this sort of trivia not when we’ve got young children being murdered in a dancing class.

Yes I do see what you mean nevertheless the existence of greater evil does not give us licence to commit smaller evils

Now do you repent of these sins?

Yes I do I agree it’s very wrong because it made my wife very unhappy and although it wasn’t a adultery in the sexual sense nevertheless it was very bad to do that to an adult especially while I’m supposed to love.

Well do you love her?

Yes when I’m feeling alright I do but when I’m feeling bad because I’ve lost my job or I’ve been gambling and bu lost money there then it’s harder too love anyone even my own children because my feelings of guilt and horror are too strong for me to be able to focus on anybody else.

Well if you don’t feel that you can stop doing these things then we’ll have to find someone to help you. There are places where gamblers can get help for example.

But suppose I don’t want to go

In that case you’re making yourself more likely to do bad things and to harm your family and other people

Yes it all seems so easy just talking to you here but when it comes to the crunch it is hard

But you see this is how you show your love for your family and your friends by being brave enough to get help for your weaknesses which otherwise will harm them not to mention harming yourself but that’s for you to think about

Alright I will absolve you from your sins as long as you promise me that you will never do these things again.

Yes I am very thankful I spoke to you. I know definitely will get help if I find I’m getting tempted too much.

Very well my child.

I’m not really your child am I m after all you are a Catholic priest

No you’re not my child but I was married at one time and my wife died so I decided I would enter the religious life.

Do you think that was a good idea?

Yes I think so because I can help people who are in a sense like my children would have been in my wife hadn’t died and so I feel I’m using my paternal feelings and instincts to make society better. You can’t deny that God will be pleased if society gets better

I suppose that’s true but there’s so much badness.

Just start small that’s all you have to do. We might be weak but we can all do small things.

And so  say all of us

Mioaw

Snow clouds hang like canopies forlorn,
Tinged with grey from lack of proper care,
While from the Channel sing the dread foghorns

Sailors in the night long for new dawn
Fear boats of refugees may still sail there
Snow clouds hang like canopies well torn

A dinghy holds the Saviour lately born
There is no space on earth safe from great fear
F rom the Channel sigh the families drowned

From maternal’ space, Jesu is torn
His father holds his arms around those dear
Snow clouds hang, are lacy wings no more

The hearts of British ” natives” have turned sour
Into Jesu’s side we thrust our spears
Tune the channel.Requiems need scores

All lives now, and all of time is here
Do not mistake the song of silent choirs.
Snow clouds hang like canopies forlorn,
While in the Channel, reckless are the horns

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/michael-longley

I

Known for using classical allusions to cast provocative light on contemporary concerns—including Northern Ireland’s “Troubles”—Longley’s poetry is also marked by sharp observation of the natural world, deft use of technique, and deeply felt emotion. His debut volume, No Continuing City (1969), heralded the arrival of a new voice from a region which had already produced recognized talents like Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon. Longley’s early influences were English poets like Philip Larkin, Louis MacNeice, World War I poets, as well as masters from the classical tradition. The critic Langdon Hammer has described Longley’s poems as masterpieces of “lucidity, economy, sincerity … by means of meticulous, unpretentious technique.” When asked in a 1998 interview about the formal discipline that helps him produce four- and two-line poems, Longley replied, “Was it Tennyson who said that a perfect lyric inscribes the shape of an S? That sense of a gesture, you know, the way you use your hand if you’re bowing, if you’re reaching out to shake somebody’s hand, if you’re going to stroke a cat, if you’re holding a woman’s hand to take her on to the dance floor.”

Longley’s work engages diverse subjects, including Homeric literature, the landscape of Carrigskeewaun, jazz, Walter Mitty, and the politics of Northern Ireland. On the public and political responsibilities of being a Northern Irish poet, he has commented, “Though the poet’s first duty must be to his imagination, he has other obligations—and not just as a citizen. He would be inhuman if he did not respond to tragic events in his own community, and a poor artist if he did not seek to endorse that response imaginatively.” Reviewing his Selected Poems (1993), critic Fran Brearton praised in particular Longley’s more political poems, noting his “use of a compassionate yet unsentimental voice, and an attention to detail which restores specificity at a point in history when it is most in danger of being lost in abstraction—numbers, dates, death-tolls counted beyond comprehension.”

Longley is married to the critic Edna Longley. They live in Belfast, Ireland.

Poems by Michael Longley

• The Design
• The Quilt

See All Poems by 

This wonderful poet from Northern Ireland has died aged 85

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/michael-longley

“All shall be well,and all manner of things shall be well” St Julian of Norwich

Trust the unknown force that grew you, From the joining of two cells.

Act of love, of mutual giving,

Created you,a brand new self.

Trust the dark,the unseen aspects

Of the life we all must live.

Trust that there is wisdom elsewhere,

To your emptiness to give.

Wait in patience for the time

When inspiration comes at last

Trust in darkness,silence,

lowness.

Opposition forms the cross.

Pain is bearable in lowness,

Like the worm in  earth I dwell.

When I look I see the sunrise

And I trust all shall be well.

The blank paged notebooks where you used to write
First with pencil then with ballpoint pen
The Freeling novels you read in the night

These special objects bring you to my sight
I see your face, you disappear again
To blank paged notebooks where you used to write

The reading lamp showed in its small clear light
Your telephone, your desk, your writing plan
The Freeling novels you read in the night

My heart feels strange, my feelings re- ignite
The fires of love quelled by the sudden rain
Oh, blank paged notebooks where you used to write

I did not let you go without a fight
But once accepted, I endured the pain
I read the books that you read in the night

The force that makes the wheat produce its grain
Also kills as freely as blood stains
In blank paged notebooks where you used to write
Where do you read now in endless night?

With gladness all our hearts are touched

When small flowers rise from living dust

When butterflies grow warm and live

When long striped bees with sun arrive

Yet all is slow and nothing’s rushed

But throw off darkness like a crust.

As with the sun each person’s  blessed

We heave away long words contrived

To win  sweet praise from dull old minds

With gladness

Our hearts expand within our chests

The heart will beat  the mind at best

No more with number games derived

Our eyes look out at what’s alive

With gladness

My aunt looked more lik mother than  mother did herself

She was not averse to smiling and using emotional wealth

Her eyes were blue like summer especially when she  smiled

Her hair was brown and curly, but never excessively styled

Her arms were plump and rounded and so they matched her face.

How I longed to lose myself in her deep embrace.

Her husband was on the railways he never earned that much

She brought him just two children they lived on tea and cake

She had not got much money but sheb knew very well how to bake

She never knew I loved her so, that was my mistake

She looked quite like my mother but alas she was my aunt.

We never shared our feelings. this is my lament

Our brother, Aneurin Bevan,  we can feel your pain

There is no fun,  what will be done

On earth, especially in Britain?

Give us this day our daily bread, save us from 1 losing our free bus passes

Forgive us our mistakes as we forgive those who mistake us

We  unconsciously wanted the kingdom  the power suits and the glory

Forgive us our naivety,

Save us from our own evil

Amen

In the haunted pub
We ate hot food and wondered
What is common sense?

In the sky ,snow hung
The  park was  icy and black
The farm was quiet

What is common? Sense?
What have we lost since that time?
Now we live nonsense.

Where is the humour?
The wronged kindness of  nonsense
The futility

Who says what is true?
Who speaks what is  silent , lost?
Who is the channel?

What is true has left.
“Maybe” hangs from black branches
Like dead fruit or  leaf

The autumn  orange
The senselessness of speeches
The withering   glance

The edge  of our  land
Borders are  more anguished
Cannot connect us

New laws and rules
Trial  by separation
The barbed rust   pierces

There is no heartland
There is no inside at all
Nowhere to  live well

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2010/04/humor-and-poetry

Extract:

In 1993, I took a left turn one day out of my MFA program and found myself at the National Poetry Slam in San Francisco. There I discovered several poets who were funny for the sake of being funny. Particularly Hal Sirowitz from New York (“don’t stick your arm out the window, mother said” and Matt Cook from Milwaukee (“it was easy to write the Great American Novel, back when there were only five American novels”) Both poets initially delighted me and confounded me: There are no similes, a voice in my head said. What would Tom Lux (my first teacher) say? the voice continued. Despite my resistance, I believe those poets gave me a kind of permission to explore humor a little more vigorously in my second book, The Forgiveness Parade (1998), for “I thought the word loin and the word lion were the same thing. I thought celibate was a kind of fish”. Perhaps in that book there were places where I was too vigorous in my pursuit: looking back there are a few poems that are just a little too jokey somehow, a little one-dimensional.

I am becoming aware of how some humor can set a roadblock for the poetic speaker, making it impossible for the speaker to get back to a serious place. And how some other (less frequent) uses of humor can leave that door open. I want to leave that door open

‘No person ever looks miserable who feels that he has the right to make a demand on you’, Goethe once remarked.

Evoking the beauty of the stars far away,
I like to watch geese at the end of the day.
Patterns and poems disclose other worlds.
Feel the hand of a baby with the fingers all curled

See the trust and the smile when the mother is home,
To create entire worlds for the one she has borne.
For chaos and panic or not far away
Even in adults who don’t care to say.

The little hands touch me so deeply, so well;
How come the world is diving to hell?
How can we kill little wains by the score
Was it for this that I opened your door?

Was it for this that love electrified us,
And we were lost in each other, in the holy white dove.
Was it for war that we gave love our wombs
Making more soldiers and filling more tombs?

The bombs are a-loading they’re having parades.
It’s not North Korea, it’s Washington, dude.
Let the tanks roll on Corrie and the Bedouin tribes.
Let the allies laugh blindly as the Lord Jesus dies.

O take me, dear mother.Please take me away
I can’t see no point in saying my prayers.
The leaders’ religions are making God frown.
The desert is empty, the tents all dragged down.

The centuries of living so free , so mobile;
The holy land blessing as they pause for while.
The little black tents like wombs of the night
Are all gone to shredders as we sing, Silent Night.

I had gone my ways assuming that it was my business in life to get things done. But now, deeper than all my practical ambitions and belief in action, was … the fact that the forms in which man expresses his sense of being alive are as powerful a force for change, though in a different way, than any deliberate attempt to get things done, because it is these which change men’s hearts—particularly one’s own heart. (E, 140)

The still small voice still speaks but we don’t hear

We have our headphones on when god is near

We must not miss the music nor the news

We must look at stats and likes and count the views

Yet I think we can be quite sincere.

The voice of Man or God can be revered

The still small voice.

And in the name of

privacy concealed

What is hidden  needs to be revealed

We think that God is powerful despite clues

He does not bomb the helpless for the News

Only when we listen are we healed

The still small voice

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/valzhyna-mort