When love is nothing but a word,
When our deep feelings can’t be shared.
When joy and woe unwoven lie
When we can’t speak, except to sigh…..
When we are lost behind the glass,
When burdened feelings never pass,
When noone is a trusted friend
When we are scared but cannot bend.
When love embodied goes away
When we are numbed but cannot say.
When we are rigid with the strain.
When life has little but such pain
We suffer as our will has gone
And we’ve no task to lure us on.
We need to know we’re not alone
That love can penetrate a stone.
That like the Christ we rise to life
When we endure with will its strife.
When we accept that all is lost,
But wish to live despite the cost.
Then we are saved as are the flowers
Which decorate the fields and bowers
Though all shall crumble into dust,
While we’re alive we’ll slake our lust.

Autumn’s coming,geese fly by,
Autumn rust,red,gold,so gay
Drystone walls edging fields.
Apples gathered,holly berries
Flash so brightly
Look like flowers
Sun shines sideways,shadows long
Of trees appear.I dwell among
Woods where gentle beeches sing
Swaying with the sideward wind.
See their roots, all intertwined.
Feel their geometry in the mind.
Look up now into the sky,
See the V formation high.
Geese fly home at end of day.
My heart is moved by patterned dance
In this peace and great silence
My mind widens like the sky
And in this moment I would die,
So I would stay with this still vision
Of geese set out on autumn mission.
Snails in rain pools slither near
My feet upon the terrace here
Yet how swiftly life’s destroyed
When blind foot steps into the void.

Ads:
Weetabix,weetabix
Throw it on the ceiling to see how well it sticks.

Go smirk on an egg

Whack, keep off my leg.

Ladies, ladies:
Do you leak and fear opprobrium?
Buy our special pads then stick ’em on your bum

Forgot to wash your dirty hair today
Spray it with our Polywash, it’ll look like stacks of hay

Do you fear your private parts might smell?
Wash with our carbolic s, you’ll get eczema there as well

Why not buy a tube of our cortisone cream today?
It cures stuff like red nettle rash and sometimes men turn gay.

Heavy menstruation gives the government much tax
Take ibuprofen now and you won’t need damn tampax

Home office?

Short of needed space to store your paper stacks
Glue them to the ceiling with pre-owned, large tampax.

Running out of printer ink is an evil sin
Sign up with your provider here and meet your evil twin

Empty your inbox, forward all your mail
We can let you hire a thousand learned snails

OLDER PESTS? Press here. HERE

COLDER PESTS? Emigrate!

Don’t look at me that way,such looks can kill

Or fill us full of shame, against our will

As a child I knew looks such as these.

And other ones much worse that made me freeze

I wished I were a cloud that might dissolve

But then who would destroy our several selves?

I see the need that’s snails have for their shells.

Thus accidentally crushed too near the well.

We cover our own eyes but still that gaze

Eyes like daggers tempt us to our graves

Be strong my soul for human hate can sear

I will feel the pain and still be here.

And yet how tender are our human hearts.

If they harden  then the sentence starts.

That is the road to death and it is broad.

I must seek and find the hidden road 

Like coloured visions of the ocean bed

Thought, the vision of the inner eye,
Peers behind the mask of mundane view
A choosing from the symbols that come by
So into meaning many words are fused

Thought to me is vision without words;
Needs silent presentation and review.
The words translate the images that surge
Then fall back to the ocean where they grew.

Like coloured visions of the deep sea bed
Where fishes reel and dance, where life is new.
What we mean with difficulty’s said
Yet evocation summons it to view.

Let my words evoke love deep in you;
Answer me with many kisses new.

Wool   blend = 10% wool
Wool rich-         40% wool
Real Italian wool= 29% wool
A touch  of wool for comfort =1%
Very warm coat = 0% wool

When I see in marks and Spencer’s that a coat has got a touch of wool for comfort I know it’s not going to be a hundred percent wool like theirs used to be. But is it worth having 1% 5% or 10% wool?

I think if you are 50% wool it’s tolerable for winter. But for a real warmth you need about 80% wool

I think it must be two expensive so we are all now wearing fleece and other artificial fibers and it makes me wonder why we do not have fur like other animals do.

When we became human at what point did our fur disappear?

In some ways it’s a good thing because it’s very nice if you can afford to buy clothes made of natural fibers of beautiful colours etc but it’s also means you have to wash them

If I’m feeling irritable I get angry when I see these labels especially a touch of wool!

Momentous changes stunned the British ” lords”
Deceived by numbers and the usual polls
We deprived them of their powers and of their voice

They thought they had it fixed, we had no choice
The game changed when the young demanded balls!
Momentous changes stunned the British lords

Now they scurry, looking for new words
Their script is finished, gone their hateful goals.
We deprived them of their powers and of their voice

Now a new play starts and they run scared
Our politics is not for them alone
Momentous changes stunned the British ” lords”

The referendum made more racists heard
Since the Brexit vote, the people groan
We deprived our rulers of their powers, their voice

Now the truth is out, the cover’s blown
And Europe laughs to hear our “rulers” moan
Momentous changes stun the British hordes
As we cook our burgers on these flaming coals

I wrote this when Boris Johnson was prime minister

Illiterate and obese my cat is kind
Her fur is clean and shiny,she is groomed
She eats my dinner then she reads my mind

Shall I shame her,tell her she’ll go blind
Fantasising while she’s in my room?
Illiterate and obese, my cat is kind

She thinks that Boris Johnson has resigned
He will dance but only to his tunes
He steals my dinner, taxing is refined

When in doubt, attack the weak and blind
Tax their indoor bathrooms,feel no gloom
The illiterate and obese, I find more kind

All my words have vanished,I declined
Trust no other till you’re sure we’re doomed
Don’t taint my dreams, I’m paranoid, I mind

Now we’re governed by that Eton loon
He broke the law they’ll purge him very soon
Illiterate and obese, the poor are kind
They saw Jesus Christ get sent to Mind

If you buy a lot of cheap things you will still spend a lot of money in total.

Don’t we misled by the words,save thousands of pounds

Because you don’t save anything if you buy something new that you don’t need.

Yes if you if you were going to buy it then you will have saved but if you were not planning to buy it then you don’t save anything at all:the opposite is true.

Even very cheap things less than £1 each will still put a strain on your budget if you buy a lot of them.

On the other hand the economy will go bust if nobody spends any money so just make sure you buy things that you really like that you need and that you will use and that will help both you and the economy at the same time.

It’s not always possible to act perfectly but it’s better to try it some of the time than to just give in totally and spend your life in a queue for Le Creuset pots….or the equivalent.

It’s ironical (sic) that few people  cook their own meals at home nowadays judging by the amount of ready meals being sold in the supermarkets yet they want these pots to decorate their kitchens

What’s wrong with Pyrex dishes I ask?

The self that I thought wicked is my truth

What tortures I endured, the guilt the pain

And yet I live, though diffident, uncouth.

And can I now at last begin again?

The violent struggles of the gentle beast

Afraid of capture prison death and more

What i behold seems like a marriage feast.

And of my sins  they have not kept a score.

There was no way to judge true right and wrong

I searched their faces and the words they spoke

The truth I see and hear is like a song.

Who was it that burnt men at the stake?

It’s Satan who beguiles us to comply.

If we do our sacred soul will die

Jellied heels

Cod’s toes.

Speaking  breasts.

Dicken’s breast.

Smoked hands

Bunion Tart.

Stalking heads

Smoking beds.

Mary went into the kitchen walking very slowly because she was wondering what to have for supper. Now that she was alone she had so much more choice but appetite had not returned after her husband had gone on holiday with his mistress Annie who live next door.

Well I suppose we all need our freedom at times but to do it so blatantly was wrong. Still the fact that he’s already had an affair with this woman next door made it less surprising.

The problem was that he normally cooked the supper so Mary was not used to thinking about the menu. When she was a student she bought a

steak pie in a tin but she didn’t know whether you could buy things like that anymore and anyway Marks and Spencers and it’s chilled food was usually a lot more tempting than tins of meat pies. But she had not planned ahead. She had not remembered to go shopping. she remembered that cats had some very nice food which look like beef pieces in jelly.

Later Mary and Emile were sitting at the table eating beef pie made with frozen puff pastry.

It’s very good Mary cried. Do you like it Emile?

Yes I’m quite converted to pies I’d like a sardine tomorrow or how about making some bread dough and we could have a sardine and mushroom pizza.

So Mary said to him you know I don’t eat fish.

Well don’t worry I will eat the entire pizza for myself,the cat told her. I wonder if pizza express do them? You could have a vegetarian pizza mother.

Yes alright then we can have that tomorrow with one provision that you eat yours outside on the patio

Alright I agree I know that you want to spend some time alone because you are very angry with Stan and Annie.

But we all know exactly well that Stan died some years ago. Is Mary losing her marbles ?

Then the phone rang. Hello it’s Annie they heard.

I don’t like Blackpool much especially my being alone. So I’m going to come back tomorrow and on the way from the station I will call into Marks and Spencer’s food shop. I’ll buy some lovely food and bring it around tomorrow evening so I can tell you about my adventures in the Blackpool Illuminations.

Well am I going mad, thought Mary.

Never mind no one will notice because I was already very peculiar but I’ll be careful not to speak to anyone who doesn’t already know me. Or I will take a vow of silence and say I am a nun. I’m going to build a hermitage in the garden.

Can I be a nun as well said Emile?

Well at the moment a man cannot be a nun but if the rules change I will let you know Emile.

Thank you ,mother.

And so say all of us

Ways of thinking
about literature
made the writer’s muse smile
She didn’t like nuns and dog’s breakfasts
Her teacher at school became
confusingly unchangeable.
She wasn’t sharing
so we heard bells toll,
What to read and what to shirk
she dismayed us in her
uncertainty; books matter;
even that we revolved slowly
in some planetary action
for human salutations
This remade powerfully—
the way to live;
to live improperly was
to read
art works with the eye of truth
and they affected me,
and ironised
other ways of seeing
the ambitions of over-arching theory
and hence our being.
I was educated to love with all my heart

Short-eared Durham owl
meditating over the dale’s edge,
shadows the fields and folds in elegant diurnal flight.
On windside,careful sight, may swoop to prey and away
Your yellow broad-eyed look, at once both sharp and distant, holds me.
Oh,silence,
oh ,wind on green,
Oh. earth,
sky.
Immense your held vision;
Widening, centred,
pied geometer of flight,
sketch your  height and descent.
Trees bunched by drystone wall
call heart home.

Through the barbed wire fence, I saw a stream
Water washing down to  river wide
A field of daisies and wild grasses green

Inside my pulsing heart,  the blood did plead
That history and myth can take a ride
Through the barbed wire fence, I saw a stream

So lack of hope conspires to kill our dreams
And memories that lie can be no guide
To fields of daisies and wild grasses green

The silver birches light with sun’s soft beams
In their way, they are discreet disguise
Through the barbed wire fence, I saw a stream

About the cruelty  of human deeds
There is a library, shattered and demeaned
By fields of daisies and wild grasses green

Few can bear to enter and to read
What the minds of sufferers could mean
Through the barbed wire fence, they saw a stream

As Icarus was falling unperceived
Farmers tilled their meadows blithe, deceived
Through the barbed wire fence, we saw a stream
A field of daisies and wild grasses screamed

We climbed the stile into the meadow green

I saw the river winding by below.

But when I went again it was not so.

A meadow, yet no river  to be seen

The image lingered on inside my mind

And you had died and could not be my guide.

I stood alone in that great field so wide

With sadness in my heart, though grass is kind.

And then I found it in another place.

We saw the stile and then we saw the stream

A horse was drinking from the water clean

I stood there as the sun caressed my face

. Time and meaning wrapped around like lace.

Coincidence and love produced this grace

.

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

In spring it gives us joy, in fall we’re glum.

And so we play on in our little games.

The inbetween is hard to give a name.

Transitions, changes, fear of what’s to come.

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

Have the gods deserted, who’s to blame?

If we cannot share our hearts go numb.

So we play on in our little games.

The human heart and mind are often lame.

Angered by the movements of the sun

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

Can the spirits of our hearts be tamed?

Obsessive thoughts will linger and rerub

So we play on in our little game’s 

In spring life starts again, then what’s to come

But summer heat the flowers the bees that hum

The sky in spring and autumn looks the same

Round and round we go, for life’s a game

How’s your dissertation going?

Oh I’m just about copying.

I heard you were sitting  exams.

I’m very good  at thevsitting.. it’s the thinking that bothers me

Why did you go to university?

I couldn’t read the signposts

Why did you do a higher degree? 

It was either that or getting a job

Why did you do PPE You make it sound like doing time

You can read the time but  can you read PPE

That’s why they have tutors so they can read it out to the undergraduates

But surely they must be able to read because if they couldn’t read they wouldn’t be able to do examinations.

Well they have oral examinations for the M Math.

Wouldn’t you have to write on the blackboard?

I didn’t see a black board.

You ought to have your eyes tested. At the very minimum.

Where is the Very Minimum?

This is Oxford. Home of Lewis Carroll

Oh I wondered where I was.

Did you not see the name on the platform with the station when you got off the train?

I can’t read

It’s getting vicious going round in these circles.

Then you need to change your circles.

I  will have ellipses instead

Stop showing off your Greek

I thought he was Italian.

The sunset is pale
Coral with grey finger marks~
No bird sang today

The leaves wait like mouths
Now they are shutting their lips
They don’t get night feeds

All is calm and still
The moon is singing Mahler
Dead babies whisper.

Lullaby,the heart
Enfold all infants’ pathos
Dies with them daily

Forget not at night
Those for whom the sun is dead
They are stiff like dolls

Poetry can never be too concrete but it can be too abstract

Discuss

Can you have an abstract meal in any meaningful sense?

Please write 5,000 words now.

If mathematics is a game what are the rules. Why or why not is this related to Wittgenstein’s ladder

You can write on both sides of the paper at once if you like on otherwise just write on one side but make sure it’s the right side or you will fail immediately with no appeal. We are not talking about sex here but what are we talking about?

Why are the older colleges in Oxford more beautiful than the  newer ones?

What did Plato think about beauty?

That’s all one question so take plenty of paper. No you do not need to go to the toilet before you start. We have got some paper here free.

We can’t even give it away now. Wanting a heated toilet seat? Just set our paper on the fire and it will do the trick.

I am just about damaging

It could be verse.

Never felt wetter

I told you to stop drinking the curtseying water

I’m running on.

I am just a bit shop and frown.

Who’s your appetite suing?

I could just eat Meg the Maiden.

I hope you are feeling much better today. May I examine you all over, Christian Barks?

Your complexion is very awry. I seem to be standing on your head tonight. Get up at once,you idiot.

Well get off my head then

Never eat rancid clutter.

Always eat scrimmage for breakfast.

Do you prefer tea or toffee?

Is that the time sinister?

Pasta with related/undated/ill-fated, gold plated cheese

Topside with green frieze.

Braised leaf with ginger.

Beef Queue  with cloves

Boiled spam with humblings

New ferret duped

Puddings

Apple jumble

Stewed bears with ginger.

Hot spiced beaches.

Tinned grapefruit with hammer: unscrew driver

Avocado pare and nail file . Scissors on bequest

Avocado with melonia delight

Rice pudding with cream angelic

Apple share out.

Soup of raspberry and glum

Sausage clarts with handsome

Roast hawk with few potatoes and ballad

Posted on November 11, 2017
The summer heat made cobblestones like stoves
The Coronation happened, I know now
We played with melted tar, industrial bairns.

My mother’s hands were black and much beloved
The coal and coke had tattooed her, we sa
The summer heat made cobbles hot as stoves.

In the road, we played our ancient games
The older children passed the knowledge down
We played with melted tar, industrial wains.

The bully boys were cruel , did not heed love
A little boy had tried to be a clown
In summer heat, they beat him on the stones.

We were silent as they flaunted power again;
But in our hearts, we knew we’d let him down
We threw warn melted tar, industrial wains

And in our phantasy, he was alone.
No-one knew who threw the vicious stone
The summer heat made cobbles feel like flames
We played with melted tar, Christ died again

Mother father teacher doctor priest 

Who can help the suffering or harm least?

Who can help the speechless back to speech?

What are teachers for if not to teach?

Who can do this work if they are sick?

Who would choose this work if they could pick?

They must have been found wandering in the dark

Waiting for the Angel with his spark.

When words are severed from their roots within

How can they connect with human sin?

When humans cannot speak, when tongues are numb

Who are we to know what is to come?

And so the fragments and the broken eye.

Meet the tongue ripped out when someone died

Yesterday I was encouraging myself and other

s to make preparations before you begin something new or to learn something or to create something.

There is another problem that we humans have is that we get nervous about beginning a task especially if we believe it’s difficult so we can spend a long time preparing so that  it becomes almost impossible to start

This happened to me my first art class where the teacher asked us to take something to draw

I believe we were using charcoal so I sat there clutching my wooden decoy duck in my left hand and the charcoal in my right hand and I watched as everybody in the room except me began to draw

This went on for half an hour and then I thought I’ve got to do something even if it’s terrible.

At the time I didn’t think it was very good but since then I have seen it in a different light I think it was very good

But the most important thing was I did not leave the room and go away never to return. Of course I had paid in advance so that was a factor, but that was not the main reason

The main reason was that if I gave up at that point I would never ever try to draw anything again.

And there are other situations in life where  withdrawing is not a good idea

And I think the most horrible kind is when someone is going to get married and they suddenly run down the aisle of  the church before they  made their promises.

Well they will certainly never have a church wedding again

That’s not too bad in our society because you can have a civil partnership or if you can live together without being married.

So if you are in that position do not run out of the church unless you are sure that you are making the right decision

Don’t run out just because you are feeling tense and nervous as many people do in churches or theaters or places where it’s difficult to leave because therefore the people whose eyes to look very threatening to person of edge of panic

It’s an illusion because people are not hostile to you when they’re sitting behind you in church or sitting in front of you in the theater

The truth is more painful that most people don’t notice you and you can get up and do a handstand in the middle of the aisle and lots of people wouldn’t notice or if they did they wouldn’t  be interested. We are not as important to everybody elsewe sometimes feel especially when it’s a negative feeling.