I wanted to go the bathroom
But the Council has closed them all down
What shall we do
When we can’t find a loo
Anywhere in the whole town?

Some people cut back on water
But that makes your urine too strong
Drink diet lemonade
Over which nuns have prayed
Otherwise you may be shunned

The city has no fields and hedges
Where peasants could find some relief
Our bodies and bladders ruled
By this old ship of fools
Unbuild all the cities with streets

I washed my own hair in the kitchen
We had no bathroom,you see
We had out own lavatory
In the back yardery
No light in the dark after tea

I am glad that I have my own bathroom
It’s much better when I menstruate
I can see my own blood
Sometimes in flood
I wish I’d sent that to the Tate

The life of a suburb

Jack had just taken early retirement from his old job as a maths researcher. in Knittingham university.His large collection of books was overwhelming the home he shared with his excitable yet calm French wife Simone.
Simone was still working at the university cleaning computers heads all day long.Now she was hoping that she and Jack could do more entertaining.If only he would get rid of some of the many books he owned!
Simone left for work wearing her new pink cord trousers and a dark blue denim knit jumper with a long lasting beige foundation from Max Factor covering her deep red complexion.
Jack gave the cat,Louisa, a hot bath in goat’s milk.Now instead of being grey she was cream coloured.
I’ve been dyed,she shrieked politely but Jack never replied.
He pondered,as he dried her what to do with all his maths books.He had thought of making a large collage but who would want it?
Or he could donate them to the university or have a fire in the back garden.
Suddenly he looked up and saw a very charmingly pink faced woman peering into the window.
It was his neighbour Kim whose husband had disappeared last year,possibly inside a wheelie bin,though no-one was sure.
Hello,Kim,did you want me?” he cried nervously
I thought you might like some company for morning coffee.What a pretty cat.what is her name?”
Louisa was wary of Kim,Maybe the purple trousers and orange jumper might give the cat an epileptic fit… she was a sufferer, just like St Paul.She hoped to be converted but so far was disappointed.She longed to see a vision of heavenly cat food in the sky.
Can cats go to Mass? she mioawed to Jack.
Yes,but they can’t have Communion,he responded furtively
Well,we don’t eat bread but I love wine!
I’ll mention it to the Pope next time I see him,Kim said with a roguish smile.Her make up looked to be waterproof as the drip in the ceiling was right above her head and heavy rain was falling yet her face did not change at all.Was it plastic coated?
But Louisa,you would have to confess your sins.All your sins
I never did a thing wrong in my whole life ,the cat replied haughtily.
Well,you know the Church is only for repentant sinners,so if you never sin,you can’t repent. so it follows indubitably that you can’t join the Church!i studied Aristotle once so
I get all logical with emotion.I only wish I’d got to Wittgenstein..I could have loved that man….though now I seem to recall he was gay…still,who knows?
If that were true about the Church,would Jesus be allowed to join?
Certainly not.He was perfect and also he was Jewish.So why would he want to join a Christian church?
As he began it, he might like to see its holy life,Louisa purred loudly.
Really,I think this is a very odd conversation murmured the parrot,Felix Semper.
Not so odd,responded a tall dark man who just appeared from nowhere.
I am called Jesus he said,but I’m from Malaga.
In Spain many men are called Jesus,he continued mellifluously.
Is that so, cried Kim murmured tenderly.
I never met a Jesus before.If you married me it would give people a shock if I said I was married to Jesus! she whispered loudly behind her hand.
Marry you! Is it leap year? Women have never proposed to me before.
I was just thinking out loud,she replied demurely in her soft voice.
Nuns used to be married to Jesus and wore a silver wedding ring.
I was educated at a convent school.That’s why I’m so very neurotic.
Are you really neurotic? Jack,screamed anxiously
I have a whole shelf of books by Karen Horney here.Self Analysis, is just one.
I could give it to you now….
Not in front of Jesus,she muttered chastely.
Have you no moral feelings?
No,I’ve never had any feelings of any sort in my entire. life but it’s done me no harm.Though how would I know?
I’ll ask Simone when she gets back, we’ll see if she agrees!
I’m just like a computer with a human body.
I sometimes think I’d like a suit of silver armour.
Bless you,my child,Jesus murmured.
When they looked up the tall dark man was gone.
They looked around but he had left no footprints.
Should we call the police?He came in with no permission!
How disgraceful.
How dastardly.
How disgusting
How damnable.
How divine.
How dumb.
How deplorable.
So on they murmured until it was time to cook lunch. for the cats and birds.What a morning,what a life.
Bless us,oh Lord!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notostraca

220 million years old the tadpole shrimp is the oldest known animal species in the world

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/13/a-moment-that-changed-me-i-stopped-speaking-at-19-and-found-my-artistic-voice?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Even love is subject to finance.

Children need their food, their little bed

When we’re cold and hungry we can’t dance

Hoping for true love by happenstance?

Children may be born but are they bred?;

Even love is subject to finance

Do we need the lightness of romance?

Be like little children, one man said

When we’re cold and hungry, there’s no chance

But money by itself lacks elegance.

Tell us more about what some man said

Children’s hands reach out,as if entranced.

Be a slave to love but not finance.

The heart is wise, but reason writhes,is dead

I follow links but somehow lose the thread

Love itself has died on bloody sands

Why should the wounded fearful try to dance?

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/10/11/the-benefits-of-having-an-enemy/

Daddy’s dead.Daddy”s dead

Mother’s  lost her motor

Wind her up with her big key

Mother don’t you hate her?

He got away, he did she said

Now she has no motor

She gave us sugar on our bread

Sandwich, butter,sugar.

She said she wished that she were dead

I could hardly guess a word she said

In her grave she would be laid.

No more a wife,no more a maid

How to save her children five

Mourn with the sorrowing mother.

She cleared the ash and cleaned the grate

Iit the fire and burned with hate

Oh.mother.mother,we are late

Don’t burn us up,we are your fate

Grieve with us, oh, Mammy

Wind her up,wind her up,my brother.

She may be sad she may be dead

She is still our Mother

Once she was a happy lass

Climbed up from the gutter.

She played Chopin then but never again

Wail for the single mother.

With children five can she survive?

Pray for the lonely widow.

God took all her joy and more

I don’t knock on a church door

Satan’s coming with the score

Come ye back,oh Mammy

On Saturday afternoon after luncb ,or midday dinner as we said up north Mary began to feel very nervous, as she was going to the hospital with Stan on Monday for his next appointment with Dr.Range Rover.
Mary was puzzled.She felt almost happy last week about seeing this kind hearted and gracious well dressed female doctor.However she had been shunted sideways onto a male doctor who was almost totally silent.. so much so that he seemd to absorb Mary’s questions into his sponge of a brain without feeling the need to respond,just like many British husbands do… and it may be a universal trait in men world wide if they had a British style education
Why do I feel so apprehensive this week? Mary asked her dear black cat Emile.
After all.I was happy to see her or to even have a biopsy last weekend.Why have I changed in my feelings so much in a week?
Does it matter? purred Emile.
Maybe your mood is affected by something else.. like fatigue or housework or the ravages of age… [he was well read]
We don’t always know why we feel a certain way but I feel it’s good if we are willing to accept these negative moods.Even I have my moods when the fish you get me is not the right sort and you don’t give me my cat’s handkerchief neatly ironed.
You are so wise,Emile,especially as,being a cat,you never have to endure these interviews with consultants in horrible outpatients clinics.So you must have a wonderful empathy for humans
This lady doctor tomorrow is exciting me,cried Emile loudly.May I come in your Grace Kelly handbag.
What’s wrong with my shopping bag?Good grammar,by the way..
Well,she wil be surprised if you take a heavy shopping bag even if it has a Mondrian design on it… she may get suspicious.. even paranoid.If I am in your handbag she will not realise.
Not unless you miaow,mused Mary benignly as she smiled down at him her singular eyes gleaming like the headlamps on a Roller.
I like to know the reason for things,she continued somewhat frantically.I think therefore I might be eventually.I am not yet,for sure.
Does everything have a reason,shouted Stan querulously from the hall…
Wel ,it does,but it might be beyond human understanding like the Burning Bush..
We can only perceive what our language permits unless we are poets,mystics or artists and even then it’s tough to venture into the unknown,unthought or unknowable;languages develop in societies and learning your language embeds you in many cultural assumptions without you ever realising it.You think it’s reality when it is just one perspective.
How true,screeched Annie their neighbour from outside the open patio door.She stopped there in her teal velour tracksuit with matching eyeshadow and trainers.
You seem to be overthinking,she said to Mary.Are you sickening with the heat?It’s like loving too much, which may be co-dependency.
That’s a very silly pc word,said Stan rudely.We are all dependent but men can hide it until their wives run away with the milkman and they get a shock not knowing how much they’d miss her changing the sheets and buying their underpants and socks.And ironing their hankies
Surely that’s not the main reason a man might miss his wife,cried Mary as she carried in the tea tray with a big white insulated teapot.
Well,you can go on the web and find a virtual sex partner or even buy a dummy woman. but it’s tough to find a devoted woman who knows what you need to function.
Why don’t you buy your own underwear and use tissues?,asked Emile
Well,Emile,I put out the rubbish and wash the heavy Le Creuset pot.I see to the car and bikes.I paint the fence and even bake cakes.
Mary washes the clothes and changes the sheets unless she has an idea to write down.She kindly does all the worrying for both of us and I remain calm like a lighthouse.We complement each other ideally.. and we love each other and a few others as well..without giving away our secrets
That’s one waay of describing it,thought Mary without commenting out loud
Anyway,I am still wondering why I feel nervous about Dr Range Rover….
If you accepted the nervusness it might ease,said Annie wisely in her high voice like a car siren going off at night
Just then the doorbell rang.It was Dave the bisexual transvestite paramedic.
Emile phoned 999 saying Mary was having kittens, he said rapidly.This really must stop;inter species sex is not allowed here unlike most sexual activity
He was speaking metaphorically or is it metonymically,Stan groaned.
Now you are here go and make us a fresh pot of tea and admire my new tea caddy.I bought it for Mary last week in that new shop in town.
At your service,sir,Dave said politely,his flowered dress waving in the breeze.
Do you know anything about Dr Range Rover,Dave? Annie murmured
What is her reputation etc
Some people like her, Dave said,Usually men.she’s not so good with women..
Well it’s too late to change thought Mary so I shall have to willingly endure the agony of meeting her again as I cannot leave Stan on his own with her…
why who knows what might happen? She might become his mistress as he likes several nowadays. despite nearly being too thin to live…
God only knows, a little voice said.
Hello,said Mary.I’ve not heard from you lately.
Well,I am still here looking after you
Thank you, Lord,I love you, Mary shouted joyfully to the surprise of Stan and Annie, not to mention the cat Emile who was unlearned in the religion of his owners.
I thought you were an atheist,Annie said with horror.
I am an atheist and I believe in God.It’s what we call a paradox..Mary cried graciously….
What would Wittgenstein have said?
Whereof one cannot understand,therof one must be patient and tolerant,.
Why does Mary need to understand all her feelings…Stan wondered
When it’s raining she doesn’t spend hours wondering why and similarly if it’s raining in her heart she must take it like parched grass…she thinks too much.
Too much for what? Her sanity perhaps which has at times been doubtful but that has made her very understanding to those who find life hard.Everyone has value,even oveweight nervous half blind, supersensitive, vulnerable,stout arthritic female mathematical geniuses like Mary.She enriches the tapestry of life in a very real sense as someone once said
And so say all of us:she’s a jolly good Fellow of All Proles College,Oxenford..you know how famous it is in Wonderland

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2022/12/how-get-on-with-political-opponents

Katherine villanelle  

In the dark street with its glaring lights
Deserted pavements, cars that multiply
I see two of everything in sight

Twenty dogs two owls that fly by night
Two black cats  with amber eyes run by
In the dark street with its glaring lights

As I walk I sing  to cats’ delight
I sing Joan of Arc,I wonder why
I see two of everything in sight

The song takes seven minutes,or it might
If I sang like Leonard ,  if I sighed
In the dark street with its glaring lights

No-one can detect my wandering sight
Yet now and then I wail or emit cries
I see  more than you do with insight

These little deaths mount up as our time flies
In  the end we step with shuttered eyes
In the dark street with its errant lights
I see two of everything in sig

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/dec/31/how-to-sleep-well-health-experts-age-babies-parents?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

What to you may be a worthless weed
Bears its little flowers to make its seeds
Thus it spreads itself as Love requires
Humble speedwell,hear of our desires.

In the pavements cracks were home to grass
The sidestep slabs were broken like thick glass
When deep frost came, rain made frozen pools
I trod in them as I tore up to school

The crackling ice, the mist dropped on the park
Our ginger cat, the trees, the dog that barked
A woman in the kitchen making tea
The oven by the fire, the big door key

Little signs spark tender memories
The future fiction, past a lost abyss

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/information-news-addiction-liberal-depression/673351/

I used to be shut in by heavy walls

Traps to keep me safe when life appalled

Was I hiding,was I in a jail?

Safety in the prison of the failed.

One day I was freed and found the light

A spacious place,a meadow of delight.

Will defences fall and free the heart?

When we love another it’s a start.

The many walls of Jericho fell down

When the trumpets blasted them with sound.

The soul is fragile yet its also strong.

Praise your love in music and in song

Shedding tears there’s nothing much to say

Everybody dies in their own way

While we’re healthy we can bawl and shout

Serious illness makes us feel afraid

Conscious of the messes we have made

Remember birthdays and the bag of cards

When they’ve died it feels so cruel so hard.

We like to think we’ve got a chance for Grace

We cant know the time of death or place

Our house is for sale it looks so small.

The vestibule has gone there is a hall

I can’t believe the other people dwell

In a place that we lived in so well

We had no inside toilet we felt cold

Menstruation bleeding we were bold

So we look at photographs with care

But still we see no toilet anywhere

The one outside has disappeared from view

Whatever do these people have to do?

Excretion is a nuisance for us all

But go on sweetheart let your sad tears fall

For rears are clean and will not do as harm

Uric acid rarely has much charm

If this be love,then let me have your hate.

If you be true then let me hear your lies.

For this, my heart, your message comes too late.

For now my need is for the thoughtful wise.

If this be marriage,let me have divorce.

If this be holy, hasten I to hell..

For love comes in its time without such force.

And of its message who am I to tell?

If this be love,then let me dwell alone.

If this be love, I will be forever chaste.

Your love is like a blow that breaks my bones

A love that lays your world and mine to waste

.

Love can shake us to our inner core.

Hence of your love, I wish to hear no more

Why do the sins of rage return again
When we’d learned of genocidal hate
How do we change the heart and mind human?

Images of children grieving damned.
Has Evil won the war,become our fate?
Why do the sins of hate return again?

Industrial murders, manhood’s great orgasm
Guns and blood and gassing escalate
How could we change the heart and mind of man?

Ethics and commandments have not won
The still,small voice is silent we’re distraught
I feel the sins of hate return again

Goodness is skin deep,it is a sham
God was here but we put him to flight
Who might change the heart and mind human?

When we love, are safe, we feel delight
We must not trust the armies of the night
Why must the sins of hate return again
How do we change our hearts to be as one?

In my dreams I travel deep and low
Into the happy world of long ago
The jacket on the chair that 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 noone 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 onto mother dear
She laughed 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 lost 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 red 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

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/26/autism-neurodiversity-severe

https://hbr.org/2011/07/why-being-certain-means-being

Provisional truth requires that we think of our explanations as hypotheses — always subject to replacement based on new information or alternative ways of structuring existing information. Provisional truth means challenging our interpretations with disconfirming evidence and alternative perspectives. Provisional truth does not preclude drawing conclusions or taking action; but it demands that we be skeptical about our first reasonable explanations in the realm of complex problems. It keeps us humble and mentally flexible, constantly asking ourselves if we’ve really got everything figured out and responding, “Probably not.”

Cut off from humankind in my dark well
Unimagined death had my love scorned
I lay grieving in a prison cell

How did I get here, am I in hell?
My soul was leaving from my body warm
Cut off from humankind in my dark well

Shall I too fall where my lover fell?
I felt such pain,I was a skinless worm
A person grieving in a prison cell

I did not wish in this black place to dwell
I felt a force that pulled till my heart tore
Cut off from humankind in my dark well

In despair I had no thoughts at all
Until a golden light around me formed
To hold this person grieving in her cell

In gratitude great tears ran as I learned
Love had followed me when I was harmed
Cut off from humankind in my dark well
The ladder of his thorns broke my death spell

https://www.aqr.org.uk/a/20210315-safetynet

Against winter, nobody should preach

The icy cold,the wind and then the sleet

The seed must die before the growth can start

The simple garden has so much to teach.

In this  way, we too repair our hearts.

The inner meetings of the soul and flesh.

Oh, winter

At the start the psyche is made flesh

The soul descends according to god’s wish

The mother’s arms create an inner nest

And thus the entire psyche is possessed

After penance comes the little fast.

Thus we have the love eternal blessed

Oh,summer

https://www.prindleinstitute.org/books/the-sneetches/

J

Against sadness:no-one here can weep
Nor lounge about in melancholy deep.
Was Van Gogh senseless to adore his muse.
For his masterpieces ,was the price too steep?
We see the yellow chair but not his views
Nor his mind where technique made such leaps.
Nor was his journey broadcast on the news.
Against sadness.

Happiness or joy is hard to find
When we rest, the News feefs on our minds
Yet some are cold towards the slaughtered priest
His nose a beak of bone in old face lined
Then Muslims went to Mass and join Christ’s feast
Against sadness.

What rages in the mind make men kill thus?
In Syrian wars the innocents fare worse.
But these are our near neighbours so we weep
And wonder how to end the frightening curse
The sins we once committed hold us deep
We hold our hands out wanting to be nursed
Against sadness

Once the Soviet troops were welcome there
In Auschwitz   thousands.millions disappeared.
The Soviet Army came  in  winter’s  chill
Nazis were advised to speed their cull

It was not only  Jews    gassed daily  there
Gypsies,plotters  also disappeared.
Can Christian faith   permit such  genocide?
On this ground, the Holy Spirit died.

What God exists depends  upon our minds;
When we choose evil,   what God can we find?
The end of Christianity came here,
As Christ was killed again   in chamber bare

God is dead to us for we have sinned
Against the Holy Spirit whom we killed

A world in  which genocide has occurred can never be he same world.And it is not only the victims who suffer.It remains in our shared minds.
As with a nuclear bomb being used, the world is  irretrievably changed
Now our mouths gape with horror and all that we have seen  or known
But I didn’t like to mention it