Category: Thinkings and poems

Writing makes me breathe differently

Sometimes writing makes me breathe differently.
I can feel the silence settle around me,
Like a prayer shawl.
i accept it gratefully.
There’s a thin feeling to the day
As if the sun might have tried harder
to come through
But it had a blue feeling
And the clouds were greedy,
Wanting too much to melt
And shed their moisture.
Some perfume please.I think it was £27.99
Yes,I like that one even more than jasmine oil.
Pour it down over London
Like a  blessing.
A black woman laughed and patted my arm,
You’re so funny, she cried.
And I smiled coyly
As if someone hidden was taking my photograph.
Sometimes life’s too sweet
And needs a little pepper.
The chair creaks as I lean forward
Trying to see everything at once
As if it all happened now, not yesterday.

Thank you for your funny face

Thanks for all those calls and letters
Thanks for caring that I’m here.
In my darkest, lonesome moments
These replies will keep you near.

Thanks for answering all my emails
Thank you for the hours you give.
Thanks for sharing heartfelt thoughts
And being so generous with your love.

Thank you for your wit and grace,
Thank for your funny face.
Thank you for your deep blue gaze and
Thank you for your warm embrace.

Thank you,thank you,thank you,thank.
Love you,love you,love you,Love.
Thank you,thank you,thanks to you,
Because,because,because,Because

Mostly true medical comments from doctors to each other with one or two additions invented by me

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•Discharge status: Alive but without permission.

Faking life. Certified as dead.

(Some people do genuinely have the ability to mask the fact that they are dead)

Between you and me and Dr Brown, we ought to be able to get this lady pregnant.
• She is numb from her toes down

This man wanted his own bed so I told him he could have it for £100 cash.

By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart had stopped and he was feeling better.
• Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
• On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it had completely disappeared.
• She has had no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.
• The patient has been depressed ever since she began seeing me in 1983.
• Patient was released to outpatient department without dressing.
• I have suggested that he loosen his pants before standing and then, when he stands with the help of his wife, they should fall to the floor.
• The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
• Discharge status: Alive but without permission.
• Healthy appearing decrepit 69 year-old male, mentally alert but forgetful.
• The patient refused an autopsy.
• The patient has no past history of suicides.
• Patient has left his white blood cells at another hospital.
• The patient’s past medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days.
• She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate directions in early December.
• The patient experienced sudden onset of severe shortness of breath with a picture of acute pulmonary oedema at home while having sex, which gradually deteriorated in the emergency room.
• The patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.
• The patient was in his usual state of good health until his aeroplane ran out of gas and crashed.
• When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room.

He has not slept for 14 days because of migraine and insomnia.

We told her she was going home today since when we have not been able to find her nor has she eaten anything although she chose it herself from the menu.

Choose not death

The crushing grief when someone chooses death
When life had shown much promise and much hope
Turns the ones who loved to find new paths

Some may sin, encouraged by cruel wrath
Against the one who chose the wicked rope
The shock of grief at such too early death

Others freeze and cannot take a breath
Scarcely moving as their mind elopes
Making then impossible their path

The mountains of deep grief I could not pass
Until a warm gold light caressed my heart
The wounds of grief , the sacrifice, the Mass

Do not dwell in darkness and distress
Follow me he murmured while we start
I will help you find a different path

The golden light had brought for me a chart
The sea of life had ripples ,brilliant sparks
The suffering and the grief from such a death
Turned the one who loved onto this path.

Even in black darkness all is well

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

Like children’s   golden tears in a black sun

 Like children’s   gleaming tears in a  bright sun
That can be dried respectful of the source
The points of light on holly leaves  each shone

The  pink horse chesnuts’ flowering  has begun
May flows on to June  as rivers  course
As children’s   gleaming tears drop in  the sun

Nothing human should be broken,shunned
Yet evil screams till its sharp voice is hoarse
The points of light on holly leaves  still shine

When we learn of genocide , it stuns
I was  unborn, did not know of  such force
As children’s   greying tears dropped  under sun

Each  child is God,  yet such vile acts are done
Anne Frank ‘s  haunting memories now cursed
The points of light on holly leaves  will wane

Where did   our evil start,what makes it worse?
Unheld and hungry   baby needing breast?
Like children’s   golden tears in a   black sun
The points of shame, the prickling leaves may win

Perforating Ulster

I heard they are perforating Ulster again
Ireland wll be united by the new border dividing it
Boris Johnson may be Turkish,Lithuanian and British..He’s definitely not got a drop of Irish
He thinks the Good Friday agreement was to give Jesus an anaesthetic before he was crucified
The doctor says I’m dying of consumption.I blame the out of town shopping malls but he just said TB or not TB

No covid 99

I hurt my back I cried and prayed to God

That next time I’ll be born a gastropod

You might call me spineless, this is true.

I hope the Lord won’t send me back as you.

Slugs and snails can have a happy life

There is no class,no politics, no strife.

Humbly in the damp they live and die.

They don’t look up and wish that they could fly.

They do not read or use a mobile phone.

They don’t get flu nor covid 99

The snails upon my porch

On the red tiled porch snails congregate

We’ve had so much rain, they nearly float

They do not purr like cats do when they’re pleased

Do they even try to sing or talk?

No one wrote an opera for such beasts

They might wait for Godot without speech

They could not hope that we would cuddle them.

They won’t come to Blackpool for the beach.

What do snails do to pass the long hours best?

Spend an hour with them inside the hedge.

But do not warm one in your woollen vest

I’d rather worship one on this red ledge

The shell of snail of cockle of a crab

The artistry is there, but snails don’t brag

David Smail (psychologist) – Wikipedia and his three laws

In a sidebar in Power Responsibility and Freedom Smail posits three laws that if understood fully would save everyone a lot of anxiety:

Law 1 “Absolutely everybody wants to be liked”.

Law 2 “Everyone feels different inside (less confident, less able, etc.) from how they infer other people to feel”.

Law 3 “Few honest and courageous people who have achieved anything of real value in life do not feel a fraud much of the time”.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smail_(psychologist)

I’ll love you till I die

‘Twas but a reptile passing by.
It flew across the deep blue sky
Why do reptiles fly so high?
I’ll love you till I die.

“Twas but a cat under the moon.
Did you have a silver spoon?
Why can’t cats all waul in tune?
I’ll love you very soon

‘Twas but a wooden legged man,
Carrying a large brass saucepan.
Why can’t men do what women can?
I’ll love you better than.

Why are adverbs?
What are nouns?
why do circuses have clowns?
I’ll love you lying down.

Where do dreams go in the day?
What game can we adults play?
Can you or can you not say?
I’ll love you,in my way.

‘Twas but a verse that seemed so free.
It floated over my oak tree.
I have eyes but cannot see.
I’ll love you when I be be

High Force

Mother, it is great to be up North
Can we take a trip to see High Force?
I don’t think we can manage that,I said
Why ever not,I need to leave my bed
Well,I can’t drive for I can’t see so well
He looked at me with pity, it was hell
Shall we take a cab, he questioned me
I don’t think they can get there before tea
We can take a flask and your fruit cake
I knew his mother well, and could she bake!
I did not like to say it is too far
Two hundred miles or more from where we were
He asked again about my honeymoon
Did you find it over all too soon?
I felt a blush spread over my fair skin
He was my husband, I spent it with him
But yet I could not take away his joy
He loved his mother much when a small boy.
Judging by the smile on his dear face
Freud was right, he wished to me embrace.
Is it wrong to let a man mistake
His wife for his late mother, that is fake.
But since he was so sick and suffered long
I had to keep him going with her songs
She sung in her church choir the hymns of praise
To overcome that strange weekend malaise
So valiant as ever in my work
I sang O Praise the Lord as in the Kirk
I sang Oh, little town of Bethlehem
Of course there was no wall there way back when
He still read the paper every day
And in the night when sleepless he would pray.
I would have lifted rocks and cut through steel
If I could have made his heart valves heal
Yet still our masquerade was to him real
He held my hand and smiled with great appeal.
Then he said he’d like to go to bed
With his own mother, what could I have said?
I made some tea and he smiled even more
I guess that’s why he lived to 94.

All Europe took their ash within

In Bedzin and in Krakow they breathed in
What they denied in conscious thought or word.
The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin

Penetrating lungs so deep within
The dead unburied mixed, in air secured
In Bedzin and in Krakow, mortal sin.

The nearby people turned to burial urns.
The human dust by breathing was allured
The ashes of the Jews, the shades of skin.

So Europe took their human ash within.
A graveyard we became unknown, impure.
In Bedzin and in Krakow, more of sin.

And who they thought destroyed lived on in them
Controlled their lungs, their hearts their minds uncured,
The ashes of the Jews, borne in their skin.

Like a mass communion without words
We ate and breathed the Jews, the gays, unheard
In Bedzin and in Krakow we walked in
The ashes of the lost, the glades of skin,

Never begin a sentence

Be careful with apostrophe’s,semi- colons and death
When in doubt, leave [it] out
Don’t end at an adverb,generally.But it’s ok if not too frequently
Don’t invent new words.They might mean something in another language
Think about sentences then they will think about you,possibly
Learn with leisure using audio books.

Pray before the beginning of a thought
Never forget brevity.Nor levity.
Be natural.
Leave out ad hominem, QED and ipso fracture.
A fraction of infinity is as big as infinity.That’s what infinity means , honestly!
If you are a genius, write what you like, but warily
Chance favours the double bind as Gregory Bateson might have said.
Prepare your mind before deleting.
If your spelling is bad, vote to leave the EU and learn proper English properly.
Never use a nom de plume if you like Brexit
Croissants are being withdrawn from the UK asap.Can you spell croissant? Well forget it!

Speech to text for children when it’s raining

23 Dixon Having Flu

Off London Toad

Teddington (Little Sex)

TV4 9BC

21 Broad Stalk

Lynch More Still

Hedge Aware

Barsket

BO9 8AD

65 All Stunned Rowed

Pillage Ends

Topping up

TCP 17/6

Surplus free.

Dun phoning

0 Phlub Lane

Stungwords

Eppong

Desexed

DC 9 8 RU

The photo

You are smiling on the pier above the sands
The rippling waves stretch out like children’s hands
You look so strong I cannot comprehend
Your fatal illness and its grievous end
You were not a patient on dry land
You were living well and ” feeling grand”
We crossed the road ; I held your cold thin hand
I suffered so much torment,would I mend?
I saw a fluid shape as dark it pranced
Through the open door it swiftly danced
Slipped in with the wiles of Tudor kings
Hoping they can make it on the wing
I learned with grief , it came to take you back
Across the river wide ,my love, my lack

Britain when Boris Johnson was pm

A defiant Boris Johnson [ ah, the poor wee toddler]
will use this weekend’s Tory [ who is it this weekend?]
conference in Manchester to double [ maths again]
down on his “peoplev parliament” rhetoric, [Ancient Greek]
after a tumultuous week [you don’t say]
in which he was accused [go to Confession]
of dangerously [ could it ever be safely?]
inflaming political tensions. [ do you mean tendons?]

Downing Street insiders insist [ to whom]
they have not been blown off course [ it’s those winds of change]
by the furious condemnation of Johnson’s
repeated use
of the phrase “surrender bill” [Is this a Western?]
to describe the backbench Benn Act. [ a comedy of terrors]

Instead, they claim they will use the [so do I, THE poet]
party conference to drive [what licence!]
home their “Get Brexit [I prefer porridge]
Done” slogan, launch [ a lifeboat?]
a string of manifesto-friendly policies – [ manifestly?]
and attack Jeremy Corbyn
as too weak [ ahaaha]
to lead Britain.

Johnson’s unapologetic stance comes \\
[ plenty of climaxes today]
after [ it sure does]
Amber Rudd joined the chorus [ as a contralto]
of condemnation against his aggressive use [ah, men]
of language, saying she was [ like Gd]
“disappointed and stunned”, [ a fine state]
and warning it could incite
violence against opponents.[ is it not meant to?]

The prime minister still hopes to press ahead [ he can borrow my steam iron]
with somehow securing a Brexit
deal in the brief
window remaining be [ can a window be brief or wear briefs?]
before the 17 October European Council
– and push it through parliament, [ come on Sisyphus]
against the backdrop of political turmoil. [get North Sea Oil]

Despite the horror [ exaggerated?]
with which many Labour MPs
greeted Johnson’s bellicose performance [ ballet to harm]
in the Commons on Wednesday, No 10 still
believes there will be intense pressure [ torture]
on those MPs who represent leave constituencies [ bad grammar]
to support a deal.[ why can’t it support itself, like I do

“If we came back with a Deal, [We have one near Dover]
I think there would be real political pressure ;[ not in my blood]
to really push through: if you’re in a Brexit seat,[what a bum]
do you really want to go into an election [No]
having rejected Brexit?” { I shall eat Weetabix]
the government [Ahahahahahaha]
Source [what, of the Thames?]
Said. [President of Egypt who made peace with Israel and was shot]

Excuse me Madam, are you Muslim

A day in town

Just after leaving Cafe Nero we saw some police approaching.
Excuse me. madam,.Are you Muslim?
No.I always wear cotton in hot weather.Unless I am making cheese.
Sorry. he said.How do you worship?
I think you need a Rabbi to tell you that
So you are Jewish?
No.you are,kind sir.,
How do you know,he said in wonder.I have no kippah on
As you have a big hat on like Leonard Cohen ~I deduced you were another of those Cohens.They are all descebded from Aaron,you know. He was Moses’ brotherThere must be a few hundred of you.
I fear you have made a logical error,madam.
As long as I don’t make an error of the heart,I don’t bother about logic.I said jauntily
Surely we need both a heart and a head,he asked me questioningly.
Definitely,but why are you here? I demanded politically
That’s what God said to Elijah on the mountain, he murmured
And what did Elijah say,I enquired superstitiously
I heard you calling me.
Oh,Lord

I never sent

Wrapped up in my thoughts I did not see
The sunlight on the leaves,the russet tree.
I did not see the berries and the birds
Are they quiet, or is it I’ve not heard?
Far away yet not in reverie
No guide nor light appeared nor called to me
I smelled the damp green leaves I could not see
Entangled in the knots of wild old words
I lost my mind in wondering what you meant
In all those little notes you never lsent
The angst,the fear the ego off its throne
The knife that cuts, the breaking of the bones

When he couldn’t eat

I don’t want to walk to the front room
Can I have my dinner on a tray?
I wept inside for he could hardly eat
So thin I thought his backbone might well break
I’ll get you a small table, honeybun
Just a mo, I’ll put the oven on
I want a steak ,he called another day
If he could eat it I would be God’s prey
I can’t chew it, pet, my stomach’s full
The fluid from the blood, I knew it well
The valve is furred, his blood is being pushed back
Fills his inner organs swells and racks
I was almost paralysed and stunned
Putting him to bed was quite a pun
Then he woke up from a little sleep
Spoke to me in words so clear and sweet
You have a personality so bright,
The sun must envy you your brilliant light
After that he scarcely used his words
We did not need to speak, it was absurd

When he was in the last few weeks of his life he became very critical of himself and of me. But that day he woke up from a sleep and criedYou have a brilliant personality then he went to sleep again. We didn’t talk very much because we didn’t seem to need it as long as we were present with each other in our bodies and hearts.

The heather is divine

← 

.

I’ll draw a graph of Mother Earth
I’ll need a lot of paper.
It won’t be easy,I know that,
But Geo’s my alma mater.

Geo came into our maths class.
We had to find her metre.
If we did then we could write
A poem with which to greet her.

With ologies and eulogies,
The earth is deep in waste.
Give me some green graph charts
I’ll do some cut and paste.

I’ll rearrange the entire globe,
Without a deal of fuss.
If anybody notices
They won’t know it was us!

I’ll put all the mountains in the world
Inside one continent.
And if I am that way inclined
The globe will look quite bent.

I’ll put the lions and tigers too
Into Parliament.
Let them eat, not cake, but men
And don’t charge them a rent.

I’ll paste  the seas that I shall find
Onto my washing line.
With less water round the world
The weather should be fine.

Oh Geo was a darling child,
So promising and bright.
Mixed up by the graphs and charts
I hope she’ll see the light.

I’ll put the stars into a box
We have far too many.
Yet only one sun and one moon,
Would you  be my granny?

Geo return,I love you so.
I’ll give up cut and paste to show.
That you are all I ‘ll ever know,
I don’t want no more

In love again

I saw  the sun rise over the North Sea
Accentuating coloured fishing boats.
The beauty of the dawn gave hope to me
A restful pleasure made my  soft eyes  dote.

The peace of this small town has caught my heart.
Scenes from ancient times  come close again
The gulls swoop down and  sketch their flying charts
Remote as ever from the realm of man

The shingle beach,the  Church  where Britten lies
The in and out of tides  of salty sea;
An exact match of houses,hill and skies
The   amber shop, the bookshop,the oak tree,

In my mind I walk in love again;
Though of the two, a single one remains

I heard the news today,oh boy

They have not been blown off course [ it’s those winds of change]
by the furious condemnation of Johnson’s
repeated use [what licence!]
home their “Get Brexit [I prefer porridge]
Done” slogan, launch [ a lifeboat?]
a string of manifesto-friendly policies – [ manifestly?]
and attack Jeremy Corbyn
as too weak to breathe
and take Britain.[Where to?]

Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate – sent direct to you

Johnson’s unapologetic stance comes [ plenty of climaxes today]
after [ it sure does]
Amber Rudd joined the chorus [ as a contralto]
of condemnation against his aggressive use [ah, men]
of language, saying she was [ like Gd]
“disappointed and stunned”, [ a fine state]
and warning it could incite
violence against opponents.[ is it not meant to?]

When the fire goes out


Fire out,I sit in coat and fake fur collar

My hands cold,

Just caught hake off Flamborough. Head

Know how I feel

A cold winter already came for me.

I am prepared.

I find some hats I knitted.

Fish have no skin

Their eyes look out poignant yet fierce

They think they are sharks

It’s so wrong to display them

Dead in rows.

I knew then in the fish market

What kind of world it is.

Animals have their own holocaust

Well,think about it.

Crabs and mussels boiled alive.

God never wanted human sacrifice

It was some evil demon Hitler worshipped

Himself I think

How do you do it?

Did Freud get it right.. the death instinct.

Or to be blunt

Would n’t a hot soak in the bath be better?

Cold again.

Is the world worse now?