Never leave me

For so long you loved and imitated me

Then we were students at the university

Without you, I won’t feel like anyone

To whom shall I turn when you are gone?

When you’re the one who shared my infant bed

When you’re the one who treasured what I said

When you’re the one I soothed in the dark night

When you are gone there can be no more light

When the moment comes,I must believe

For trees shall weep their leaves as if bereaved

Then will my sister heart with sadness heave.

Oh do not do not ,do not ,do not leave

Faces in a train window

I came to see you leave, it was well done

I saw your faces blurred and indistinct

My eyes were full of tears I had to blink

Where I looked again the train has gone)

Kindertransport helped you to survive

I hope the children in Ukraine will live

I’m a ghost there’s nothing I can give

But tell you that my children are alive

My children have got children of their own

They live in in English towns, they play their games

English both in manners and names

Jewish in the blood and in the bones

I float away to join the other lost

I died and now you live, at what a cost

Never leave me

For so long you loved and imitated me

Then we were students at the university

Without you, I won’t feel like anyone

To whom shall I turn when you are gone?

When you’re the one who shared my infant bed

When you’re the one who treasured what I said

When you’re the one I soothed in the dark night

When you are gone there can be no more light

When the moment comes,I must believe

For trees shall weep their leaves as if bereaved

Then will my sister heart with sadness heave.

Oh do not do not ,do not ,do not leave

Your face is etched upon my heart

Your face is etched upon my heart.

I knew you in the morning light

Love is wise but never smart.

We have no need of others charts

In the mornings and the night

Your face is etched upon my heart.

As we waken sleep departs

To see your face is my delight

Love is wise and sometimes smart

Intuition, craft is art

Love is silent, hatred fights

Your face is etched upon my heart

Human Love can see in part

Face to face we’ll see aright

Love is wise love is not smart

Your face is etched upon my heart.

Love is wise but never smart

Is love blind? Who etched the lines?

Sacred, human, love is kind

Crackling ice

What to me may seem a worthless weed 
Bears its little flowers to create 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 heavy frost came, rain formed 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
Our mother in the kitchen making tea
The oven by the fire, the big door key

Little signs spark  tender memories
The future  fiction, gone the  past abyss

Stephen King : How to Write

Scilla_aristides2018-1.jpg

http://uk.businessinsider.com/stephen-king-on-how-to-write-2014-8?r=US&IR=T

1. Stop watching television. Instead, read as much as possible.
If you’re just starting out as a writer, your television should be the first thing to go. It’s “poisonous to creativity,” he says. Writers need to look into themselves and turn toward the life of the imagination.

To do so, they should read as much as they can. King takes a book with him everywhere he goes, and even reads during meals. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot,” he says. Read widely, and constantly work to refine and redefine your own work as you do so.

2. Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with.
King compares writing fiction to crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub, because in both, “there’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.” Not only will you doubt yourself, but other people will doubt you, too. “If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all,” writes King.

Oftentimes, you have to continue writing even when you don’t feel like it. “Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea,” he writes. And when you fail, King suggests that you remain positive. “Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”

3. Don’t waste time trying to please people.
According to King, rudeness should be the least of your concerns. “If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered anyway,” he writes. King used to be ashamed of what he wrote, especially after receiving angry letters accusing him of being bigoted, homophobic, murderous, and even psychopathic.

By the age of 40, he realized that every decent writer has been accused of being a waste of talent. King has definitely come to terms with it. He writes, “If you disapprove, I can only shrug my shoulders. It’s what I have.” You can’t please all of your readers all the time, so King advises that you stop worrying.

4. Write primarily for yourself.
You should write because it brings you happiness and fulfillment. As King says, “I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”

Writer Kurt Vonnegut provides a similar insight: “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about,” he says. “It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.”

Crackling ice

What to me may seem a worthless weed 
Bears its little flowers to create 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 heavy frost came, rain formed 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
Our mother in the kitchen making tea
The oven by the fire, the big door key

Little signs spark  tender memories
The future  fiction, gone the  past abyss

His church confession

Dear ArthurThank you for the watch from Switzerland unfortunately after 50 years it has broken can you please send me another one I will send you my new address separately

If you have remarried please do not burden your wife with any stories about me you know quite well that you are far too introverted to be married to someone like myself and I’ll give you a favour very unsociable that is by studying classics every night in bed

The bed was much too small weshould have got a king size one

My it’s so easy to know what one should have done 40 years too late and it’s quite possible that you’ve been extremely happy with a young woman extroverts and lively disposition.

Do you think much of Google voice dictation

04 is it any good inferring human happiness from a phone even if it is a large roll

I have published 32 books under my own nameof poetry I do not use your surname anymore in fact I forgot what it is but luckily I still have your email address so I can write to you even though I don’t know who you are does it matter my letters to people practising my English and getting ideas and sometimes the letter itself turns into a poem so I can just publish it straight away without doing anything else to it isn’t it wonderful

It is not the most popular kind of book I need to move into soft romantic fiction or cruel horrible thrillers incorporating sexual assault and murder I don’t think I’m going to do that 0 I will have to write something gentle but in this world do you think there’s any pointwas there any point in the reign of Henry VIII

Get many books have been written about him combining murder sex violence passion and possibly possibly love what did Henry VII my love

0 I don’t know if any historians would have research that did love just mean desire for a beautiful woman who will give you children feel a strong desire or did it mean that you will care about them qs much you care about yourself well I don’t think so not you didn’t care a damn where handball in went after their breakup so you decided to have a head cut off so beautiful that she would never talk to anybody else about their marital secrets and it’s potency or lack of it that’s all I have time for now

0 look after yourself remember your are 87

Very stylish

Institutionalised

According to the dictionary definition – ‘if someone becomes institutionalised, they gradually become less able to think and act independently, because of having lived for a long time under the rules of an institution.25 May 2021

Ode to a steam iron

O

Oh,steam iron how I love your heat
And how you make my clothes so neat.
A flat iron is no use to me
No open fire is here,you see.
And thought I liked the flickering coals
I feared those faces that looked droll.
They were in the flames and peered
At anyone who ventured near.
I wonder how the people past
Kept their trousers neat and pressed.
Now I’ve bought a hand steamer
To keep the germs off my femurs
I didn’t like to say,my crotch
In case the devil is on watch.
I never ever used to think
My body perfume was distinct.
And yet it may appeal to men
I don’t want to try again.
One dear husband is enough
Though he did enjoy a cough
He had asthma and bad eyes
Looking out with wild surmise.
He saw my golden hair float by
As by his window it did fly
All at once he fell for me
And we sat by an apple tree.
His clothes were wrinkled so I thought
I would iron them for a start.
He could darn and polish floors
Cook lamb chops and apple cores.
So my steam iron sees much use
I wonder if it’s self abuse
For as a woman feminist
I’m not meant to iron vests
I’m not meant to boil men;s socks
Nor their pants of interlock
I’m not meant to make them tea.
What a naughty person,me!
I must confess these wicked sins
Then I’ll polish my cake tins.
Satan wants me down in hell
Don’t say he needs my iron as well
As he was an angel proud
I’ll save him into One Drive Cloud.

Theatre forms the soul

When the fruit has rotted on the stalk
Bruised and broken like the poor in need
When leaders meet but rarely truly talk
When children caught in cross fire lie and bleed

Don’t we see God’s Kingdom is a joke
Ones hundred million lj bodies broke
They lost once and love dies in ktheir gore

Utopia, evolution, grandiose plans
Sacrifice yourself for those to come
We saw the little children hand in hand
Ground mines blow them up, they could not run

One thing’s clear, God’s here or not at all
The future’s fiction, yet I hear its callt

rvr

The future is yet fiction

The heart is struck a blow, can we live on?
The pain, the blood, the wound ca’t be undone
Lying in the rocks, so grey, so doomed
Death is waiting in the sitting room

Imperceptibly our minds are changed
The contents we examine, rearrange
No energy for living and new games
Like a worn out puma,limping, lame

The animal, our being, our poor flesh
Wishes for relief or even death
Yet as the sun burns through the maple leaves
Who can tell what else we may perceive?

Life and death, those twins walk on white cliffs
I stumbled once,I froze,I turned from death.
Then I found the wild rose and its thorns
The pain of grasping love, the treasure shown

The future is yet fiction,I’ll be damned.
Come to me and hold my lovely hand

A stranger at the door

I did this at my art class

Stan was reading the paper at 9 pm when the front door bell rang.Emile,his delightful tomcat who was asleep,nearly jumped out of his skin.
Stan opened the front door cautiously.
“Goodnight,sir.” remarked the handsome man standing there. impassively
“Goodnight?”Said Stan confusedly,”But I’ve never seen you before.Are you the sandman who comes to put little children to sleep?”
“Good evening,sir.” the man continued,”I’m so sorry my English is so poor.I am studying David McChrystal’s Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language and I’m still a trifle mystified by it.”
“What do you want?”Stan asked him.
”What do I want? I want to study philosophy and write a novel like Iris Murdoch did ”
“No,no.” said Stan” I mean,why are you here ?”
“A good question,why are we here? Do we have a mission in life or are we here as a result of mere chance and happenstance or even serendipity or did God send us on purpose ?”
“I mean,why are you here ringing my doorbell at this time of the night?”
“Shouldn’t that be evening,sir?” The stranger enquired sardonically yet politely.
“Look.are you after something?”
“Well,I’m after getting people to go to church or other place of worship.”
“Are you partly Irish?”Stan asked him plaintively.
“What’s happening,”called Mary from her study where she was reading a critique of Principia Mathematica for the seventeenth time.
“God only knows!” said Stan.
Mary came to the front door.She wore a green silk blouse with a jade necklace, a pair of smart jeans from Per Una and some pink trainers with yellow laces.On her face she wore Lancome of Paris light beige foundation,strawberry pink lipstick and purple mascarafrom Clinique.Her perfume was by Beyonce.
“Goodnight,madam” said the stranger.
“I think that’s slightly rude,” said Mary.”If you’ve never met someone before it’s inappropriate to say goodnight.”
“Well,you aren’t in bed,” he replied laboriously.
“What has that got to do with it?” she asked
“Inappropriate is often used to refer to sexual behaviour.”
“Well,who are you?” she whispered politely.
“I’m the new curate!””I’m Polish and I’m here ”
“Well,I’m sorry I don’t know a single word of Polish.would you like to speak in Latin?”
“Ite,missa est!”The curate exclaimed.
“Uno reductio ad absurdum”Stan muttered seductively.
“That’s Italian,UNO” cried Mary shyly.
“Well,it’s pretty similar.” Stan said ironically;
“Well,I must go,”said the curate anxiously
“You’ve not been yet so how can you go?” Mary asked mathematically, demonstrating the futility of logic.
“I don’t know,sir.Good evening,good afternoon,good morning.”the red faced man screamed as he ran hurriedly down the garden path.
“Are we Catholics ?”Mary asked Stan.
“Oh,I can’t remember,” he said.”Do we go to any church,synagogue or mosque?”
“Well,we may be non-practising at it all, I suppose.”
“Perhaps we’d better start practising,” he murmured affectionately.
“Oh,if you insist,” she replied in an un-wifely roguish tone.
“That’s right,blame it all on the man.In my experience it’s you who is keener than me on all of that.”
“What are you talking about?”she enquired seductively.Prayer?
Suddenly the door bell rang.It was the curate.
“Goodnight” he called.”goodnight”
“Goodnight, old man” they responded in their reserved English fashion.
“Mioaw” cried Emile,”Mioaw,miaow,miaow.
And so pray all of us.Amen
Donations via PayaFriend.com

At last we’ve reached the promised land

Joy sings now in golden light,

Then after day comes deep,black night.

New moon is rising by grey trees,

The earth is where I want to be.


I want the day,I want the night.
I want the dark.I want the light.
I want to see and to be seen,~
And not to lose my precious  dreams

The sun has set, grey clouds turn black,

The day just gone  will not come back.

I’ll rest in quiet reverie

Until the reaper’s scythe takes me.
And then I drop and mix with dust,
Till worms and beetles sate their lust.
And fall into ten thousand motes,
And dance, in sunlight,  music’s notes.

No more striving ,no more ambition

No more fighting,no competition.

Every particle’s the same

Without even  a unique name.


And, side by side, we all are one,
The lusts of life have been and gone.
We dwell with dirt and grain and sand
At last we’ve reached the Promised Land

By the edge of sea and land we live

When you came back from your summer home

You did not know that happy life was gone

The spouse you loved would never lust again

The two of you to be no more as one

Standing on the seashore full of joy

The end of life then absent from your mind

We cannot live with fear we must forget

Never read beyond the final line

When you drove away the final day

Full of sun your happiness was plain

You did not know you’d reached the final jump

And of the two the lonely one the remain.

The shock the trauma of the accident

Leaves just you alone in this torment

On the edge of sea and land we live.

Our hearts ache with the love we cannot give

Rosa Benchez and Paranoia

Cats
Rosa awoke later than she liked to which indicates a control freak element in her personality.She had stayed at her desk till the sun was rising writing her intriguing diary. which she hoped would rival Sylvia Plath’s.

She got up gingerly and made herself a cup of tea in a china mug on a work surface in her lovely peach and teal kitchen
Passing water into a small bottle for the doctor to have analysed was a task even the most brilliant find hard.Rosa was not even the averagely brilliant amongst the brilliants of history like Plataho, Aristittle ,Simone de Boredwoy or Blazed Rascal not to mention St Coal,

.She grabbed her mobile as a dying man at his wife’s hand and rang the cab service. she used now she was unable to see properly or ride her bike.
Hello,it’s Rosa Benchez here.Can a driver pick up my urine sample and take it to the surgery for me.Thank you so much.
No problem, the manager told her and soon afterwards a young man with dangling earrings arrived.She showed him the sample hidden inside a Sainsbury’s shopping bag.He looked puzzled but agreed on payment of £259.89
She realised she had not eaten any breakfast so decided to have an early lunch instead

.As she ate her toasted cheese and snake oil she fell into a daydream.She was with her online man friend walking through a huge field of her favourite flowers,cyclamen.They were walking along companionably without holding hands but together whilst also being apart which was delightful.This was agreeable since she had never met this very charming man in the flesh.He was called XY Matrix although his parents had never studied algebra as far as historians can tell.Could it be a pseudonym?
Maybe he was being raised to be a mathematical prodigy but he became a writer and musician and managed to earn a good income and he had a beautiful detached house filled with antiques and ceramic lamps like Freud’ study.In fact ,he had copied that from historical photos and descriptions and one day he planned to become a therapist.
Rosie and Fox as she called him got on well and shared a liking for poetry and music.Sometimes he had sent her music as attachments on his emails.He seemed to love Wagner and Britten which is a curious combination to the British woman.He loved Britten’s Donne’s Sonnets sung by the stunning tenor Ian Bostridge.

worst-book-covers-titles-7

After lunch, Rosa opened her laptop.She found an email from Fox.
You have been here and broken all my windows and my bath is ruined,he wrote.I am moving house to get away from you.And I am having plastic windows.
Rosa was alarmed as it defied common sense She did not know where his house was and it was in another country.So she emailed him back,
What is wrong ,dear?You only said 2 days ago that my poetry had helped your sick friend when you went to visit him in the hospital
Waiting anxiously for his answer, she sipped some coffee and looked at her friend Dolly walk by, dressed in a pink suede jacket and black linen culottes with matching red boots.

Where is Dolly going she wondered pensively,feeling like a cloud floating over Rydal Water in the winter not knowing which way the wind might blow it
After two hours of utter silence, she decided to wait until the evening when she had put away the groceries and written a triolet or two.She was keen to do it before she lost the impetus
The whole evening went by so she emailed him again.But again he did not reply.
The next morning she found a letter on the doormat.

1,Rancour Villas
Horror Lane
Dumbtown
Dear Rosa
I thought you would be kind and gentle like your poetry but you have wounded me.You asked me what date my dental appointment was which was an invasion of my privacy.You told me you would not mind if your son was gay whereas to me it is a sin to indulge those sick appetites and you should not encourage him
Signed XYM
A dental appointment? It’s not as if she had asked him if had a sexually transmitted disease or whether he believed in Jesus as his Saviour.Nor had she asked him if he liked to smoke cigars in bed nor if he let Lassie his sheepdog sleep on the bed and cuddle with him

.For all she knew, the dog might be his partner or even his wife
She emailed him as she felt anxious in case he was having a breakdown.He replied, saying she was not who he thought and he was finished with her.
I wonder who he thought I was, she asked herself as she sat with tears in her eyes feeling concerned about what was really going on in his dear mind.Her cat Lucy ran up and sat on the arm of the chair gazing frenziedly at her owner and mother
Don’t worry Lucy.I am sure I will soon be ok.This must be a mistake.I think he has got paranoia which gets worse and then better

Dowrick book

Rosa looked on Amazon and found a book called

Kantor MD, Martin
Having read a little of the book online she decided it had some useful tips which could also apply to people who were not paranoid ,like always being polite,never telling lies and never arguing.As it was only £1899 she placed an order.If her friend was really ill she did not want to make him worse.
On the other hand ,who knows what his real motives might be.He could be a sadist or have got many women friends and not enough time to keep them all happy.He might even be gay and be using her to see if he could love a woman at a distance better than one in the flesh.
We have to admit that often none of us know why we do certain things.As a friend used to say
It seemed a good idea at the time.
And so cry all of us.
Sob,sob.

Did Jesus wear pyjamas?

1.Why did Jesus cross the road?

Because He saw a zebra crossing.

2.Can we walk on water?

Only if it’s dead

3.Is it good to pray all day?

Give God a bit of peace.Lay off.

4.Why did Jesus like women?

Because he was politically correct.

5.Did Jesus wear pyjamas?

Not all questions have an answer

6.Why did God choose the Jews?

Because they chose Him!

7.Why did Moses not get to the Promised land?

Because he had no ordnance survey map.

8.Why was Jerusalem built on a hill?

It was easier than removing the hill first.

9 Did the ancient Hebrews have public conveniences?

No, they did it in private.

10.Why do Jewish men have to please their wives in bed?

Why does any man have to please his wife… it’s what we call strategic thinking.

11 Did Jesus like Earl Grey tea?

It was no use at Weddings.

12.What is manna?

It’s style,its manners

I hope you reach the promised land.

I have loved you and I’ve held you.

Many years,you have been mine;

If the time has come for parting

Let us embrace for one last time.

You know you have to leave me,

Though you desire a longer stay.

Let me hold you in my arms now

For just tonight and perhaps one day.

Then I’ll watch you travel on,sweet.

We take this last step all alone.

I’ll be here beside you watching.

I shall feel when you are gone.

May you accept, may you surrender.

I hope you reach the promised land.

Into this earth my tears will fall, love,

As I recall your tender hands.

 

Walk in ferny woods. exchange a glance

Rosa-Morning-Mist-2020

Wasting life when we would like to dance
Walk in ferny woods. exchange a glance

Why no decent person at our head
Jesus Christ,no b*gger understood

Why be happy when you could feel mad?
Glad that Donald Trump is not your dad
Don’t let logic, reason or plain thought
Sell you something Mother never bought

Why not let the police take all control?
They know how to score a self made goal
They can kill a man and wound a child
Yet kneel down in Church along the aisle

Holding a black Bible in one hand
Will not take you to the Promised Land
Cain and Abel,Jacob and Esau
Does he hopen to start another War?

As the old man fell towards his death
They offered us a handrail for the bath
I was so shattered by their wilful lies
I could not speak, my saliva had all dried

He was walking albeit slowly when at home
When they took him off I heard the groan
Lost inside his head, no wife nearby
Even Satan would have wept that night

Gabriel and Satan, hand- in -hand
Neither one will ever understand
We humans waste so much,we’re almost blind
Full of envy,hate and so unkind

G

Overly Alert? Hypervigilance and Your Health

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-hypervigilance

Hypervigilance — the elevated state of constantly assessing potential threats around you — is often the result of a trauma. People who have been in combat, have survived abuse, or have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can exhibit hypervigilance.

PTSD can be caused by a wide variety of incidents. Some of these traumatic events include:

  • Living through a dangerous event
  • Experiencing a serious or frightening injury
  • Seeing another person get seriously hurt or die
  • Feeling horror or extreme fear
  • Experiencing trauma of any kind, and having no support afterward
  • Living through multiple losses or traumas back-to-back

Hypervigilance, interpersonal distrust, and suspicion – Workforce LibreTexts

https://workforce.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Corrections/Introduction_to_Corrections_(Wymore_and_Raber)/06%3A_Institutionalization_of_Inmates_in_Correctional_Facilities/6.04%3A_Hypervigilance_interpersonal_distrust_and_suspicion

5 Ways to Help Your Loved One (and Yourself) During and After Incarceration | ConnectNetwork

Art by Katherine

https://web.connectnetwork.com/5-ways-help-loved-one-incarceration/

Rather, they described “institutionalization” as a chronic biopsychosocial state brought on by incarceration and characterized by anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, and a disabling combination of social withdrawal and/or aggression.16 Jul 2019

I have loved not widely but a few.

I bought more cyclamen and thought of you
Wandering through wild flowers by my side
I don’t know where to put them,they might die
Then I would feel so sad and lonely blue

All we read of pain and love is true.
Yet we let our hearts stay open wide
I bought some cyclamen and wanted you
Wandering through wild flowers by my side

I have loved not widely but a few
I have touched on bliss and when it flies
I have touched the grief that truly lies
I bought these little flowers and thought of you

What is “social work”?

Social work was once done out of love

We had enough to spare, so we could give.

But now that loves in short supply again

We have to get a workforce, bring in men.

But our world is binary no more.

I think it’s gone too far to shut the door

In the dancehall girls sat sweet and prim

Waiting for the man, I think that’s him!

Now we wander vaguely into sin

Sodom and Gomorrah come again.

But where is Noah and the saving Heart

Red with blood and a fiery is the air.

We thought we wanted peace and now we know

We are all aggressive at the core.

We’ve never like to share and be polite

And so we have a nightmare every night.

How to Find More Joy in Your Day, According to Author Katherine May – The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/well/mind/katherine-may-enchantment.html?utm_source=pocket_discover

Commit to noticing the world around you

“We have to find the humility to be open to experience every single day and to allow ourselves to learn something,” Ms. May wrote in “Enchantment.”

This, she acknowledges, “is easier said than done.”

“Let yourself go past those thoughts that tell you it’s silly or pointless or a waste of time, or you’re far too busy to possibly do this,” Ms. May said during the interview. “Instead give yourself permission to want that in the first place — to crave that contact with the sacred, and that feeling of being able to commune with something that’s bigger than you are.”

Entering a state of wonder is akin to using a muscle, Ms. May said. Put yourself in that mind-set more often and it gradually becomes easier.

I say

What do you say to a new neighbour?

I hope we won’t be hearing ( from) you soon

What do you say to the new parish priest?

Do you do exorcisms?

I can’t wait to make my first confession to you.

I’m Jewish. Christianity is just the first heresy so I’m sticking with the Rabbi.

What do you say to the new doctor?

How are you coping with my stress?

What do you say to your new husband?

How oid you say you were?