When we walked  I  warmed your hand in mine

When we walked I held your hand in mine
We walked round a small lake to see geese fly
We sauntered, in a rhythm were aligned

Time had stopped, the geese in circles climbed
Then swept onto the path as we came by
When we walked I held your hand in mine

Like a natural god, the geese divine
Landed in their beauty with a sigh
We entered a new rhythm, were aligned

On the shining water geese in line
Float and hunt for food with little cries
When we walked I held your hand in mine

In our garden for your love I pine
I may never love another till I die
We sauntered, in a rhythm were aligned

God is on the mountain with his lyre
Singing of the beauty of desire
When we walked I warmed your hand in mine
We lived attuned to love until you died

Photo by E.L copyright

Advent flight

The ducks swim in the gaps between the ice
Cold blooded , yet kept warm  by  fluffy down
The river looks uncertain in this light

The sky hangs like a curtain of snow white
The sun,  precocious, shines and then it frowns
The ducks swim in the gaps between the ice

Ah, think of Morecambe  Bay in sunshine bright
Across the sea the Pikes stand out so proud
My river looks uncertain in this light

Britain’s mountains  fierce attract like vice
Like alcohol or sex or low cut gown
Unknowing ducks swim on despite thick ice

Thanks  to God for hearing and for sight
The mystery is the Love which was disowned
My river looks  so cold  as comes twilight

 

Here  is Bethlehem, the little town
Where Christ was born and grew to be cut down
The ducks swim by, the  swans  walk on the ice
Look up and see the geese in Advent flight

 

 

Wild Geese

Leaves have gone so suddenly
Small birds float on the wind
Like boats astride a choppy sea.
Their swaying soothes my mind.

Wild geese fly past at dusk again,
They head towards the North.
The holly berries glow in sun,
Nature gives joy birth.

I gaze intently at the sky,
The clouds hang dark and low.
If I too were a mere wild goose
I’d know which way to go

But I am left with only words
To find my destination.
Yet words do carry down to us
Wisdom from past generations

We use old words in unique ways.
We structure them to form
A new design not seen before
A new sentence is born

I send my words with love to you
I hope you safely catch them.
Give me answers from your heart
And I’ll do my best to match them.

What we know about repressed anger

Rhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/living-emotional-intensity/202201/5-symptoms-repressed-anger

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Subjugation

Some people have learned from their families, schools, or religion that anger is a bad or even immoral thing. They become afraid of the power of their own rage. When anger emerges, they feel an intense inner conflict. Simultaneously there is a force to squash it all down. They may immediately switch the focus onto other people’s needs, or ‘what the situation needs from them,’ rather than their own needs. To avoid conflicts, they opt to be the listener or peacemaker and will do anything to maintain peace and harmony.

This tendency is especially common among the emotionally sensitive and highly empathic. Their life experiences have taught them that they are ‘too much,’ ‘too dramatic,’ ‘too outspoken,’ ‘care too much about small things,’ etc. To fit in or even just to survive, they have learned to silence themselves. In conscious or unconscious ways, they try to curb their own excitement and energy. As a child, they kept their head down so as not to upset an already depressed parent, or provoke an aggressive one. Their role in the family was the mediator or the invisible one, and they would do everything to not bother anyone with their emotional needs. They would rather appease others to keep the peace than to express it and risk having a confli

Geese again

The geese flew high across the sky tonight

My heart expanded with their rhythmic play.

As if joy were a fire that could ignite

The geese flew high across the sky tonight

Heading to the North where there’s a lake.

I have never a swan in flight.

Who can take me to the Wash today?

All the birds I love should come this way

Father Christmas

Dear father made Christmas a real treat

He cracked the walnuts with his feet

Hi Xmas crackers had real dynamite

His eyebrows were a very weird sight.

He got a gift for the cat each year.

Until the dog said that’s not fair.

So he said they should join with a human choir

Singing carols by the read coal fire.

The cat could waul in any key.

She could screech and moan so she got some tea

The dog could bark but could not speak

Otherwise he would have been a freak.

In the kitchen mother cooked the goose.

With all the family we could have scoffed a moose.

Is the plural of moose meese?

I have no dictionary what a beast

The Christmas pudding with a great delight

The silver sixpence always started a fight.

We had bird’s custard never cream

We had no fridge so it would have turned green.

The birds were so angry that they told the queen.

Ever since then she’s never been seen

We listened to the carols on the wireless set.

Cuddling the cat we called our pet

Dear father said we must go to bed

We always disobeyed him whatever he did.was such fun

He was such fun though very odd

When I was still tiny I thought that he was God.

Does grief ever come to an end ?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/magazine/grieving-loss-closure.html

The Myth of Closure” is also her attempt to make sense of simultaneously unfolding catastrophes in her personal life and around the world. “This is the first time I’ve raised ambiguous loss to a higher level regarding the pandemic, a societal level,” Boss told me. In trying to describe losses that society doesn’t always recognize, Boss might be helping us to rethink the nature of loss altogether.

Ez

Image

My father was a very strange man

My father was a very odd man

He cooked our porridge in a frying pan

He went to work and he came back home

Carrying a bag full of garden gnomes

He hated them with pure sweet hate

He buried them all by the garden gate

We had no garden we had no lawn.

Despite all that the Sun came up at dawn

He never had a car and he never had a horse.

He was an artist but quite untaught.

He wanted several children and that’s what he got

There were three of us sleeping in one cot.

Three more slept on the landing too.

We have no beds but a wonderful view.

My six older brothers slept in one bed

There was no light but they were very well read.

Then he died and left us all alone.

Please don’t leave any mobile groans

Making decisions can be terrifying. Stop worrying about being wrong and try to have a curious mindset instead

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/05/making-decisions-can-be-terrifying-stop-worrying-about-being-wrong-and-try-to-have-a-curious-mindset-instead?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Change

Turning points occur when we we must choose

The moment comes and it seems opportune

Can you still the voices cruel amused?

Find your own perspective, view the scene.

Turning points occur when we must choose.

Who to ask for guidance, and the means.

I feel pessimistic then enthused .

I shall ask my friends to be discreet

Better talk than be alone and brood

Rumination is no friend to me.

Better turn and see what is to be

Gerald Stern, prize-winning American lyrical poet, dies aged 97 | Poetry | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/29/gerald-stern-prize-winning-american-lyrical-poet-dies-aged-97

There is a sweetness buried in my mind

there is water with a small cave behind it

there’s a mouth speaking Greek

It is what I keep to myself; what I return to;

the one thing that no one else wanted

Stern was sometimes mistaken in person for Allen Ginsberg and often compared to Walt Whitman because of his lyrical and sensual style, and his gift for wedding the physical world to the greater cosmos.

Stern was shaped by the rough, urban surroundings of his native Pittsburgh, but he also identified strongly with nature and animals, marvelling at the “power” of a maple tree, likening himself to a hummingbird or a squirrel

Taking a look at anger

Photo by author

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/learning/is-anger-an-underrated-emotion.html

Learning to manage anger is a lifelong skill that allows children to function at home, in school and out in the world without losing control.

Ms. Pearson suggests several ways parents can help children express and manage their anger. First, recognize that anger is normal:

When it comes to kids and anger, it can help to remember a few simple facts: First, anger is a basic human emotion. And second, emotions exist to tell us about ourselves and our relationships, explained Dave Anderson, a clinical

Stan cleans the TV remote

 

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Stan was annoyed that since the days were getting brighter and longer, the dust on the furniture was becoming more evident..Not that his wife Mary was a tyrant but she was out at work whereas he was free from his purgatory working with gamblers and homeless drug users but had to keep the home clean instead
Of course he had been pleased to be working to improve society ,but enough was enough.He already was helping two people on a voluntary basis at his church, Still Mary was labouring in the lecture hall. explaining how linear algebra might help folk to lead better and more virtuous lives ,especially if they were going into Parliament or the higher reaches of the Civil Service which aided government ministers dealing with strange confusions in the Economy ,and indeed in the entire world.
He picked up his microfibre dusting rag cut from an old towel and started to dust the TV set.After that he sprayed Dettox onto the keyboards of all their laptops,ipads,phones and remote controls.Then he dried them with an old tea towel made of cotton and linen.
Suddenly he heard the back door opening.In ran his beauteous mistress Annie wearing a green and red tracksuit and purple trainers with pink spots on.
Shall I make some lovely coffee,she asked positively.
I have not done much housework yet,Stan cried in alarm.
Let me see,she responded with the ripe interest of the retired and bored.
My, this remote control is very,very clean.
She put it in front of her eyes and glared myopically at it.
All her mind power was concentrated on this one object, which was at this moment in  time her whole world;usually myopia is a bad move as it impedes a wider balanced view of life.
You have done brilliantly with this but you do need a break from this tedious and arduous work,she enthused laconically.
Oh, OK then,Stan answered gently.
She poured coffee into two Portmeirion pottery mugs and took them into the conservatory where she admired his potted plants and his herbs.
What’s this here, she called.It wasn’t here last week,
It’s cannabis,he informed her unwilfully.
Are you a user now she enquired tactlessly.
No,I am keeping it for a friend.Stan lied truthfully
That’s what they all say,she riposted jocosely.
Well,I don’t know how to use it.I believe you smoke it so does it have to be dried?
I guess so,she said like a cowboy from a  desert in Alabama on a diet of coke and french fries.
Well,I am not going test it,he said pensively.I don’t even smoke a pipe any more.I suck my thumb instead.It’s free,he continued and needs no licence
Would you like to suck my toes,she asked him lovingly.
After all,the Duchess of York had hers sucked and I am her equal in some ways .
Sucking toes has so far not been part of my repertoire and neither
has whipping women and smacking them either.I prefer to suck their lips and caress their cheeks.
Which cheeks? she asked suspiciously, as if she was an examiner in an oral examination for a law degree.
Sorry,dear..I am happy to caress any part of your warm voluptuous flesh but I need to get on with the housework.
Just ignore it,she ordered him. rudely.I’ll help you after we have been to bed
I didn’t know we were going to bed, he said in a very puzzled tone of voice
Well,you do now,she giggled un-furtively
And so does Emile who is already on the landing from where he can see the mirror opposite the bed.What a naughty boy he is,but what would you do in his position?
I thought so.Ask a missionary at once.You have to believe me… or turn pale with horror at this evil couple.

http://youtu.be/Mb3iPP-tHdA