Ye olde limerick

I once like to make apple tarts
I was never much good throwing darts
To add some confusion
I had a delusion
That life can be lived as an Art

I like making quiche  while at home
The smell of the pastry is warm
I saw a small ghost
Steal my hot  toast
Then he left, he went over to Rome

My husband would pray in the night
Until dawn came with its gentle light
He liked  my strange fiction
Without contradiction
I wish he were still in my sight

I miss his dear face and his smile
He knew  that I had little guile
How will you manage
He died feeling  anguish
The Devil was let out on bail

Maximilian Kolbe

 

 

 

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Delicate image by Mike Flemming 2020.Copyright

When reading this please remember most of the prisoners were Jews some of whom  had been raised as Catholics so Fr Kolbe said Mass every day while he and they were being starved to death.They were reduced to whispering the prayers as they slowly died one by one.Just think this, was Enlightment Europe the proud centre of ciivilised Europe

He did not die so the Nazis shot him

Biography

Tracing back, however, to the inhumanity of World War II, where a shattering sense of hopelessness pervaded the death camps as the Nazis took over Poland, this place of infamy became the Calvary of the modern times. Anger and hatred filled the heart of every prisoner until one stepped forward from the prisoners of Block 14, among whom ten had been singled out in retribution for one escapee.  Not initially selected, this obscure man – Father Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest – voluntarily took the place of one of the ten, the father of a family, who, along with the others prisoners, had been sentenced to death by starvation.

 

 

Where is paranoia on my sat nav?

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Why have you not got schizophrenia?
Because it wasn’t on the shopping list

Why  the panic?
No, it’s  a punnet 

I want some nutter
Do you mean butter?’
When I say nutter I mean it
Do stop knattering

What is a declension?
All I know is you can’t eat it

What is the plural of  yoga?
Yogae

You broke the Law
Divide and conquer

Where is Latin?
It’s under “Tongues”
Tongues  of Fire?
Sacrilege is bad for you
I’m a demoness
That is not PC
I’ll take the WC instead.
You can’t take it all with you
I’ll  just take the cistern

Do you  think that is funny?
No, but this is

Eternal Life

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I’ll stick with Thee…fast falls the chill of night
Send me an angel,I need something bright.
I have no fear,with Thee I’ll be alright.
Why not succumb and use electric light?

Large now or small.It matters not what size.

All that now matters…must be our Lord God’s eyes.0114- arnside 2 0006
In their sweet light,I’ll love my neighbour’s wife
As she seems unhappy with almost all her life.

I do not mean to fornicate or lust.
No,I’ll calm her gently and I’ll earn her trust.
I’ll cook their dinner,so she takes a rest…
Then when the evening comes I’ll sit my test.

Do they eat meat?I have a little lamb…
If not I think there is some well cured ham.
I’ll cook nine veggies as we are advised
That will definitely bring us to Eternal Life

The kindness

Every time  I think that I will stop
That poetry is not my kind of game
The kindness of my readers picks me up

I start again and emptied is my cup
I wander through the library of names
 I feel the affect  and the unwilled stop

In the mind we know we suffer gaps
That every heart and soul has got its stains
The kindness of my readers picks me up

Each of  us can share our  homemade map
Can ask for comfort when we are in pain
All feel the affect  and the unwilled stops

Comfort me,  give charm to my black cat
He seems to have no affect, he is lame
The kindness of my readers picks us up

Would we wish the wild world to be tamed?
Were better if we could start  life again
Every time  I think that I will stop
The kindness of my readers draws me up

 

 

LOVE

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Photo by Mike Flemming.Copyright
nativity scene christmas decor
Photo by Bich Tran on Pexels.com

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Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
                              Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                             From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                             If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                             Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                             I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                             Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                             Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                             My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                             So I did sit and eat.
Source: George Herbert and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Poets  (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1978)

Faltering voice

The moment that they told me he was gone
I knew I never more would be at one.
The guilt  is bad, the shame is harder still
That I no longer am  what I would will

That I did not perceive the   your state of mind
That to your heart I seemed to have been blind
That I was not enough to keep you here
That life and death most grievous are  so near

Then  shamed by my emotions I withdrew
Into the prison cell  that no-one knew
My soul was  pierced , I could not own my grief
 Limp, submissive , blown away, a leaf.

Shame is deadly, unexposed to speech
With reddened face and   faltering voice I weep

Their own heart

Living with division in the self
Two parts that can’t be joined by any wealth
Worthlessness,  remote the place it starts
Can we heal,rejoin the broken parts?

Must we go back to  places where we failed
Or be unfree, a prisoner with no jail?
Who might knit the stitches that would join
The valued  half, the other part they scorned?

Ways to go down deep might lead to death
Earn the  anger,bait the holy wrath
The earth cracks wide, the precipice appears
Astride the split, there is  no use for tears

So easy to break up , to split ,to part
Who   will hold their self  in their own heart?

 

The enemy of vision

The sacred heart fragmented does not awe
Broken,lost, and trampled, global   wars.
We worship our own selves, by camera formed
There are no depths, no Saviour to be born

The horizontal Flatland  where we crawl
Does not encourage us to stand up tall
There are no experts, no-one  understands
The dignity of art, the  learning scorned

The heart has cracked, the jigsaw can’t be done
We all lose a game that no-one’s won.
Here comes a vacuum cleaner which will suck
The heart of God  mixed with our human muck.

Can we  think there is no vertical
The lost imagination, the strained will

How is this?

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An unusual image by Mike Flemming 2020 Copyright

I have got more and more incontinent.
Do stop admiring Europe

Why do the government tell us to eat more fruit and veg?
To help evacuate the Common Market from our bodies

Why do the government not have enough beds in hospitals?
They can’t all go to sleep at once

Why are the politicians so stupid?
Because we are.

I am still incontinent
Don’t worry, only another week in the EU
I’ll apply for an Irish passport
You’re not Irish
No, but my parents were

I  will  miss  the Spanish omelettes
But you never go there

I  will not  miss Mass on Sundays.
I will  become an atheist  and worship myself for an hour.Much more satisfying.

I wonder how Enlightened we are.
Well, the light is  not the problem.It’s the vision.

I saw the Light once
Say hello from me.

God is love
So is real love God?

Can we go on the Trans Siberian Express
Only if you are Trans
But how do they know?
Wear a T shirt with Trans on the front
That won’t  be very warm in Siberia
We all have to suffer for our beliefs.
It’s not a belief
What, you don’t believe you are trans?
I believe everything.
You’d better be careful.Some people tell lies
Really? I’d never have guessed
You must  be stupid
How rude.
I am very stupid at  relating to people
That’s honest.But don’t tell anyone
But they’ll know after I’ve insulted them again and again
Just smile and keep quiet.
Smile

We look and see the Christian story failed.

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 Image by Mike Flemming 2020.copyright

We live on earth and act in plays we write
The  shadowed  drama  folds out  scene by scene
In Eden,  sin brought knowledge to our sight.

 Freud desired to  bring the dark  more light
It’s  hard to suffer, harder still to learn
We act on earth in plays we partly write

We each have lived in ways without much light
But fire brought power and light  then  darkness gleamed
In Eden,  sin brought knowledge to our sight.

Christ was born, and yet we live in flight
From guilt about the apple bit unseen
We act on earth in plays we   try  to write

Our play  with good and evil  has  its might
For meaning’s worthy of  our human schemes
In Eden,  wrong brought knowing to our sight.

We look and see the Christian story failed.
For the Holocaust  itself was not derailed
We live on earth and act in plays we write
The Christian play we had gave  slight insight
As refugees, as children drown who fights?

A million kindle fires

Do you think my house should be rewired?
Should I enlarge my kitchen,go for broke
I have got a hundred kindle fires

I wonder  why I cannot be a liar
I have  got less faith  but still I hope
Do you think my brain should be rewired?

Can I rent a  mind for  thirty  hours?
I ‘d love to go to Chester in a boat
I have got a hundred kindle fires

Am I misusing love and with it power?
Where did Charley hide inside an oak
Do you think my  tongue should be retired?

Many minds have  like the milk gone sour
All they do is send me bytes, not talk
I have got a hundred kindle fires

Why do all  the British fight or mope?
They must have washed their mouths with Fairy Soap
Do you think the world should be rewired?
We   have  got a  billion kindle fires

The more we hate

Idealisation,violent innocence
The notion that our Faith  comes by our will
The unseen sin,  the lack of penitence

We  think as if we’re still omnipotent
With New Year Resolutions  unfulfilled
Idealisation,violent innocence

Force cannot bring truth nor give souls rest
When the virtues of the heart are  silent, stilled
The unseen sin,  the lack of penitence

Beaten children, broken spirits quenched
What God could wish  for  adult acts that quell?
Idealisation, tyrant’s innocence

The acts of war , the terror, the immense
The more we hate, the more we harm ourselves
The sin denied, the lack of penitence

We do not need  a Saviour,we know best
We boast at  Judgement we shall pass the test
Ideally perfect lives ,   oh, innocence
The  hidden sin,  the stinking penitence

 

 

 

In the slutch

My mauve silk trousers  fell off in the slutch
I ‘d read the fashion page on Friday night 
Whatever did they mean,  do bring  the pitch?

In heels my entire body seems to lurch
My mother often muttered, what a sight
My mauve silk trousers spluttered in the slutch

A clutch of eggs . a handbag, butter Dutch
My coat was yellow  since  that yolky night
Whatever did they mean, we wring in Church

Slutch is kind of mud that’s damp and rich
In Lancashire, we fall in it when tight
My mauve silk trousers   wasted by the slutch

My hem is down and I’ve no-one to stitch
Am I here for love or to be right?
Whatever did they dream about  our hunch?

I read the fashion page;I saw the light
Turn it off. I don’t feel I am bright
My mauve silk trousers   ruined in the slutch
I had to wear pyjamas in the Church

The churchyard wall

The bricks of the old wall   while crumbling  live
Five hundred years of history passed them by
While plants grew in  the  cracks below, above

Apart from  people, this is what I  love
That ancient structures stand  and  do not die
The bricks of this old wall  while crumbling  live

A little beauty will do well enough
This  cheers my heart   and lifts my spirits high
Wild  flowers grow in  the  cracks below, above

We fill  our minds and homes with shop bought stuff
Gaze on   bricks and cracks, what will we spy?
The bricks of this old wall  while crumbling  live

Like old complexions, older bricks are rough
The Vicar cannot smooth them though they try
Holes  for plants inscribe these cracks  with love

 From generations past, ghosts wander. shy.
Looking for their graves,  they whisper,sigh
The bricks of the old wall   still crumbling  live
Tenacious   weeds  shall wave  below, above

 

 

Oh, good Lord, don’t let me be your prey

I forget that I am old  until I’m out
Walking like a cripple in a drought
People tell me,dial 999
I don’t want to be so well defined 

Getting off the bus, five people call
Wait until he stops or you will fall
Am I looking worse than yesterday?
Oh, good Lord, don’t let me be  your prey

I sit down on a wall, is that a crime?
Have I crossed a boundary or line?
The wooden benches all are gone away
The homeless used to sleep on them, they say

I sang Joan of Arc at the bus stop
In Lancashire they say, y’ alright cock?
Cock and darling,honey and my sweet
My lovely,   you are looking a real treat

I forgot to keep accounts and say my prayers
I guess I’m  fending off some kind of dare
Where’s my handbag, where’s my bloody phone?
It’s acting adolescent as it roams

When I take  naproxen, it won’t work
Opium is dangerous with some luck
I lie in bed and see the sun pour in
Then I know that life will always win

 

All shall be well

 

 

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Beautiful images by Mike Flemming 2020,Copyright

“All shall be well,and all manner of things shall be well”
St Julian of Norwich

Trust the unknown force that grew you,
From the joining of two cells.
Act of love, of mutual giving,
Created you,a new made self.

Trust the dark,the unseen aspects
Of the life we all must live.
Trust that there is wisdom elsewhere,
To your emptiness to give.

Wait in patience for the time
When inspiration comes at last
Trust in darkness,silence,lowness.
Opposition forms the cross.

Pain is bearable in lowness,
Like the worm in earth I dwell.
When I look I see the sunrise
And I trust all shall be well.

It’s wyrd

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I’m a loud speaker
Are you really? I’m a  gramophone needle

Can you speak?
If I couldn’t I wouldn’t be able to answer

Your clothes are very loud
No, your eyes are too sharp

Can you turn up my hem?
That’s a change from looking at your etchings

Where is the button off my shirt?
It can’t speak or phone

Is public speaking easy?
Nothing public is easy.
Even silence.

What is the agenda?
We didn’t do Greek at my school.

Why is weird right? Should it not be wierd?
It used to be wyrd before the Normans
That’s a relief

Where is my hat?
It’s learning tricks.
.
Where is my cashmere jumper?
Inside a lot of moths

Where is the frying pan?
In the fire

Where is the clothes horse?
Naked in a meadow.

Where is my mug?
It’s  been shot
Why do you answer like that?
I’m a robot
I can’t believe it
What will you believe?
I  don’t know…
That toast is Jesus?
How horrible
But do you believe it?
I’m godsnacked
See.

 

 

Dreaminess and calm

The  mind with space for reverie  comes  first
There love  can dream and hate can be informed
The inner garden, sanctuary and rest

To live completely, hope  to live with zest
Patience, slowness,   dreaminess and calm,
The  mind with space for reverie   comes first

We all sin and we may not confess
Unless we’re held by love in gentle arms
The inner garden, sanctuary and rest

Preoccupation with  our own self is a  curse
Be ,to your own heart, a lover warm
The  mind with space for reverie  is blessed

Wasted time is never reimbursed
Can we live without  the   holy balm
The inner garden, sanctuary and rest?

Each one lives,creative in her rhymes
Our life is art as  colour washes lines
The  mind with space for reverie  is  first
An inner garden, sanctuary and rest

 

I see your face

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Image by Mike Flemming copyright

The blank paged notebooks where you  used to write
First with pencil then with ballpoint pen
The Freeling novels you read in the night

These special objects bring you to my sight
I see your face,  you disappear again
To blank paged notebooks where you  used to write

The reading lamp showed in its small clear light
Your telephone, your desk, your writing plan
The Freeling novels you read in the night

My heart feels strange, my feelings re- ignite
The fires of love quelled by the sudden rain
Oh, blank paged notebooks where you  used to write

I did not let you go without a fight
But once accepted, I endured the pain
I read the  books that you read in the night

The force that makes the  wheat produce its grain
Also kills   as freely as blood stains
In blank paged notebooks where you  used  to write
Where  do you read  now in  endless night?

Cars multiply

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 sight

Screen size for people with eyesight problems

 

event fireworks shower of sparks pyrotechnics
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/mar/21/best-windows-laptop-screen-size-poor-eyesight#comment-127150294

 

23

My understanding, from quite a long time ago, is that founts Georgia and Verdana were designed specifically to display best on screens – others are mainly meant for high-resolution paper printing. Lucida Console is another fount designed for screens. I don’t know if this information is still valid.

Another eyesight assistance if working in poor light is a backlit keyboard. Not a fancy multicoloured one for snazzy games, just a white light underneath the keys. If on battery, switch the backlight off unless needed.

Cry till you laugh

You can laugh till you cry but not cry till you laugh.

You can act the fool but can you fool the act?K

You can fail   to think properly.And  bad thinking can make you fail

You can solve equations but can they solve you?

You can commit a sin   yet in marriage it’s a sin not to commit

You can apologise profoundly   and also feebly.But not together.Why not?

A sin  can  be mortal and mortals can sin.

A  sin is venial if it’s not mortal so a venial sin is immortal.That is bad but is it a sin?

When ignorance hurts

 

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Recent photos by Mike Flemming.2020.Copyright

I am going through something at the moment which I can’t reveal.However it has been illuminating to watch people using Freudian defences to defend themselves from knowing  or hearing.
It’s a bit like this.
You  need to have your appendix out [ which we know needs anaesthetic and surgery]
You have to see your doctor because you  need a tetanus shot, nothing to do with yiur appendix
When you meet your friend, you can see she thinks the doctor  removed your appendix  while she was walking to meet you.It is obvious if one thinks that  it would have been impossible
So when you say you are going to the hospital, she says: I thought the doctor fixed your appendix last week.
The only way that could be true would be if the doctor took a book you had written and removed the appendix from the book.Anyone could do it
So it seems human beings do have defences against knowing certain things.Unfortunately we who speak don’t know what they hear and vice versa
No wonder we had Brexit!
No wonder families split up.
Defences are needed but they have a danger in that you may need to be vigilant about  health or other issues and defending yourself from knowing could shorten your life
Anxiety is  horrible but like when you put your hand into boiling water you need to feel pain  to make you pull it out.