Paper knives

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Art by Katherine

If women’s eggs can be frozen,  can’t hens?
If paper can cut  the skin why not have paper knives ?
What about paper tissues?
Why is reading a book better than reading on a phone?
Why are   some pens called fountain?
Why are hedge-hogs unsuitable for a full English breakfast?
Why does France still have wild boars when we only have Royal bores?
Why  can’t I build a  new house in my neighbours large garden and make a drive for my car through their side entrance?
Why do some people  talk like robots?
Why do people feel life has no meaning ?
What could be a meaning for life?
Why do people read in bed?
Who forbade sex  outside Harwich ?
Why can I perceive  but not conceive?
Is it better to be deceived than to deceive?
Why did I forget to put  my hat on a stand?
Why is it called an overcoat?
Do we  really need Carmel’s underwear in winter?
I am pleased  but not guilty  of the Charge of the Light Discard
Do you like Monet’s   collars?
Why did Picasso bowl me over?
Why did Lincoln Cathedral  turn my legs to jelly?
Can God prove we exist?
Does that explain the 20th Century?
Ahomoist or Avirist?
Pick and mix your flaws
Why can MP’s steal  without  being charged?
Is the Government flat? Buy new batteries from Europe and speed Brexit
And it came to pass
And his name was called by e.manual.org
Do not harass a worm just because it can’t bite you
What is a rhyme a cousin?
QED
Please queue  Elsie dear
Quarrels ended dinner
Quebec  entered  directly
I don’t know about a Common Market but we have a common country
Leaving the EU maybe masochistic even when legal
Goodness Brie
Lord love a duck

I’d like to die with flowers in a field 1

I’d like to die while  lying in   sweet fields
Surrender to the sun and poppy seeds
Dissolve  myself and to the hot sun yield

For we are nature and we nature feel
In dandelions,  in daisies, stunned by weeds
I’d like to die while  lying in a field

What is life if mystic love’s not real?
There is much more than action and its deeds
Let us  melt as to the sun  we yield

Take this piece and let our love be sealed
For binding love and honour  is a need
I’d like to die with  flowers in a field

Let us keep in  rhythm and not congeal
Who shall   make  life dance and  who shall lead?
Let us  melt and to the hot sun yield

Is our purpose  done and shall it breed?
Let no-one  cling to love and  die of greed
I’d like to die while  lying in a field
Dissolve  to mist and to the hot sun yield

 

 

We cannot read unless we can descend

Poetic rhythm is natural like the waves
That come and go on beaches , wet the  sand
The sea is always moving  as is love

The unconscious is a language dark engraved
We cannot read unless we can descend
To rhythms as natural  as   the  rippling waves

Rich and strange   so different from above
What we find is  not what we intend
The sea is always moving  as is love

What’s   in authentic nature  that should save
As colours interact, by brush  to  blend?
Poetic rhythm is natural like the waves

Yet ,in a poem, what  part of us  can bathe
The mind , the heart, the soul, the writing hand
The sea is always moving  as is love

The  golden seas, the oceans can command
The ships that sail, the   whale, the hidden ends
Poetic rhythm is natural like the waves
The inner sea is  moving , tender love

 

 

 

The way the body curves with silent grace

The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile
The way the body curves with silent grace
By non-verbal means we are beguiled

The movement of the eyes, the lips, make calls
That  beg our bodies  for a  joint embrace
The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile

We don’t know what we do, we’re reconciled
Without a trick or plan, without a trace
By non-verbal means we are beguiled

We’ve counted all the points but  are they real?
Like  fractal geometry  our  love  is space
The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile

Stillnesss come, eternity is poised
All know the dance embodied does not lie
The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile
By  the gaze and glances we are beguiled

 

We went to Tonga for a brake

My foot was in my mouth while I waited to get my test results from the doctor

I did an Eye test and I  am  greatly believed to be normal

She looked as if she wallowed  in dictionaries

Curiosity  killed the stats

Where is my youth, my charm, my air?

A  thrilling moan  is rather maddening next door

He knows the deception of the rules

We went to Tonga for a  brake

Before I die,I’d like to relax just once

My bucket list is  full of sand

Etymology

 

 

6688756_f260 (1)https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/feb/07/quiz-etymology-word-origins-answers

 

It might be unspoken of, but which language was the word taboo borrowed into English from?

Answer: Tongan

Taboo was borrowed into English directly from Tongan in the 1770s. It is first recorded in the journals of the navigator and explorer Captain James Cook.

The candlelight of winter brings its glow

The candlelight of winter brings its glow
More joyful than the summer sun up high
When days are dense with dark,  dim paths with snow

How good it is to reach the heart of home
To  heat the oven for a lover’s pie
The candlelight of winter brings its glow

In summer time  in heather we lay  down
I did not know which kiss was yours or mine
Our days were deep with  hearts  alight with love

On Winter Hill there was no  sight  nor  sound
Except the bleats, the sheep. the lambs  new cry
The candlelight of winter brings its glow

We had a crib lit  blue with cardboard round
The figures knelt by Jesus, mystic signs
The days were dense with dark., the paths with snow

The happy years of infancy benign
When mother smiled, when father  was alive
The candlelight of winter brings its glow
When days are dense with dark ,a the paths with snow

 

Did you think purple would suit you?

I’m sorry I can’t let you in.My cat is in the washing machine but don’t tell anyone

Gosh,it  must be hard to choose glasses   when your nose is so small.Such a pity  you are myopic and your complexion  is  a sin and a shame

Did you think purple would suit you?

Khaki is hard to wear.You are very brave.Why not wear a very big pink scarf over your face/Try a Muslim shop.Or  the market

Sorry, I can’t pick the phone up.My  feet are aching

Do you wear pests in winter? A nice fox is flattering to a pale face/

We are having a new dish tonight.
Pickled hearts on a bed of mashed kale with pork dumplings.Oh,I forget you are Jewish; you are not that intelligent.
I’d invite you again but my husband is very anti-semitic.
He was born that way so his mother says.Ironically her mother was Jewish.It’s a strange world.
How did you feel in Auschwitz?
I don’t suppose they gave you the full English breakfast of egg,bacon and sausages.
Still, you have lost weight.You look like Kate Moss but older.Maybe I should  try it except they’ve knocked it down.Not to mention  the synagogues.Still we must keep smiling.We’re all 1% Jewish  but we like bacon.Will we ever be forgiven?

Is  that a love bite on your neck or is it permanent?

Is that coat real wool or is it woven by sheep?

Are tbose mittens or have your fingers fused together?

Such a pity about the buttons.They ruin the coat.Mind you mustard is not my favourite colour.Beggars can’t  be choosers,I guess.

Coats for winter
Wool   blend = 10% wool
Wool rich-         40% wool
Real Italian wool= 29% wool
A touch  of wool for comfort =1%
Very warm coat = 0% wool

 

Micro-salvation for all

Try our Salad Scream today
Try battering your toast in the morning
Do not put silt on  my egg
Do not be too free with that  red popper
French flies are a change for  an English man
Can potatoes boast in the microwave?
I like zips on everything
Cod in bitter with dried fleas is for Fridays only
In a class ,the whip on my trousers broke.The students were benighted.
Capital or corporal let the punishment fit the times
Do you weed newspapers?
Don’t wave the sun about.God will be ferociously sad

Dying  and we cannot say what for

Doubt and rumination  lose the war
Tangle our emotions like barbed wire
Dying  and we cannot say what for

Too much thinking’ opens the wrong door
Sadism to our self ignites hell fire
Doubt and rumination  lose the war

Do not let your mind become a whore
Nor label   those who’re true as screaming liars
Dying  and we cannot say what for

Tightly wound,  we   frighten and we bore
Stop before the situation’s dire
Doubt and rumination  lose the war

Do not dip your hand into the gore
Hold it only in  eternal fire
Dying  and we cannot say what for

As we struggle  we will find some cheer
Another soul whom we find very dear
Doubt and rumination   make for war
Dying  and we cannot say what for

 

I felt as rigid as a metal door

 

Fill  those blessed mugs  with water hot
Throw waste paper into that blue bin
Pick up all the rubbish you have dropped
For being so untidy is a sin

When  daddy died I put my toys away
Into boxes on the wardrobe  floor
I never played with  any toy again
I felt as rigid as a  metal door

I could not eat my dinner,I grew thin
I never spoke for woe had struck my throat
I read  the  tea leaves left inside  my mug
I  never wore my woollen winter coat

Now I am untidy and I write
I did not get  so silent  out of spite

Eyes a-crinkle ,  green as sun washed leaves

I wish that I had kissed you ten more times
I didn’t know  how soon you had to leave
I’d   draw upon your lips my best design

I tell my love in words,  which is no crime.
I didn’t show you all you might receive
I wish that I had kissed you ten more times

If I had  bought you  bottles of best wine
Would you have stayed and  kept me from  this grief?
I’d   draw upon your lips my best design.

I know you were perceptive and read signs
Eyes a-crinkle   green as sun washed  leaves
I wish that I had kissed you ten more times

I’d  hold your  mind ;I’d weave  your thoughts to rhymes
Until  the   greatest love poem  was  conceived
I’d   draw upon your lips my best design.

I’d write  you letters ,much love I would leave
With my mind and body I perceive.
I wish that I had kissed you ten more times
I’d   draw upon your lips our own design

Aldeburgh cats

In Aldeburgh we ordered  cats of stone
I ‘ve lost the first, so one sits all alone.
By the clock upon the mantelpiece
There it is a conduit for my grief

Sitting here, I see the other one
By the fire, I’m happy it’ s not gone
I’ll wash it with a cloth and put it back
The two will guard my home, bring me good luck

I remember driving through green lanes
To Saffron Walden, to the potter’s home
I remember love and all it brings
Flowered fields of butterflies and song

But, love  deprived, I feel  such intense woe
That I to the wild poppies  shall soon go.

We won’t know if Hitler’s come back

Why  do you watch the news, mother
It always makes you get so sad
You wake up  feeling  in the pink
Then all your spirits sink
Don’t you know you can drive yourself mad?

I saw you in the Hat shop this morning
You were trying on velvet  and fur
I think maroon is too dark for you
Try coral , eyes will spark for you
Then you won’t get mal de mere!

Yet if we don’t read a news precis
We won’t know if Hitler’s come back
So choose very wisely
Even precisely
Then act if it makes you feel black.

What do we need to  know daily
About the PM and his friends
Use your own judgement
About the repugnant
We hope to avoid a dead end

On google earth you look so far away

O
Like the street where I grew up and  fondly played
You are fading into mist and memory
On Google Earth it looks so far away

I’d like to go, but it’s too far for one day
And gone is my extended  family
From the street where I grew up and joyous played

The  Convent School was sold,not on E bay!
I hated   how they used to torment me
On Google Earth it looks so far away

Now a Mosque stands on the hill to point the way
We Christians lost our faith. God’s territory
Bare the street where we knelt down  at night  to pray

My life felt like enacting a mad play
I angered nuns  with violent modesty
On their Earth I felt so far away

The water soft made better tasting tea
The    rivers ran,the moors  grew bilberries
Oh,dear land where I grew up and  fondly played
On Google Earth you look  too far away

 

 

 

Your face is map enough for me

Your face is map enough for me ,

Your gaze, your smile, your frown, your glee.

And if I want to know the rest

The shape your posture‘s made is best

For showing what your life is now.

A look,a gesture all this show.

Till who you are is then disclosed

And I am in your arms enrobed.

Love vanishes when analysed,

And thinking too

by  Love’s despised’

Choose the means to fit the end

And then I’ll  be what you  intend

Whitman and Democracy

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/151134/filthy-presidentiad-walt-whitman-in-the-aocracyge-of-trump?utm_source=Poetry+Foundation&utm_campaign=9043ea8aed-POFO-NOV-15&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ff7136981c-9043ea8aed-185545637&mc_cid=9043ea8aed&mc_eid=548544474a

 

EXTRACT

Walt Whitman is two hundred years old in 2019—and the bicentennial of democracy’s bard falls in the shadow of a demagogic presidency.

John Marsh, in his book In Walt We Trust: How a Queer Socialist Poet Can Save America from Itself, has this to say about the poet and democracy:

For Whitman, democracy is a way of being; in particular, it is a way of being with others … it has much more to do with how you approach your fellow men and women. Do you respect them? Do you acknowledge their dignity? Do you identify your interests with theirs? In short, do you love them?

Whitman expressed his vision of democracy as “a way of being with others” in #24 of “Song of Myself”:

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from
     them,
No more modest than immodest.
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
In Spanish:
Walt Whitman, un cosmos, el hijo de Manhattan,
Turbulento, carnal, sensual, comedor, bebedor y procreador,
Ni sentimental, ni erguido por encima de los hombres y mujeres,
Ni alejado de ellos, ni modesto ni inmodesto.
¡Arrancad los cerrojos de las puertas!
¡Arrancad las puertas mismas de sus quicios!
Quien degrada a otro me degrada a mí,
Y todo lo que se dice o se hace vuelve al fin a mí.
A través de mi ser la inspiración divina se agita y se agita,
A través de mi ser el corriente y el índice.
Pronuncio la palabra pristina, hago el signo de la democracia.
¡Por Dios! Yo no aceptaré sino aquello cuyo duplicado acepten todo

     en las mismas condiciones.

My late one’s whisky bottle

I am being haunted by a bottle
It’s half full of whisky,which I hate
I thought your love would be a bit more subtle

You see  love as a  fraught battle
I ache to see  the next, who is my fate
I am being haunted by a bottle

Why you sent me whisky is a puzzle
I prefer a cup of tea with cake
I thought your love would be a bit more subtle

!I don’t like your kisses,wear a muzzle!
I am not the Lady in the Lake
I am being haunted by a bottle

We will never make a lovely couple
The atmosphere is poison when I bake
I thought your love would be a bit more subtle

I  feel so cold I’d like a fire and stake
My spelling is atrocious,oh, milk flake
I am being haunted by a bottle
I  enjoy love   only when it’s subtle

Why write in form?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/89288/why-write-in-form

Extract:

Unlike other arts—and perhaps even other forms of writing—readers and writers alike often associate poetry with feeling, not technique. Part of this may stem from a misunderstanding of William Wordsworth’s famous definition of poetry, in which he begins, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. …” His wording encourages a reading in which poetry simply occurs and does so uncontrollably. If this is the part of the quotation that sticks with you, it’s no surprise that you might associate poetry more with emotional intensity and less with the how of its conveyance. But in the second half of that quotation, Wordsworth tempers his original statement: “… it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” Those unexpected and powerful feelings are actually being observed at a calming distance from that emotion.

More important, Wordsworth’s statement doesn’t acknowledge the structure that serves as a scaffolding for those feelings, a framework that makes a poem more than just cathartic release. It doesn’t acknowledge form. Why would it? For Wordsworth and his contemporaries 200 years ago, form was assumed. If a poem didn’t rhyme, readers could be sure it employed some sort of metrical scheme.

Where are the boats.the anchor chains?

We stopped outside the gates of the small park
A pool had grown from  heavy  Pennine  rain
A danger to the old  when nights are dark

I leaned on the  old push-chair ,aching heart
My other sister ran around blocked drains
We stayed outside the gates of the small park

She asked, is this the sea, or just a  part?
I said, where are the boats.the anchor chains?
A danger to the old  when nights are dark

She saw a vision  coming from her  heart
She saw Dad cross the ocean leaving wains
I looked  right through the gates of that small park

Oh,Daddy, do not leave us all forlorn
We heard an angel sounding the ram’s horn
We wept  quite near the gates of the small park
The  pool  showed our reflections, they were stark

 

Yes, but it is not sufficient

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Wonderful drawing by Katherine 2006

Photons have mass ? I didn’t even know they were Catholics.

When cats prey can dogs meditate?

Is humour necessary to become a mystic? Yes,but it is not sufficient.

Life is good if and only if we realise we have a choice  What it is no-one knows

Quantum mechanics wanted to saveI cat.Good pay if and only if it is  still alive
 
Do cats sin? It’s inhuman of them!

Why does no-one mention Purgatory,except me? Please come with me.Tell a lie

When I grow up I want to be a positive integer.But you are irrational!

Numbers dance behind my  eyelids.Why?

 

I saw cats and dogs but no giraffes

The intensity of flowersFlowers and trees in April

I found my first phone in the drawer by chance
 C  1 -01,  a Nokia  coloured pink
Memories  of  my flower photographs

We look but we don’t see,oh,happenstance
Now I shall pour out the tea and drink
I found my first phone in the drawer by chance

There were cats and dogs but no giraffes
Now I might just shut y eyes to think
Of memories  and my flower photographs

We walked around those gardens holding hands
Saw the iris and the rose.oh God  I thank
I found my first phone in the drawer by chance

You preferred the sea shore.edge of sands
The waves ran on our feet, the fishes winked
Oh memories ,oh all our photographs

Like the fish, you also sent a wink
Just before you died, a smile , cheeks pink
I thought you looked  much better,but no chance
Blessed memories  of  our lives in photographs

 

I found your neckties  haunting as I mourned

I find your neckties moving round  our home
One was in the bathroom just today
They  share  your   dear proclivity to roam

I may get paranoia, I am lame
But now I like to be  a  child and play
Are these your neckties flying round  our home

Oh, all the voices I  heard knew my name
They love me very much , they need not say.
We all  your  sweet activities declaim.

 

Which ancient people  got the gift  of rhyme?
Did song  come first  and then the need for prayer?
Are  your neckties  going   on to Rome?

 

Whatever art we   make has inbuilt time
How  tenderly  he  brushed my  rippling hair
Till craft had become art in this  our home

 

Last of all  you smiled and   soared away
Like a  small wild bird, oh  song of care
I found your neckties  haunting as I mourned
Whether new or old, pressed flat or torn

 

We must be happy or we’ll go to jail

We must be happy or we’ll go to jail
No holy Contemplation  nor deep peace
No ethics,love nor comforting  the frail

Sadness must be hidden from email
Confession disallowed, no humble priest
We must be happy or we’ll go to jail

We must be jovial even when we fail
Who needs to get a First, or a dance in  Grease
No ethics,love nor comforting the frail

Like a slug, we leave a joyous trail
Who needs a decent job or trouser crease?
We must be happy or we’ll go to jail

Yet humans ,even babies,need to wail
From far away  we see the foretold Beast
No ethics,love just save us a four big nails

Why did the Magi come here from the East?
Why drink the wine superior at the Feast?
We must be happy or we’ll go to jail
No ethics,love,no Mother  turning pale

 

 

 

Our own point of view

Why do  some people find it easy to stick to their own point of view whereas others are like chameleons who change to fit in with whoever they are with?I don’t know the full answer.It may depend on their background and in some countries women have to be subservient to men.Some people are just being diplomatic and some are wishing to avoid an argument to find our unique viewpoint and not go along with the crowd.i am not advocating breaking the law by doing/saying offensive things for pleasure.I believe  sometimes I have been lazy and not given thought to a topic and so I agree with another person whom I respect but really that is wrong.Since each of us is unique I believe we need to express our point of  view the best things about artists is that they  look or hear   at the world differently and help us to see the validity of different ways of seeing or listening

 

 

.But when a new artist or composer appears people often believe they are mad at first.This is what happened to Igor Stravinsky at the first performance of some of his music.Yet compared to composers who followed he was quite similar to  those  preceded him.Mahler wrote this music  a  year before the Stravinsky was composed and it is very different

 

 

 

And words come in a rush.

My old blue fountain pen allows
The ink across this page to flow
Like wet paint from an artist’s brush,
And words come in a rush.

             Enchanting   through the hand that writes .
Bewitched by art,beauty alights.
The script is like a music score
     Through which we step as through a door,
Imagination’s home.
As,mysteriously, to you, to me,
The spirits of our hearts are tamed ,
By rhythms of pen,of brush, of mind,
They enter vision quite unplanned,
Like moths to flutter softly round

Fire joined hand and heart.

The pen slows down,the hand grows still,
And just as dreams at daybreak will
They shrink,they disappear,they’re gone,
I nearly caught that one!