The exceeding beauty of the earth, in her splendour of life, yields a new thought with every petal. The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live…”
― The Life of the Fields
Europe
These photos are copyright
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Remember the sixties?
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The bitter cloud we feel envelops us
The bitter cloud we feel envelops us
When friends are short and noone seems to smile
Is smaller than the breath of the white dove
Do we envy others who find love?
They may suffer inwardly the while
Sad, bitter clouds some days can wrap us up
As Jesus in the Garden drained his cup
He shivered, groaned, but was not filled with bile
Sheltered by the fluttering winged dove.
His eyes too wet, to see the clouds above
He felt the anguish of a lost,small child
The bitter clouds were broken by his love
The storm would fail, the prophets hear no voice
God is weeping at our human wiles
Who dwells within the breath of holy doves?
Life may seem too dark , we want to fall
The hands of God are caught in new built walls
The bitter cloud we feel envelops us
It’s self torment, it’s profitless ,seek Good.
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How can the world be here, yet he is not?
How can the world be here yet he is not
While beetles, ants and spiders pass this way?
As my hungry fears I try to blot
How can the world be here yet he is not?
Whether it be cold or be it hot
No more words between us are begot
I must go through the narrow gate today
How can the world be here , yet he is not,
As beetles, ants and spiders pass this way?
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Rule not Britannia
I feel ashamed of Britain and its songs
My own mixed blood will rise up and complain
The poor are slaves ; our rulers did grave wrongs
I am not proud,all hate the ones who’re shunned
We, foreign ,mixed, however did we come?
I feel ashamed of Britain and its songs
I am not a Jew,so I belong
My Aryan face and hair have caused me pain
The poor are slaves,our rulers have done wrong
The people here have spoken many tongues
English oddly worldwide in domain
I feel enraged ; oh Britain, hear your songs
Many Europeans, aid our plans
Others come from Asia where Queens reigned
The poor exploited; Britain did them wrong
We look for scapegoats, preferably unknown
We Northern Europeans set the tone
I feel ashamed , Britannia, what a song
Better sing Jerusalem with pangs
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Latin American
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I’m a pessimist,I’m neurotic and depressed.
I’m a pessimist and I’m ok
I worry all night and I sleep all day.
I do my shopping at 1 am
Then I’m sure to meet some very naughty men.
I’m a pessimist,it’s not a gay life,
Especially if you have a watchful wife.
I invent crossword puzzles for the Times.
Then I write these cunning little rhymes.
I am rich but I generally suffer panic.
Either that or I get pissed and manic.
I’m a pessimist and I love to laugh
It makes women wet themselves,just like a bad cough!
But we’re too fragile to worry about such issues,
Just fill your handbags with plenty of thick tissues.
I’m a pessimist,I’m neurotic and depressed.
Will I feel better now that I have confessed?
But I earn money by writing all night long;
Then I lick my lover’s face with my bright red tongue.
That is more than enough.THE EDITOR.
No,it’s perfect.Just all right
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Leonard Cohen
That took me in, that opened me to trust
Remember standing, peering through the glass
Wondering why some people are well off
Admiring finer shoes that women love
Later, after tragedy, the glass
Descended on me like a stoney mask
Remember living cut off from the mass
Yet in its time,came down that Heart above
That took me in and opened me to trust
Letting in emotions and great love
Evoking through the rituals and the Mass
A Consecration deeper for my tasks
Remember prayer dismantled alien glass
As curves the sun, as flies the holy dove
Every human lives with change and loss
Accepting knives, in hearts we bared for love
As we walk we see the ages past
Until we reach that bourne we seek at last
No more staring in a looking glass
No peering in the dark, we meet our Love
PS I am an agnostic.I believe Eternity is now…. if we reach it
Corinthians 13:12 King James Version (KJV)
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
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Meanwhile in Bavaria…….
If we can’t make distinctions, the world does not exist
If everything is relative and nothing’s true or false
We can’t make distinctions, the world does not exist
Meaning leaks out faster than a a list of all our faults
The patient is unconscious but he/she has a pulse
Waiting for the Coming of the Saviour or the Beast
But everything is relative and nothing’s true or false
We think existential problems will be solved by someone else
In the Vomitorium the leaders have their Feast
Meaning leaks out faster by decision or default
The Leader’s being neutered;the people get more tense
Then s/he went to Downing Street to get themself more pissed
Drunkenness is relative ; the reading’s not the best
There is still a Dictionary; the words do not make sense
We fall into chaos but we don’t know Them we’ve missed
Meaning leaks out faster as we do not love pretence
I went to have my Orals,but they asked me to desist
Every system’s incomplete,I wrote it on my wrist
If everything is relative and nothing’s true or false
Meaning has no meaning; what will we all do next?
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The nuclear bomb ,Iran and Don
I’m turning off the Evening News
I’m reading Nicholas Freeling now
I’ve heard enough of people’s views
I put my thoughts into deep freeze
Dresden Green,Emmanuel
I’m turning of fthe Evening News
Boris says he’s just a tease
The nuclear bomb ,Iran and Don
I’ve heard enough of madmen’s views
We can see no-one is pleased
Where d’ye think these men come from?
I’m turning off the Evening News
Maybe Boris had a wheeze
Asthma kills, we all feel numb
I’ve heard enough of people’s views
When it’s over who has won
The world has altered , it’s a bum
I’m turning of the Evening News
Boris tortures, people lose.
By degrees
He wants Leave
We’re deceived
Who believes?
[M A Oxon]
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When Boris Johnson had closed a number of fire stations as Mayor of London
The Telegraph today
Did the fire service respond quickly enough?
“Boris Johnson acts like he’s a clown
He called cuts to fundamental safety privilege
14 London fire stations shut down”
Katherine
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Joan Baez
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I’ll just disappear one day
If I go I won’t tell you.
I’ll just disappear one day.
Like when a cigarette ,which seemed so long,
suddenly has become smaller
and you never noticed it
because you were talking
about the meaning of life
while life was somewhere else
blown away with your smoke
into the sky
and then dispersed
never quite visible again
but still floating on the breeze
hoping to be caught
in a butterfly net
but unable to communicate
except by flying.
If I go it will not be today
but it will be an ordinary day
no one will realise
that it’s that day
that the bird flies
from her nest
to go to a new place
only seeing the deserted nest
he realises,
my bird has flown
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I lost all my illusions, and then I lost some more
Photo by Katherine 2016
When I saw you in that cafe I knew you would be mine.
You were handsome, smiling,funny..you were specially designed.
You looked like men I’d only dreamed about in all those years before.
I’m so broke up,so broke up;we’re not lovers anymore.
I saw you on the station as I came from out the train.
You wore an old green parka to protect you from the rain.
I wanted to be one with you,to make a Love entire;
What you did was give me pain I should not have endured
You walked away so quickly,I could not see you long.
I wish I had a big guitar to draw you back with song.
I looked at where you disappeared;what love has loss revealed?
I wish I could just lay down on this floor and keep my face concealed.
Railway stations sadden me, for I know we’ll never meet .
I won’t cry more ,the tears are running to my feet.
I walk fast looking straight ahead past that entrance gate,
I pretend that you have missed your train,that work was running late.
I count from one and two to a thousand and many more–
But I know for sure it’s far too late; you have closed that heavy door.
You are hiding in a dungeon
You are covered with white steel
But I know you had a heart and you must surely feel.
I lost all my illusions, and then I lost some more.
I wish I could lay down and die, right here on this floor
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A play too far
The loss had struck me down like a wild car
It jumped the reservation by a fluke
Then landed where the lost were passing by
We crawl away, we’re bleeding ,we want air
The sense of what has passed is in some book
Loss will strike us down like a wild car.
My heart ached like an abscess on a scar
My eyes were wide but still I could still not look
As the lame were passing with their sighs
I seemed to drop onto a stage bizarre
A drama being enacting as I shook
The loss had tossed me up, an iron bar
I must play my part, that’s how things are.
The waves of loss whirl round like skipping ropes
The sad were passing with their shuttered eyes
Getting washed and dressed, I felt remote
Yet love still spurred me on to hope for hope
The loss had struck me down like a wild car
Accelerating till it threw me f out past “far”
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I held your hand
Walking by your side,I held your hand
Wondering if this might be the final time
The towpath was as dry as desert sand
Love’s a mystery none can understand
Yet all of us can allocate the blame
Walking by side by side you kissed my hand
My tears are salty as they reach my tongue
We need water, we need heavy rain
The towpath was as dry as desert sand
Where are you,darling, I can’t walk for long
I suffer from my torture and its shame
Walking by your side, you held my hand
I’m sitting in the garden,it feels wrong
Yet who but God themself receives the blame?
Once in deserts far, Satan harangued
I wait and wait , the angel never comes
The sadness in the garden leaves me stunned
I walked out by the stretcher,felt your hand
You smiled at me, oh love that was so fond
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When will it be history not News?
No-one mentioned we must mourn the Jews
They were Europeans and well skilled
What treasure Europe lost’s not on the News
We can’t lay waste the world, blow up the fuse
Can we ever raise enough good will?
No-one mentioned we’ve not mourned our Jews
We wander now in madness well confused
All we know is money and the till
What treasure Europe lost’s not on the News
All the offspring unconceived,unviewed
Would Europe be so crazed were they here still?
No-one mentioned we’ve not mourned the Jews
Jesus was no Christian, but a Jew
His eyes are bleeding as he’s gassed in hell
No wonder Europe’s lost the chosen few
To Western minds , the Word’s not fully formed
The Word came down in Palestine not Rome.
No-one bore the pain nor helped the Jews
What treasure Europe lost, those left abused.
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Two million pounds a house
David Cameron’s bought another house
He says he’s very sad for us poor mice
He like to take his children to the sea
Two million pounds sounds quite un-right to me
The suicide rate is rising every day
Domestic violence screams as children play
I wonder if he thinks it’s all God’s plan
Wondrous are the ways of wealthy men
God is not the puzzle nor design
The puzzle is the people with no minds
Sharing would be sanity and sense
Give the poor and old a recompense
Why do we not what is so clear?
There is an answer but it is too near
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After being hurt we hide away
After being hurt we hide away
We turn down invitations feeling blue
Ashamed to show our anguish or be prey
Behind a wall of glass we live our days
Thinking others know the hidden clue
After being hurt, we hide away
We miss the help of sharing or of prayer
Out skin feels thin, we agonise and stew
Ashamed to show our anguish or be prey
The way we feel is common, it’s not rare
We need to know that others suffer too
After being hurt, we hide away.
Our suit of armour stiffens , won’t repair
Retaliation banish, don’t pursue
Enraged by our own anguish we feel prey
Is there anyone who will rescue
The people who to grudges cling like glue
After being hurt we hide away
Ashamed to show our anguish or be prey
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Europe today
Eileen L Copyright 2019 Northern Europe
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The heather
After marriage we went to the North
Putting down our roots by others’ hearths.
We roamed the hills and dales and lay down too
The heather is as warm as it is purple blue
All the world dwelt on the Cleveland hills
Where bees blossom, where the heart is thrilled
In the distance from the A19
We saw the sun set in a flush and dream
His father died and now we had to go
With mother’s home made bread with well proved dough
With heather honey and a cake with jam
Sandwiches well filled and not by Spam
Across the Valley of the widening Tees
The hills stood out like faces in the breeze
The shape affects the heart as prophets knew
The landscape is well known,oh honeydew
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From outside
I looked into my window from outside
The books were piled on shelves in random ways
I thought I’d see him there though he has died
In the past I lost another , life denied
I had to carry on, to grief was prey
I looked into my window from outside
My pain was such, I felt that I might die
The shrapnel in the heart, the guilt unpaid
I dreamed I’d see him there though he has died
The fiery bush ,its flames have caught my eye
It burns forever showing us the way
I looked into a window from outside
I used to live behind a glass, no bride.
Yet the vital work was learned in play
I wished to see him there though he has died
Now three are gone am I supposed to pray?
The jackets tweed, the smell of smoke and clay
I looked into my window from outside
I thought I’d find someone with the right eyes.
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How can the world be here,yet he is not?
How can the world be here,yet he is not
But in that other country he must dwell
Is that heaven or some unused old lot?
How can the world be here,yet he is not?
Can it be his wife he has forgot?
He left me lone, a bird caught in a net
What truth is there and which of us can tell?
How can the world be here,yet he is not?
In that other country now he dwells.
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Yet if the natural law they will assault
Must friendship close our eyes to other’s faults
Or see then with a sweet and tactful eye?
On the door within must we place bolts?
Can we trust our instinct or revolt?
Who can tell if one of us has lied
Must friendship close our eyes to other’s faults?
Yet if our human values they assault
The warmth inside our heart like love is fey
On its door within must we place bolts?
Chamberlain met Hitler like a dolt
The Czecho-slovak state he’d occupy
Desire may blind our mind to others’ faults.
Into Warsaw came the Nazi boots
The Ghetto where the Jews stood up and died
On our memory’s door must we place bolts?
Did Stalin have a friend and if so why?
Hitler had a woman by his side
Must “friendship ” close our eyes to other’s faults
On the door within must we place bolts?
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Trials of life:jeans
The problem unrecognised by most of us is that to wear unusual clothing like this, you have to look very clean,well groomed and chic.And you might need new trainersIn other words, it is meant to be ironical ,a sign of wealth.If not you just look daft!
I am not critical usually but when cropped trousers came in many people wore them with short grey/beige old socks and mouldy shoes.Wearing long trousers would hide all that.
Similarly your hair would have to be “styled” and if it is like mine that would be hard.
I fear if I wore them I’d look like a mad old lady and I’d rather look elegant in my long velvet coat admired by millions.Now I need a big velvet hat.
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The danger of lies
My photo
From Counterpunch:
Hannah Arendt, an émigré from Nazi Germany.
“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth,” Arendt wrote in her classic volume The Origins of Totalitarianism, “is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being
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Where force rules. love has no grounds
Once women to a man were bound
We could not vote nor own nor lease
Where force rules. love has no grounds
Our menstrual blood made us unsound
We scrubbed the linen, killed the louse
Once women to a man were bound
The older women passed hints down
Dealt with men who tried to pounce
Where force rules. love has no grounds
There were abortions, underground
Girls might die without a spouse
Once women to a man were bound
As the world goes on its rounds
The strong play games like cat and mouse
Where force rules. love has no grounds
Disorder comes up from the past
In the night we feel the ghosts
If anyone is calm and kind
Force rules less and love gains ground.
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Parliament like cardboard fell
I could not write a villanelle
My mind is battered by the sounds
The repetition seems too droll
The teacher said she’d pay me well
I fled into the underground
I could not stomach villanelles
I went by bus to Camberwell
The Monument looked sadly down
Our new leader rose from hell
Parliament like cardboard fell
Contempt dripped down Oxford gowns
He would not like a villanelle
Jesus wept and Satan yelled
No solution has been found
The people shudder, is this hell?
By no convention is he bound
Democracy he fines, impounds
I could not write a villanelle
We already sweat in hell
How my heart speaks 