Waxy flowers poking through
Snow so white
Flowers so bright.
Made me think of you.

I see once more your just washed hair,
Soft as snow,
On pillow.
Now my bed is bleak and bare

,
Face alight,flower to sun,
I loved you.
Love so true.
Fear by love,overcome.

Cyclamen in the snow,
Pink and red,
Now frozen,dead.
Love was,oh,so long ago.

But never gone from in my mind.
Thoughts so deep,
Upwards seep.
Love was gentle,love was kind,

Always in my mind

Highly defective people. How to be a winner anyway

The highly sensitive merman

6 ways out of claustrophobia. (+Try the exit first)

Repression: the way out of your schism.

The naked person’s guide to shyness/politeness/dryness.

Heal your soles and other useful prayers

The wryly tentative person-

The advent  of hell on earth and other short stories

The highly inimical person

How to change your blame.

God be grateful to me, a winner. The new guide to prayer for narcissists.

https://www.rte.ie/culture/2025/1202/1546857-poet-tom-paulin-wins-2025-pen-heaney-prize/

Looking out across the River Lee

I could not see a place where you might be.

Tower blocks high and low stung both my eyes.

What use are sisters when they seem to die?

I could not see the road to take me home

I closed my lips so none might hear me moan

From another window I looked out

I saw a busy road and heard men shout.

The world was empty to my starving eye.

I saw the ice cream clouds as they went by.

The world I once could see was gone,was bare

I could not see your face,not anywhere.

How could you leave me in this desert harsh ?

The river Lea polluted stinks the marsh

There was no place where little birds could rest.

These feelings were a stone inside my chest.

I feel the grief without that blight despair.

And yet to others everything is fair

Near the Chiltern hills the River Lea

Dances like a lamb in spring,in glee

The water’s pure and sweet like wine, like sun

But all is changing as the river runs.

Industrial use and boats pollute the stream

The dirty water does not mirror dreams

At Hoddesden the mill destroys the scene

There are no Argonauts, no golden fleece.

At ancient Waltham  where the river  slows

I see the ruined monks,where did they go?

King Henry wanted money,wanted all

Soon  so soon,his dynasty would fall.

Then soon the Lea will meet the mother Thames

They run into the sea, the rivers end.

Is this the mystic love that some would like?

In the darkest shadow, hides the light.

When its moment comes the golden gleam

Returns our minds to nature and it’s schemes

The River Lea is merry near the source

At the end, near  human with remorse

It’s easy to be happy when all’s well

But when we are more troubled, who can tell? 

Should we envy grass which floats along?

Should we envy sparrows for their song,?

At least we can reflect then we create

Cheerful  through this world to navigate

The river Lea gets dirty and dismayed

When it gets near London its joy fades

It’s used for power and industry and toil

And so its natural charm has been destroyed

Yet  in the  war we needed all its wealth.

Radar was invented here by stealth

Now that’s all long ago but yet we see

The River Lee still crawls towards the sea

And so in human life it is the same.

Human life well lived may make us  lame

I am not happy because 2,294 views occured yesterday but not via a search engines nor from the WordPress reader

https://theconversation.com/its-wanting-to-know-that-makes-us-matter-how-tom-stoppard-made-us-all-philosophers-270952?utm_medium=article_native_share&utm_source=theconversation.com

I’m thinking of moving to the cloud.

Is that why you want assisted dying?

I can die without any assistance

Are you thinking about suicide?

No it’s just my Google account is overflowing

I don’t understand how they can put all your emails onto a cloud in the sky and then charge you so much a month.

Well it’s not a real cloud they put your information onto.

In that case why do they call it a cloud?

It must be a euphenism

Is that like a euphonium?

No one is a musical instrument and the other is using a word that sounds less unpleasant than the one you really want to say.

Can you give me an example?

Yes when you drop a brick on your foot and shout

Drat.

What is the real word that you want to say?

Well nobody knows actually but we didn’t like to admit it before.

What is f*** hiding,?

Damn!

That’s a bit rude. I was only asking a question.

No I mean that’s what they mean when they say fuck

I think  I prefer damn actually.

Why do you keep saying actually at the end of every sentence I had better not tell you what I really want to say.

,Fuck!

Damn

Stop showing off

I’m not showing anything.

Ignorance may be bliss sometimes but not when you’re being interviewed for an Oxford scholarship

What are you talking about I’ve never even been to Oxford.

That’s why you want the scholarship isn’t it?

You mean if I get the scholarship I have got actually to go to Oxford and live there!

Yes they don’t do Zoom there

What sort of out of date institution is that? I want to go to somewhere new and up-to-date.

What about the university of the West of England?

It sounds interesting but I think they’re trying to hide something by not specifically naming the town or city where it is because the West of  England is a very big place

That’s definitely a thought.

Maybe Battersea college of technology?

Yes that sounds more up to date. They will have the latest computers and everything you can imagine.

Well I hope it’s not quite everything I can imagine.

Are you having those nightmares again?

In a very real sense, I am

The whole point of nightmares is they are not real

But they feel really when you’re having them. How do you know that you’ll always waken up?

Well I can’t answer that question because there’s no way of proving it.

So far in my life I have always wakened up from my nightmares. If I don’t it will be very unpleasant.

Rumination is very bad for you.

And yet they said the best things in life are free.

They  are just pulling your leg.

So that’s what’s causing the arthritis

How do you tell when somebody is being ironic?

It’s an instinct.

Are we born then knowing what irony is?

No but you’re born knowing how to do the ironing  if you are woman.

See you’re ironic already

Could it be sarcasm,?

Similarities but sarcasm is more malevolent than irony which is perhaps on the humorous spectrum

I really think you should go to Oxford you are so intelligent and you can talk so well.

Do I have the right accent?

Well if you are successful they will all imitate your accent

And if you are not successful you will have to imitate theirs

Or what about idiom?  I think I’ve had enough for one night.

It sounds like a sleeping tablet.

Does that have a screen ?

No only inside your head

Well at least it’s free.

Everything has its price

And so say all of us

My dear sister was sometimes critical of me because I have a lot of books. When I was ill someone decided to tidy it up and took my books out of the bookshelves: put them into boxes in a different room and told me,Your sitting room looks a lot better now that it’s  in order. Then I was very distressed even angry. I couldn’t find anything.

That’s the conventional view that a room which is half empty with polished furniture and neat sofas and chairs is the perfect home however order to me is not about constant tidying up to the extent that you are not allowed to eat drink or almost breathe in someone’s living room because they’ve just cleaned it.

And of course I knew where all my books were and I knew where all  my art books were

And I knew where the cookery boots were as well but it’s taken me a long time to find the books I need again.

I’m not finished the job yet.

So the deeper sort of order  is where the owner of the room or the house has an internal map of where everything is which may not be apparent to a stranger or even to a sister.

Interestingly, there is an article today in some of the newspapers saying that experts have found that the desire for total orderliness and minimalism is driving some people crazy when they’re already busy with looking after their family working in a demanding job or a boring job or tiring job.

Because being judged is very painful and if you feel that everybody who comes to visit you is going to judge you on the number of possessions you have and the state of your house then you won’t be able to relax and enjoy  their company

I expect one should follow the rule of

Do not take it personally

Yes we need a certain amount of order of the traditional kind. We need to wash our clothes we need to cook and wash up we need to make beds even to change the sheets but where’d you draw the line,?

I must confess that I was shocked when I was a student living in a bed sitter when one of my friends said she only changed sheets once a month.

At that point I was still doing what my mother did which was changing one sheet following the rule of top to bottom. As I got older and more tired and realized that if you are a clean person you might not need to change your sheets every week then that’s what I did… change them once a fortnight. And it’s nice to have clean sheets. So it’s a pleasure which might be worthwhile doing more frequently as long as it doesn’t make you ill and tired

In any case all the cleaning and tidying and washing used to be regarded as women’s work and of no value.

But in fact this work is of value despite my criticism of people who are over orderly and over  clean.

As I said to my sister,

A rich person like the author Michael Frayne can afford a big house with lots of bookshelves and so tidiness to some extent is linked with money

For older people and  those with asthma and other chronic conditions it may be very important to have a dust free and very clean home.

But it should not be regarded as a moral necessity.

I don’t know why some people feel impelled to judge others constantly.

Someone in my family criticizes another person if they get new furniture but really it wasn’t their business

It wasn’t causing any trouble financially so if this person wanted to have new furniture every five years or 10 years rather than waiing till it fell apart then to me that seemed a reasonable choice because life is not very long and if you don’t like your furniture to get worn out and dirty and you want to get a new sofa or whatever that is your choice and you are entitled to it if you can afford it. And that’s one of the problems about poverty that peopke are not only short of food and heating bills are frightening but also they they have no choice about whether they want a new bed or a fridge or freezer because they can’t afford it anyway even if it’s necessary.

There’s a lot of pain in being poor and it is not acknowledged by many of us. And it’s not surprising that mental illness is more common in the poor.

And if you were a powerful person people will not criticize you for being untidy because they’ll be frightened or you.

Still I would not wish to live the way that I the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch lived because you have to recognize that if your floor is covered in rubbish you are at risk of getting rodents etc

So I’m not advocating for complete ignoring of dirt and mess but saying that having a few piles of books in your living room it’s not really something to be ashamed of.

If I went into a room like that I would long to look at the books and be interested in the person.

I suppose we women don’t always  realise what stress we are suffering instead we feel guilty because our home is not perfect like the ones on the television programmes we’ve been having recently.

Since my home was tidied I found it much harder to write because my hands reach out for a book in a shelf but it’s not there. I spend time trying to find it and its fellow books which used to be so near me all the time.

If you want to help another person don’t assume that they want their house to be tidy in the way your house is tidy. That they want all their kitchen utensils in a jug on the windowsill because what looks disorderly to one person is actually the order of somebody else. That’s somebody else is different from you. That they are entitled to their own way of life

And also you may need to tell them that you cannot just borrow books from the public library because they do not have books that are only readable by a small group of people about things like philosophy history poetry music art. It’s become even more true in recent years when governments have cut back on money and the local council is running out of money and so they closed the libraries or they buy fewer books.

And if you want the book as a reference book as you might do if you are a writer or an academic or an artist then borrowing it from the public library is not really sufficient. That’s why people steal sometimes. And that’s selfish but on the other hand is understandable if you can’t afford to buy something that you really need badly.

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

Enchanted by the hand that writes,
Bewitched by art, beauty alights.
The script is like a music score
Through which you pass 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 heart and hand.

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

nvestors who hoped Trump policies would be pro-business are “learning a very expensive lesson about the difference between creative destruction and just plain destruction”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/05/hopes-of-us-golden-age-fade-as-investors-start-to-worry-about-trumpcession-risk?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/apr/14/tom-stoppard-the-real-thing?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Stan met Satan in his mirror many times.And it was obvious the poor devil was terribly depressed.He said he was no longer needed as humans were more wicked than he ever was.

Stan wondered how to help without doing anything wicked himself
He went into the bedroom and looked into the mirror.

At first he thought it was empty but the he saw Satan asleep in a ball.
Hi there,he called.Satan woke up.
Hi Satan.
Stan said
I’ve got an idea

How would you like a drive to Sheringham?
I dunno,I feel too depressed.
I think you need a change said Stan.

He picked up Mary’s solid gold powder compact and opened it.What a lovely scent,he murmured,closing his eyes and remembering all the times Mary had taken it out to put on more lipstick or powder her nose when they were out dancing.
Now,see here.I have mirror .If you can get behind this,I’ll put you in my pocket and Emile will sit by me in the car.
Without a pause Satan leaped into the gold compact and Stan could see him in the mirror.He popped it into his front pocket until he realised the devil could not see out.
He opened it and placed it in his pocket but with the mirror sticking out.
They drove off in Stan’s old Triumph Herald which was still functioning well.
Sat Nav,said Satan… is that how to find me…
No.it’s satellite navigation.It gives me a route to the seaside.Wherever I want to go
Bloody waste of money…what is wrong with a road Atlas?
It’s all progress.Stan told him.We must keep up or we will be thought lacking
By whom? answered the old devil
All of a sudden a police car came by and asked Stan to stop.
Why are you sending signals with that mirror?the police officer enquired..
To be continued

Stan met Satan in his mirror many times.And it was obvious the poor devil was terribly depressed.He said he was no longer needed as humans were more wicked than he ever was.Stan wondered how to help without doing anything wicked himself
He went into the bedroom and looked into the mirror.At first he thought it was empty but the he saw Satan asleep in a ball.
Hi there,he called.Satan woke up.
Hi Stan.
Stan said
I’ve got an idea.How would you like a drive to Sheringham?
I dunno,I feel too depressed.
I think you need a change said Stan.He picked up Mary’s solid gold powder compact and opened it.What a lovely scent,he murmured,closing his eyes and remembering all the times Mary had taken it out to put on more lipstick or powder her nose when they were out dancing.
Now,see here.I have mirror here.If you can get behind this,I’ll put you in my pocket and Emile will sit by me in the car.
Without a pause Satan leaped into the gold compact and Stan could see him in the mirror.He popped it into his front pocket until he realised the devil could not see out.
He opened it and placed it in his pocket but with the mirror sticking out.
They drove off in Stan’s old Triumph Herald which was still functioning well.
Sat Nav,said Satan… is that how to find me…
No.it’s satellite navigation.It gives me a route to the seaside.Wherever I want to go
Bloody waste of money…what is wrong with a road Atla.?
It’s all progress.Stan told him.We must keep up or we will be thought lacking
By whom? answered the old devil
All of a sudden a police car came by and asked Stan to stop.
Why are you sending signals with that mirror?the police officer enquired..
To be continued

Stan was standing on the patio behind his bijou home when a sudden heavy  downpour of water drenched him all over.
This is like a monsoon,he murmured to Emile who was also wet and drowned looking
A head  and neck appeared over the dark wooden fence.
I’m awfully sorry,old boy.A pipe has burst in Annie’s loft.I tried to fix it myself.
I don’t believe it.You are Stan Brown.It must be 50 years since I saw you.
Stan was hiding his surprise at seeing Rudolf Hairnet,his former logic tutor at an ancient foundation, in the garden of Annie,Stan’s beloved colourful mistress.
Why not pop in Rudolf,he said.I’ll leave the door open and go upstairs to change my clothes.Be with you in a moment.
Stan went upstairs and removed his clothes.His body was now as thin as when he reached his full height of 6 ft 6 inches but alas it had less muscle and more fat. nowadays.He gazed into his wife’s full length mirror.
To his surprise, he saw Satan looking out.Although he knew this was possible for Catholics he had never met Satan before.Not that he was keen to,exciting as it might be.
How do you get behind the mirror,he asked  Satan gently.
God only knows,said Satan morosely.
Why not ask him?
I’m too proud,the poor devil replied in a bleak voice.
Well,we all have our pride,Stan told him,though no doubt yours is the biggest in the universe.
Yes,indeed,Satan answered.It’s bigger than Everest
Are you here for any purpose,Stan enquired.
Yes,your home seems more intriguing than most and I like to watch you in bed with that flame haired woman… is she your paramour?
I see,said Stan,You are a voyeur par excellence
That’s one way of describing me,Satan said,No woman will come to bed with me so I am trapped here behind every mirror in the world.I can see it all but never take part.
You must be very lonely,said Stan
Yes,the dark spirit muttered painfully
Are there no she-devils about who might oblige you?Stan asked him thoughtfully.
I don’t seem to fancy them so much.They are all as bad a me,I want kindness and tenderness not just lust.After all,one might satisfy that with a vibrator… we have them in hell you know!We have many things but love and humility are not there.
Why,you are beginning to sound almost human,Stan told him.We want love too.If only you would apologise to God I am sure he would forgive you and let you come into the real world of others instead of being trapped in there
Stan heard a noise.He turned round displaying his bony frame and his  drooping organs to Rudolf.
Are you ok? I was worried that the drenching had knocked you off balance.I have out your kettle on the  fire to make you a hot drink and phoned 999 for aid.
But we don’t have a fire,Stan responded. loudly
Well,you do now said Rudolph
Oh,hell, cried Stan

Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall
The words predicted death  and so it came
The mightiest king is not  preserved from falls

Is there  wisdom  in the deep that calls
True scholarship  is hard , to name unnamed
Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall

Even  blatant  evil, none appals
We have no  reverie,  we have no time
The mightiest king ‘s no  safer    with his gold

Counted,weighed,divided, aren’t we all?
The words in Aramaic  were  no  rhyme
Belshazzar saw the grave  there on  his wall

Once old ladies smiled  knit  infants shawls
They had joy  though death  came wandering by
The King  of Babylon  deserved his fall

Being alive seems  near to a  great crime
God may die yet love burns its small flame
Belshazzar learned the writing on the wall
The  humbler people are,  the  less the  fall6th Dec 2019Posted inethics, poetry, reflections, Thinkings and poems, villanelleLeave a commenton We have no  reverie,  we have no timeEditWe have no  reverie,  we have no time

Problem pupils

What shall I do with  a dilated pupil?

a) Send them to the Headmaster

b} Give them a shrinking glance

c) Look away

d) Go to an Eye Clinic

e} is she  having a baby? How can you see her cervix? Are you a doctor?

My glasses are reading  any advice?

A} You have schizophrenia

B} You are a witch

C} You  need an eye test

D) They are a surveillance device.Throw them in the bin

My lenses are plastic

a} You have had cataract surgery

b} You are deluded

c} They are  ruining the environment.Hide them if you can get them out of your eyes

4} You want attention.? Ask for a glass eye next time

What the hell,a villanelle!
It looks too hard for such as me
Still I will write ,yes,I write well

I have a story I can tell
It’s from the English who love tea
What a hell,oh villanelle

I saw a man with a sea shell
I asked him for a pod of pea
I write well.yeah super Nell

I often wonder if I smell
As I drink so much  greenish tea
What’s s to tell ,my villanelle?

But worry makes life into hell
And it’s bad for those who see
I write well,but who can tell?

I must take much charity
If you ask, what is your fee?
What the hell oh villanelle
I write well but   life is hell.

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

Mary found a strange garment in her wardrobe

She pulled it out and the label said culotte. I must have got this from a catalogue she told herself

It was made of a very thin fabric so she decided to try it on as the weather was extremely hot

While she was fastening the  zip her friend Annie came into the room  wearingha pink outfit wity matching shoes

Annie burst out laughing

You can’t wear those, she said dominatingly

Why not,  said Mary plaintively?

Much too big for you and they will fall off when you’re walking down the street. It’s odd that you should say that because my lata husband Stan as he was generally known often said in the summer that he was worried that my skirt would fall off

What do you think Freud would have said about that? Maybe it’s a repressed desire.

Maybe he wanted other men to see his beautiful wife’s naked body

Do you think Prince Charles ever wished  Princess Diana skirt would fall off when she was walking along through a minefield or receiving some illustrious guests from some foreign royal family?

Well no one could ask Prince Charles that now.

A cat could ask him, said Emile Mary s little  pussycat.

Why  it says in my books that a cat may look at a king but it doesn’t say the cat can ask the king a personal question.

Mary decided to make some fresh tea

I am getting rid of a lot of my clothes Mary told the pair because I am planning to move to Dover. Annie was very upset ….planning to move to Dover at what about me and Emile?

I don’t know if it will ever happen but it’s just something to amuse myself with looking at the price of flats and deciding what kind of furniture I would like to have.

Listen,you  are too old to move to somewhere completely new where you don’t know anybody not to mention the fact that Dover is very hilly.

I don’t know sometimes people have to move regardless of their age or maybe I will buy a very small flat to be a second home for me near the sea

But if you got to Dover beach now you won’t hear the strange melancholy roar that Matthew Arnold heard: no you will hear the sound of wet and frightened asylum seekers trying to get out of the small boats.

You might even see riots such as a happening in Epping outside the Bell Hotel. It could be very dangerous.

Well I haven’t thought of that said Mary I was just thinking of three very beautiful holidays in Deal and Walmer.

But that was 35 years ago. You were a young woman then.

You are very pessimistic, aren’t you, Annie? I don’t know if many people in Dover go to the part of the beach with these poor asylum seekers  landing and if they do .. after all Jesus Christ could have been an asylum seeker and where would he go today with all the war in the Middle East? Wouldn’t Dover beach be the sort of place he might come to in a boat with his parents why he might be travelling in a Moses basket as might only be a tiny baby. He won’t have a passport of course

He may already have arrived here and he could be staying in the Bell inb at this moment.

Well I don’t think we can go to Epping to find out but who knows whether the Three Kings are on the way already to worship him in a stable in the forest at Epping.

They may  have left the middle East some time ago. I wonder if they  brought any gold frankincense and myrrh with them?

Well we certainly need a good cup of tea to take our minds off these troubles . and  lf you want to go to the sea you just go and stay an hotel for a few days and I will come with you to make sure that you are okay since your eyesight it’s not as good as it used to be : how would you like to go to Eastbourne?

Mary was silent as she was planning the furniture for her dining room in her new flat in her imagination

I think this time I shall have an oak dining table she mused. And so di all of us

I think I prefer beech myself

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming