The inner sea will comfort me

Inside my shell, I dream of pearls,
Caterpillars, snails with whorls.
I dream contented, all enwrapped
With reverie and dream, I’m lapped.
The inner seas will comfort me,
While gods allow my eyes to see

Oh, sweeter than confectionery
Is my worn old dictionary.
The words whirl round and fall to shape
The sentences, which my world drape.
This furnishing is rich and strange
Yet magically self-arranged.

Oh, sweeter than the love of man
Is reading works of poets long gone;
And feeling deeply their dark tides,
Upon which our boats may glide.
The sea infinite we float on
Is the same warm sea that ancients swam.

Sweeter still is this spring air
And the blossom spreading fair.
We’ll drown ourselves in deep green fields
To the gods of poetry yield.
We’ll rise again and spring up tall
To grow more rich until we fall.

Sweet it is to live and die
And to write my poetry
Touch me with your ardent souls
My mind and yours shall all be whole

If you don’t believe anything

In my garden near the apple tree

If I didn’t believe anything.

I would know there is another me

That knows more that I do

That I am not omniscient

There are many things I cannot see in normal consciousness

Some I have seen when my life slowed down to a snail pace

Some only another person can see

What does a snail see?

Fast anxious scanning just not reveal a world of value

It only tells us whether we are about to be devoured by lions

Does not show us blue moths nor birds,not butterflies

Pinpoint eyes do not see the rainbow or the star

If you don’t believe anything what does it mean to say what would you believe then?

I believe there are other people other minds

That should make us listen more because these other minds are not our mind

Don’t we want to know what another mind perceived?

A woman in the art class says she hates Picasso

Is it that she hates to see what Picasso saw?

Can’t she just say,this is not what I see?

Don’t we realise that sight needs development. Did Plato not see more than I can or ever will be able to and what about Jesus what did he see ,?

It’s not automatic that we see the way the great artists saw.

But it might show us a way, a path, a new direction.

Probably slowness is better than speed

And it’s not quantity that’s important

They wanted to call mathematics quantitative methods

As if it had no qualities.

As if it had no quality

No e-quality

Not all activities are of equal value

But how do we judge?

If we can’t see then we can’t judge

Democracy is in dangér … From those who think they already know everything

He kept smiling

I made this

My husband liked being recumbent

He was lazy in all of his ways.

I never knew he was dying

As he kept on smiling.

What can I say in his praise?

I told him off for keeping me waiting

Not knowing his heart had a leak.

In a way I admired him

For keeping cabs standing

And being reluctant to speak.

He rarely addressed these cab drivers

But blessed them, each one, with his gaze.

He sat with composure

And little disclosure…

Though sometimes his guns were ablaze.

When the drivers were told he had passed,

Some wept and my hands they each grasped.

Oh, my dear lady

We were all ready

To drive you to Barnet so fast.

The compassion from the humble and lowly

The love from the poor and the weak

What can I say for

We miss all his labours

If only we could, at least, hear him speak.

I held his left hand for an hour

I held it again for much more.

I felt a stiff tendon

Which refused any bending

And massaged it as I sat on the floor.

He never repeated me he loved me,

Or how I should live when he’d gone.

I suppose by that time

He believed all was kind.

And his earthly endeavors were done.

It seems like a dream, a performance…

And I keep thinking life will resume.

I see no apparitions

Have no new intuitions

This is my life, I presume.

Dream like memories

Hollyhocks,delphinium and phlox
Foxgloves,cat mint, nettles,near by docks
The blind man breathed in air full of wild scent
His daughted named the colours now absent

High up on the Kentish cliffs we sat
Capel-le -Ferne I found it on a map
We listened to this girl, we did not speak
Absorbing by our senses,proud and meek

Now I recollect the details very well
In those dream like memories I dwell
Snapdragons growing just beside my chair
I smell the scent as if I were still there

I may be blinded by the tears of loss
But I remember, love, our happiness

Yet another letter

Nuts Cottage
87 Rubbish Walks
Stampedia
North Norfolk
NWe 0MG pie
Dear Mary

How are you getting on with your new logic book? Mine is going well as having grown up doing my homework while my brother played ” The Ride of the Valkyries” full blast all night demanded I do his maths homework and some Latin I find with the TV on some rubbish programme I can really concentrate well
On the other hand I might be writing rubbish.
The main things seems to be to avoid writer’s block. whereas in the past it was to avoid writing rubbish,Funny how popular the word rubbish is nowadays.
When we believed in God we had Cathedrals,plainsong and Byrd.Now we have Malls.Coffee Shops and Muzak.And rubbish.We are rubbish too
Surely to get writer’s block would be an advantage as it would lead to reverie and dreams or maybe going on Tinder and seeing how many people in the town are looking for….Rubbish connections.
My optician said not to go looking for men.With my eyesight I’d no doubt be chatting up a traffic cone.I don’t think that’s what he meant,Real men don’t like women running after them which is lucky.I can’t run nowadays,I could limp after one!
He said his mother did get married again but she wasn’t seeking it actively.So she said.Would she have told her son?
Definitely not.Well, that’s my view.Take it or leave it.Agree or argue,Talk or walk.Who can falsify his theory? Popper died.So they say.

I think I must be drunk with happiness.I’ll write again to tell you the plot of my novel.Basically,it’s total rubbish dressed up with a few sexual innuendos,These days innuendo seems quite out of date.Old fashioned.Like courting and engagement.Now we start in bed and end up in Court.
Well, try phoning me or you’ll keep getting more rubbish letters

Byeee

Annette

I’m alive I’m alive

I have to get used to going outside again so a long with my walking ajds I hobble us to the main road at the end of the Street.

The sky is a strange yellow grey and it’s very damp under foot:there is no one about I’m surprised no parents are on the way to the school to collect their children but maybe they don’t want to collect them today. Maybe all the parents have absconded

I get to the main road and  one van goes by. No bus car or bicycle and still no pedestrians

Should I be here? Do they know something I don’t know? I decide not to cross the road anyway. That’s going to be difficult but I will do it very soon because I want to get to the river to see the swans.

When I get back to the house I can’t turn the key in the lock I had not thought about that when I  broke my wrist.  Bya strange coincidence a royal mail van has drawn up buy my gate and the man gets out and brings me a parcel and then he opens the door for me.

Next time I should to go to the other end of the street. There is bound to be more traffic there. Maybe I could just play a record of noise or something on my phone that I could listen to you through earphones

Outside …..is this a good idea to wear earphones when I’m walking along the pavement. Will I be mugged? That will be an introduction to modern life except I would have to buy an iPhone first otherwise nobody will want to mug me when I judt have my old Motorola sticking out of my pocket.

But it was very pleasant to go outside and smell the damp eartg and see the trees getting ready to bloom as they do at the end of this month

Because I’m alive I’m alive I’m alive

The experts: artists on 20 easy, mind-expanding ways to be much more creative

By Katherine

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/jan/04/the-experts-artists-on-20-easy-mind-expanding-ways-to-be-much-more-creative?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

O

The experts: photographers on 20 easy, enjoyable ways to vastly improve your pictures

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/26/the-experts-photographers-on-20-easy-enjoyable-ways-to-vastly-improve-your-pictures?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Is it bad?

The church by Katherine


You were the centre of my universe
[What is a universe,by the way?]
You were the light in my life
[What about the sun?
You were perfect in every way
{ Name a few definite ones]
So why did you choose me?
[Why, what’s wrong with you?]
Now, you have thrown me away
Seems as if I am trash
But some folk save the wrong things
Or put them in the wrong wash
[That might be a metaphor]
My washing machine only works on the rapidest wash
[Good grief, that sounds positive]
Since it’s only 14 minutes,I do it twice
[Why would people want to know this?]
Sometimes I just do rinse and spin
‘But I didn’t realise that was an option at first
[Who cares?]
I am trying to save money so in future I shall just do one
{ why wash them at all, just steam them!]
I love elecricity
{ Is that a metaphor?]
I love gas
[Maybe it’s not]
I’ll cook my angel a roast
{ Do angels eat?]
A roasted prayer of thanksgiving
{Sounds more like a threat than a promise]
God will smell the odour
[Not if he doesn’t want to]
God will be happy
[Are you crackers?]
God is neither happy nor unhappy
[Make your mind up.This is not logic class BTW}
God looks divine
[How can we compare the two?]
I have seen him
[Are you high?]
I don’t know what will happen next but I accept it all
[Very gracious!]
I wish Father Xmas would come tonight
{ Don’t we all?]
And to use a cliche,I love the entire universe.What ever that is!
Is that a bad poem?
Do cows eat grass
Do sheep have woollen rugs glued to their heads?
I am finished
[At last!]
But it’s not bad enough
{Stop moaning]

Precognition by Margaret Atwood

https://www.poeticous.com/margaret-atwood/precognition

Precognition

Living backwards means only
I must suffer everything twice.
Those picnics were already loss:
with the dragonflies and the clear streams halfway.

What good did it do me to know
how far along you would come with me
and when you would return?
By yourself, to a life you call daily.

You did not consider me a soul
but a landscape, not even one
I recognize as mine, but foreign
and rich in curios:
an egg of blue marble,
a dried pod,
a clay goddess you picked up at a stall
somewhere among the dun and dust-green
hills and the bronze-hot
sun and the odd shadows,

not knowing what would be protection,
or even the need for it then.

I wake in the early dawn and there is the roadway
shattered, and the glass and the blood,
from an intersection that has happened
already, though I can’t say when.
Simply that it will happen.

What could I tell you now that would keep you
safe or warn you?
What good would it do?
Live and be happy.

I would rather cut myself loose
from time, shave off my hair
and stand at a crossroads
with a wooden bowl, throwing
myself on the dubious mercy
of the present, which is innocent
and forgetful and hits the eye bare

and without words and without even love
than do this mourning over.

Burnt Sienna

Muted colours,sienna and dark rose
Lovely mauve and lilac please my eye
Linen,silk or wool,I love my clothes

I like to complement,I don’t oppose
The colour wheel rotates as I go by
Wearing colours,sienna and dark rose

I like colour,all my neighbours know
The “take” on natural fibres makes me high
Linen,silk or wool,I love their glow

If people gossip, this is not their show
If I seem conceited, don’t make war
Wearing colours,sienna and dark rose

Now I’m in acrylic, what a blow
Wool is hard to find, the sheep cry Baaaa
I love, fabric, I love coloured clothes

It matters not if I have burned a bra
Seems a little mad, but there we are
Muted colours,umber and dark rose
Linen,silk or wool, the art of clothes

Rainy day

Dull grey and yellow sky the rain comes down

The air is cold, the wind turns round

The afternoon is late, the evening starts

The day divides itself into small parts.

In the morning heavy thoughts of work

Oppress the old who in their bed still lurk.

As the day goes by our hearts will jolt

Like trains on ancient rails, like headless colts.

Life should be like Mozart,Wagner shouts.

But no one else knows what its all about.

We don’t choose the rhythm yet have to move

The rain keeps time,but can our lives improve?

The sky is dark and grey we need the rain.

I like to watch it thrash the window pans.

Like wet paint from the artist’s brush

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.

On falling down the full stop at the end of a sentence

Blind sight scattered my wits
Like whitened bones
Across the deserts of my mind.
I descended into darkness.
Love shrank into the tame cat
By the fire,unacknowledged hate
Grew to fill the room.
I stared too much.
A full stop grew gigantic
Crowded out
All the words in the sentence
I saw nothing but this dot
Now a gigantic black hole
Into which I was dragged.
An energy coming from within my own head
Sucked me into the black hole.
That place was the wrong sort of darkness.
Within that full stop,
Love Fundamental became invisible.
Disappeared into the dark.
I dragged my eyes away
And saw the moon appear,so eerie,
It shone,grey silver.
If I had opened my eyes wider
I would not now lament
What I destroyed in the wormhole
Of the black dot that drew my eye
Into a tunnel of darkness
It blinded me to the light
Did not let me read the sentences
Beside the full stop.
An error of focus left hate
Unacknowledged,unmitigated, unredeemed,
Kept from love or goodness
Afraid to spoil my love with hate,
The fear of hate became
That which spoiled all else else,
By freezing Love itself.

He liked my husband’s shoulder dear


I dream at nights of my old friends
My husband and his loving hands
I dream of all the cats we had
Alfred who slept on the bed
He laid his head upon my foot
As I wrote a poem of love
Jimmy who was small and black
She bit my hand if I got up
I did not wish to wet the bed
She did not understand a word I said
The last night here she gazed at me
I think she knew she would not be
Lucky was the nervous one
Black and white , apartheid none
He liked my husband’s shoulder dear
He draped himself and lost all fear
Now the cats have all gone off
I am frightened by my cough
My husband comes to me at night
Fortunately he cannot bite
He touches me with tenderness
Smiles and wished me,God Bless.
When I waken I feel lost
So I have to wear a watch
I seem to have no solid self
I feel nervous of those elves
I don’t mind an angel fierce


He could rub my aching feet
I will have no other man
They are frightened of women
They don’t like to lose at Chess
They don’t like to wash my dress
They will brush my winter coat
Never ask me what I wrote
I do not wish to anger men
They might shout and bawl again
I think maybe I will turn gay
Ask a lady, what to say?
They may not understand my needs
Killing flowers to help the weeds
Talking all the weary night
On the whole they’re parasites
Also they may menstruate
I can’t give them seeds to take
So they will leave and get a man
This is where it all began
Eve and Adam,God and man
Cain and Abel, apple flan
Noah and his Ark so fine
I wish I had one in the rain
I wonder when the world will end?
I am old so be my friend

Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers

A day with my own self, such peaceful hours
The inner seas make music as they roll
And in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

The rain comes down in cold but gentle showers
Desiring  to  give moisture to all souls
A symbol of  the value of quiet hours

In Northern hills we looked for  Durham owls
They hunt by day to keep their bodies whole
While in the ground the worms air roots of flowers

My loved one was a native of those towers
Highcliff Nab and Hasty Bank  called home
My days with him a-wandering there for hours

As he died , deep in my heart I howled
I held his hands, remembered , paid the toll
While in the ground the worms digest  the sour

Lying in the heather  we had roamed 
May God  have mercy on his  homing soul
Now I enjoy   in reverie our hours
Deep in the ground the worms  drowse mixed with flowers