When I am alone my life is meaningless
Yet when I am with someone my life is meaningless also.
Truly, I am done for, wherever I turn.
I am indebted to you, my friend, not for our friendship
For there is no remuneration due there
No payment that could cover what has been given.
What then is this debt?
A puzzle indeed, no?
Why would I trouble you with answers?
I am troubled enough myself.
All I have are questions
and the fierce longing I take into the night.
Don't deny me - Stay.
Keep close to me - I may wander off at any moment.
Where is my compass - where will I go?
The way is lost to me
Behind a door I cannot open
Inside a room that has no walls
Down a road I cannot see.
My eyes are of no use to me here
What I see makes no sense
My legs take me where I do not want to go
My arms hold on to nothing
What is behind me is in front also.
I go in circles.
Ahoy!
This ship has no sails
And there is no wind to blow them, anyway.
No rum to drink
No water to float on, either.
I am lost!
No one comes
No one goes
I am an island - or not
Build me a bridge.
I know what you are thinking, I think it also.
At least I would if I were clever enough.
Me - the great contradiction - the puzzle.
I am in pieces before you.
Mend me.
Tuesday 22 November 2011
Sunday 13 November 2011
Remembering
Today is Remembrance Sunday and I am remembering my mum.
Annie Maria King
Born 31 December 1921 at Wood Green, London
Died 25 August 1979 at Myland Hospital, Colchester
She was one of the youngest of 12 children, her parents owned a bakers shop in London.
As Private Annie Maria Ransom W216466 she served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a wireless operator from 28.08.42 - 17.05.46.
In 1958 she met and married John Arthur King, fifteen years her junior, a teddy boy and disapproved of by her family. She was 39 when I was born and 41 when my sister was born.
We lost her in 1979 to cancer, secondary to the initial breast cancer from 1974. She was far too young as were my sister and I, me being 18 just short of my 19th birthday, and my sister only just turned 17. But the greatest sadness of all is that she never saw any of her five grandchildren, my own two and my sister's three. She would have loved them all and they her. Mind you I don't know how they would have responded to hand knitted Fair Isle jumpers but they would have loved her lemon meringue pie.
What I remember and miss most is her laughter and her positive and courageous response to anything that came her way. Her kindness and consideration towards others even when it was sadly lacking towards her. For someone who genuinely had something to complain about, she never did. Just got on with her life without making a fuss and going out of her way to do what she could to help others. And there are plenty of people apart from her biased son who will testify to that and to the goodness of her character.
There is not a day that goes by when I am not thinking of her and missing her. And thanks to the internet I can share her with you. In May of 1998 I wrote this and gladly share it too.
I would choose a spring day
Annie Maria King
Born 31 December 1921 at Wood Green, London
Died 25 August 1979 at Myland Hospital, Colchester
She was one of the youngest of 12 children, her parents owned a bakers shop in London.
As Private Annie Maria Ransom W216466 she served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service as a wireless operator from 28.08.42 - 17.05.46.
In 1958 she met and married John Arthur King, fifteen years her junior, a teddy boy and disapproved of by her family. She was 39 when I was born and 41 when my sister was born.
We lost her in 1979 to cancer, secondary to the initial breast cancer from 1974. She was far too young as were my sister and I, me being 18 just short of my 19th birthday, and my sister only just turned 17. But the greatest sadness of all is that she never saw any of her five grandchildren, my own two and my sister's three. She would have loved them all and they her. Mind you I don't know how they would have responded to hand knitted Fair Isle jumpers but they would have loved her lemon meringue pie.
What I remember and miss most is her laughter and her positive and courageous response to anything that came her way. Her kindness and consideration towards others even when it was sadly lacking towards her. For someone who genuinely had something to complain about, she never did. Just got on with her life without making a fuss and going out of her way to do what she could to help others. And there are plenty of people apart from her biased son who will testify to that and to the goodness of her character.
There is not a day that goes by when I am not thinking of her and missing her. And thanks to the internet I can share her with you. In May of 1998 I wrote this and gladly share it too.
ANNIE MARIA
If I could have her back
for a day (just 24 hours),I would choose a spring day
When the air was fresh and bright
and cool and sweet fragrantI would not burden her with my heavy heart
but tease her until she laughed (like I used to)Then I would kiss her goodbye and say thank-you
And tell her I loved heras I should have done an eternity ago
Thursday 3 November 2011
I Think Therefore I Don't
I can't help but wonder where thinking has really got us. The human race I mean. The one thing we can do that seperates, and supposedley elevates us from the rest of the species. Not that I have thought this through myself of course, just sort of thinking out loud.
Looking through the 'news' anytime over the last few months, or even years, you can't help but think what the hell are we doing, what direction are we headed in?
I don't personally buy into the whole doom and gloom thing quite so completely, but even so, things are definately not going very well are they?
People throughout history, mystics, scientists, philosophers, eminant this and that's have devoted their lives to thought and thinking about life, and produced some beautiful and profound work as a result, no denying that. But where has it got us as a whole?
In a hole.
I'm not against thought of course, or philosophy or science etc, on occasions I even think about things myself (hard to believe I know, but stay with me) and yet, well, I'm still as confused and have just as many unanswered questions as ever. And I'm not the only one, am I?
Where has thinking really got us?
The population of the world has just reached seven billion. Change is coming so fast we can't keep up. One half of the world has so much food it has to throw it away yet the other half is starving. Huge advances in medicine have improved and even saved countless lives yet still there is sickness, new illnesses, new cancers. Technology means we spend less and less time in the compay of others. There is no money for anything yet still we fight wars abroad and ignore the issues at home. Rather spend millions on cruise missiles than on hospitals, but no money to treat wounded soldiers when they come back. A tooth of John Lennon's is up for auction soon and expected to make £10,000. And on it goes. This may sound like some kind of socialist rant, but it aint M'Lord.
The world stock market is in turmoil, countless suffering. Yet didn't we create the stock market in the first place? It didn't evolve from nature did it? Didn't some people think it was a good idea? And maybe it was once. But it's not any more. And yet we let the system, that we created in the first place, rule us.
The anti capitalist protests in London have seen the resignation of three senior clerics from St Pauls and the church in turmoil again, yet not one banker's name has even been mentioned, let alone brought to task.
What are the protestors thinking?
Here's another one. Some Professors (thinkers) from Cardiff University have just completed a report to present to a London conference that finds half of workers in Britain have been ill-treated. You don't say? Tell us something we didn't know? And what about those who are ill treated in relationships or the family? Yet more pointless thinking and researching. And still nothing changes.
Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, I haven't thought too much about it, but maybe it's about time we stopped thinking about things and just started talking to each other and actually doing something. Or is that too simple?
Looking through the 'news' anytime over the last few months, or even years, you can't help but think what the hell are we doing, what direction are we headed in?
I don't personally buy into the whole doom and gloom thing quite so completely, but even so, things are definately not going very well are they?
People throughout history, mystics, scientists, philosophers, eminant this and that's have devoted their lives to thought and thinking about life, and produced some beautiful and profound work as a result, no denying that. But where has it got us as a whole?
In a hole.
I'm not against thought of course, or philosophy or science etc, on occasions I even think about things myself (hard to believe I know, but stay with me) and yet, well, I'm still as confused and have just as many unanswered questions as ever. And I'm not the only one, am I?
Where has thinking really got us?
The population of the world has just reached seven billion. Change is coming so fast we can't keep up. One half of the world has so much food it has to throw it away yet the other half is starving. Huge advances in medicine have improved and even saved countless lives yet still there is sickness, new illnesses, new cancers. Technology means we spend less and less time in the compay of others. There is no money for anything yet still we fight wars abroad and ignore the issues at home. Rather spend millions on cruise missiles than on hospitals, but no money to treat wounded soldiers when they come back. A tooth of John Lennon's is up for auction soon and expected to make £10,000. And on it goes. This may sound like some kind of socialist rant, but it aint M'Lord.
The world stock market is in turmoil, countless suffering. Yet didn't we create the stock market in the first place? It didn't evolve from nature did it? Didn't some people think it was a good idea? And maybe it was once. But it's not any more. And yet we let the system, that we created in the first place, rule us.
The anti capitalist protests in London have seen the resignation of three senior clerics from St Pauls and the church in turmoil again, yet not one banker's name has even been mentioned, let alone brought to task.
What are the protestors thinking?
Here's another one. Some Professors (thinkers) from Cardiff University have just completed a report to present to a London conference that finds half of workers in Britain have been ill-treated. You don't say? Tell us something we didn't know? And what about those who are ill treated in relationships or the family? Yet more pointless thinking and researching. And still nothing changes.
Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, I haven't thought too much about it, but maybe it's about time we stopped thinking about things and just started talking to each other and actually doing something. Or is that too simple?
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