Tips for a Perfect Christmas

Transform your family with tinsel
strategically arranged around the living.

Download seasonal hits by Wizard and Slade.
Repeat play while you cook, clean and defecate.

Anoint your sprouts with the sacred cross of Jesus.
Wrap your pigs in blankets, protect from sudden frost.

Check your bird every ten minutes. Truss her tight
with silly string. Baste with juices from your pot.

Brandy will add flavor to the tasteless.
Provide plastic antlers for your guests.

Check your fairies are operational in advance
to avoid disappointment on the big day.

Choose carefully the special someone
to cherish at the top of your tree.

Inappropriate choices will make the whole day die.

C59DF191-9758-4B49-8FBA-72EE5EF7C896 — Original Photograph created by the author

The Innocent’s Song

I usually steer away from politics in this blog but these are extreme times. In the despairing aftermath of a British election that voted for the most right wing, populist, racist, sexist and dishonest Prime Minister the country has ever seen I thought this poem by Charles Causley was extremely apt. I have changed a couple of lines including the last line. Thanks to Isabel for sending me the original poem enclosed with her Christmas card.

“Who’s that knocking on the window,
Who’s that standing at the door,
What are all those presents
Lying on the floor?

Who’s the smiling stranger
With hair as white as gin,
What is he doing with the children
And who could have let him in?

Why has he rubies on his fingers,
A cold, cold crown on his head,
Why, does he caw his carol,
“Get Brexit done”?

Why does he ferry my fireside
As a spider on a thread,
His fingers made of fuses
And his tongue of gingerbread?

Why does the world before him
Melt in a million suns,
Why do his yellow, yearning eyes
Burn like saffron buns?

Watch where he comes walking
Out of the Christmas flame,
Dancing, double-talking:

Boris is his name.”

God help all the poor, sick, disabled, homeless, immigrants, refugees, unemployed, elderly and other marginalised people in the UK during the coming years.

And here’s a poem by Rudyard Kipling sent to me by Alastair:-

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Dark Days

The end of the year can be a difficult time for those of us who are alone, either through circumstance or choice. In the northern hemisphere temperatures drop, the nights grow longer and Christian communities begin their Christmas celebrations. More than any other time of year there is an emphasis on family values and sharing which can leave single people feeling alienated. There is a stigma attached to being alone at Christmas. Turkey for one? So in this post I wish to share some inspiring quotes reminding us that solitude can be a positive and healthy choice. Being alone does not necessarily mean feeling lonely and company is often overrated. The beaming, perfect families of television commercials rarely exist in reality. If you find yourself alone this Festive Period use the time wisely to recharge and regenerate your energy levels, treat yourself kindly and cherish your freedom. I’m planning to lock myself indoors with a fridge full of party food, a bottle of the local whisky liquor and a pile of wonderful books.

Ten quotes to celebrate the gift of solitude:-

1. “… the highest and most decisive experience of all, … is to be alone with his own self, or whatever else one chooses to call the objectivity of the psyche. The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no longer support himself. Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation.”

Carl Jung (1943)

2. “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

3. “The only antidote to fear is to go through it. Only by embracing loneliness may its tyranny be broken.”

James Hollis (1996)

4. “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

5. “My imagination functions much better when I don’t have to speak to people.”

Patricia Highsmith

6. “Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

7. “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”

George Gordon Byron

8. “The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”

Aldous Huxley

9. “I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel.”

Audrey Hepburn: Many-Sided Charmer, LIFE Magazine, December 7, 1953

10. “Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever alone.”

Virginia Woolf, Orlando

If you need support try http://www.standalone.org.uk

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Titanium Dreams – a poem created by the WordPress Community

She was the only titanium woman in the village.
Her metal mettle was more than a match
for the spineless would-be oppressors
but her shell held back a tide of bitter tears.

Her metal mettle was more than a match
but hidden beneath the nearly unbreakable
exterior was a wounded heart. She was looking
for the iron man with a heart of gold

hidden beneath the nearly unbreakable.
Her smooth skin sparkled like moonlit snow
and her eyes were bold. Protected within
her circle resisting the marauding crowds,

her smooth skin sparkled like moonlit snow.
Her shiny exterior made others inferior
and her titanium cranium was full
of geraniums, no mere delirium.

Her shiny exterior made others inferior
and she dreamed of titanium forests
where birds fly upside down, with neither defects
nor qualities but simmering in secret whirls.

She dreamed of titanium forests, a path unknown,
a mysterious world, a secret of her own. Her haunting
gaze and those dazzling eyes in people’s heart created
cowardice. Little did she know the path, her life,

a mysterious world, a secret of her own, her haunting.
Deep beneath the unbreakable cover
beat a fragile feathery heart
that could be broken without a spark. They say

it takes a village but her people had hearts of stone
deep beneath the unbreakable cover,
so she, the sole courageous stood resolute, alone.
She was the only titanium woman in the village.

Here are a few final lines from Kimmagic that unfortunately arrived after the deadline but form almost a separate poem by themselves:-

“Her cogent complexion clinging onto the cries,
Her shimmering skin ignites the lies,
As she swaggers through the spiraling shame,
And kindles the agonizing flame,
Is it the metallic her to blame?”

While assembling this group poem I loosely based the structure on the Pantoum form which uses repetition to unify the lines and create alternative meanings. The second line of each stanza forms the first line of the next stanza and the final line is a repeat of the opening line so it feels circular. I had to make a few small edits to some of the contributed lines to make this work so I hope you approve of any changes.

Thanks so much to all the talented writers who made the time and effort to participate in this project. It was fascinating to see the different responses. You are all amazing!

Contributors are (in no particular order):-

Steve Simpson, Stevestillstanding, Angus Adams, Dawn Gray, Alec Hyde, Justin Lee S,

Frenchc1955, PK Lily, Trappedinthewordofmyown, Meg, Lisa K, Alastair, Kim Magic

and Nikita Shackleton.

Perhaps it’s a little early for Festive Greetings but I wish you all health, happiness and success for the coming New Year 2020. And keep writing!!

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Community Poetry

THE DECEMBER 1st DEADLINE FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE COMMUNITY POEM HAS NOW EXPIRED – sorry but it’s too late to post any more lines.

The completed group poem can be viewed by clicking on this link

https://purplehermit.com/2019/12/02/titanium-dreams-a-poem-created-by-the-wordpress-community/

Thanks for your interest.

Please help write a group poem. You don’t need to be a writer to do this. All you need to do is provide one line in response to the opening line. It can be funny, long, short, serious or crazy. There are no rules. Write your line in the comments box. After one week I will combine the lines the best I can to create a WordPress Group poem and post it on this site. Please join in – it’s fun and who knows what might emerge! All the contributors will be credited.

Here is the opening line written by myself. Hope it will inspire your creativity:-

“She was the only titanium woman in the village.”

53171155-2B18-4293-9441-9856AB83FC68 — Photo by the author

Through the Cracks of Winter

we camped in the Black Mountains
and you thought you saw a wolf. I was a stain
in the shadow of a great cliff of sturdy construction
with a hinged lid. The shoe-box of Hiroshima,
can we forget that flash? How did God shine
the light in the passing space, not minding
as lemmings dived? She had Her own intentions.

I let night over my head like cling film
on a frozen turkey, smoothing the bitter lines.
Then you looked up and described a dream,
the sun scrambled on New Year’s Day. Your words
consumed another, one for every minute.
At midnight you stood beneath the pines singing
Jerusalem. I broke free and soared
in the middle of it all, crazy laughing
as the reservoir rotted red as sunset. I was the one
who once loved you, with your yes, yes, yes until
the world shouted no, do not drive or use machines.

You were the watchman of my panopticon.
I was a clock ticking.

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Web

She never learned the 60% rule,
hungry swarms disappearing.

Small insects under her skin,
no place for strangers.

Cracking pistachios late October,
a bumble of dogs bark at the fish truck.

She was arrested for public indecency,
a memory, bare arsed in a sacred place.

Time was up. At the border
she never heard church bells.

The day stripped naked, intersecting
her space with signs.

The sun more pink now. She swatted
it flat and bloody with her hand.

68FDECDC-55B2-4E6B-9321-761847B16814 — Image created by the author