Haiga 3

 Another Picture Haiku

By Robert Kingston

 The Day before Christmas Eve

By Sis Unsworth

I always eat too much that day, I do the same each year,

far too much roast turkey, washed down with pints of beer.

I try to save the planet, I really don’t like waste,

But when it comes to whisky, I drink it for the taste.

“Have you ate all that pudding?” my old girl softly sighs,

When she turns and leaves the room, I start on the mince pies.

The shortbread never stands a chance, I just can’t call a halt,

You’ll never guess what I do then, I wash it down with port!

I always eat and drink so much, I have to work the next day

as no one else will do it, That’s all that I can say.

When I wake up next morning, I always feel so listless

I don’t think it would be so bad, if I wasn’t Father Christmas!!! 

 

Copyright Sis Unsworth

Using

 Using ~ (05/03/2001) 

By Len Morgan 

Twenty Years ago, a misdirected finger pressed the wrong button and found me listening to radio 2 instead of 4.

A track from the Eurythmics was playing.  I stayed my correcting finger before it could change the station.  The sound was crystal clear and for the first time I could listen to the lyrics (plagiarism?):

 

Some people want to use you

Some people want to be used by you

Some people want to abuse you

Some people want to be abused by you…

 

I was at first surprised by the lyrics, initially being drawn towards the S&M connotation; a very shallow interpretation.  But, that would be selling the song short.  Because people use people, it’s as simple as that.

Gregarious people have a greater need for interaction with others.

A hermit/unsociable person would be less inclined to take advantage or even associate with people.

If I’m honest everybody gets used at times, sometimes even abused or taken for granted. 

But, who can put 'hand on heart' and say they have never taken advantage of another person. 

Never been guilty of Bullying…  Oh, you can dress the ‘B’ word up how you like, but ‘at the end of the day’ it means the same…

I guess ~ as the proverbial undertaker would say ~ That’s Life!

 

 

 

FORGET

 FORGET (Following the poem Remember by Christina Rossetti) 

By Peter Woodgate

Better by far you should forget and smile

Then that you should remember and be sad

For I have been a bastard, that’s the honest truth,

Now that you are rid of me, you should be glad.

But let me say, in my defense,

I loved you once, it’s true,

We laughed, as one, and sang in tune

Together, me and you.

I don’t know where it all went wrong,

When we fell out of love,

But we both know it’s over

When push becomes a shove.

Go find yourself another flame,

Forget that I exist,

Enjoy life whilst you still have time

Be held, be touched, be kissed.

And as for me, I won’t bemoan

The parting of our lives,

I won’t regret the absence,

The excuses and the lies.

Don’t listen to the gossip,

Don’t believe what you have heard,

I’m not depressed, in deep despair

Cos I’m with a younger bird.   

 

Copyright Peter Woodgate

Personal Well-Being ~ 17

Personal Well-Being ~ 17 Reiki Healing (Visualization)

By Barefoot Medic

Today my wife took an ITEC exam in Massage and came home with a classic tale of visualization.

In the past, I have told how I warmed my feet on cold nights in front of an imaginary coal fire and banished insomnia by visualizing a party down the street.

I know it works because I’ve employed it since my early teens. 

Fred, a Reiki Grand Master was also taking the exam.  When it was over, a fellow student complained of aching & creaky joints. 

Fred told her to close her eyes & visualize him with an imaginary oil can.

He gently manipulated each joint in her hands then said, ”I’m starting to pour oil into this joint, & this, & this…  He oiled both her hands then she opened her eyes and to her amazement, her pain was gone.

So, my wife told him about her tennis elbow and pointed to the spot.

“Here!” he said, and she felt a sharp pain radiating up and down her arm.  “Close your eyes and imagine I’m giving you an injection that will anesthetize it.  Now feel the needle prick.  It’s going in now, feel your elbow going numb?  I’m now slowly withdrawing the needle!  How does that feel?”

Amazingly all the pain had gone.

“The injection will last for up to 24 hours then you will have to give yourself a second injection.”

“Ten hours later she was still pain-free!”

Two up for visualization…

  

At the Crossroads

Crossroads 

By Len Morgan 

Why does he want me beside him in the middle of the night?

Snuggling close and warming me in the absence of the light.

During the day he does his own thing, never seeking to share,

Whistling and talking to himself as though I weren’t even there.

 

Come the night, he seeks me out as sure as night follows day

And as always I relent it seems the easiest way.

I cook and sew and plan and shop, watch TV if there’s time

I sit and think and have a drink and ponder that’s no crime!

 

Should we exist as in a play just acting out a mime

staying together passion spent existing, killing time?

Though all is gone we talk till dawn instead of counting cost

Should I stay or walk away to seek the magic we’ve lost…

 A DAY IN SOUTHEND

by Richard Banks

It’s been a long time, nearly fifty years, and in my absence not too much has changed. Edwardian shop fronts are still to be seen, and in the ‘old town,’ next to the sea, the housing stock is of a similar vintage, but the green shoots of modernity have arrived in the form of two off-street shopping malls and a university hidden away in the back doubles. There’s also a new cinema, a multiplex.

         Some things will never change, the curving slope of the pedestrianised High Street down to the estuary and the view across it to Sheerness and the Kent Isles. Trains still run up and down the pier, and the Royal Hotel where I am bound is much improved from the neglected Georgian building I remember as a child. Indeed the hotel and the terrace to which it is joined have never looked better. They belong to historic Southend, a reminder of its genteel and sometimes aristocratic past when a small fishing village was pushing its claim to be a fashionable seaside resort. Over two hundred years later the aspirations of those who now run this City are much the same.

         That’s why I’m here. I’m what I call a Climate Engineer. I make weather, micro weather systems that turn winter into summer, where extreme weather events never happen and it only rains at night. In 2024 this is an amazing technology and I am the genius who has made it happen. Quite how is a closely guarded secret. After all, if this went mainstream who would pay me the megabucks I presently command.

         So, today I am meeting the Executive Committee of the Development Partnership to hear what sort of weather they want, and for me to tell them how much it is going to cost. The meeting is in an upstairs room of the hotel. I am met at the front door by a young man who conveys me up several flights of stairs to a large room where the Committee is already gathered. The Chairman, a Councilman, politely welcomes me, introduces me to six other suits and directs my attention to the view outside. This, he says, is the Southend we are here to discuss, the seaside resort beloved by generations of visitors.

         Down below is a cliffside garden that slopes steeply down to a well-trafficked road. The promenade beyond it is wide and long, terminating in outlying parts of the City that were once separate towns. Centre stage is the longest pleasure pier in the world and either side of that is a large fairground with all the big rides. The amusement arcades and eateries to the east are hidden behind another hotel, ‘The Palace,’ but I know they are there. It is October, the sky is grey and a cold wind off the estuary has deterred all but the most intrepid promenaders. Once - before the masses could afford foreign holidays - Southend was a place where people stayed for a week or two in boarding houses that have long since gone out of business. Nowadays it is the day tripper that contributes liberally to the City’s coffers. Big money on warm summer days, and of those there can never be enough. At least that’s what the Development Partnership thinks.

         They have been to Brighton, my last big project, and want much the same but with a few extras. As well as warm, dry days throughout the year it is important, they say, that Southend’s weather is distinctively different, that it has features only to be found within its borders. I tell them that they can have any shade of blue sky that they wish and that once allocated it will be theirs and theirs alone. In addition, I say, the setting of the sun over the estuary offers exciting opportunities to light up the evening sky with a range of sunset colours that will only be seen in Southend.

         The Committee looks impressed. I undertake to give them a detailed proposal, and the discussion inevitably moves on to cost. This is the bit they don’t like. I have a single fee, it’s non-negotiable, take it or leave it. Yes, I say, I know it’s expensive but if Brighton is anything to go by the project will turn a profit within three years. The money men on the Committee, the venture capitalists, know I am right and that I can deliver. They say nothing; they will reserve their comments for the discussion that takes place after I depart. In case they are not fully committed I immerse Southend in a torrential downpour that floods some of its streets. The message I am sending is clear. Put up with this and the winter freeze to come, or feel the warmth of the sun in paradise. It’s a no-brainer.

         They wish that they understood the science that enables me to do what I do. They would steal it if they could, but they can’t for the very good reason that it does not exist. Oh yes, I have all the paraphernalia of a laboratory and more computers than mission control. I employ a score of so-called technicians to analyse data and provide graphics for my web sites, but it is all for show. In an age when science is the new religion, I must appear to be the man of learning, the kind of man the world values and understands. Those, like me who ‘do’ but don’t know how, defy all explanation and are feared, our powers a danger that some might regard as witchcraft.

         As a small child fascinated by my ability to stop clouds in mid-air and make rain or sunshine I did only good things. Holidays or days out to the seaside were always blessed with warm sunny weather, my mother’s washing was dried by a southerly breeze, and my father’s garden liberally rained upon whenever he thought it too dry. But if I could reward those I liked I could also punish the few I did not. Those that threatened me were most at risk, the school bully who blacked my eye was struck by lightning and taken to hospital, his long blond hair pointing stiffly towards the sky and sizzling with electricity. My mother, the only person to realise my part in his misfortune, made me promise never again to use my powers to harm others. We had a pact, she kept my secret and I kept my word. Now that she is no more I am free to do as I please and what pleases me is to use my powers to become obscenely rich.

         I used to think that my interventions produced no overall benefit or disbenefit for mankind, some would suffer while others prospered. Now, I no longer care. Why care for a people so intent on destroying the planet and each other. The pollution they pump into the sky and seas I have no remedy for, and having none my contribution to this man made time bomb has been to shorten the fuse; a crisis brought closer to the ‘here and now’ has commercial opportunities that no enterprising entrepreneur can ignore. So, when Governments desperate for a solution come my way, as surely they will, I will ‘rise to the challenge’ and remove from the equation my not insignificant contribution to worldwide warming. What happens after that is down to mankind, this man can only do so much.

         In the meantime, Southend will be warmed with little consequence for the planet, and you and I will be allowed in for an entrance fee costing less than a plane ticket to Torremolinos. Paradise awaits you; sun, chips and beer, satisfaction guaranteed! What more could anyone want?

 

The End.

 

Copyright Richard Banks