A Game of Patience

A Game of Patience, 1937, Meredith Frampton




Dressed in blue-stocking grey, to match the sharpness 
of her intellect, Margaret Austin-Jones 
sits alone in solitary pursuit. 
Her eyes deep hazel, her hair sweet chestnut, 
crimped in waves so neat and precise they match her
manner and the cut of her dress, (modern, 
Vogue-patterned, made for her with care).
Although she's up-to-date, she is but
young and wise in every way but love.
Like Eve she yearns too much for life, desires
to taste the apple, touch  the texture of 
the ears of corn, impatient for the blood- 
red buds to bloom. She hears a footfall on 
the stair, her heartbeat pounds, she glances at
the door.  Like a scene from a novel, in
a room with a view, the dramatic part 
has come; she has played a patient game of 
waiting for a suitor to appear, has 
craved and dreamed herself a handsome, kindly
knave but little knows she may have drawn instead
a darkly evil, scheming, King of Spades.



Cait O’Connor




This is Sunday's Magpie Tale, read others here

Collapse of Capitalism

Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalized, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism.

Karl Marx, 1867, Das Kapital

Collapse of Capitalism


As Marx foretold to us, the cake is shrinking,
the ship is sinking,  the rodents have come
to the fore, the fat cats feast upon our
shores, feuding and fighting amongst themselves.
The vulnerable seem to be subdued,
repressed, dismissed, their lifelines cast  aloft
into some briny deep along with truth
and trust, care and humankind’s compassion.
Only the slightest shreds of verity
remain, almost entirely covered now
by lies and spin as the cake reduces.
The poorest, the meek, the sick and the weak,
the greens and the peacemakers, once were blessed
but are now portrayed as fools or traitors,
burdens or charlatans, benefit scroungers.
The rodent-rich, much richer than before,
step upon the enslaved and the ignorant,
laughing at them as they do, with barely
hidden arrogance, while gnawing at their bones.


Cait O’Connor

Avatar

 Sweet Summer 1912 John William Waterhouse

Avatar.  Hinduism.  A manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form on earth; an incarnate divine teacher.


Avatar


No more the crone, she lies alone, basking
in a perpetual summer; soaking
in the sweetness of the scent of roses
and the sleekness of her grey silk clinging.
A sash of russet tied around her waist,
breast-bared and cooling in the sultry heat,
just the sounds of birds and water singing.
This is her one true dream, her avatar.
At peace, restored, her beauty everlasting,
no more the victim, no more the doom, no
more the dread, a victim of life’s vagaries.
She lies, she sleeps, completely lost in love
and dreams of just its pleasing fripperies,
no need for knights in gleaming armouries
to save her from herself.  Her self is free,
and flying now, somewhere high above, it
floats at whim and far away from all the
suffering of life and its mendacities
.


Cait O’Connor




This is my latest Magpie Tale, more can be read here

Not To Be Reproduced

Rene Magritte 1937




Not To Be Reproduced


Like Plath, I too often mused on mirrors,
Like Alice, I  wandered  from Wonderland
into a looking-glass world of magic.
I came upon an image, surreal,
an enigma framed in gilt, dressed in brown.
Here was a man too neat, too still, but with
silken hair inclined to curl . Upon the
mantel I spied a book and felt it was
like him, adventurous of mind, well worn,
a much loved mystery and better written
in the finest French. Gazing, tuning in,
I sensed another poet-soul, a dreamer,
self effacing, illuminated always
from behind but  hiding his reflections
except in unleashed poems on the page.



Cait O’Connor





This is for Magpie Tales, more can be found here

Julia Margaret Cameron

Sadness

Sean Scully

Just because I love it.

Dumbing Down Century

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

Albert Einstein

Dumbing Down Century


Perfect pout and pristine pearly white veneers,
plumped lips painted with iridescent ruby
juice, her medication’s taken capsulised
in luscious (chemical) lemon flavour.
Kept tranquillised and dumbed down daily, her
development is arrested, she is
lacking a  proper education.  Licked
into shape, stuffed with  useless knowledge which
she must regurgitate on the command
in the exam room (aka factory for failures).
The media and government spoon feeds  sweet
snippets of only what she needs to know,
(lies or truth, who cares?).  They will preach, harangue,
sermonise; indoctrinate and moralise;
obliterate originality,
anaesthetise her imagination
paralyse her inborn creativity.



Cait O’Connor



Latest Magpie Tale, more here