Pamula Furness, (born Pamela Furniss), is a Kettering girl through and through. She has been writing, drawing and creating with many different media for over 50 years, settling on poetry, together with abstract drawing and painting, as her main focus of attention.
She has spent a few years in Northampton, running a shop in which she sold her own tie-dye creations, mainly T. shirts and bedding sets. She then moved to north London, (Crouch End, to be exact), and began by cleaning houses, and ended up a Property Manager for a residential lettings company. During this brief time of 10 years, she successfully ran 17 houses and 3 flats, being involved with everything from placing adverts for vacant rooms, to running the accounts of over 120 people in her ‘care’. Her tenants were her charges, and she assisted them with everything from Housing Benefit claims to relationship and mental health counselling. Those houses were not called ‘Pamula houses’ for no reason!
After returning to Kettering in 2002, she worked as a patisserie shop assistant, estate agent, dinner lady AND had her own pub kitchen for just under two years, where she perfected her many pie and pasty fillings and provided meals from Wednesday to Sunday in the pub itself. She also created a completely new recipe for protein bars, which local weightlifters bought by the bucketload. She also sold her pastries, pies, puddings and cakes on Wellingborough Market.
These days, she Home-schools her 14 year old daughter, and enjoys time working in her garden and on her allotment.
When it comes to inspiration for writing or drawing, she draws on her many experiences in her life, the good, the bad and the downright traumatic. Especially the traumatic, as it has left a rich vein of possible metamorphoses, from violence and terror to compassion, kindness and empathy.
She copies also from Nature, especially clouds, flowers, buds/seeds and root systems. Her intricate patterns hide many different pictures within pictures, and any that are produced in black and white are positively begging to be coloured in. Quite a large number of her drawings are also appreciable from any angle – this means they will never be hung upside-down! Anyone who decides to colour in any of her work should know that doing so is greatly appreciated.
In a Valentine's Day Card |
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In a Valentine's Day Card
This card was made with all my Love
With loads of love and kisses
Though I suspect I’ll never get,
To be your cherished ‘Missus’,
So, eat my heart up while you may
And satisfy your hunger,
You never know when I may fall
For someone else, much younger!
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Legion |
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Legion
I’m an amalgamation,
Of all the folk I’ve known,
A habit here, a gesture there,
A word, a smile, a nod.
Surface illustrations,
From faces through my life,
Decorate emotions and
Impressions running rife.
How deep do they go though,
These adopted traits?
Do they affect my reasoning,
The way that I behave?
And, if they’re so deep-rooted
Would I recognize the signs
That separate the influences
From feelings I call mine?
I fear that I’ve forgotten me
Left lonely, far behind,
In some long-distant innocence
Grown dark and cold with time.
Outside this self-made edifice,
Of gleanings from existence,
Built to keep me safe from harm,
They’ve only kept my distance.
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Mother Nature |
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Mother Nature
Sweet Mother Nature wakens me,
Her pulse runs through my veins,
From fingertips to yearning soul,
And my heart throbs again
Joining every gasp of breath
With beautiful Earth, our Mother
That aching need has brought me here
Today, to rediscover
Soft and muskyaromas
Brought out by a warm shower,
Contrived to remind me that I am
A happy little Flower!
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Fibro Fun |
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Fibro Fun
I’m total body hiccupping,
A Fibro ‘thing’, I’m told,
Jolts of “WAKE UP! Lazy bones!”
Reminding me I’m old.
Sometimes, it lasts for an hour,
Enough time to make up this song,
About all of my previous power,
That’s just buggered off and gone wrong.
So, there was me, just strolling,
At six miles an hour through the town,
When “WALLOP”, I’m hit with this illness
My whole lifestyle comes crashing down.
No more the fluttering and flirting
Darting hither and yon
No more late-night working,
Those carefree days are gone.
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Decay (in a limerick) |
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Decay (in a limerick)
My hands and my hips, the most painful bits,
Go hammer and tongs every day
Making movement too sore, and touch even more,
So, I tend to just sit and decay.
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Cat Herding |
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Cat Herding
I’m sitting here on the stairs
In nothing but my pants,
‘Cos both my cats, George and Tom,
Are leading me a dance
I cannot put the light on
So, my writing is all wobbly
Will my sacrifice be worth it?
I should say, quite prob’ly
This poem looked finely written,
Elegant and lacey,
Like copperplate, thought night time me
From the days of Mr. Darcey.
(Though I suspect that herding cats
Was not one of his hobbies!)
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Extra Weight |
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Extra Weight
Little fatty Furness,
A dumpling I’ve become
Now, lustful types stare openly,
Each time I wiggle my bum.
The years now have landed
In pounds around my girth
Soft, warm rolls of flesh,
A womanly rebirth!
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The Fear |
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The Fear
Don’t help me! I won’t know how to handle it,
I flail about inside, wondering, panicking,
How you are going to hurt or abuse me.
I twitch at your touch, ready to run
When your payment due day arrives.
What will your kindness cost me? How many
Bruises, tears, cuts and broken bones?
The closer we get, the higher the price,
I do all I can to placate and please you,
Hoping the horror won’t start again,
Sneaking around you, fearful to wake you,
Avoiding your eyes and ears, your attention.
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Disappointment |
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Disappointment
True Love can be killed,
By guilt, and by self-doubt,
It’s only by experience,
We mortals find this out
To hunger for just one
For more years than seems right
Destroyed instantly by rage,
The most nasty, vicious bite
I so wish that hadn’t been
That you and I were still
Sinking in each other’s arms,
I could not get my fill
Of you, just can’t forget,
The pleasure and the pain,
My soulmate transformed
To disappoint again.
Just can’t get you out of my mind,
Forget the Love we shared
I so wish you had married me,
Your Love for me declared.
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A (3 part) Limerick |
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A (3 part) Limerick
I’m a dead weight,
And more than that, mate
I can hold you back
To get sidetracked
Convince you that it’s your fate.
You want to prove,
That you can move
Upwards and beyond all this,
This listlessness
We both know will never improve
Stuck in this chair,
Going nowhere
As my body rejects me and dies
Some folks empathise
While others say, “How is this fair”
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True Love |
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True Love
Long, Rangy men,
Slim-thighed and lithe,
Aggravate those
Bits of my psyche,
That hunger for
Sanctuary
A safer space
For me. To Be.
Part of a pair,
Independent,
Entwined as one,
Live. Different.
Remain alone?
The choice is mine
But, I believe,
This is the time.
To understand
My part in this
T’was down to me,
To give the Bliss
Of your own child
Something you’d lost
Any hope of,
Too high a cost.
True Love? Still yours,
You both need it,
Yes, this is why
She can see it
In your soft heart
She waits for you
Both of us know,
This is the Truth
Your story is long
It ends with her
Here, take my heart,
Share it with her.
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