Month: October 2013

How I wrote this poem

The subject matter of a poem must come from whatever is inside your head.So reading more poetry or any well written literature contributes.The form of the poem may determine what rises to the surface as you write.I got the idea of beginning with a negative from some poetry newsletter I get [Sorry,not kept  reference] I was reluctant to write a sonnet.Iambic pentamet sounds frightening.To help me keep in my the right structure I recite

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

Then I have to start,I think if a first line

“Not love nor money should we seek to steal;”

I like that as there is some alliteration,it’s the right length.and I agree with the sentiment.Once I have a first line then  the next lines seem to come more easily.THe whole sonnet is a surprise to me.Did I know I thought like that?Well,in a way, but r so explicitly.I have written about five now.They do resemble poems by the Metaphysicals like Donne.So I am unsure if I have found my own voice.I think the more one write the more likely it is you will find your own voice.Check the meter.Check for cliches.Check for adverbs used to correct the meter

Read poetry in books,on blogs,on the internet.Study some guides like

Teach yourself:writing poetry.

I like

W H Auden ,,Sylvia Plath,SimonArmitage,Donne,Marvell…..,Shakespeare,Rilke,Seamus Heaney,Hopkins,W B Yeats/

but you really need to read some modern poetry,

bus stop 6

BY SOME GRACE

Not love nor money should we seek to steal;
Nor for self praise and honor be in need
For these things cannot ever truly heal.
And onto a wrong path may often lead.

Not to vice nor virtue must our wills be tied;
Yet by some grace we gently may be led
Our will directs attention which denied
May let our pride control our thoughtless head.

Not good nor bad can track the vane of God
Far from our sightless eyes are his affairs.
Yet Faith and Hope can be a dowsing rod
With Love the force to trace the Spirit bare.

Oh,come down,Spirit,take me as your wife
Fill me with holy grace and with new life

Never think in bed

If you feel lonely in bed remember there are probably a few insects on you or if not millions of microbes inside you and take comfort from that..If you are lucky you may even have bed bugs.They bite but so do men sometimes.Tf that worries you boil your mattress every week. I said boil,not oil!Do listen,,,We used to boil them in a pan.Oh,no,that was our hankies.Well,boil them and dry them and then make the bed… there’s some wood in the shed.

Am I thinking?

Thinking again

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.” — George Bernard Shaw

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Thinking too much or the wrong kind of thinking?

I do not agree that having thoughts,ideas or words in your head  means that you are thinking.You may be obsessing or tormenting yourself….

free_animal_angels_screensaver-131729-3

Some quotes:

“Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”
― Thomas A. Edison

THINKING TOO MUCH?

http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Thinking-Too-Much

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Remember any poetry

Which poetry do you remember without trying to learn it?I remember Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll…author of Alice in Wonderland and Island by W H Auden.Also the Lady of Shalott and some of Wordsworth and Shakespeare.I wonder why those?I am glad I did learn some by heart but sometimes my heart has learned them by itself!!

Is writing poetry theraputic?

Here is a website which says so:

http://www.poeticmedicine.com/

Some people say it is but poets have a much higher suicide rate than any other  people/

I read:It is diagnostic but not therapeutic [Sylvia Plath]

I also read that writing to a strict form is more likely to help you then writing free verse…seems intriguing.I believe if you have suffered a lot in life,writing may bring it to the surface.Fiona Sampson in  The Expert Guide to Poetry Writing advises one to keep the phone number of the Samaritans to hand!That tells you a lot.I wonder what T.S.Eliot would say or Ted Hughes?What do you think?

Oh,John,Joe Brown you were my man

An interesting image here

Katherine's avatarHow my heart sings

Image is made from a photo of Manhattan

Image

Oh,John Joe was a jolly man.
He was the man for me.
He had ten fingers on his hands,
And always on my knee,
Oh,John Joe was my husband dear,
He slept upon my bed.
He had ten toes upon his feet,
No man was better bred.
Oh,Dear John Joe did pass away,
Whilst he lay on the grass.
And now ~I have no one aside of me,
How slow the night hours pass.
I love John Joe with all my heart,
I’ll never love a man
The way I loved my dear John Joe.
I don’t believe I can,
I read a twenty dozen books,
And went for therapee.
But all I want is my John Joe
In bed aside of me.
Oh come back John,Oh come back Joe
Don’t you leave me here.
Oh,John Joe I can’t live without
MY…

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Hannah Arendt and thinking

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/05/30/lonely-thinking-hannah-arendt-on-film/

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/26/hannah-arendt-reviewThe reason I am writing this is that at the end of this film,Arendt gives a seven minute monologue on,what is thinking?

She believed the people like Eichmann who carried out Hitler’s Final Solution were not psychotic monsters but were people unable to think.I feel unqualified to comment on that except to agree with her that true thinking is not easy and how can we learn to do it.It cannot be just a mental process but must involve the whole of a person.If we fear to think we will join a movement, a church or any other organisation which we will obey in order not to have to think.I believe many of us still do that.Thinling can be a lonely business as she said

[By the way,I am not  Jewish]

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Sun on wisteria

Wisteria coils like snakes on red brick walls,
And catches sunshine as it turns about
My eyes feel rapture as the bright light falls,
And out go all uncertainty and doubt.
To forget this self and all my blackest thoughts.
To be by light restored and made anew;
I thank You,who mysteriously has wrought
This world and me and mine and all I know.
To see all things in glory in the sun
To value what your perfect hand has done.
On mundane errands,what a burst of love
Can pierce my heart like singing from a dove.
Give me one hour of glorious,golden light,
And I accept the blackness of your Night

Oh,John,Joe Brown you were my man

Image is made from a photo of Manhattan

Image

Oh,John Joe was a jolly man.
He was the man for me.
He had ten fingers on his hands,
And always on my knee,
Oh,John Joe was my husband dear,
He slept upon my bed.
He had ten toes upon his feet,
No man was better bred.
Oh,Dear John Joe did pass away,
Whilst he lay on the grass.
And now ~I have no one aside of me,
How slow the night hours pass.
I love John Joe with all my heart,
I’ll never love a man
The way I loved my dear John Joe.
I don’t believe I can,
I read a twenty dozen books,
And went for therapee.
But all I want is my John Joe
In bed aside of me.
Oh come back John,Oh come back Joe
Don’t you leave me here.
Oh,John Joe I can’t live without
MY husband lying near.
Oh,life’s so simple,life’s so clear,
We all need work and love,
I have my work cut out today
A grieving for my dove
.
Oh,John Joe Brown,you were my man.
I’ll not have any more.
I wish I lay within your arms
Were oft I’ve lain before.
I’ve never lain wi’ noone else
And never will again,
If I can’t have my sweetheart John,
I’ll not have any man.
Oh,come back John,Oh,come back Joe
Don’t lay down in the grass.
I’ll bake thee cake and mutton pies..
So sweet the hours shall pass.
I see ye’ face all pale and white,
Thee frightens me sometimes,
I’ll sit down on my kitchen chair
And think on long gone times
I love my John,I love my Joe,
Oh saints and angels save.
Without my John aside of me,
I’ll soon be in my grave.

The Death Of A Year

Read this poet

ianblackpoet's avatarIan Stewart Black

The summer of my mirth has fled:
Long since wilted are the lily,
Rose and dahlia; the sun despairs
in darkness, and the leaves are dead.

My blood is nectar for the moon:
Rotting apples of the season
Litter listless streets, where blossoms sought
To make their merry way in June.

For death has come, the world is bare:
Stillness falls on all in mourning;
Dreary clouds in desolation weep
From heavens greying in despair.

Our happiness and hope exhaust:
Roseate and gilded leaves are
Torn from withered trees; Another year
Is dead, and all we had is lost.

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God’s not on a map

 6880061_4bcc9b92ca_m 3
    I bought a brand new A to Z.
    I bought a map of Wales.
    I roamed around the whole day long
    Despite the snow and gales.
    I bought the Ordnance Survey too
    of all of the UK
    I looked at maps on Amazon
    and even on E Bay
    I studied charts of Greenland
    And Africa and France
    I talked to expert geographers
    Who looked at me askance.
    Borneo or Burma?
    Malaysia or Spain?
    Where does Father Brown say..
    I must read his books again
    But giving up, I came back home
    And lay down for a nap
    Suddenly it came to me!
    God’s not on a map.

What or whom to go to bed with after thinking?

What animal can comfort a human being standing at the edge of their world looking over a precipice? Just another warm human animal who does not speak but holds with strong arms without denying  what we have seen as we fall into the depths of our dreams

Heidegger did one service: He showed us that thinking is not enough

When we say someone is a great thinker,what do we mean?And can someone be a great thinker about some aspects of life,the world,society,philosophy and a very poor thinker in other aspects?Naturally I am thinking about Heidegger.Greatly admired,influential and a tutor to the likes of Hanna Arendt.

We could say he  did us a service in reminding us that not even a great philosopher is always a good judge of society,politics and new  ideas.Moreover,he must have shut his eyes to the attacks on Jewish people across Germany….How can this be?I hear someone saying,thinking is not enough if it is restricted to what is safe to think about.Character,ethical status,love of humanity seem to be absent from some of our academics and scholars.And  how much more is that likely when our Universities  are run as profit making  businesses where the number of citations you receive is the measure of your work’s worth…. so noone may ever read it yet if you ask all your colleagues,friends and contacts to cite you then success and acclaim await.Meanwhile society crumbles,the poor are punished  and  old made anxious.

Re Hannah Arendt  [ Wikipedia’

Film

In 2012 a German film titled Hannah Arendt was released, directed by Margarethe von Trotta, and with Barbara Sukowa in the role of Arendt. The film concentrates on the Eichmann trial, and the controversy caused by Arendt’s book, which at the time was  WIDELY  MISUNDERSTOOD as defending Eichmann and blaming Jewish leaders for the Shoa/Holocaust

 

 

 

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Could you love an insect?

We were told when Robert the Bruce was in prison he survived by studying a spider creating its webs,It consoled him.So the spider helped him but was hardly a pet.First it was totally independent and more important,insects don’t have faces.They have eyes but no expression.And they are too small.A cat may feel like a baby…but a fly will not

Which makes me think we love  animals and even birds because we can detect a personality or imagine we do…….we can ascribe feelings and love to them.Perhaps we make them into mini human beings?

As insects are so different and smaller generally,as they are cold blooded,they seem too different to become pets.I have been known to address a spider as I help it out of the bath but I can’t distinguish that one from another.With cats,even when they are the same color,we can recognise their eyes,And they are very aware of our feelings…and wish to comfort.

But with insects we can get benefit by see how different they are and studying their lives .Ants are very kind to each other and carry a damaged ant back to the nest,for examplle.So they can provide food for thought..

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The tale of the coffee loving cat

Tigger
Stan was sweeping the garden path.He had a stiff broom with a small head that was useful for cleaning the edges of the steps.Emile, his beautiful cat was sitting in the old apple tree gazing down on Stan.
“Is it time for coffee yet,”Stan asked himself.He had forgotten to put on his watch.
Suddenly he heard a shriek.He peered through a hole in the fence.His neighbor Anne was lying on her back in some mud.
“Hang on,I’ll come round!” he called.
There was a gate in the old fence which was rarely locked
since she loved to drop in on Stan.
“Oh,,how are you feeling?” he asked her anxiously.
“Bloody annoyed.I’ve only just bought these,”Not your daughter’s jeans” and now I’ve torn them,” she replied politely.
“But you don’t have a daughter!” he informed her loudly.
“I know that.It’s just they are better cut for the mature figure.”
“Your figure is not mature.You are quite slender.my dear,” he murmured lovingly.
“Well,I never feel happy with it!” she said mutinously.
“Whereas I am very happy feeling it,” he responded romantically.
Tears came into her green eyes lined with purple eye shadow.Alas,it was not waterproof and purple rivulets ran down her cheeks across the peach blusher with which she had valiantly decorated herself earlier.
“Can you get up?” he asked tenderly.
“Yes, but it would be nice if you picked me up.”
He leaned over her and licked the purple streams of tears off her cheeks.
“I hope it’s not poisonous,” she murmured.
Then with the aid of Emile,he lifted her to her feet and helped her into her large trendy kitchen.
The kettle switched itself on as they entered and a robotic voice asked if they’d like coffee.
“God in heaven,what the hell is that?” he cried confusedly.
“It’s my new computerized hot drink maker.After that fall I think a double espresso would be good.”
Emile ran in and asked for coffee too.
“Emile,you usually have milk,”Stan reminded him softly.
“Well,coffee is a new taste for me but I like a little.”
the cat whispered sweetly.
“I’ll give you some of mine in a saucer,” Stan replied.
Emile began to sob.
“Why Emile,whatever is wrong?”
“I want a cup and saucer just like you” the cat howled.
But you have no hands,Emile,” Stan reminded him.
The poor cat was crying loudly now.So Stan rang 999.
“Can you please send the emergency ambulance round.the cat’s crying and all his hankies are in the wash.”#
Soon Dave,the transvestite paramedic appeared.
“I love your light teal kitchen,” he informed Annie,
“And your eyes look like two deep pools in a coal mine.”
She slapped his cheek naughtily.
“Have a look at Emile” she ordered him sweetly.
He turned to the cat who was sitting on the dark pine table.
“Here,Emile,I got you some Kleenex for Cats in Sainsbury’s.” he said gaily.
“I want a real hanky,”cried Emile.Dave took a clean hanky from his own pocket and dried the cats tears.
“What made you cry.Are you feeling bad.”
“Yes,I want to go to Cafe Nero,” Emile mioawed.
“Who told you about that?”
“Another cat down the road has been and he said it’s lovely for people watching.”
“The town is not safe for cats like you,Emile.”
Dave urbanely replied,
“But when summer come I’ll take you to the out of town
Marks and Spencer’s.They have a cat’s coffee corner upstairs.”
“Wow,isn’t it amazing,”Stan wondered out loud.
So Dave poured out the coffee and they all sat down and
discussed Ray Monk’s Life of Wittgenstein.
Ray has discovered that Wittgenstein liked cats but as he moved around quite a bit,he never owned his own cat
though Elizabeth Anscombe let him play with her three cats now and then.
We may all be different but most of us value the love of a good cat.Even boiling their hankies and ironing them is very nice.We all have this problem though.
Where can a cat carry his own hanky?
Do cats need shoulder bags?
What would Wittgenstein say?
Nothing is my guess.
Whereof one cannot speak..

A person is not a pet

Some people keep birds as pets.To me it seems so  cruel… a bird should fly.I suppose making any animal a pet may be wrong but some want to be.Dogs and cats no doubt were better off living near humans… so they moved closer.And the Egyptians worshipped cats .Some people treat their spouse  like  a pet.But it’s a bad idea.People may enjoy it at first but no-one can be the propertyof someone else however benevolent.Control is not loving even if you shower them with gifts,caresses and kisses.We need to belong but also to be free….to a reasonable extent….I know some people get sexually aroused by games of dominance and submission but it’s not good to be like that all time,in my view.I know books like Fifty shades of grey sell.But why do we need others fantasies?Why not use our own minds?

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Seems like the ice is inside me

Air,bitter they call it,whispers to the sweet planes of my face,

Shrieks shrill to my cavities,ears,mouth and nose;penetrates all that’s open;

Probing like a surgeon’s knife,to see what healing damage it might do.

 

A frozen finger,touches my heart;

Seems like the ice is inside me sending urgent warnings.

 

On that high inner mountain,you’ll feel nothing at all…

You’ll be the snowman, a bloody icicle;

An Old Testament of Endurance;

A legend like the pale polar bears,

snuffling uneasily around the summit

 

Touching a woman’s heart is the quickest way to gain her attention

 

I’m looking at you;you’re in pieces.

You’re a puzzle,a jigsaw with two double dynamos.

A broken racing bicycle crossed with two ice skates.

Ten motorboats crashed into a yacht and abandoned on a Swiss lake in winter.

 

Can I leave you scattered like this?

 

You’re a man in a penguin suit;

Diplomatic, attached with the coldest reserves.

You’re a spy from the court of the Vatican City

A screaming Pope;

An unbaptized demon.

A lost angel with no hands;

A half hung side of meat;

An unbroken rampant horse deluded by winds east.

 

We were split,one from another;

Split in ourselves too–thoughts and emotions

Are raw like meat,weeping as they are pulled apart into islands.

 

I see there’s a cold window between us.

I rub it with my damp coat sleeve,like children do,licking on it;

And see your eyes gleam in hope like greenish diamonds.

Yet I can’t touch you,until we learn how to melt glass.

 

Are you trying too as you smile weakly,

desperately holding onto this impossible slippery glass?

We’ll try reach you at the bottom of whatever frozen ocean you sigh in.

 

Here you are,a flat and two dimensional Prospero.

You rise like a non-U-boat already firing at the upper orders.

Here you are walking through what seemed like ruins

And you are not just alive, but burning.

Well,Jesus had no cassock!

Pray Father,give me your guessing.

My guessing!Don’t you mean my blessing.

Oh,probably.Possibly..who knows.

So have you any sins to tell me?

Yes,I broke a glass jug.

Whose was it?

It was mine,Father.

Surely it’s not a sin to break your own jug?

It is if you hit yourself on the head with it!

What made you do that?

I was angry with myself…I had been committing effrontery.

Do you mean adultery?Your main problem seems to be bad language.

No,Father I never say” Fuck”

You just did.

Well I had to do.I had no choice!

That’s what they all say…if only I heard some original sin I’d find life more interesting.

Well,it’s hard to think of anything original to do especially if it has to be a sin too.

You are just not using your creativity.

All right Father,Put your hands up.i’ve got a gun.

Where did you find that?

In my wife’s handbag.

Now we are getting somewhere.. that’s threatening a priest,interfering in your wife’s privacy and stealing a gun.Any other sins?

I could shoot you,I suppose.

No.no!That is going too far.

Shall I slap you?

No… just say something rude to me.

Your sermons are the most boring I have ever heard.

Well,that’s enough…I’ve never been so insulted in my life.

You have been very lucky then… you should hear what people say to me!

Well,you are both ugly and unintelligent.I don’t know how you had the nerve to marry.

I had no choice.She forced me.But I gave in quickly in case she changed her mind.

And you have seven children.

No, they are not all mine,And they are Jewish.

How can they be Jewish.

My wife is Jewish!

I thought she was just a lapsed Catholic.

No,she’s Jewish but not even an arranged marriage could be arranged for her so she used her imagination and decided an overweight ugly Catholic would be grateful for her love,

And are you grateful?

Yes, and so are all her lovers!

Who are they?

The curate is one of them and has two children .. they look just like him too.

And does she want them raised as Jews?

She just let’s them rise naturally and go with the flow.

Do they have to wear hats?

Only in the Synagogue!

Are you Jewish too.

Yes,it’s quite handy as we have Sabbath on Saturday and then we have Sunday on Sunday if you see what I mean.

I never met anyone who practised two religions before.;

Well,I figured it would double my chance of salvation!

Well. I must speak to the Rabbi.For your penance you must give £50 to Homeless at Xmas.

Am I absolved.

If you stay any longer you’ll be dissolved!

Thank you,Father.

And take that gun away.I don’t want it.

I can get you a good price for your cassock.

Why,thank you,my child but I need it.

Well,Jesus had no cassock!

Well, he was a  Jew…I am a Catholic.

Now,that makes me think.

Think what?

About the Vatican…

Let’s not go there,

Shalom

THE KEYHOLE

Image

Sometimes I had my eye too close to the keyhole

    Pulled there by some force like gravity.
    I was gazing with a sharp but narrow focus
    into what I thought was the real.
    But the precision of my gaze
    left out the surroundings, the other doors and rooms
    that  I might have inhabited.
    As he came to me and opened his arms with no rancour,,
    so my eyes opened wider,I took in the new wide vision
    and left my crouched and aching position
    no longer attached like a magnet to your force,
    He was there with his sea eyes.
    He knew the human condition
    And how to inhabit a  conversation.
    Of course he’s had his wounds but never failed to feel
    for himself and others.
    In the night he went through in his mind’s eye the faces
    of his friends;holding them ,like he’d once held fragile rose buds
    when we were married,
    and asked silently for grace.
    The keyhole no longer seemed important
    I suppose narrowing the focus can keep out knowledge of pain..
    But the pain is atill there;
    I have always loved the word “Acknowledge.”

    And now I use it. I acknowledge this pain

Thinking about what is called thinking [Heidegger]

I have now got the book “What is called thinking” by Martin Heidegger despite my qualms about his political history.I know he wrote it in German  and hence a translation may  give a different meaning so maybe my thoughts are not sensible….and my first thoughts are………….. it is fascinating title.He is looking at an activity that we humans do.He is asking what it is we do when we say we think.So before I read it  I am putting a few reflections.Thinking means standing back,waiting and reflecting.Often we do things  because our parents did or our friends.Then sometimes we wonder about our life,we pause and try to examine how we are living.Or we could be solving an intellectual problem.Some things like quadratic equations can be solved by a formula.And many people are happy just to perform this rote activity But even though its math,you are not thinking when you do that.And I have an intuition  that we avoid thinking much of the time because we step outside our automatic patterns.I once read an article that says depression comes on us when we face a problem at the unconscious level.The tiredness,slowness and painful feelings make us withdraw and that gives our minds time to reflect.So there must also be unconscious thinking.Maybe  that  other mind  uses images as  in dreams.And we all know that “sleeping” on a problem often produces a solution.Thinking may not be verbal all of the time.And we must have something to think about.We  must be participating in the world of Others.Language comes via others.We are part of a society…at first just a few family members.But our tongue is shared with many people.And when we think in words,those words came before us and go on after us.

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Sheep as pets

Have you ever considered keeping a sheep as a pet? they don’t appear to bite or scratch,they would keep you warm ay night,they would not be in danger if you rolled onto them…I am unsure how much a sheep weighs….imagine wakening up and being between the woolly legs of a sheep ,held against its fleece.just what you need in a recession

As for grooming I am unsure what wild sheep do.They don’t have baths.Do they bathe in rivers?Do they  leave it to nature?

And if things got really bad……….I hate to say this,but you could eat it!It would last for ages.I  know it sounds cruel but it would have had a lovely life in your garden eating your lawn!

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