Day: April 2, 2015

Stop staring

In London town,I saw the moon,

It looked oh,quite impressive.

I lay myself down on a coat,

So I could write this missive.

After lying staring up,

I began to feel real dizzy

I thought I saw the Pope go by.

Do you think I’m going crazy?

He was in a large white car

All wrapped up in tartan.

I know you won’t believe me but

I felt almost certain.

I went to a free soup kitchen,

As I’m a homeless person.

I saw ten angels looking down,

So I called out “Stop staring“

I went inside a shop doorway

To get an hour of sleep.

I I dreamed I dwelt in the U.K

It nearly made me weep.

If I really was in my England

I ‘d have the N.H.S.

I’d have a council house of my own

And good news to confess

Other selves within

jug and bottles 4I was in the kitchen washing up one day when I kept getting lines suitable for sonnets coming into my mind.I haad just written one sonnet so I then wrote two more.
I had a realisation that if one learns a certain form,technique or skill then that will act like a fishing net to draw up material from the depths of the mind which wants to be expressed.There definitely is desire in these sentences which wish to be spoken.. to communicate.
Another example of the desires of the mind is shown by the following example.I was feeling extremely distressed one day and began writing a sonnet in which I intended to say something very unpleasant but after writing one and a half stanzas I realised that this other good part of my mind did not wish me to write something cruel or angry… so I changed direction and made it quite different.
And conversely I once had very unkind thoughts coming into my mind about someone who had hurt me  profoundly and was unable to say anything to help me afterwards…  or was unable to apologise but I told myself that I did not agree with these bad thoughts and would not allow them to make me do something against my own moral code.However I felt the temptation strongly and indeed I had been used wrongly by someone.
So I can see different selves in me. Something very good and something bad… then me, in between them!

Thoughts about fiction and reality

  Dickens
Charles Dickens,the great novelist of Victorian England
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens
Fiction is invented,of course, by novelists and writers.And we also have lies which are slightly different.The truth of fiction when well done comes from the use of the true imagination based on genuine interactions with what is other than ourselves and is a way of depicting the truths of the heart.

The true imagination can only be effective when it is not fantasy based on  mere wish fulfillment.To me that is what Buddhism is about.We desire nothing in order to get everything and more.

Lies,on the other hand ,may be for purposes of  manipulating other people or may be the product of fantasy which is common in children who “make believe” they are having a birthday party because they want one so much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_authors
I might say fictional writing in novels or poetry using the true imagination helps us to understand complex reality better..Lies can  be very destructive.And we have the kind of language used in the novel 1984 by George Orwell where black can mean white and death merely.termination of life…. we have begun to hear a lot of this and it does have an utterly bad and even destructive effect on personal and political life.The most famous example is when some politician was lying but it was referred to as being “Economy with the truth”.It’s our intentions which count to in making us moral agents.We may lie so smoothly we feel it will have no illl effect.

Imagining what it is  like to be  another person as in Dicken’s great novels about the poor is very powerful and can change government policy via changing people’s hearts and minds.

I feel imagination does have this purpose of making us feel for others and bring us closer even to murderers and criminals when the writer makes their world something we can comprehend.

Reality is very complex which is one reason we have all the arts,science,mysticism,religion as they all look at or relate to different aspects of life.

Plain lying is a selfish activity for our personal benefit or to avoid trouble when we have misbehaved.And we weave a web of destruction

Oh,sweeter than confectionery

Tecophilaea cyanocrocus Leightlinii_15-6 [1024x768]

Photo courtesy of Mike Flemming 2015.Copyright

Inside my mind I dream of gleaming pearls,
Caterpillars,snails with  swirling whorls.
I dream contented, all enwrapped;
With reverie and dream I’m lapped.
The inner seas will comfort me,
While gods open my eyes to see

Oh,sweeter than confectionery
Is my old   school dictionary.
The words whirl round and fall to shape
The sentences which my world make.
This furnishing is rich and strange
And magically self arranged.

Oh,sweeter than the love of man
Is reading works of poets long gone.
And feeling deeply their dark tides .
Upon which our boat may glide.
The sea infinite we float upon
Is the same warm sea the ancients swam..

Sweeter still is this spring air
And the blossom spreading fair.
We’ll drown our selves in grassy field
To the gods of poetry yield.
We’ll rise again and spring up tall
To grow more rich until we fall.