He whom once I loved I now do hateHis words and actions shared a harsh disdainRefusing to allow this bitter fateMy boundaries now exclude his bleak terrain.To win me, he displayed a tender care;with courtesy and flattery he disarmed.Then when my heart was opened up and bare.he suddenly removed his wondrous charm.His harshness ,rigid mind and steely heartShowed him a terrorist in my own sweet lands;For, suddenly, our love he broke apartAnd empty was my once outstretched hand.Beware of charm and love bestowed too soonOr you may likewise suffer dread and do
Day: December 7, 2015
Away with all strangers
Holly roses
The holly stands,
still as a candle;
Lights the winter dark with roses.
A still white cloud hangs over
Its mirror flashes low sun
A cat stands,puzzled paw held up;
God’s marionette.
A worm surfaces
Do they have eyes?
Bless my soul
Left wing vs right wing
C J Stone has written for the Guardian and other newspapers and journals.I find his writing useful and stimulating.He gives a lot of links to other sites where you can fill thegaps in your knowledge.
Extract:
I’m getting very tired of the division of the world into “right wing” and “left wing”. It seems to me to be a false dichotomy.
In fact if you listen to the average person, they usually hold a wide variety of views reaching right across the political spectrum.
Often they are anti-immigration (a right wing position) but at the same time they are also quite likely to be sceptical of government propaganda and as vehemently opposed to British participation in foreign adventures in the Middle East as any member of the SWP.
In fact it is entirely possible to hold two entirely contradictory ideas in your head at the same time.
William Blake said: “Do what you will, this world’s a fiction and is made of contradiction.”
I always agree with William Blake.
Source: Left wing vs right wing by Chris Stone
The other hand on my tiller
Walking in the churchyard
Walking through the graveyard
See the beauty of the church
Built by conquering Normans
On a stone a robin’s perched.
The sun is setting kindly
Ancient brick walls glow.
Wild wallflowers decorate them
After winter snow.
Reminds me of Lyme Regis
and of Beer in Devon.
Cliffs with fossils bedded in;
that’s my kind of heaven.
Not a room of holy saints
All feeling satisfied
They have got their just desserts.
As sinners hands are tied.
For Jesus mixed with publicans,
With the lost and whores.
Self satisfaction’s hard to take
As keeping ancient scores.
Jesus was a man,you know.
God needs no more death.
The bones from all these churchyards
Are enough cover for the earth.
We can see the liberal notions
Of progress are an error.
Only useless things increase
Which can’t disguise our terror.
We don’t need belief in God
To recognise the wise.
Orient , oh agnus dei,
Killed by western lies.
Oh, in the churchyard nowadays
They have no wooden bench.
Cripples cannot have a rest
On bed of homeless wretch.
I sat down on a marble stone
And looked at magic trees.
Where are those lost green men
Whose worship never ceased.
Jackleg:I think it’s USA English
“Local engineers knew even during construction that the canal upgrade was a bit of a jackleg job.” — Christopher Cooper and Robert Block,Disaster, 2006

My new partner
Passing for human
-
Have you ever bought something from Amazon and then received an email addressing you personally by your first name?I got one last week asking if Word could be used on a very small Windows computer.Now,if you get a message like
Kate,Someone wants your help about this computer you have bought.Please come to Amazon and see what they are saying.
Then,you feel as if a real person is speaking to you.That is part of the art of catching you.At such times I remind myself it is generated by a macchine which cannot have any knowledge of me.
If you feel it’s a person you are more likely to answer,I think.That is their trick.Of course if you have time you may like to answer the query.
Now,look at this another way.You get comments on your blog.Maybe you have only been doing it for a year or less and you have a naive trust in human beings…..
When a person asks for your email address claiming private messages are not a good method for communication then you may give it to them and be rewarded with admiration or even “love”
At such a time it’s a good idea to tell yurself that this may be a computer not a human being,or it’s a human being using similar methods to the ones used by the people who wrote the Amazon programmes as I described above….
It’s very easy to learn the art of persuasion.Freuds’s nephew was one of the first to use such methods in aid of business.
I can almost recall his name!Edward Bernays..
And most misleading is the person who has a very pleasant even charming persona.What they are like in the flesh, we don’t know and never will.
Perhaps people who come over as a mixture of good and bad are easier to understand as we all have faults and flaws as well as virtues.No human is perfect.So they may be safer as friends,ironically.
There are some men in the USA who have become famous for writing books on Meditation and Eastern religious practices.. whose private family lives/marriages are really cruel and unpleasant.I won’t name them here…You can look online.They also may be tempted by devotees rather like the Beatles were and it’s not easy to resist temptation.
Next time someone admires and compliments you online,remind they may just be a computer…a very nice computer,of course.But like Amazon they want something from you.And like babies they may have tantrums when you don’t do exactly what they demand.
The hand upon my tiller
Come back to me,my sweetheart
Don’t leave me all alone.
Come back to me,my darling
I can’t believe you’ve gone.
I’m crying ‘cos I’m feeling blue again.
I’m crying’cos I’m falling like a stone.
Oh, let me tempt you with my beauty
And my voice forever young.
Let me tempt you with my spirit
My laughter and my songs.
I’m crying ‘cos I never did you wrong.
I’m crying ‘cos with you I do belong.
I thought maybe I’d follow,
To see where you have gone
But there’s a hand upon this tiller
That is not mine alone.
I’m crying ‘cos I wrote this old blue song.
I’m crying ‘cos we’ve been apart too long.
The hand upon my tiller
The mystery of the dark
The unknown one who lives in me
And sings like a skylark.
I’m singing ‘cos I wrote you a new song.
I’m singing ‘cos with music we belong.
Unusual words!
Where to focus
From the banal to the dreadful
books for sale
tidy my closet
read Straw Dogs
watch the BBC appeal
for amateur photographers videos
of Leytonstone.
Buy gifts for Xmas
Give money to the Red Cross
From my narcissistic needs
To my selfless generosity.
At which point does my compass stop?
The parable of the Amazon computer
Kona Charity Run:I can supply them!!
I didn’t look at “Recommneded for you” for a long time but when I did I found it is based on MORE.MORE AND MORE.
Now sometimes that is useful as when you look for a book on a certain topic.But even when you have just purchased 50 pairs of men’s underpants which is clearly enough for any husband,every time you look the computer is suggesting more similar ones.And it can be painful when your husband doesn’t need them any more.
[You can click on Improve your Recommendations and then choose items to eliminate.]
But it seems like a parable for modern life.That we never have enough of anything and always want more.
I bought a pan.I have a small kitchen so can’t store lots and in any case nobody needs more and more milkpans.However Amazon have not bothered to write a programme whicj can differentiate between books or music that one might want more of and underpants,vests,pans,cutlery etc.It must be possible to eliminate at least some of these.