Day: February 22, 2016

Good night

unnamed

 

I love little pussy, her coat is so warm,

And if I don’t tease her she’ll do me no harm.

For many misfortunes are brought on in error.

So be good to yourself and  avoid that big mirror.

 

“Nonsense” sometimes makes sense

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Cat, not ruminating nor looking into the mirror

No doubt if you  have read my blog for a little while you may notice I sometimes write nonsensical posts sometimes based on altering olf  cliches or proverbs.Maybe I should not make them public…. but I have noticed quite often the nonsense makes sense

We females were often told not to keep looking into the mirror as vanity was a sin [ long ago!]When I was writing  a bit of nonsense today I wrote

Don’t keep looking into the horror [ instead of mirror].

[ instead of mirror].

KODAK Digital Still Camera
KODAK Digital Still Camera

 

Actually, that is good.We need sometimes to look at how bad things may be but not to do it all the time.It’s a bit like the difference between thinking and ruminating.Ruminating is when we are stuck in a groove and can’t take our minds off a certain painful topic.We may believe thinking  more will help but  now some doctors believe that much depression and anxiety comes from ruminating.Better to go for a walk and let the answer come to you by itself.Because our unconscious mind may be better at that.Or if you believe in God, leave it to God.This is the problem.We’d like to trust in God but we are insecure.And after all, the Jews  may have trusted in God, so might the  people who were massacred in Armenia or Cambodia.Maybe my scope is too broad there.At an individual level rumination or mirror gazing  is bad for us.

There is a good deal there to muse about .

 

The Song of the Earthworm

They tell me that trees are a wonderful sight
They have leaves hanging on them all day and all night.
They tell me the golden sun shines in the sky
It’s said to be so much brighter so high.
I’d like to hear birdsong and thunder and hail.
At all these pursuits worms are likely to fail.
We only make holes in the soil as we move
And we know almost nothing about feelings and love.
We don’t know why we’re here or what purpose we serve
And our earthen workplace is also our grave.
.

From American life in poetry

Here’s a poem of loss by Jo McDougall, from her collected poems, In the Home of the Famous Dead, from The University of Arkansas Press. Like many deeply moving poems, it doesn’t tell us everything; it tells us just enough. Ms. McDougall lives and writes in Little Rock.

This Morning

As I drove into town
the driver in front of me
runs a stop sign.
A pedestrian pulls down his cap.
A man comes out of his house
to sweep the steps.
Ordinariness
bright as raspberries.
I turn on the radio.
Somebody tells me
the day is sunny and warm.
A woman laughs
and my daughter steps out of the radio.
Grief spreads in my throat like strep.
I had forgotten, I was happy, I maybe
was humming “You Are My Lucky Star,”
a song I may have invented.
Sometimes a red geranium, a dog,
a stone
will carry me away.
But not for long.
Some memory or another of her
catches up with me and stands
like an old nun behind a desk,
ruler in hand.

Lost my head

Doctor,Doctor!
What is it?
I have lost my head!
Go to the reception and see if they have any there.
You don’t understand!
Well, tell me more.
I’ve just bought myself a cashmere sweater.
How much was it?
Fifty pounds.
Well, that’s a real bargain.
Yes, it was £214 originally
Why was it so cheap?
It’s because I lost my head in the shop and kissed all the shop assistants.
Were they men or women?
I couldn’t tell really; they all wear pink trousers and spotted jumpers now.
But surely you could tell close up when you approached them?
Close up!I blew the kisses…. from the pavement.
I don’t believe this.You’d better see a priest.
I just saw one in the waiting room!
What!In here.What’s he doing?
I think he’s preaching to the converted.
But it’s  unethical to tamper with sick people.
They all got up and ran out.I’m your last one.I’m a Mormon now, you see.
But you were a Catholic.
I needed a change and another wife.Or ten
You certainly have lost your head.Go before I do something I’ll regret.
What would that be?
I might swear
Perhaps the priest will help you.
Be off, you headless man.You brainless biped.
Cheerio then.See you tonight.
Why?
I’ll be ill again by then.It’s my obsessions.
Take them home and drown them in drink.
Can I have it on prescription?
I’m afraid not, but I can give you a good description.
I drink Tiger beer.
Why?
I’d like to be a tiger later on.
Be off.You are tempting me to hit you with a brick.
Do you have a brick in here?
Not yet but I can knock  a hole in the wall with my hammer.Alternatively, I could use this waste paper basket.Jump inside.
I’m not a cat.
Oh, yes you are.
Oh, no I’m not.Cats can’t speak English.
How do you know that’s universal?
Well, French cats can’t speak French……
How clever.
How smart.
How insightful.
How delightful.
Excuse me, Doctor, there’s a dead priest here.
Well, I’m no good at raising the dead.
Well, you raised ten children.
No, my wife did that.I’m not even the father.
No, the Father is outside.
You mean this man was the father of my children…
Well, put it like this.He saved you all the hassle.
You can say that again.
He saved you all the hassle.
But why?

The lifeboat

We are in this boat together

 Sailing across the bay.
Some have an easy voyage,
The wind is blowing their way.
I wish I could always be sailing
Across a wide ocean with you
And never reach the other side
though it may be in view.
I want to see the sunrise
Across the dappled sea.
The ripples of the water
Reveal a new world to me.
One day this boat will reach the shore
Unless destroyed by storm
And I shall have to leave your arms
Where I have been so warm.
So just before we get there
I want to let you  know
That I shall always love you
Wherever you may go.

Don’t keep looking into the horror.

Has the cat got you wrong?

You are too quite.

Blanks to whom?

The oven won’t bake songs.

Can you fear me now?.

What do you think you are chewing?

Why do you keep not interfering?

He’s up to his old f licks again.

Pass the butter.. why,I’ve not finished marking it!

Where’s your rat?

He lost all his loves, one by one.

We should not write too hard.

I am caught in a map of my own faking.

Don’t keep looking into the horror.

He had terrors in every whom.

 

 

Bareness

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See, now,
Patterns of bare branches against winter sky.
Hard on the outside to protect the channels
through which new life is already beginning to rise in sap.
Admire these branches as they withstand winter cold.
They do not know and do their work regardless of  love, hate, admiration, envy,malice or utter indifference.
They are a symbol of our task to continue living with trust and hope
despite all the alternatives we are offered daily by the press and media.
Keep living the true life.
The still, small voice speaks  again if we are listening.
If we have some silence.
If we want nothing

Old tree

I ‘ve found looking at the apple tree very moving.
Until we came here I had never seen one.
Now it’s getting old; all its companions have gone
See how beautifully, how graciously
it accepts the light
and how it’s twisted over the years
following the sun.
See its shadow on the fence.
How trees beguile our hearts.
I began this post as prose
but then I  neer could resist singing

The tree is alive

Trees
What ceremonious geometry
Could describe the sympathy of the parts to the whole?
What self can contain the feelings engendered by
the response of the heart of the tree. and my heart,
to the space and light offered
and how the clouds float away on the wind
as I stand, hand on my throat, gazing,
and the new moon points me out to the sky.

What joy is there in this moment of dancing?
We see only the stillness
but know while we are turned away
a young girl and an old woman murmur together
as one passes the movement to the other.
Caught in the camera, in a moment of rest,
the tree obeys the law of gravity
before levity arises at the moment we turn away
and the dance goes on and the tree is alive with movement

Save

When I pressed the button
To save my latest words,
“Save rage as” came on the screen
And my mind went blurred.Save my rage  for later
Save it from distress
Save my rage as powder
Put it in a keg.

Save my rage for humans
Save my rage for God.
Save rage as important.
Is saving rage so odd?

Save rage for a scapegoat.
Don’t show it where it’s right.
Why not hurt a scapegoat
Who will go in the night?

Save my rage for praying
Save my rage for God.
Save my rage for lovers
Who like milk go bad.

Save as rage for holy ones
who boast their worship proud.
Save as rage for followers
Who talk of God so loud.

Save a rage for victims
Save as rage for poor.
Save as rage for children
Who live without a door.

Save as rage for rulers
Save as rage for fools
Save as rage for women
Save as rage at Cruel