The mental imagery involved with pianistic tactilia is not related to the striking of individual keys but rather to the rites of passage between notes. —Glenn Gloud, The Glenn Gould Reader
via Quote of the Day — Alec Nevala-Lee
Month: Jun 2016
Will I still be me?
A filling fell out of my tooth
So in public I was uncouth
The dentist got the roots out
And,wow look at this ,shouts!
But I didn’t to tell you the truth.
She said , it’s part of your body,my dear
I said,that is precisely my fear
With my retinae detached
I feel rather too twitched
Will I still be me after here?
How many parts must we lose
Not counting our stocking and shoes?
Before I.m not me.
But who will I be?
Does the good Lord allow us to choose?
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The serpent
Battre le fer pendant qu’il est chaud.
Batter the serpent,kill or show!
Butter the four pence.Dante keemest shows
Bien mal acquis ne profite jamais.
Been Mahler who’s the key prophet,I’d say
Behind Mall. a key non-property is away.
Bonne renommée vaut mieux que ceinture dorée.
Bonne renamed ;vote, my eye!Who sent Doh,Ray?;Further on it evokes miaows!get onto her Faure
Bon sang ne saurait mentir.
Bouncing, no sore,Eamon,tears
Big sing ;no Faure was mentioned.
Pie Jesus
Peer Jesus.
Poor Jesus
Ce sont les tonneaux vides qui font le plus de
Recently,tons of videos with indecent lap dances.
Incessant Leighton with key, for he wants the view
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ON FALLING DOWN A FULL STOP AT THE END OF A SENTENCE
If you can’t acknowledge your hatred or rage if you deny it exists, even to yourself then it may cause havoc in your life.This does not mean letting it rip either.It is very painful to hate someone you love.This is the dilemma of the infant and of all of us in life.Perception and its possibilities and flaws are of the utmost importance to me ideas wide and narrow focus in seeing .They came to my notice in the book “A Life of One’s Own” by Joanna Field [Marion Blackett-Milner] and in her later book “On not being able to Paint”
Wonderful books, still available.
This poem is an attempt to describe of the problems of only using the narrow focus in life
Blind sight scattered my wits
Like whitened bones
Across the deserts of my mind.
I descended into blackness.
Love shrank into the tame cat
By the fire,unacknowledged hate
Grew to fill the room.
I stared too much,
A full stop grew gigantic
Crowded out
All the words in the sentence
I saw nothing but this dot
Now a gigantic black hole
Into which I was dragged.
An energy coming from within my own head
Sucked me into the black hole.
That place was the wrong sort of darkness.
Within that full stop,
Love Fundamental became invisible.
Disappeared into the dark.
I dragged my eyes away
And saw the moon appear , so eerie,
It shone,grey silver.
If I had opened my eyes wider
I would not now lament
What I destroyed in the wormhole
Of the black dot that drew my eye
Into a tunnel of darkness
It blinded me to the light
Did not let me read the sentences
Beside the full stop.
An error of focus left hate
Unacknowledged, unmitigated unredeemed,
Kept from love or goodness.
Afraid to spoil my love with hate,
The fear of hate became
That which spoiled all else
By freezing Love itself
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Owl
I had this printed on the Funeral Service because my husband liked it but now I see that he was in many ways like this owl.His eyes could be very piercing.He would have loved to hover over the Pennines of the North East.
short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale’s edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.
on windside, careful sight,
may swoop to prey and away.
your yellow broad-eyed look,
at once both sharp and distant,
holds me.
oh, silence,
oh, wind on green,
oh, earth,
sky.
immense your held vision,
sphere without centre,
pied geometer of flight,
sketch your descent and ascent.
Trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home
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A long article about writing and how therapeutic it is
Click to access KaufmanSexton.pdf
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Effects of writing poetry
Most people who read poetry have heard of Sylvia Plath.She was only 30 when she died but is now a top poet of the 20th century… her ambition was fulfilled.But if poetry writing is therapeutic as many people believe,why did it not help her?
I read an article about this but am sad to say i can’t find the reference.The author claimed that writing structured poetry like sonnets is more likely to be therapeutic.Nowadays though,free verse and non structured poetry is what is fashionable.Rhymes are not.Think of modern music cocmpared to Schubert or Haydn… you get the point.
Plath’s poetry was ,in a way,violent.She went to her depths but as she already had suffered a severe breakdown and more recently deserted by her husband her depths were full of pain and anguish.
So it you feel you want to write for therapy,try writing in a traditional form.The structure contains the feelings
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Lucid
MERRIAM WEBSTERWord of the Day : June 5, 2016
lucid
adjective LOO-sid
Definition
1 a : suffused with light : luminous
b : translucent
2 : having full use of one’s faculties : sane
3 : clear to the understanding : intelligible
Examples
“The sound swelled and enveloped us, and indeed it was like laughter, waves upon waves of … lucid laughter….” — Anne Rice, Memnoch the Devil, 1995
“His writing is lucid and perceptive, and his instincts for the arcane and interesting are unerring, making the text scholarly yet still accessible to the lay reader….” — The Publisher’s Weekly Review, 14 Mar. 2016
Did You Know?
It’s easy enough to shed some light on the origins of lucid: it derives—via the Latin adjective
Lucidus, meaning “shining”—from the Latin verb lucēre, meaning “to shine.” Lucid has been used by English speakers since at least the late 16th century. Originally, it meant merely “filled with light” or “shining,” but it has since developed extended senses describing someone whose mind is clear or something with a clear meaning. Other shining examples oflucēre descendants include translucent, lucent (“glowing”), and the somewhat rarer relucent(“reflecting light” or “shining”). Even the word light itself derives from the same ancient word that led to lucēre.
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Will Mary have a party?
Mary was sweeping the floor with her Shark cordless electric carpet sweeper just replaced by Lakeland Plastics, that store beloved of British women.Emile was watching her from the lid of the old gramophone where he sat surveying the sitting room.
Leave that spider alone,he called to Mary
Why,she asked kindly,are you planning a date with it?
No,it’s a good thing to keep them as they may catch flies and other nasty things.
Mary turned and gazed at Emile.She was wearing some tencel jeans and a bright pink top with embroidery round the neck.Her thoughtful face w as covered in Radiant Glow foundation as her friend Annie was trying to make her look more attractive to men.Which men was a puzzle as Mary liked to spend time alone or going out with her female colleagues to search for books on Dirac’s owl,Schrodinger’s cat or Godel’s ants.
Her male colleagues were mainly very conceited or shyer than rabbits brought up in the cliffs at Lyme Regis.
However Annie wanted Mary to marry again as she saw her own vocation in life as being a mistress to a bright and intelligent retired man whose wife worked full time or was in the Library studying the Babylonian number system or other esoteric topics.So she could help Mary and herself at the same time.
Shall we have a party,she chuckled to Mary as she came in through the ever unlocked backdoor.
What sort of party,Mary asked nervously..
I want you to meet some men,Annie reminded her.
I believe that like bombs falling on London in WW2,that if a man has your number on him he will find you,Mary teased.
Maybe your phone number,Annie retorted.Why don’t you get a spare mobile and I can put some posters with that number on the trees down the side roads saying you are looking for a new partner.
I thought I had made it clear that as some Orthodox Jews believe that Zion will only come when God wants it to do,so a man will turn up when it is God’s will.
That’s a bit much.Do you think you are God’s chosen person? Is God interested in finding you a new husband? Annie shouted.
Well,it may seem strange to you ,but even seeming trivia like me being married to some new man can have deep consequences for the whole world… a bit like the butterfly’s wings If I am happy it spreads around me and makes others happier too.Or if God wishes me to write a book and I need a man to cook for me then one will turn up,Mary responded in her low and musical Tyneside accent.
On the other hand God may wish me to lead a contemplative life,she carried on.
Annie was puzzled.Why do you think God has all these plans for you,she enquired.
It’s not just me,said Mary.It’s everybody but that does lead into difficulties as we look at the world around us.Does God want all. these refugees to drown or for Britain to stay in the EU?
It reminded the women of their convent school
religious classes where they had studied a simplified version of the writings of Aquinas and his proofs of the existence of God.It was this book which had given Mary her first doubts about religion and being somewhat dim in the tact department she had shared her misgivings with the headmistress, who was not happy tp be questioned even in front of school girls.
Emile,she cried,I wish I were a cat.My schooldays were so terrible
It’s your own fault said Annie.I just pretended to believe it and kept quiet by fantasising about my new lingerie and how my boyfriend would like it
How remarkable it is that gir ls and boys can be so different in their personalities and ways of coping with puberty.
It was like a prison,Mary said.Still it made later life seem happier.How did you afford new underwear so often,she asked Annie
I wore my mother’s! this dear friend informed her.
My mother didn’t have that sort of underwear,Mary told her.And see how something seemingly so trivial can affect one’s personal development so much.Still I was fed and allowed to study and play the piano and do my homework to the sound of Wagner and Richard Strauss.
Did it help you to concentrate,Annie asked in a puzzled way.
No, it allowed my brother to dominate me and otherwise he might hit me or knock over my folding table where I kept my exercis books and pen ready to write essays on Twelfth Night and the periodic table.
Annie burst out laughing.Sorry,Mary,I asm not laughing because you were bullied but it just sounded as if tables had periods,the way you said it.
Imagine how hard it was dealing with all that in a tiny house with the loo in the back yard.It was taboo so had to be concealed.When we went to Dublin for 2 weeks my two sister and I all had our periods and we brought back all the blood stained cloths in our suitcases.Luckily the customs man did not look inside.
Was there nobody who could have burned them for you?
The landlady never mentioned it so neither did we.
No wonder I am so peculiar.
Well,I like you,said Annie.You are so kind and sympathetic and good to talk to.And you are always coming up with new ideas and interesting books.
I suppose we complement each other.Mary said shyly.Maybe we should get married and forget about men.
Annie’s eyes opened wide.
I think I’d better ring 999.she screamed.
And so say all of us.
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We rush towards death
Patience is a virtue despised
As we see gazing into folk’s eyes
So we rush towards death
in its phantom address
Then we make out we’re feeling surprised.
Where is it the place of our dreams?
In our coffin, noone will scheme..
See a blade of grass grow
In a crack where seeds blow
And life in miniutiae teems
Overwhelmed by the rocks in our path
Patience is pushed out by wrath
Yet in a rock climb
We concentrate all the time
Patience will save us from death.
And if diagnosed with a fate
Which will soon remove our fair estate
We may sink into blackness
And feel we are trackless
For what we lose there is never rebate
Yet others with just months left here
Live intensely and with far less deep fear
Fair hair on an arm
Eyes’singular charm
The unique,the concrete,they revere.
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The World Is Too Much with Us by WmWordsworth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. –Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn
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Enchantment
How white and blue together recollect us to the summer sky and the imagined swallows darting in exquisite geometry under the great domed space of the heavens, like the Basilica in Constantinople containing and giving space. And how I held you for a moment that was infinite and then you were gone like an angel fearing enchantment into some finite boundaried world
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What is terza rima?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terza_rima
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Wrongly worded sentences
1.And I’d like to thank Dr Smith for exposing himself so often in postgraduate discussions when all the other fellows had left
2.I’d like to thank the chef here for all those pots of free wee in the afternoon
3.And the Babylonians for inventing real lumber and the Indians for inventing Nothing
4.I’d like to thank my husband for finding a mistress so I could write my crook
5.And Marks and Spencer for their ready made Wheels
6. l thank the men for wearing very baggy trousers so we ladies won’t be distracted by their gorgeous figures.
7 M& S for their delightful cotton blunderwear which saves much coshing
8 And thank you to the Exams Office for their blindness now and in the past
9 Thank you to Noreen and Brian for typing my creases out
10 And thank God I have finished my studies of jumbles now and forever.I hope to work in an other dimension if dimwitted.
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The globe may look quite bent
This is a very old poem.I find it interesting to look at them now
I’ll draw a graph of Mother Earth
I’ll need a lot of paper.
It won’t be easy,I know that,
But Geo’s my alma mater.
Geo came to our maths class.
We had to find her metre.
If we did then we could write
A poem with which to greet her.
With ologies and eulogies,
The earth is deep in waste.
Give me some green graph charts
I’ll do some cut and paste.
I’ll rearrange the entire globe,
Without a deal of fuss.
If anybody notices
They won’t know it was us!
I’ll put all the mountains in the world
Into one continent.
And if I am that way inclined
The globe will look quite bent.
I’ll put the lions and tigers too
Into Parliament.
Let them eat not cake but men
And don’t charge them a rent.
I’ll paste all the seas that I can find
Onto my washing line.
With less water around the world
The weather should be fine.
Oh Geo was a darling child,
So promising and bright.
Mixed up with the graphs and charts
I hope she’ll see the light.
I’ll put all stars into a box
We have far too many.
Yet only one sun and one moon,
So,would you pickle any?
Geo return,I love you so.
I’ll give up cut and paste to show.
That you are all I’ll ever know,
and i do love you so
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Startled too easily?
http://www.effective-mind-control.com/startle-response.html
A few years ago I was sitting here sketching the mantelpiece which like my mother in law’s was full of shells.pebbles,little stone cats etc.Suddenly a neighbour walked into the room and I screamed.I think my husband was in the hall so he saw him coming before he rang the bell.This man wanted to see me so My husband told him to come in here without telling me.I must say both me and the man were shocked.So I think sometimes it might be good to be less easily startled.
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Eros and philosophy
This is an especially good article from the NYT.The comments are interesting,
Related articles
- The Nature of Love: Eros, Philia, and Agape (episyllogism.wordpress.com)
- Learn to Love (michellealice.wordpress.com)
- Kurt Vile & Sore Eros – “Jamaica Plain” (Stereogum Premiere) (stereogum.com)
- Philosophy Isn’t All about Arguments (explicitblog.wordpress.com)
- The Whore of Academia (thesouthernpraxis.org)
- Origin of Love (tayera.wordpress.com)
- My happiness philosophy (kaudresi.wordpress.com)
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Glory be to God for dappled things
![Nuneham_2016-1 [800x600]](https://words-cat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/nuneham_2016-1-800x600.jpg?w=1100)
Mike’s photos made me think of this poem and as we were raised in the Catholic tradition we found Hopkins partly through that connection as he was a Jesuit priest
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The eye of God
“The eye with which we see God, is the eye with which God sees us”
from Meister Eckhart.[Sermons]
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Goodbye
![Nuneham_2016-2 [800x600].jpg](https://words-cat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/nuneham_2016-2-800x600.jpg?w=1100)
I find it hard to get angry or perhaps to know when I am angry but I realise now I am still angry about my husband being cruelly treated.But a year ago it was too painful to put into words.I tried not to dwell on it.But I have felt the quite appropriate anger today and at the same time I am relieved that I managed the whole business when even our long time GP gave little help.I have come to the conclusion that I am braver than he is
OK I get anxious.Is that strange? Should I have been happy and smiling seeing what was happening?Sometimes I envy cultures where they still have rituals for such times in life.But I invented my own.I felt that last day as if we were suddenly in a better place and everything was wonderful including my sister driving for 5 hours alone down the motorway and arriving in the hospital just when I thought I’d better leave.My friends has been there all day so I didn’t want to ask for more time from them.If I had not been so very sad,I would have been very happy… if you can understand that.I had done it… the much feared thing![Nuneham_2016-3 [800x600].jpg](https://words-cat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/nuneham_2016-3-800x600.jpg?w=1100)
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The best place
![Nuneham_2016-5 [800x600]](https://words-cat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/nuneham_2016-5-800x600.jpg?w=1100)
The hospital was the best place for you to die.
Nurses, neat as sparrows, ran to and fro
Blankets used in the Himalayas warmed you
They kept you
Clean and tidy.
For three hours
The Sacred and the Profane intersected
I sang you away on a river of music
And you floated out of our world
Hearing my childlike high voice.
Maybe you thought I was washing up
Or making you a drink in the kitchen;
And I was your mother as well.
The good mother who kept her premature child alive
Who kept a good larder
Baked bread and played games with you and your Dad.
Did you know what was happening?
I think you did and you wanted me to help you.
Help you out?
How a little audience had gathered.
Now we have no rites,the chaplain was absent
Absent too the priest.
I had to make it up…. like a game,but it was real.
You smiled and winked as if to say
I’m sticking around but you won’t see me.
So much love in your eyes…
What can I do but be glad?
And be sad….but we made it.
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How Oxford is helping academics suffering persecution
Quip no more
Shadow of nails on the Cross.
Wars like diamonds..expensive,useless,hard,yet we must have more and more.
The human is descended from the most aggressive apes as they would mate more often..we will always have wars until the end of the world…which may be getting nearer.
War,I can quip no more.
Take my hand and help me cross the big Quiver I feel coming up…
I’m all worn out like an old rag…throw me into your washing machine,Lord and use some strong soap on me..I need a change.
Wash me with your holy river or send me home and get your money back,Lord
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The mind has its eye …. the soul’s window
![Nuneham_2016-4 [800x600].jpg](https://words-cat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/nuneham_2016-4-800x600.jpg?w=1100)
The Windows
Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
He is a brittle crazy glass;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.
But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,
Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers, then the light and glory
More reverend grows, and more doth win;
Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.
Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe; but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the ear, not conscience, ring.
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Different kinds of emptiness
A first look at emptiness
This is a preliminary attempt to examine the ideas about emptiness.I once Iquoted Lao Tzu
“Hollow vessels are useful by reason of their emptiness.”
But emptiness is not just one concept.
To make an initial point,our first notions of emptiness are related to the stomach.An empty one is painful to the infant who cries until fed.A full stomach then feels pleasant.
But a stomach can be empty in a good way….and there is a feeling of desire and appetite,So this can feel good.On the other hand there is the emptiness of a stomach which has just vomited up something bad and is reluctant to take in anything new for a while.hopefully desire will return.Anxiety can take away appetite and keep the stomach empty when it needs to be filled with good food.If this continues we become ill.
Anorexics may keep themselves empty as a mistaken form of self control.
Ideally there is a movement between fullness and emptiness.We need to be empty for the right things.A woman may have an empty womb crying out for a child but by mistake she may fill up with food instead.So we need to know what we are empty for.
Empty headedness can be bad…if you have never received anything good into your mind like poetry,classic literature etc you will be a poor person indeed.On the other hand people get creative ideas when they are half dreaming,resting,in the bath and so on.There is a little more space in the mind for a new idea to emerge.But the idea will have meaning only within a structure that is already partly there within the mind.The answer to a writer’s block won’t come to someone who never writes.The block may be a creative void but it’s no good if one’s entire mind is a total void.The emptiness needs a container.We rush to fill out empty sad hearts when we feel we can’t contain them within ourselves,as holding them may be agonisingly painful.
Emptiness in itself may not achieve much.But look at a new baby.They are looking and taking in both food and sensory impressions.And how the mind is growing,if conditions are favourable.
An empty table is no good to an empty stomach.A professor with no knowledge/learning will not give anything to the empty headed students to take in
Or biologically,the egg needs the sperm but the fertilized egg needs the kindness of the nurturing Womb and the ability of the woman to be there whilst development occurs over time……and for woman we could put artist or writer,speaking in metaphor.
My first thoughts end now! A need for space has arrived
Source: Kathryn
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I like the dancing
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Translate my way
We often don’t hear what people say even when we speak the same language.Sometimes it’s lack of attention,sometimes unconscious motivations when we don’t wish to know something.And in a foreign country we might try to understand by imagining it is English with a peculiar accent.I come from Lancashire and I am often asked if I am foreign.
À cœur vaillant rien d’impossible.
A curve ain’t ruined with the impossible.
A curved ale wants ruin dim but possible
A curve ain’t tuned till impossible
A curved elephant reined inm possibly.
Accurately veiled ruins are impossible
À l’impossible nul n’est tenu.
Al.I’m possibly null; nest tonight?
Al,it’s impossible now.it’s not you.
A limp ,oscillating bull Not any who?
À quelque chose malheur est bon.
At Selkirk choose Mal;hurry,man
A kilt shows Mal’s hairs live on
A Sulker chose Mallory’s bun
Après la pluie le beau temps.
Apprella,who’s she? Get the boat times.
Appeals and pleas elbow time
I pray that we get the boat on
L’arbre cache souvent la forêt.
Large cache,Susan,now for it!
Arbitrary dash;savant rolls in the forest
Library cash,Sue vents, la la forget;
Aussitôt dit, aussitôt fait
Aussie toes date? Aussie toes fey!
Ossified totes date…Fay!
Also taught Dee,also taught Fay.
Autres temps, autres mœurs
Owe Tom,owe,Maire?
Ought we tamper,blight her hair?
Ought her stem cells to merge?
Over the top,over the murder.
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I used to say something like this to my students
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We are inherently good..?
For Aristotle, goodness is a kind of prospering in the precarious affair of being human.
Tags: Affair, Human ✍ Author: Terry Eagleton
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/14/selfish-proof-ego-humans-inherently-good
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Do we have the right to help ourselves to some religious offerings?
This is what I think…..You do not have to believe in the conventional ideas of God nor to be able to say the Nicean Creed to find some aspects of religion helpful.
Matthew 6:25–34
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worryf about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.g Are you not much more valuable than they?h 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your lifee?i
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendorj was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?k 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.l 33 But seek first his kingdomm and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.n 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble o
How my heart speaks 