Month: July 2016

I am in a study brown

Oh,doctor I am in a flap
I cannot turn this childproof cap
I cannot take my medicine
So I shall toss it in the bin

The beta blockers make me down
I am in a study brown.
The mini aspirins make me bruise
And my mind is quite confused.

The ibuprofen hurt my heart
Yet without one I cannot start.
The thyroxine has no effect
So now I feel my life is dreck.

The codeine fails to make me high
I'm not addicted, though I try.
I'll have to take a shot of gin
And alcohol will make me sin.

I'll go to parties in a dress
That makes men's hormones more or less.
I'll take a big one home with me,
And give him poison in his tea.

And when I am in jail at last
I'll feel remorse for all my past.
For as I suffer dreadful pain
God has hit me yet again.

It's not enough that I am blind
And suffer terrors in my mind
Not enough that lovers cruel
Give me stick instead of jewels.

Or maybe life does not make sense
Especially when I feel so tense.
Maybe random are my days
and my life has gone astray.

I think that I shall buy a cat
And love it tenderly and chat.
But if my cat gives me a scratch...
I'll light its tail up with a match.

All the world must me obey
Else I'll be enraged all day.
I want my own way all the time.
Other people must conform.

I am here and full of ills
What do you think of these blue pills?
If they take away my heart
That at least will be a start.

Then they can remove my brain
To help me with this damned pain.
Why not kill me right away
Then I'll be from pain astray?

A crime

 

Ah,did you throw away the  ripened fruit,
Because inside it hid a hardened stone?
As anything not total does not suit.
Love’s ambivalence seems to you a crime

Don’t throw away my love when I  offend
For I am human too and lose my sense
As tension makes it difficult to bend
And sometimes even love is too intense.

Rather,see  the love there still may be
And balance that against my human faults
Instead,one mark ,one sin  one thought unfree,
Weighs more than years of love,binds me in guilt.

As panic  will grow less when we just wait
In such a way, real love can contain hate

Underneath the shadow in the dark

Underneath the shadow in the dark
Where viable  new thoughts dwell  all  alone
Invisible the moment when life starts

Overhead we hear a singing lark
But   beetles crawl   by all the dark grey  stones
Underneath the shadow in the dark.

We,the human,  travel with no chart.
Yet do not  pay attention to  a groan.
Invisible the moment when life starts

Like sailors crossing oceans in good heart
Enjoy the sensory  vastness all unknown
Underneath the shadow in the dark.

When    sound perceptions shelter us from harm
When a  flickering light to us is shown
Invisible the moment when life starts

 

When we build  from all the  shattered bits of stone
A home to dwell in till  we turn to bone
Underneath the shadow in the dark
Invisible the moment when life starts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The eye of truth

I have heard grass singing in the wind.

I have  heard  grass singing in  the wind.
I   have walked through poppy fields in  sun
I have  suffered  when dark rain descends

I have watched  trees’ shadows in the ponds
I have  known the  arctic wastes of pain
I have  heard  grass singing in the wind.

Another soul is writing  with my hand
Yet I have  wept  while loaning him  my pen
I have  suffered  when dark rain descends

I have known  the edges  of the mind
I ‘ve   sensed  hollow silence un-contained.
I have  heard  grass singing in  the wind.

I have sorrowed for  humans confined
I have  watched  the antics  of bad  men
I have  suffered  when dark rain descends

I have seen the storm by camera lens.
I have felt the   solar system bend.
I have  heard  grass singing in  the wind.
I have  suffered  when dark rain descends

 

 

 

 

 

Precision in poetry

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/articles/detail/68419

“Poetry charts the changes in language, but it never merely reproduces or recapitulates what it finds. The lyric poem defamiliarizes words, it wrenches them from familiar or habitual contexts, it puts a spell on them. The lyric is cognate with those childish forms, the riddle and the nursery rhyme, with whatever form of verbal art turns language inside out and draws attention to its categories. As the eighteenth-century English poet Christopher Smart put it, freely translating from Horace’s Art of Poetry:”

It is exceedingly well
To give a common word the spell
To greet you as intirely new

In Smart’s belief, as Marcus Walsh observes in Christopher Smart: Selected Poems(1979), “every creature worships God simply by being itself, through its peculiar actions and properties….

Saying much with little in poetry

 

https://allpoetry.com/column/7541033-Compression-Saying-Much-with-Little–by-micol

 
Extract:

Of all the parts of speech, then, prepositions (and their accompanying nominal phrases) most often work against tightness, compression, and clarity in poetry. Lines needn’t be stripped down as far as I have taken this one, but on almost every level, particularly in early drafts, finding prepositions and prepositional phrases, identifying the underlying verb, defining the actor performing that action, and restructuring accordingly may at least present new alternatives for expression.

Rictameter #2

Bushka's avatarAutumn Ambles

IMG_3541(WP)

Petite,
Fair-haired damsel,
In light-grey suit attired,
Demure smile gracing her fetching face,
Ambled down spacious college passageway,
Turning admiring, ogling heads,
Young student ventured forth,
Good Morning Ms
Petite!

©Meanderings 2016

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The Caged Thrush Freed And Home Again (Villanelle) – Poem by Thomas Hardy

wood_thrush_565221

You can hear poems read out on Poem hunter including this one

“Men know but little more than we,
Who count us least of things terrene,
How happy days are made to be!

“Of such strange tidings what think ye,
O birds in brown that peck and preen?
Men know but little more than we!

“When I was borne from yonder tree
In bonds to them, I hoped to glean
How happy days are made to be,

“And want and wailing turned to glee;
Alas, despite their mighty mien
Men know but little more than we!

“They cannot change the Frost’s decree,
They cannot keep the skies serene;
How happy days are made to be

“Eludes great Man’s sagacity
No less than ours, O tribes in treen!
Men know but little more than we
How happy days are made to be.”

Garden

Soft rain is falling
Pink honeysuckle rises
Looks like crocuses

Growing on shed roof
It was “suitable for shade”
But it climbed over

Until it found  sun.
The wisteria has moved
To a tree next door.

I can see upstairs
How it drapes and dangles from
A young rowan tree.

The apple blossom
I’ve not noticed it again
But I saw the wren.

The wren  is near now
Hides in weigelia
With its wren babies.

My friend saw a thrush
We’ve not seen one here lately.
Only the blackbirds.

The sole of wit

Naivity is the  soul of wit

Business before  treasure

Caesar’s wife must be above  collision

 Bees: the  fray

Charity begins to roam

Charity covers a multitude of bins

Cheaters make us sin

Children and fools tell the truth

Children should be keen and not stirred

Christmas comes but once a care

Avoiding Windows 10

Microsoft Strikes Again – How to NOT Upgrade to Windows 10

Windows 7 is being given updates till 2020.If you are told you need new hardware  to get Windows 10 it may be cheaper to buy a new laptop instead,apparently.

From a website:safety

A tech tip that might help catch burglars

20 Replies

I mentioned last time about how I managed to get lost (I mean, take an unusual and more interesting route) on the way home the other day. And it sparked an email from a reader with what I think it a brilliant idea if you use a Sat Nav.

He explained it perfectly, so here’s what he said:

I have a “Home” destination permanently set on my SatNav so, no matter where I am I just press “Home”, as easy as that. Except that that is not exactly true.

My “Home” destination is a supermarket car park some five miles from my actual house. Of course I know my way from there. But the real reason for choosing a location away from my actual “Home” is security. If my car is broken into, all the thief needs to do is activate the SN, select “Home” and follow instructions, knowing that I am stranded and he should have an empty house to rifle through, except in this case he will just end up in a car park with a good chance of the local law waiting for him if I spot the loss in good time.

Others that I know have programmed the local police station as their “Home”.

Intellectual humility

http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/valuable-intellectual-traits/528

Excerpt:This is more important than IQ

Intellectual Humility: Having a consciousness of the limits of one’s knowledge, including a sensitivity to circumstances in which one’s native egocentrism is likely to function self-deceptively; sensitivity to bias, prejudice and limitations of one’s viewpoint. Intellectual humility depends on recognizing that one should not claim more than one actually knows. It does not imply spinelessness or submissiveness. It implies the lack of intellectual pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit, combined with insight into the logical foundations, or lack of such foundations, of one’s beliefs.

 

Gust and gusto

gust

play

noun GUST
PrevNext

Definition

: keen delight

Examples

“He was pleased to find his own importance, and he tasted the sweets of companionship with more gust than he had yet done.” — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Godolphin, 1833

“… the more pampered burgess and guild-brother was eating his morsel with gust, or curiously criticising the quantity of the malt and the skill of the brewer.” — Sir Walter Scott,Ivanhoe, 1820

Learn a new word every day. Delivered to your inbox!

Did You Know?

You’re no doubt familiar with the simple gust that means “a brief burst of wind.” At least a century and a half before that word first appeared in print in the late 16th century, however, a differently derived homograph came on the scene. The windy gust is probably derived from an Old Norse word gustr, whereas our older featured word (which is now considerably rarer than its look-alike) comes to us through Middle English from gustus, the Latin word for “taste.” Gustus gave English another word as well. Gusto (which now usually means “zest” but can also mean “an individual or specific taste”) comes to us from gustus by way of Italian.

Everyone has a vocation: To be who they know that they are.

 

I think my vocation is sacred
I keep seeing visions of God
He’s like a bright light
Exceedingly right
Does anything seem to be odd?

I have a calling to follow
I just do not know the details
I pray and I wait
By yonder lychgate
Do vocations ever get into the Sales?

I would like it if I could buy one
I’ll give you all the money I’ve saved
Sell my idea?
My dear,no fear!
Just consider how well I’ve behaved.

Everyone has a vocation
To be who they know that they are.
Yet I am not me
Without you to be
Here in my arms by the fire.

I’ll get an answer tomorrow
As I dream of God during the night
She will give me an image
And the much needed courage
To go on till I see the Light.

The problem is one of translation,
For God speaks in symbols not words
Symbols are wells
in which truth dwells.
And the Spirit swoops down like a bird.

Why not find your vocation?
It’s possible whatever your age.
Attend to your dreams
and how your life seems
Vocations are now all the rage.

Oh, what art

The gift for  imitation   is an art
Needs eyes and face and mind to work as one;
And who would dare to play the darkest parts?

To reproduce another being’s heart;
To manifest a self  till acting’s done.
The gift for imitation is an art

To  play another, may one’s soul contort;
Although a little demon may be fun.
But who would dare to play the darkest part?

I’d sooner play a demon than a tart
Especially if I had a  piper and a drum
The gift for imitation, oh,  what art.

When we play  adult games we have no charts
And we know too many use a gun
But who would  dare to play the darkest parts?

We  face a trump and devils may become
Our fellow citizens   till all’s undone.
The  gift for  imitation   is an art
Yet  will  he dare to play the darkest part?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theodore Roethke:The Waking

https://youtu.be/IxY2g4mR8Xk

 

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Villanelles:what I think so far

Let’s start with one of the most well known poems by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

Form: Villanelle

I enjoyed writing some villanelles;I found it hard too.One reason is clear.
Look at the first three lines in the above poem.Lines 1 and 3 are going to be repeated several times.They also come together to end the poem.
This means they have to be good.These lines  in Thomas’;s poem are often quoted.As it happens I disagree with them as advice but I think they are marvellous as poetry.And who takes advice from poets?
So thinking of  two good lines before you start… or even one good line to begin with is something I have found more difficult than I do with sonnets.Of course I only began last week so I can’t be surprised by my lack.
However I found the repetition and the sounds were very enjoyable and memorable.More so after I had tried to write my own.And that is one good reason for writing poetry.You  will enjoy other people’s poetry much more, if it is good.As we don’t see what Dylan Thomas threw away we don’t know how much effort  and work was involved in writing his beautiful poem.Sometimes I have done nearly 30 revisions to a poem.Sometimes I put one on Facebook,not for my family to read,but just moving it and re-reading it often suggests an improvement.Sometimes  someone reads it but not always.But it’s good for me.
If I can think up another first line,I shall continue  my study.

 

 

How to pronounce ” awry” 

SecretBunker

My best friend and I both came across this word in books as children and thought it was pronounced aw-ri.So we were amazed to hear people say “a wry”

Nr 1:How not to pronounce awry

I could tell you a nice little story
But awry is not pronounced aw-riii.
That unsettles my mind
Which is somewhat unkind.
And what’s more Lowry doesn’t rhyme with story either so I am stuck here on the page for ever
.
Never mind,I weren’t hopin’ for’t glory
.[ That verb usage is common in Lancashire]
Nr 2 for correct pronunciation of awry
My bedroom is all awry
My bed is an tart apple pie.
But it’s cosy and warm
And does me no harm
Though sometimes in a dream I up-fly
Is your marriage awry like mine?
Is your partner somewhat less than divine.
Well give thanks to the Lord
For indeed it is hard
To live with a god all the time.
The bedroom was indescribably neat
Nothing was awry but a sheet
It lay on the floor
inside of the door
Just where I put my black feet.
My awry home was disliked by the doc
Yet he wore an unmatched pair o’ socks
But being full of tact
I never told him that fact..
I just made certain our eyes never locked.

Being poor [USA based but relevant to other countries

 

https://benirwin.me/2013/12/03/20-things-the-poor-do-every-day/

One thing than makes me angry is when rich people blame poor people for being poor.Some of course  do have problems but many  work hard at more than one job paid the minimum wage.

Liminal and subliminal

Broad-bodiedChaser2016

 http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day

Liminal [Merriam Webster]

play

adjective LIM-uh-nul
 PrevNext

Definition

1 : of or relating to a sensory threshold

2 : barely perceptible

3 : of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : in-between,transitional

Examples

“Kipling is drawn to images of his characters sitting in perilous places, because he aims to communicate a liminal anxiety about identity and imperial history.” — Tom Paulin, The Times Literary Supplement, 8 Mar. 2002

“Solnit suggests that separating the feeling of becoming lost from a feeling of fear leads to a certain kind of spiritual growth. In that liminal space, between what we know and what we can’t imagine, we are remade.” — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 24 May 2016

 

Did You Know?

The noun limen refers to the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced, and liminal is the adjective used to describe things associated with that point, or threshold, as it is also called. Likewise, the closely related word subliminal means “below a threshold”; it can describe something inadequate to produce a sensation or something operating below a threshold of consciousness. Because the sensory threshold is a transitional point where sensations are just beginning to be perceptible, liminal acquired two extended meanings. It can mean “barely perceptible” and is now often used to mean “transitional” or “intermediate,” as in “the liminal zone between sleep and wakefulness.”

From the New Yorker

Recent DNA studies suggest that cats entered the human sphere during the Neolithic period, at the dawn of agriculture, when Felis silvestris lybica, the Arabian and African subspecies of wildcat, developed a high tolerance for living among people. (In 2004, researchers in Cyprus found a cat skeleton carefully buried with a human in a ninety-five-hundred-year-old grave.) As grain storage became common and mice became a problem, cats wandered into settlements in the Fertile Crescent. And when the technology of agriculture was transferred to other cultures cats went with it: the genetic fingerprint of all domestic cats can be traced back to the delicate wildcats that decided to improve the human experience with their presence about twelve thousand years ago.

Sufficient

The  rippling of the branches
In front of the  gentle white clouds
Seems to have little pattern
Yet the  red sun governs all
Both the swift and the slow
In the heart of the dark shrubs
Insects work patiently
Follow their inner logic
Like mini-computers
Reproduce as appointed
If only my computer could
Reproduce;what a saving
Of course we’d need updates
It is not the survival
Of the fittest computer
But the prices ;what will sell?
Computers don’t make love nor
War.They are patient like
Tombstones. by the ancient wall
Of Tudor brick near the path.
Can laptops be cremated?
Will the patient churchmen know?
This is a new one for them.
Jesus had no computer
It is inappropriate
To even ponder such   houghts.
He spoke and people listened
That is what makes us human

So sorrow’s ale brings memories of joy

 

The art of musing isn’t hard to learn
Instead of tablets,screens,electric toys=…….
A spacious mind may entertain  the spurned

We sometimes  learn this when we need to mourn
As  companions leave, of sympathy  devoid
The art of musing isn’t hard to learn.

As milk ‘s transformed to  butter  as we churn
So sorrow’s ale  brings   memories  of joy
A spacious mind  may entertain  the spurned

 

 

 
The art of living is  one art  we earn
By patience and  with tempers un-annoyed
The art of musing isn’t hard to learn

 

As life goes by,how greatly we may yearn
For lovers lost in  wars akin to Troy
A spacious mind can entertain  the spurned.

 

Unlike  that  mistress tempted to be coy,
We open up our our minds to marvelled joy
The art of musing isn’t hard to learn
A spacious mind  may  entertain  the spurned