Month: July 2016

Days

Some days are days for losing

Diaries,letters,lovers.
Some days are days for losing
Fathers,money,mothers.Some days are days for finding
Mobile phones and patience.
Some days are days for finding
New friends and old relations.

Some days I feel at sea for hours,
Some days I feel so lost.
Some days I know that life’s worthwhile
Whatever the emotional cost.

Days are special units
In the journey we call life.
Days are short so don’t waste time
In needless haste or strife.

Watching televisions is not hard

 

Watching televisions is not hard

They can’t walk.

Talk ok and take your views

Of the News.

Flat ones can’t have a  plant on top

alongside the wooden birds

I preferred

As I say,I keep my eye on it.

Watch it secretly when no-one is here

Or near

I’m waiting for it to speak its real words.

Or to ask me a question.

Who are you?

Why do  you watch me?

Have you no shame?

If a television could speak

We wouldn’t be able to understand what’s sad about it.

Jovial limericks.

We don’t hear the word jovial today
As we seem to be caught up in a fray
In Europe or out
We never doubt
Birds sing and horses still neigh.

Jovial belongs to the past
Where men rode and girls were thought fast.
But now it’s a ll gloom
Until very soon
Politics will leave us aghast.

Jovial: the origin

photo11831 2
http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day

Merriam Webster :Word of the Day :

Jovial

play

adjective JOH-vee-ul

Definition

1 : (capitalized Jovial) of or relating to Jove

2 : markedly good-humored especially as evidenced by jollity and conviviality

Examples

He was fondly remembered for his jovial temperament and generosity.

“Inside, the crowd was boisterous and jovial, the young and fashionable sharing space with old regulars, all of them out despite the cold….” — Michael Snyder, Saveur, 13 June 2016

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

Did You Know?

Jupiter, also called Jove, was the chief Roman god and was considered a majestic, authoritative type—just the kind of god to name a massive planet like Jupiter for. Our word jovial comes by way of Middle French from the Late Latin adjective jovialis, meaning “of or relating to Jove.” When English speakers first picked up jovial in the late 16th century, it was a term of astrology used to describe those born under the influence of Jupiter, which, as a natal planet, was believed to impart joy and happiness. They soon began applying jovial to folks who shared the good-natured character of Jupiter, regardless of their birth date.

Wisdom

  • Chiffchaff_1A bird that you set free may be caught again, but a word that escapes your lips will not return.
  • A mother understands what a child does not say.
  • A pessimist, confronted with two bad choices, chooses both.
  • As he thinks in his heart, so he is.
  • As you teach, you learn.
  • Do not be wise in words – be wise in deeds.
  • Don’t be sweet, lest you be eaten up; don’t be bitter, lest you be spewed out.
  • Don’t look for more honour than your learning merits.
  • First mend yourself, and then mend others.
  • He that can’t endure the bad, will not live to see the good.
  • If charity cost nothing, the world would be full of philanthropists.
  • If not for fear, sin would be sweet.
  • Make sure to be in with your equals if you’re going to fall out with your superiors.
  • Not to have felt pain is not to have been human.
  • What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t invent with your mouth.

Read more at http://quotes.yourdictionary.com/articles/funny-jewish-sayings.html#VJ6PygiAu8ZJeKoL.99

Stan and the meringues

Stan and Annie were clearing a big desk to make space to study government

statistics.Despite this Annie was dressed as brightly as a mad

peacock on l s d. in turquoise cotton trousers and a teal blue

viscose and polyester [with 5 percent elastane  V necked striped top

She chose the V neck was because she thought it made her look

slimmer but if that were so it was contradicted, somewhat

paradoxically, by the clinging induced by the elastane in the

fabric.What a problem dressing is nowadays she murmured

Her bedtime reading was “Contradiction, Paradox,Woman and Society” by the

unknown,unseen yet internationally famous author

Dr K. R.  Kraithbaite: Paradox and contradiction are the route to understanding” was

the  last sentence she had read before she fell asleep last night

Then she had dreamed she saw a mouse eating a lion.No wonder she had

indigestion today”Shall I make the coffee” she said to Stan.

“No,dear.I’ll do it if you can get the graph paper sorted.”

Stan stood up and walked across the room with a dazed expression.

“I hope he’s not been trying self hypnosis again” she thought

quixotically.He returned with two large mugs of steaming hot

coffee.”Would you like a meringue” he enquired.

“I’d love one.”

“So would I,” he answered glumly.”But we have no cake at all.”

“I blame Tony Blair.”

“Why him?”

“Well,I have to blame someone,don’t I?”

“Why not blame yourself”

Stan began to sob and moan.

So Annie rang 999.”Can you send a paramedic.My friend needs a

meringue.” she said in a friendly tone.

“What do you think the N.H.S. is ,a cake shop?” the receptionist

replied assertively in ringing tones.

“Well,we older folk need cakes!”Annie cried.

“How old are you,” the lady said.

“Why is there some cut off point?” Annie retorted……..

“Yes,we only supply meringues to centenarians!” she was told.

“Well really,whatever next,” Annie cried in shock.

“I suppose they have to economise now and can no longer supply cakes

and ale to pensioners like they used to do.”

But we could send you some toasted mouse sandwiches,” she was

told.”Don’t bother,” she cried fortuitously.

The heat had made her makeup run and small rivers of turqouise,black

and blue were crossing her face giving it the appearance of a large

bruise.She wished she had followed the advice her mother had given

her,”When in doubt,leave it out”

Or,was it “when in doubt,say nowt”

or even “when glum ,keep mum

“I would have kept Mum,”she thought resentfully, “but the law won’t

let you once they die”.

“Why do we have so little freedom here in England?” she asked Stan

querulously.”I can’t tell you” he croaked mysteriously

“Why not? It’s forbidden by the Official Secrets Act.”

“After we finish the statistics on unemployment and mental health we could look

into Official Secrets,” he promised her mellifluously.

“Stan, you are so good.” she shouted gratefully.

Will you wash my new jeans?” he asked.

“Why can’t you do it?” she fretfully quizzed him

“I don’t want Mary to see them.”

“Gosh it’s 5pm .She’ll be back soon.”We’ve not got far today,

I expect we can make up for it tomorrow.”

Not wanting to contradict him she remained silent whilst he studied

her face like an a psychologist trying and failing to see meaning in

an ink blot.

Then the doorbell rang.It was Dave,the paramedic with a tray of mouse

sandwiches.What a surprise

Suffer- the meaning

Canterbury Cathedral (c) Jane Risdon 2015

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

http://jamesjoyce.ie/james-joyce/life/  [About his life]

http://literarydevices.net/villanelle/ [About poetry]

A villanelle marked to show the rhymes and repetions

Are you not weary of ardent ways, (A1)
Lure of the fallen seraphim? (b)
Tell no more of enchanted days. (A2)

Your eyes have set man’s heart ablaze (a)
And you have had your will of him. (b)
Are you not weary of ardent ways? (A1)

Above the flame the smoke of praise (a)
Goes up from ocean rim to rim. (b)
Tell no more of enchanted days. (A2)

Our broken cries and mournful lays (a)
Rise in one eucharistic hymn. (b)
Are you not weary of ardent ways? (A1)

While sacrificing hands upraise (a)
The chalice flowing to the brim, (b)
Tell no more of enchanted days. (A2)

And still you hold our longing gaze (a)
With languorous look and lavish limb! (b)
Are you not weary of ardent ways? (A1)
Tell no more of enchanted days. (A2)

Villanelle for an Anniversary By Seamus Heaney

350th Anniversary of Harvard

CanadaGeeseCOPR111905_2228

A spirit moved. John Harvard walked the yard,

The atom lay unsplit, the west unwon,
The books stood open and the gates unbarred.

The maps dreamt on like moondust. Nothing stirred.
The future was a verb in hibernation.
A spirit moved, John Harvard walked the yard.

Before the classic style, before the clapboard,
All through the small hours of an origin,
The books stood open and the gate unbarred.

Night passage of a migratory bird.
Wingflap. Gownflap. Like a homing pigeon
A spirit moved, John Harvard walked the yard.

Was that his soul (look) sped to its reward
By grace or works? A shooting star? An omen?
The books stood open and the gate unbarred.

Begin again where frosts and tests were hard.
Find yourself or founder. Here, imagine
A spirit moves, John Harvard walks the yard,
The books stand open and the gates unbarred.

What is poetry,anyway

photo1137

 

http://www.poetry.org/whatis.htm

“What is generally accepted as “great” poetry is debatable in many cases. “Great” poetry usually follows the characteristics listed above, but it is also set apart by its complexity and sophistication. “Great” poetry generally captures images vividly and in an original, refreshing way, while weaving together an intricate combination of elements like theme tension, complex emotion, and profound reflective thought. For examples of what is considered “great” poetry, visit the Pulitzer prize and Nobel prize sections for poetry.

The Greek verb ποιεω [poiéo (= I make or create)], gave rise to three words:ποιητης [poiet?s (= the one who creates)], ποιησις [poíesis (= the act of creation)] and ποιημα [poíema (= the thing created)]. From these we get three English words: poet (the creator), poesy (the creation) and poem (the created). A poet is therefore one who creates and poetry is what the poet creates. The underlying concept of the poet as creator is not uncommon. For example, in Anglo-Saxon a poet is a scop (shaper or maker) and in Scots makar.”

 

 

The history and description of proverbs

IMG_0038

 

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/proverb-poets-glossary

 

’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
You will never plough a field if you only turn it over in your mind. Irish Proverb

Arabic Proverb: An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.

Read more at http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-proverbs.html#bozb62A12bZOdkbo.99

Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes.” English proverb

 

 

 

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

kesome realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster

The sin a child is born to is not hers

The sin a child is born  to is not hers;
For mother’s body’s sacred  with its grace.
The sin a child is born to,it is ours

Yet ,at a baptism will the priest declare:
Out ye demons,leave this infant’s space.
The sin a child is born  to is not hers

 
The infant  naturally speaks in tongues of fire.
The Spirit moves eternal in its trace
The sin a child is born to,it is ours

The path we learn to walk ‘s already there
The rules  and laws were written with no haste
The sin  a child is born to is not hers

A child born now  is marked by Iraq War
A child born now, in paranoia’s traced.
The sin a child is born to,it is ours

Oh,look upon the infant’s holy face
Beatific vision is there  traced
The sin a child is born  to is not hers
The sin a child is born to,it is ours

 

 

 

I have sifted earth

I have walked the silent paths of grief
Sunless,dreary,cold and all alone.
I have slept on beds of winter leaves.

I know that death’s an avaricious thief.
Although my heart weeps and my joy has gone.
I have never felt I was deceived.

I have learned that human life is brief.
I have learned by sorrow we’re undone.
I have sifted earth and what’s beneath.

I felt dark emotions in me seethe
While I have been mocked by glaring sun.
I have learned the geography of grief.

I wait in silence for this life to cease
Or will a fluttering wing make chaos come,
Change my heart and give me a fresh lease?

Unconsoled grief can make us dumb
Into our hearts, we drag the ice that numbs
I have walked the silent paths of grief
I have made my bed on winter leaves.

The Difference Between Lack and Absence by Annie Diamond

Both mean not having, but one means missing too.
Absence can be welcome, but lack implies desire—
the absence of some noise, a lack of you

might be a good example. And it’s true
that lack makes judgment, means that we require
the thing that’s gone (a constant aching, too)

while absence just reports; we can make do
with smaller things; it doesn’t sound so dire.
Who needs the noise? (But I need you.)

Absence lets us start anew,
while lacking keeps us laced to its dark pyre.
Both are not having, but one is missing too,

and wanting nothing more than to undo
whatever sins caused lacking to transpire.
The noise is done, and so, I guess, are you

with me. In verse I struggle to subdue
my restless heart. (The lacking makes me tired.)
Both mean not having; one means missing too—
the absence of some noise, a lack of you.

Annie Diamond is a student at Barnard College, a private women’s liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University. She has also studied abroad at Mansfield College, one of the constituent colleges of Oxford University in England. She recently completed her sophomore year at Barnard College, where she studies English and creative writing. Her work has been published in Apt, Avatar Review, Clockwise Cat, The Columbia Review and The Lyric. She was awarded first prize in The Lyric‘s College Poetry Contest for her villanelle “The Difference Between Lack and Absence.” The same poem later won the Lyric Memorial Prize and was named the best poem to appear in The Lyric for the year 2013. Her favorite writing spot is the Hungarian Pastry Shop on New York City’s 111th Street, and her number one life ambition is to appear on Jeopardy.

“It was my honor and pleasure to judge The Lyric‘s yearly and quarterly awards. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my favorite poem for the year 2013 was written by a college student, Annie Diamond. I believe she has a very bright future.”—Michael R. Burch

Acquainted With The Night by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost’s “Acquainted With The Night” is more of a sonnet than a villanelle, but it is a marvellous poem with a killer opening line that doubles as a killer closing line.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night – Poem 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

Bother me no more

 

 No sight is like the rising of sun
When promises of dreams seem  clear and still
My heart  though sore ,can fancy  love has come
Without hard times and exercise of will.

No morning is without new dawn of hope
When all our conflicts shall be put aside.
Imagination is  far flung in scope,
Never  noting dreams may fraughtly lie.

No love is like my long lost love for you
Once known,once felt,it settles in the heart.
Yet I do believe love can be found anew
But only when the lost  true love  departs.

So bother me no more with reveried bliss.
Go leave me with my  life,though all’s amiss

Joy will return one day

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 Some days are sad and blue

And then we feel lonely too;
Or we cause rifts.

Some days are doldrum days.
Some days are like bad plays.
Not such a gift.

Most days have joyful parts.
Most days we lift our hearts.
They pass all too swift.

Some days love speaks to me.
Some days I feel so free.
I love my craft.

Life is a patterned weave.
Love helps us when we grieve.
Love is a raft.

See how the sun comes back.
See how light fills the gaps..
Some days we laugh.

Weep now and I’ll weep with you.
I have known sorrow too.
Yet sorrow will pass.

Joy is not far away.
Joy will return one day….
With life’s arts and crafts

Chekhov improves your social skills but only if you read him!

 painted-2-my-books-and-home-010
Apparently reading high brow novels increases your empathy and understanding of others more than reading chick lit or nonfiction does.

Please click on “novels”above

Related articles

Choosing Chekhov over chick-lit improves your people skills (telegraph.co.uk)

Scientists recommend Chekhov… (shannonturlington.com)

I like my reading just a little on the Aspergery side* (isteve.blogspot.com)

Researchers advise reading Chekhov to improve social skills (voiceofrussia.com)

Felicitous

 MW Word of the Day : July 5, 2016

Felicitous

Definition

1 : very well suited or expressed : apt

2 : pleasant, delightful

Examples

The warm air and clear, dark skies made for felicitous conditions for the fireworks show.

“Experience has been instructive to Moulder, who has learned that churches have been particularly felicitous spaces. Granted, the general public may associate the music with nightclubs and sensuality, but jazz has deep roots in the church that flowered in the form of works such as John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’….” — Howard Reich, The Chicago Tribune, 3 Mar. 2016

Did You Know?

The adjective felicitous has been a part of our language since the late 18th century, but felicity, the noun meaning “great happiness,” and later, “aptness,” was around even in Middle English (as felicite, a borrowing from Anglo-French). Both words ultimately derive from the Latin adjective felix, meaning “fruitful” or “happy.” The connection between happy and felicitous continues today in that both words can mean “notably fitting, effective, or well adapted.” Happy typically suggests what is effectively or successfully appropriate (as in “a happy choice of words”), and felicitous often implies an aptness that is opportune, telling, or graceful (as in “a felicitous phrase”).

I confess

I love you more than marmalade
I love you more than jam
I love you more than earl grey tea
I love you as you am.

I love you in the living room
I love you in the bed
I love you  in the bus shelter
I love you just instead.

I love you in your underwear
I love you when you’re  dressed
I love you in  that old grey coat
I love  you ,I confess.

A changed letter

When I leave the television on
Without the sound
On the drama channel
I see the same actors
Rotating through their many  roles
The handsome  yet slightly too
So probably evil
The perfect,so good.
In different garments they make a  less rich world
That anyone might imagine.
A changed letter,a meaning leaps.
A scream it’s the adverts  now.
I’m not even looking
Because I knew it all
From the first moment you spoke
But you were him then
Yet I was me.

I call it stranger

The word is  right yet destitute,
Does not fit the sentence
Has no place.
The word is  spoken rarely with no pleasure
Is not welcome where it reaches
Has no anchor.
It has no companions,hence no prosody.
Can’t be knitted;
Has no mooring.
The word is dying. I say it never lived;
Cannot be mentioned,
Creates no order.
The word is made from letters
Yet  they congeal and kill
Ironically ,some call it liver.
I call it stranger.

Yet with your eyes you made a final call

The pattern of your speech is in my ear
Although I do not hear  you speak  out loud
Shall I say ear or is it heart that bears
The form   that  made  your speech have its right sound?

Wherever in myself I find your trace
I long to keep it even when I grieve.
As though, because I do not see your face,
I never wish by sound to be deceived.

And at the end you did not speak at all
Like the baby  while inside its  nest.
Yet with your eyes you made a final call
As contented as a baby   joined to breast.

And so you went, but left your patterns here.
So with  fine prosody, I feel you near

 

Prosody

From google
Prosody
ˈprɒsədi/
noun
noun: prosody; plural noun: prosodies
  1. 1.
    the patterns of rhythm and sound used in poetry.
    “the translator is not obliged to reproduce the prosody of the original”
    • the theory or study of prosody.
      “a general theory of prosody”
  2. 2.
    the patterns of stress and intonation in a language.
    “the salience of prosody in child language acquisition”
Origin
late 15th century: from Latin prosodia ‘accent of a syllable’, from Greek prosōidia ‘song sung to music, tone of a syllable’, from pros ‘towards’ + ōidē ‘song’.

Learning the sonnet

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/articles/detail/70051
A history and how-to guide to the famous form
BY RACHEL RICHARDSON

The sonnet, one of the oldest, strictest, and most enduring poetic forms, comes from the Italian word sonetto, meaning “little song.” Its origins date to the thirteenth century, to the Italian court. Giacomo de Lentini is credited with its invention, though Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) was its most famous early practitioner. The form was adopted and enthusiastically embraced by the English in the Elizabethan period, most notably byShakespeare, who gave it the structure we commonly think of today: 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter.

Its tight rhyme scheme and metrical regularity emphasize its musicality, but the sonnet is also thought of as the first poetic form that was intended to be read silently, as opposed to performed and shared: it is “the first lyric of self-consciousness, or of the self in conflict,” according to Paul Oppenheimer in The Birth of the Modern Mind: Self, Consciousness, and the Invention of the Sonnet (1989). As such, the form consists of two parts, often called the proposition and resolution. Dividing them is the volta, or turn. Thus, a problem or question is often presented in the first section of a sonnet and then, via the pivot made by the turn, resolved or given new perspective in the second.

I haunt my familiar spaces

The shops  look all the same to me.
plastic  human models with no heads
are placed in the windows
showing us how we might look
if we bought the latest fashions.

People walk, by dropping paper and cans
some look at me,most don’t
I’m invisible now ,I’m  a ghost.
I haunt my familiar spaces
the library green and the path by the pond

The phone shops tempt us with larg notices:
Only £39 per month for the best
the latest,the new maps and locations
faster access to email and photos.
Look here I am,another selfie.

The only beauty is a pigeon in the sun
and a black man with gentle,luminous eyes
smiling at me as he sweeps away the paper
tossed down by the blinded people
who jabber beside the coffee shop.