Day: August 19, 2016

We turn to darkness

When tensions in our minds  harm our own souls
And into stranger's  ears   we  pour our woes.
When grief and sorrow  shudder through our   walls.
And whether all is lost we cannot know

When  what is in  or out we cannot tell
When fantasy and dream become confused.
When  spears of agony  maim  every cell.
When sensibility is utterly bemused.
.
He in  whom  we  trusted  wills us fail
For what  he said was love was mere  desire.
Now pain and disappointment make us frail;
With torment know   this  lover was a liar.

Then, having lost all other means  to live,
We turn to darkness where our consolation is.

Meditation on Statistical Method

7613537_5314b5b2fd_m

Plato, despair!
We prove by norms
How numbers bear
Empiric forms,

How random wrong
Will average right
If time be long
And error slight,

But in our hearts
Hyperbole
Curves and departs
To infinity.

Error is boundless.
Nor hope nor doubt,
Though both be groundless,
Will average out.

 

James Vincent Cunningham :

 

All Day It Has Rained by Alun Lewis

 

All day it has rained, and we on the edge of the moors
Have sprawled in our bell-tents, moody and dull as boors,
Groundsheets and blankets spread on the muddy ground
And from the first grey wakening we have found
No refuge from the skirmishing fine rain
And the wind that made the canvas heave and flap
And the taut wet guy-ropes ravel out and snap.
All day the rain has glided, wave and mist and dream,
Drenching the gorse and heather, a gossamer stream
Too light to stir the acorns that suddenly
Snatched from their cups by the wild south-westerly
Pattered against the tent and our upturned dreaming faces.
And we stretched out, unbuttoning our braces,
Smoking a Woodbine, darning dirty socks,
Reading the Sunday papers – I saw a fox
And mentioned it in the note I scribbled home; –
And we talked of girls and dropping bombs on Rome,
And thought of the quiet dead and the loud celebrities
Exhorting us to slaughter, and the herded refugees:
Yet thought softly, morosely of them, and as indifferently
As of ourselves or those whom we
For years have loved, and will again
Tomorrow maybe love;but now it is the rain
Possesses us entirely, the twilight and the rain.
And I can remember nothing dearer or more to my heart
Than the children I watched in the woods on Saturday
Shaking down burning chestnuts for the schoolyard’s merry play,
Or the shaggy patient dog who followed me
By Sheet and Steep and up the wooded scree
To the Shoulder o’ Mutton where Edward Thomasbrooded long
On death and beauty – till a bullet stopped his song.

Smart is from old German

 o;fsmart
smɑːt/
adjective
adjective: smart; comparative adjective: smarter; superlative adjective: smartest
  1. 1.
    (of a person) clean, tidy, and well dressed.
    “you look very smart”
    IMG_0042synonyms: well dressed, well turned out, fashionably dressed, fashionable,stylish, chic, modish, elegant, neat, besuited, spruce, trim, dapper,debonair; More
    antonyms: scruffy
  2. 2.
    informal
    having or showing a quick-witted intelligence.
    “if he was that smart he would never have been tricked”
    photo05791synonyms: clever, bright, intelligent, sharp, sharp-witted, quick-witted, nimble-witted, shrewd, astute, acute, apt, able;

    well educated, well read;
    perceptive, percipient, discerning;
    informalbrainy, savvy, streetwise,on the ball, quick on the uptake, genius;
    informalwhip-smart
    “Joey will know what to do—he’s the smart one”
    antonyms: stupid
    • (of a device) programmed so as to be capable of some independent action.
      “hi-tech smart weapons”
    • NORTH AMERICAN
      showing impertinence by making clever or sarcastic remarks.
      “don’t get smart or I’ll whack you one”
  3. 3.
    quick; brisk.
    “he set off at a smart pace”
    antonyms: slow, gentle
verb
verb: smart; 3rd person present: smarts; past tense: smarted; past participle:smarted; gerund or present participle: smarting
  1. 1.
    (of part of the body) feel a sharp stinging pain.
    “her legs were scratched and smarting”
    synonyms: sting, burn, tingle, prickle; More
    • feel upset and annoyed.
      “defence chiefs are still smarting from the government’s cuts”
      synonyms:13920761_10208628903333444_6196718056528026069_n feel annoyed, feel upset, feel offended, take offence, feel aggrieved, feel indignant, feel put out, feel hurt, feel wounded, feel resentful

      “she had smarted at Jenny’s accusations”
noun
noun: smart; plural noun: smarts
  1. 1.
    sharp stinging pain.
    “the smart of the recent cuts”
    • archaic
      mental pain or suffering.
      “sorrow is the effect of smart, and smart the effect of faith”
  2. 2.
    NORTH AMERICANinformal
    IMG_0035intelligence; acumen.
    “I don’t think I have the smarts for it”
Origin
Old English smeortan (verb), of West Germanic origin; related to German schmerzen ; the adjective is related to the verb, the original sense (late Old English) being ‘causing sharp pain’; from this arose ‘keen, brisk’, whence the current senses of ‘mentally sharp’ and ‘neat in a brisk, sharp style’.

What,nonsense?

Kangaroos   may be sweet in the top paddock only.No humans allowed
 I keep a  sad dog with me till it smiles
I’ll  keep one eye on you and one in my  bed
donald-winnicott
Keep it simply Cupid: love daily
 We  keep  men  in hay at our farm
Keep your flingers tossed in butter
Keep your chin up with a brick throat rest
Keep your eyes open with steel nails
Keep your hair  up:panic
Keep your nose to the whetstone and save money on surgery
Keep your powder dry; use a compact
Keeping up with Moses
 He keeps his words close to his  pests
 I keep on clicking:Am I going off?
08cover-popup
Kick  men  in a word
Picket up here
Kick some  nutter and go to jail
Flick the bucket
DSC00081
kick your wheels
He’s like a kid  with a candid  whore
The king’s handsome
Kiss my bell
kissing the nose spreads flu
Crit and puzzle
photo0583
 He’s like a  knife through hot stutterers
We knock  ligght  out of the spark
Clocked toff and done four
No knocking on blood permitted here
Knock the coven off the Mall.Witch ones?
knock your own locks off with my quay
 He mocked  Aaron and lived
I have the kodak bit  not  the kodak moment

Till the logic’s heard

This form of poetry is beloved of me.
As Shakespeare wrote so I like writing too.
Free verse I like but with this, I can see.
And as I wrote thus, well my writing grew.

Thus and hence in mathematic’s  shared
Are also used in sonnets when I write.
They make connections till the logic’s heard
The logic of the heart makes love feel right.

To imitate the poets who’re  well renowned
Is impudent yet I refuse to stop.
I do not ask to get a  golden crown
Such satisfaction I get from my work.

If you think I’m conceited you are blind
I’m humbled by the treasures of the mind

 

Shimmering light

Shimmering light
The lily pond.
Deep water.

The music of your eye
The touch of your arm
Your always honey smell.
I love.

Rustling trees in a row,
A wide green lawn;
People stoop to see small flowers.

A snail on the path.
The perfection of the shell.
I believe.

Unusually tall dandelions
at the edge of this wood
Wave in the warm west wind.
We smile.

Sitting pen in hand
I wonder what I would have written
In all the letters I’ve not sent you.

Far away on the Ridgeway,
Cars, seem small as ants,
Rush towards the motorway.

They make us laugh.

How green the meadows are
How fresh the old trees.

I gaze at you.
I find I am.
It’s mutual.
I thank you

Two ways of seeing things differently

 

hier_820.jpgThe first option is that we can use a wide or narrow focus by  relaxing or tightening our eye muscles.When we are stressed we usually tighten them to focus on the danger we feel is near.Tunnel vision is real .I had  it after spending 5 hours reaching an Eye Hospital ironically.I could only see the doctor running in front  of me and not all the people in A and E.I was amazed when I went again to see the big room I had rushed through.
The second way of changing is to move to a different place and so have a new perspective or ideally several.In life it seems no perspective has absolute truth but if we see a number of them we can get a better idea of what we see.Or seeing a person over a period of time in different settings will give us  a better picture

Our ambivalence tortures us within

Do we choose what we perceive each hour?
Or are we automata clothed in skin
Which see the thorns and then ignore the flower?

Can we, like grass, be grateful for a shower.
Or is our store of gratitude too thin?
Can we choose what we perceive each hour?

 

Can we choose to smile instead of cower?
Can we  love the game  played not to win?
Who  sees  sharp thorns and then ignores the flower?

 

Do we   choose  to love or to play power;
Can we  choose   the virtue ,not  the sin?
Do we choose what we perceive each hour?

 

As we struggle inside Babel’s tower
Our ambivalence  tortures us within
Most see the thorns and then ignore the flowers

With   softened eyes, we see the entire bower
If we move ,  we see what is now dim
Do we choose what we perceive each hour?
Some  see the thorns and then ignore the flower

 

 

Why 15 authors write

 

http://flavorwire.com/303590/15-famous-authors-on-why-they-write

I don’t know about what other people like but I like to know why people do what they do ir where they choose to live…. if they have a choice [ ,what books they read and so on.What values fo they live by and what genre of writing they  do they prefer.If they are not  writers,what kind of work do they do.I can see now that all those people working in very low paid jobs would feel left out by this.I meet a lot of delivery people mainly men and  in  a short encounter while they bring in my groceries I manage to have interesting conversations.
One man who is very small and rather old for that work was very helpful.He said you need to  be with other people but not talking when you are bereaved.He was West Indian.Some of these people seem much nicer than the people I used to work  with.Maybe over educated and competitive people are ambitious and hence can be cruel too.And many are educated very narrowly and in my department I didn’t know anyone who read novels.So they may  have lacked imagination which is very important for human beings to  be able to understand others different from themselves.