Broken lamps at night
Soon after I began writing my husband was very ill.I had to fit it in between caring for him, washing many pairs of pyjamas and cooking.That means I didn’t read as much of other people’s writing here as I would have liked to do.And unfortunately, I still can’t believe /feel he is dead.I need to write but I’d like to read as there are some fine people here.Best of all, there are many good, kind and courteous people here on WP.It helps me to know that.
No nonstick pan shall grace my hob again
For, since my lover died, I have burned six
And, despairing of the love of any man,
I shall cook imagined meals on candle wicks.
In short, I tell you I shall eat no food.
I’ll live on seeds of grass and flowers sweet.
My friends think my starvation’s rather crude
They counsel me to eat grass snakes and newts.
I burned these pans because I am bereaved.
My mind was on my husband’s late, lost face
If I had been much faster to retrieve,
I should have saved the pans and not replaced
So shall I take my cooker at the dump,
And live on dandelions, which nothing trump?
I am a kettle made of stainless steel
I am a saint, for tea is brewed to heal
And ,unlike kettles on an old coal fire,
I am not dirty nor do I perspire.
My mirrored sides reflect you as you cook.
Look at me and read me like a book
I’m full of love and hotter than a man
Oh, dear lady, love me while you can.
Superior mother, yet inhuman I;
Even electric kettles sometimes lie.
I shall never punish you, my dear
For perfect love like mine shall wield no fear.
All I ask is that you polish me.
For, in between your hands, I yearn to be.
Since you died ,I’ve burned eight non-stick pans
But I have not passed out or fallen down
I have not hung more than a photograph
Though on my solemn face I wear a frown.
Since you died I do not want to eat
I put on silken camisoles that droop
As my flesh,my body ,seem to shrink
I tie the straps up in a knotted loop.
Since you died I wish to be with you
And yet my soul and body are alive
I do not wish to murder my own self
Be suicidal widow or ex-wife.
Yet in my dreams I feel your absence bleak
And of my days I do not wish to speak.
“The worst scenarios are ones occurring in conditions over which children have no control, such as the dangers faced by the babies in the still-face experiments. When we are powerless to prevent our nervous systems and psyches from being overwhelmed, our physical, emotional, and intellectual development is disrupted. We call this trauma.
As a metaphor for adult life in contemporary society, the “still face” paradigm—the helplessness intrinsic to it and the breakdown of empathy that lies at its foundation—aptly describes the experience of many people as they interact with the most important institutions in their lives, including government. And, as with Tronick’s babies and their mothers, when our social milieu is indifferent to our needs and inattentive to our suffering, widespread damage is done to our psyches, causing distress, anger, and hopelessness. Such inattention and neglect lead to anxiety about our status and value, and a breakdown of trust in others.
The pain of the “still face” in American society is present all around us.
People feel it while waiting for hours on the phone for technical support, or dealing with endless menus while on hold with the phone or cable company, or waiting to get through to their own personal physician. They feel it in schools with large class sizes and rote teaching aimed only at helping students pass tests. They feel it when crumbling infrastructure makes commuting to work an endless claustrophobic nightmare. And, too often, they feel it when interacting with government agencies that hold sway over important areas of their lives, such as social services, the IRS, building permit and city planning departments, or a Department of Motor Vehicles. Like Tronick’s babies, citizens who look to corporations and government for help, for a feeling of being recognized and important, are too often on a fool’s errand, seeking recognition and a reciprocity that is largely absent. “
A wonderful word is pentameter
Does it like to be rhymed with thermometer?
If the answer is, No
I will ask you to show
How you kept all the real poets quite outa here.
Pentameter iambic how sweet
That the line has got exactly five feet
So mathematics intersects
And sometimes it wrecks
The music of words as they leap
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/24/my-novel-finally/
“With my fiction I focused on chapters and overall conceptions, while in poetry I crawled along in the trenches of each sentence, examining every word for a sign of a deeper significance. Each finished poem felt realized, arrived at directly by way of an inner struggle between whatever emotion had inspired it and the nuanced thought needed to both express and propel its forward movement.
Was I on some unrealized level granting permission to the poet that the novelist was being denied? In any case, The New Yorker magazine, the place I most wanted my fiction published, started taking my poems when I was 28. When one, “Like Wings,” generated a great flurry of letters (including marriage proposals and requests for advice, equaling a record at the magazine, ….”
When Mary got home,she took off her coat and put the kettle on the fire!She got the tea caddy out and put some tea into the pot.Suddenly the door burst open and Annie her exuberant neighbour fell into the kitchen
Are you ok,Mary asked her gently.Those 4 inch heels are rather dangerous.
Annie was wearing a sky blue track suit,red stilettos and a big green pashmina. Her make up had melted all down her face as she was so warm with running.She had some waterproof make up but had the feeling it might be dangerous to clog the pores.So why had she bought it?
Where have you been?she asked Mary curiously.You were ages.
I forgot to get off the bus as I fell into a reverie.
That sounds like a black hole!
I was daydreaming so I ended up by the river and a policeman asked me for a date,sort of.
Did you have any dates with you?
No,I only had Stan in my bag,alas.
Where is he?Have you put him into the wardrobe?
It’s already full.He’s still in the bag at the moment.
The two women fell into a sad mutual silence realising Stan would never now teach Emile to swim in the bath nor return his overdue library books.
Am I liable for his fines,Mary wondered.
I can pay if you like,Annie,said generously.She got out some home made biscuits and gave one to Mary who was wearing a long black dress from Lands End which resembled a nun’s habit.
Are you thinking of retiring to the cloister soon ,she continued.
No,I don’t believe in Christianity any more.Christ.yes,Christianity ,no.
What about Xmas? Will you celebrate?
I shall pray and do out the kitchen cupboards.
Are they that bad,asked Annie curiously, twiddling her ringlets with her fingers.
Possibly,Mary giggled!
They didn’t teach domestic science at Oxford!And Mother was always busy cooking and cleaning the grate after she got home from work.
Talking about grates,I’d better look at the kettle.She lifted it off the fire and held it up in the air.It was very black on one side,just like the one Mary’s mother had had so many years ago.
Why don’t I make some tea,she asked.
I don’t know,said Annie.Is this the Xmas quiz?
No,you don’t understand.It’s a rhetorical question.
Oh,do stop showing off,Annie told her.I only went to Knittingham Polytechnic and we never did Greek,just Aramaic.I have forgotten it now.
Mary poured out the tea into two pint sized mugs and the women sat silently warming their hands on the mugs and meditating on the wilful backwardness of the local poly which now only taught Latin,Hebrew and chemical engineering.The latter was an error as the professors thought that was what Wittgenstein had studied before finding Bertrand Russell more attractive.
Russell’s paradox had taunted Annie ever since those unhappy student days.Whereas she being a lady with a very high libido would have preferred Russell to his paradox if she had been given the choice.Alas, he was already dead.But why let that stand in the way of fantasy.
I thought he said he would import a loo.
What else would a virgin like me think?
He said,I love you,baby, yes,I do
I thought grandad had died when he caught flu
I knew his health was always on the blink
I wrote, you said you would import a loo.
I fight off men by spitting super glue
I wondered why the Queen had pressed my link
She said,I love you rabid, yes,I do
English people always take the cue.
And peer into homes through a little chink
I say, you have a super portaloo!
What makes any English virgin blue?
It’s cold enought to make a polar blink
I thought you said you would, in part, be true
I wonder why the Pope says crosswords stink
And God stares down to watch him using ink
I thought John said he would import gold too.
Then said,I love you greatly, yes,I do!
I have no microwave nor special hob
I make good food for people whom I like
It may be buttered corn upon the cob.
Into my kitchen you may lemons lob
I’ll freeze them with my magic lemon spike
I have no microwave nor special hob
I always cooked well though I had a job
I rode to work upon my ancient bike
I may have buttered corn for Uncle Bob.
I like my solitude,I fear the mob
I never smoke though I can strike a light
I haven’t microwaved induction hobs.
I like a handle better than a knob
I like conversing if I’m feeling quite.
I fry men battered horns to fill their gobs
Oh,kitchen unfit, what a dreadful sight!
Send out the men to buy me dynamite
I have no microwave nor golden hob
I always say good morning with my love.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/detail/69080
“Indeed, the only other areas of American life that have similar inclinations are probably religion and philosophy. Religion is no longer attractive for many poets for reasons that are historical and beyond the scope of this essay. Philosophizing remains a popular endeavor in the poetry world, but only so long as it’s a poetic sort of philosophizing (Nietszche, Heidegger) and not complicated, logic-y stuff that involves formulations like ◊∃xφ→∃x◊φ. Since Anglo-American philosophy has been dominated by the latter sort of thinking for decades, it’s no surprise most poets don’t go in for it.
Which leaves politics as the most favorable non-artistic arena for a certain type of poetic sensibility. In his essay “Absolute Poetry and Absolute Politics,” Michael Hamburger argues that this sensibility, which he connects with the Romantic-Symbolist tradition, “presuppose[s] a high degree of isolation or alienation from society.” Hamburger believes that poets who work in this vein have “a private religion, a religio poetae irreconcilable with the exigencies of the public world,” and that such writers consequently are attracted to “absolute political creeds, mistaking their monomania for a dedication akin to [the poets’] own, and seduced by promises of order.” It’s an interesting point, but we can be satisfied with a more modest related argument: any brand of politics—”absolute” or not—has a vision that supports and sustains it, and in which some poets may find reflections of the structure they seek in their writing. Even a responsible American citizen-poet has a flicker of the old Romantic-Symbolist fire in his belly, and this may cause him to feel a connection to contemporary politics that is often no less intense than Pound’s affection for Il Duce. When Jorie Graham takes on global warming, that’s more or less what’s going on.”
Oh,lavatory,w.c or loo
Without your china, what would people do?
I hate to use a closet filled with earth
And weeing in the garden I feel cursed.
And by the loo we wash out dirty hands
In a shining basin where soap stands.
My soap is grapefruit scented not by choice
But priests say it’s good for sinners’ voice.
For when we sin ,we lie to our own souls
We self deceive and make pretend we’re whole.
Our voices falter and we lose our breath;
While God is looking down on us, we laugh.
While closeted for private needs each day
Be careful when you ,inadvertent ,pray
Oh, lidded kettle boil me water fast
I cannot live without your heated blast
Your spout is small but perfect for its use
And, as your lid is hinged. it can’t get lost
An electric kettle made by Russell Hobbs
A teapot with a spout and lid with knob
Are what the English need in times of storm
If crisis comes, we need tea hot,not warm
I don’t object to diverse kettle brands.
We had a coal fire once with kettle stand.
Its metal black from soot and burned by coke
We made our neighbours tea which seemed to smoke.
Ah,kettle ,instrument of civil life
We cannot boil our water on a knife.
On the other side of suffering there is peace
Whether by a death or such relief
I hate the moment when I start to fall.
Wish I lived inside a stoney wall
Through the foaming river we must go
And embrace the other we don’t want to know.
Inside a hermit’s cell there may be grace
And inside grace, an airy well lit space.
For me, it is the river and its deeps
I have to journey, even as I weep.
But, if for you, it is the tiny cell,
Therein your soul will comfortably dwell.
For different souls have different ways to take.
God is as generous as a the world he makes.
http://www.poewar.com/poetry-writing-tips/
“Listen to criticism and try to learn from it, but don’t live or die by it. When I was in college, I would always take my best reviewed poem from the previous class and submit it to the professor for the next class. Invariably, the next professor hated the poem, and could provide good reasons why it failed.
When you write a good poem, one you really like, immediately write another. Maybe that one poem was your peak for the night, bit maybe you’re on a roll. There’s only one way to find out.
The bigger your theme, the more important the details are. A poem with Love, Destiny, Hate or other huge themes in the title already has two strikes against it (and I like love poems).
Say what you want to say. Let your readers decide what your poem means.
Feel free to write a bad poem.”
“In a recent Newsweek article, “Poetry is Dead. Does Anybody Really Care?”, Bruce Wexler wrote, “”Poetry” is the only art form where the number of people creating it is far greater than the number of people appreciating it. Anyone can write a bad poem.” Oh, so true. When I was hosting a poetry forum and chat, this is the thing that bugged me most about the so-called poets who posted and chatted there. They didn’t read poetry, which meant they had only a vague idea what a poem was, let alone a good poem. Few owned a book of poetry and most were hard-pressed to name a living poet.I simply don’t understand this. Why would anyone want to write in a genre they don’t enjoy reading? Who’s ever heard of a mystery writer who doesn’t read mysteries?
If you want to have any sort of credibility as a poet, you must read poetry. Hokey verses in greeting cards don’t count. Focus on contemporary poetry, just as you’d read contemporary novels if you were a fiction writer. Many would-be poets, if they read anything at all, seem to stick exclusively to classics. I surmise this is because most pre-twentieth century poetry rhymes, and they see rhyming poetry as being “real” poetry. Reality is, poetry is comprised of many elements; rhyme is but one.
A good place to start is Poetry Daily, which features a new poem every day, culled from literary journals. Many literary journals have online versions, some featuring excerpts from the latest issue. We have an extensive listing of journals at Mustard & Cress. You can find print versions in the magazine section of most bookstores (keep in mind that most lit mags have small circulations, so which ones are available will depend on where you live).
I dreamed I was no Catholic last night
I was in a church,unlit by candlelight
The clergyman had got no vestments on
She gave an extremely lengthy, long and Lutheran sermon
We had no Consecration then at all
But later we had Tizer and played ball
Apparently we have Communion now and then
After an extremely lengthy, long and Lutheran sermon
We don’t kneel in a Confessional and admit
We kicked our little brother in the butt
So we have got no penance then to come
After an extremely lengthy, long and Lutheran sermon
We sang these great old hymns by Bunyan
I loved them each and every single one.
But where had all the ceremonial gone?
Instead it’s extremely lengthy, long and Lutheran sermon.
We mayn’t pray to Jude for hopeless cause
Nor ask Our Lady’s aid from hellish maws
We speak direct to God when we feel glum
On an extremely stunning, Lutheran mobile phone .
So God must have got a lot pairs of ears;
Lots of eyes to weep about what he hears
He can’t have any helpers, even nuns
What an extremely lengthy, long and trying carry on.
I woke up in the middle of the dream
And gave a loud and penetrating scream
My boyfriend said he knew sex was a sin
He rang St Francis on his mobile phone
Now I go to Mass on weekdays if I can
Although I’m so attractive I’ve been banned
But any ritual is really better than
That extremely lengthy, long and Lutheran sermon.
Oh,Alfred,my beloved,do not go
Do not leave, but warmth to me bestow,
Lie beside me in my bed all night
Succour me when stormy dreams affright.
Oh,Alfred,-tis your eyes that turn me on
The green and golden light is never gone.
Affection constant, touch and feeling shared.
I am not embarrassed when you stare.
For you , the gallant male, have ever seen
My naked form well lit by Jove’s sunbeams
And if I wear a gown of wincyette
You love it ,,as it’s made for paws of cat.
Alfred ,we can’t marry yet I fear.
Cats can’t read the Book of Common Prayer.
Mary was in her oak panelled, blue walled dining room sitting in her old fuchsia coloured rocking chair reading “The History of God” by Karen Armstrong while the washing machine was doing its best to wash all the clothes she had found on her large bedroom chair.She decided to make some more coffee.
As she opened the walnut and maple kitchen door she saw Emile swimming in a large pool. of water He was as happy as a duck on Hampstead Pond in sunny August
Good heavens, she cried baring her small white teeth in horror.
As she looked at the washing machine she saw a strap from her brown silk petticoat was dangling through the door.Water was running down it as the machine spun.
Surely the door should not have closed with something hanging out,she told Emile who was still bathing in the water.
She ran upstairs two at a time and fetched some bath towels.
Emile was somewhat angry
I like having our own pool here in the kitchen and I love this Persil Silk and Wool Wash.All I need now is a spray on hair conditioner.
Mary dialled 999.Hello I need a paramedic.My cat is disobedient.
After a few minutes Dave the bixexual ,transvestite paramedic arrived wearing a denim dungaree dress over a striped Breton Top and a pair of wellington booots
It’s great that we are so tolerant here,Mary told him.The NHS let you wear anything at all>I quite fancy a denim dress myself.
Well,said Dave, being a transvestite is my way of life and my knees are very nice.
Mary made no more comments but led him to the kitchen
Emile,you must come out of that water,he said sternly.
I think I’ve had enough, the naughty cat replied.Put the gas fire on to dry me,please.
I am glad Annie is on holiday,Mary told Dave as they spread the towels on the red and blue lino floor.She would get very agitated as she fears being electrocuted like Thomas Merton the famous Catholic monk and mystic who took an electric fire into the bathroom in some moment of madness whilst in Asia at a conference.It seems odd unless it was the rainy season.
After their efforts Mary and Dave had coffee.
I’m reading Ted Hughes’ letters he told her.I wonder why some people keep all their letters for ever?
I kept a few of Stan’s she said but I think I’ll destroy them to stop my relatives reading them if and when I die.
I read Ted Hughes and I really enjoyed the letters and other prose works
I suppose I’d better go back to work Dave said,Shall I pop in tonight.
Yes,do,Mary told him.I’ve made a beef pie and I can make chips and fry a few dozen eggs too
Lovely,cried Dave as he jumped into the Emergency ambulance and disappeared.
Mary put the towels into the washing machine with some Tide.I guess a hot wash is best,she told herself.Where the dickens am I going to dry all this stuff and iron it too.I think I’ll enter a religious order and wear a nun’s habit.It’s like a school uniform
Come to think of it,I could invent my own uniform.
And so say all of us.For he’s a jolly good pillow
What art has twisted branches to this form?
The beauty makes my eye feel satisfied.
This power affects us all like a wild storm.
The beauty speaks like hidden poems
Important to see nature dignified
What art has wrestled branches to this form?
I take my camera out as I sit warm
By this stone wall my eye is gratified
The power is like a god in his fierce storm
What would I do if gods bent these, my arms?
So human lovers could not in them lie.
What mystery twisted branches to this form?
What is the power by which the trees are calmed?
Where is that being in whom I can abide?
The power affects my heart like a sweet balm.
With my infant hunger gratified,
I see the world with no fierce greed allied.
Whose the heart that twisted all to form?
This art affects green nature like named storms.
http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-to-get-over-someone/
“Fixation on an absent other allows us to be publicly committed to love while privately sheltered from any of its more arduous demands.”
http://www.thebookoflife.org/why-we-sometimes-hope-the-people-we-love-might-die/
Quote:
Being close to someone necessarily involves a high degree of what therapists call ‘ambivalence,’ a blending of deeply negative and positive thoughts. When people play an outsize role in our lives, when they have an enormous emotional power over us, when our debt to them is immense, we will both adore and at points resent them hugely. There will be tenderness and rage; attachment and revulsion. They can let us down like few others can, they know our weakest spots, they enchant but also exhaust us.
We’re not actually going to do anything – of course. We’re not even taking the tiniest preparatory steps; we would never buy poison or encourage them to go cliff-walking on stormy evenings. But there is relief to be found in the odd grim daydream nevertheless.
Fantasies are not plans of action. They don’t correspond to our real values or intentions. They operate as momentary escapes from powerful feelings. We fantasise about the death of a loved one not because we truly want them gone but because being close to them is such a large and therefore at times tricky part of our lives. Our fantasy is a strange but real tribute to the depth of our bond. The guilt is a symptom that despite the inevitable and very real tensions and disappointments of the relationship, we care about them very much. The meaning of the fantasy isn’t that we are sick. It’s that loving someone is never free of frustration.
https://bakarichavanu.com/2013/02/19/7-reasons-why-most-people-find-writing-hard-to-do/
“6. Most people don’t realize that writing is a process —of hard-to-get-started introductions, messy drafts, and tedious revisions. Students need to be shown that most writing is not done in a single draft, nor should teachers expect it to be.”
My doctor was n’t highly astute
He downsized to a house in Beirut
He said he was deaf
But nevertheless
A chauffeur was hard to recruit.
My dentist came from Judea last year
But we call it the West Bank down here
But North,East or South
To tell you the truth
The politics are projections of fear.
The chiropodist came here from Ceylon
She came with false eyebrows glued on
For her thyroid was low
And one way it shows
Is the hair we once had is now gone.
So thyroid deprivation’s effects
Mean you don’t need a Brazilian wax
For our hairs are so weak
They fall off with no tweak
But we will not let them labelled as lax.
Now women are not shaved to give birth
So why treat this terrain with a curse?
A man who’s mature
Will not do a detour
If a few curls protect his wife’s pur
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2007/04/in_praise_of_difficult_poetry.html
“To update Jarrell: When a person says accusingly that they can’t understand contemporary poetry, their tone implies that most of their happiest hours are spent at the fireside reading Eliot’s “Four Quartets“or “The Waste Land.”
Robert Pinsky
Who invented this sagacious jug,
With lid and spout and handle all in curves?
Why do restaurants use just one tea bag,
So savaged by hot water, it’s unnerved?
Are teapots reminiscent of the breast
Which nurtured us and gave us nourishment?
Our mother’s milk became our loving feast.
While deprivation seemed harsh punishment
A ceremony,ritual and a rest,
For friends enjoy to watch the tea poured out
And family sit around and feel well blessed
Such kindness comes much better from a spout
A teapot’s more essential than a phone.
Such sphere nearby, you’ll never feel alone.
How my heart sings 