Month: January 2017

What a lot of tea,miaowed Emile.

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Mary dreamed she was riding her bicycle.She was going up a hill and then approaching a very complicated roundabout.
How can I look at the map when I am riding my bike,she asked herself.Anyway I don’t have a map and I’ve never been here before.She looked down and saw she was wearing some dark  blue denim culottes and red suede knee high boots with laces.
I don’t remember buying these,she thought.She felt quite hot even though she wore only an olive  needle-cord coat over a Breton T shirt.
Goodness me, she cried.I look smart.
Her spectacles clouded over as she was sweating.How will I know where to turn off when I don’t know where I am or where I am going to.
When she woke up she filled Stan’s beer tankard with tea.
What a lot of tea,miaowed Emile.
I thought it saves carrying the tea pot. I’m going to go back   to bed as I feel  a bit peculiar.
You  have got a fleece nightgown on.Maybe you are too hot,he replied.
I am trying to save money on the heating,Mary answered.I see I can save  even more money by buying 2 pairs of Hotters sandals for £97.Usually they are £127.
That saves £30,the clever animal informed her.
I think it’s quite misleading,Mary answered.It only saves money if you were already planning to buy them.I  have such strange feet I don’t like to bare them.
Do you wear shoes in bed with a boyfriend.Emile  asked.
I’ve not got a boyfriend.Emile.
But if you did?
Well.you know, an older man might not wish to go to bed with me.He might like just sitting on the sofa holding my hand and  kissing me.
OK said ,Emile.It sounds a trifle boring to me.
Don’t be so cheeky, Emile.Talking to me is not boring.
No, he said, but it’s nice running up and down your  legs in bed.
I could hardly expect a man to do  that.He might injure me.
It was just a kind of example,he replied nervously.
Suddenly the back door opened and in ran Annie from next door.She was wearing a mustard coloured track suit and orange trainers with matching lip gloss.
What a horrible colour,Mary cried.
It’s the in colour now,Annie said kindly.I am getting my hair dyed too.
Bright yellow is  better,Mary  told her.Except it attracts insects.
Insects,I don’t want those.How are you,dear.You look flushed, she responded emotionally.
No wonder. I’ve been cycling all night in my dreams.Why can’t I dream of motor bikes?
Don’t ask me,Annie told her.I am utterly ignorant.Do you need therapy?
I don’t think so,Mary answered.I need to know where I am going.Do I decide or is it my Inner Wisdom or Higher Power.I could use higher power on that bike.
Just take it one rotation at a time, Annie murmured.
I thought it was  one step.Mary answered
You can’t take a step on a  bike.
I suppose not.But I could ride up a step on the bike.
Don’t ride up a step ladder,Anne advised.How would  you get down again?
Let’s have some coffee,Mary cried.Here we are ,the kettle is boiling.
Let’s just sit and brood.
But don’t ruminate,purred Emile.It makes you ill.
Just let your mind go blank.
And so I did.

That in our schizoid age we cannot learn?

This poem is written in the sonnet form,
And yet I have my doubts about its shape
Though nearly to that structure it conforms
There may be holes where nightmare faces gape.

It looks and speaks just as a sonnet would
And talks of metaphysical concerns.
Do we conclude, as poets and readers should,
That in our schizoid age we cannot learn?

For humans now  snarl with the  teeth  of  wolves;
And lions are dressed  in cuddly warm sheepskin
Thus sense is tricked and problems are unsolved,
So,hey, we dreaming blind just carry on.

It looks like one,it feels like one,it speaks;
Yet from my words, does human feeling leak?

It is myself to whom I speak in sonnet form

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Trapped in  cultivated  ways ,we may  forget
That usefulness can also be a trap.
Am I the one who never makes a bet?
Am I  the one who always has the map?

 

We are no automata, we are flesh.
And even older brains can be rewired
Maybe we need to do what may seem rash
Light   ourselves more brilliant mental fires.

 

Reluctance seems  to  cage us with our fear.
Though ,despite our wishes, we each age and die.
Time goes and  the end will soon be here
But  is it ever too late  for  one try?

 

It is myself to whom I speak in sonnet form
Anxiety is  fierce  until we learn.

Should we forget?

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The country has 2 minutes silence for soldiers killed in wars but how many minutes for Romany,Jew and political prisoners who died in the Holocaust.Yes, maybe we need to forget and yet it happened once……And someone  who seems out of control is riding the world with his enormous power.

The children of Auschwitz

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Did we think Hitler was the last  evil dictator and demagogue?
If they starved children,was it because they were identified by the numbers tattooed on their arms and not by the names their  parents called them?
Many children have died since in Cambodia,Africa………..so are we still human?

Because we have acted rightly.

photo2201_002Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We
do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence,
but rather we have those because we have acted rightly.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an
act but a habit.

Aristotle

From the skies of heaven falls one black star

A choice is not a choice when both are marred.
A name that shrieks, a face consumed by rage
From  the skies of heaven falls one   black star

Who flung down  the invalid Mastercard?
Whose hand stirred to open a flawed page?
Whose will be the bodies burned and charred?

Welcome, to the bored, is a new war
Like Nero burning Rome, life but a  stage.
Though, with Macbeth, perhaps Shakespeare went too far.

Sweeten riots and smoke a  large  cigar.
Let the shops burn down, oh,more damage!
Do we care now who the villains are?

Let the houses fall,  blow up the cars.
Let the world see how the West is crazed.
Light the torch apocalyptic  with despair

Tell them that “Christ lovers” are deranged
Jesus spoke of peace not hate savage.
A choice is not a choice when both are marred.
Even cloudless skies hide evil stars

Slant sun

With winter frost, the sun beguiles our eyes
Making diamonds gleam to engage hearts.
In slant sun, the patterns solemnise.
With eternal frost, the sun makes sharp our eyes
Makes us look when we might compromise.
To be in focus, broad enough yet sharp.
This winter lost, a card disturbed the wise.
Whose drawn weapons gleam; who evil starts?

The Wild Swans at Coole

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William Butler Yeats (1919)

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away

Mainly struggling

narcissus2017-1-1About the journey, what to say,
That the infinite task was finite,
That what seemed impossible is almost done?
Mainly struggling with interior problems
Projected onto this heap of clothes and books
Maybe I took the wrong path, made a detour I didn’t need.
Maybe the struggle itself made me strong enough.
Now I sit weary, with a mug of tea by my side.
A channel opened and I was able to receive your gifts.
Now it’s not dark but a grey cloud is hanging low.
It feels like spring again

Why did they not tell us?

Playing on the high wires of space-time
Holding time back for an instant then diving
Into the unmapped depths  and deeps
Pulling space here and there
Why did they not tell us, music has its own geometry
Like  on the Spanish guitar , one second is not the same as  another
One holds back then runs, another steps out and waits.
It’s the mild tension and music in our bones that makes us sing and dance.
And they try to capture this on graph paper, oh so neat!
Maybe that is just to stop us falling off the edge of the world
As we gyrate.And is this not what the birds say in their whirling?
As we trudged home from school was it not this we  longed for?

To use the strength of anger to create

True love or hate, not sentimental gush
Are feelings that can energise and warm.
The words on birthday cards seem much too sweet
No rushing  love ; no hatred or hot fear,

To use the strength of anger to create
A book or child if we are blessed with mate.
Far better this than killing for release
Which cuts away the simple growth of peace.

Sentiment is cruel and perverse.
Claims to love but its brief is too terse.
Under sugared words we find dark rage
So hesitate before we turn the page

Hit the ball of life with all your strength.
For our  life is not measured by  its length

Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.

How softly sweetly,gently flowers pose

Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.
Their intricate petals form a shield
Yet bees with striped force shall make them yield.
Appearances, both natural and contrived,
Mixed with the wiles of human nature thrive.
As, knowing not, we pluck the apple rare
And bite its flesh,with teeth we have to bare.
We too deceive the innocent who pass
Not seeing watchers hid behind the glass.
The windows break,the deep earth quakes;
Seized is the maiden ,he  her virtue takes.
Beneath the surface,force and fierceness thrive.
What fearsome, burning God enjoys our lives?

Mo Farah Facebook entry

On 1st January this year, Her Majesty The Queen made me a Knight of the Realm. On 27th January, President Donald Trump seems to have made me an alien.

I am a British citizen who has lived in America for the past six years – working hard, contributing to society, paying my taxes and bringing up our four children in the place they now call home. Now, me and many others like me are being told that we may not be welcome. It’s deeply troubling that I will have to tell my children that Daddy might not be able to come home – to explain why the President has introduced a policy that comes from a place of ignorance and prejudice.

I was welcomed into Britain from Somalia at eight years old and given the chance to succeed and realise my dreams. I have been proud to represent my country, win medals for the British people and receive the greatest honour of a knighthood. My story is an example of what can happen when you follow polices of compassion and understanding, not hate and isolation.

Force unwithstood

 

A  wonderful word is coercion.
On it ,I cast no aspersions.
But to coerce is not good,
Force unwithstood
Never grew much but nasturtiums.

 

Sometimes our will is a force,
But virtue can’t come just by choice.
Like a flower from a seed
Our virtues we breed
As we listen for that still,little voice.

In school, we were given an impression
That knowledge implies good decisions;
So we learned   virtues and vice
The wrong and  the  nice
The existence of hell as a prison.

 

Believing that terror is a good,
They frightened us with their cold blood
In the Confessional we shivered;
And the wood round us quivered
They’d have tortured us more if they could.

So this education itself was a vice.
The nuns and the priests hit us twice
Once in the class
And again during Mass
Where we wondered if the Wafer was Christ.

And having this question in mind
Was a sin of a serious kind
We sinned against Faith
That delicate Wraith
So no personal truths could we find

I have found God in the depths
Where with kindness he surrounds those who’ve wept
But he makes no demands
As his Love understands
To the paths of our own truths we’ve kept

I see that Satan’s lighting his cigar

Where were we when God fled from the world?
Where was Jesus Christ., the only son?
Where were we ,when fearsome words were hurled?
Don’t blame  refugees, for Christ was one

 

Where was truth before Election day?
Where was heart when  Donald Trump came in?
An Empire blinded to its own decay
A President heard raving from day one.

 

Ok ,you hate the Clintonesque elites…..
But who has jumped cross this dangerous gap?
Things done from resentment  are not sweet
And truth will hit us all with  dangerous slap

 

We cannot go back now, we’ve come too far
 I see that  Satan’s lighting his cigar

 

 

 

Cor blimey

There were two left shoes and both were black
I could not wear either on my right foot.
So I went upstairs and moved my stuff!
I found their partners soon enough.
But, where did I put the two left shoes?
Oh, cor lummy, it’s bad news!
I can’t go out and I can’t go in.
I’m sitting outside in the wheelie bin.
I think I’ll  leave these right ones there
Then I’ll see the others rolling down the stairs!
My shoes are unfaithful I declare.
They refuse to settle and be a pair.
The left ones scheme and the right ones run.
Ain’t real life such glorious fun?

Doubt

doubt
daʊt/
noun
noun: doubt; plural noun: doubts
  1. 1.
    a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction.
    “some doubt has been cast upon the authenticity of this account”
    synonyms: uncertainty, lack of certainty, unsureness, indecision, hesitation, hesitancy, dubiousness, suspicion, confusion;More
    antonyms: certainty, conviction, confidence, trust
verb
verb: doubt; 3rd person present: doubts; past tense: doubted; past participle: doubted; gerund or present participle: doubting
  1. 1.
    feel uncertain about.
    “I doubt my ability to do the job”
    • question the truth or fact of (something).
      “who can doubt the value and necessity of these services?”
      synonyms: think something unlikely, have (one’s) doubts about, question, query, be dubious, lack conviction, have reservations about

      “I doubt whether he will come”
      antonyms: be confident
    • disbelieve or lack faith in (someone).
      “I have no reason to doubt him”
      synonyms: disbelieve, distrust, mistrust, suspect, lack confidence in, have doubts about, be suspicious of, have suspicions about, have misgivings about, feel uneasy about, feel apprehensive about, call into question, cast doubt on, query, question, challenge, dispute, have reservations about;

      archaicmisdoubt
      “they did not doubt my story”
      antonyms: trust
    • feel uncertain, especially about one’s religious beliefs.
      synonyms: be undecided, have doubts, be irresolute, be hesitant, be tentative, be ambivalent, be divided, be doubtful, be unsure, be uncertain, be in two minds, hesitate, shilly-shally, waver, falter, vacillate, dither, demur;

      informalsit on the fence
      “stop doubting and believe more firmly!”
      antonyms: believe
  2. 2.
    archaic
    fear; be afraid.
    “I doubt not any ones contradicting this Journal”
Origin
Middle English: from Old French doute (noun), douter (verb), from Latin dubitare ‘hesitate’, from dubius ‘doubtful’ (see dubious).

Why is free verse so popular?

 

narcissus2017-2

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/free-verse-poets-glossary

 

“Free verse is a form of nonmetrical writing that takes pleasure in a various and emergent verbal music. “As regarding rhythm,” Ezra Pound writes in “A Retrospect” (1918): “to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.” Free verse is often inspired by the cadence—the natural rhythm, the inner tune—of spoken language. It pos­sesses visual form and uses the graphic line to differentiate itself from prose. “The words are more poised than in prose,” Louis MacNeice states in Modern Poetry (1938); “they are not only, like the words in typical prose, contributory to the total effect, but are to be attended to, in passing, for their own sake.” The dream of free verse: an originary verbal music for every poem. Jorge Luis Borges explains: “Beyond its rhythm, the typographical appearance of free verse informs the reader that what lies in store for him is not informa­tion or reasoning but emotion.””

The rebellion of the “vulgar”

ecg-of-the-world

My most vulgar piece of art.Must try harder

Some of us thought that despite his attending the most prestigious university in the universe and having much wealth there was something vulgar about Trump which would not be appropriate for a President
However,after aeons of being put down, the common people have got fed up and they want a President who is like themselves even if he is a caricature of himself and according to those who know him there is not much under that mask

I saw him being interviewed a few minutes ago.He was still  going on about the crowd at Inauguration being the biggest ever, pointing to large photos on his wall.This shows insecurity to me.Some of us hide it.Few show it so openly.
I thin it may be dangerous.

Vulgar?

  • two-of-us-moredoodlingvulgar

Someone who’s vulgar has bad taste, and could also be called unrefined or unsophisticated. Your snobby neighbor might mutter about your family’s vulgar taste if you paint your house with rainbow stripes.

From the Latin vulgus, meaning “the common people,” vulgar is an adjective that can describe anything from the sexually explicit to the merely ugly and crass. Many people believe that there’s an important difference between things that are sexually frank and things that are vulgar. “Erotica” can be beautiful and even highbrow, while “pornography” is crude and vulgar. My friend Arnie loves the lights and glamour of Times Square, while Cintra finds all the bright-colored, corporate logos to be vulgar.

1

adj of or associated with the great masses of people

“a vulgar and objectionable person”
Synonyms:
common, plebeian, unwashed
lowborn

of humble birth or origins

adj being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language

“the vulgar tongue of the masses”
“the technical and vulgar names for an animal species”
Synonyms:
common, vernacular
informal

used of spoken and written language

adj lacking refinement or cultivation or taste

“appealing to the vulgar taste for violence”
“the vulgar display of the newly rich”
Synonyms:
coarse, common, rough-cut, uncouth
unrefined

(used of persons and their behavior) not refined; uncouth

adj conspicuously and tastelessly indecent

“a vulgar gesture”
“full of language so vulgar it should have been edited”
Synonyms:
crude, earthy, gross
indecent

offensive to good taste especially in sexual matters

Her body bends

Her grief so palpable, it seems to speak
Her  vocal chords once  soft are stiff and pained
Her face  so hurt, her body taut yet  weak
Her grief so palpable, ah, please, please  speak
Ill-tempered men have   pleasured in her shrieks
Yet  when such   grief ‘s  been   tempered and refined
The  vocal cords might be   enjoyed again
Her grief so palpable , why  don’t we speak?
Her body  bends, we should have taken pains

I offer up my words to you

  • nz_paradiseshelduck
  • Living life in all its fierceness,
    Birth and death and joy and pain
    We struggle on our unknown journey,
    Sometimes lost and found again.

    We are indeed like lambs to slaughter
    Death will be our final goal.
    But while we live, let us live bravely.
    Let us not destroy our souls.

    Climbing in the hills and moorlands
    In the heather, children play.
    The sun half blinds me with its light
    Yet ,still I see the given way.

    I received a call to climb.
    These hills are my essential home.
    My vocation is to dwell here
    While in the silence, mind may roam.

    Noise in cities is destructive.
    Though nature’s fierce, it’s also true.
    Struggling on life’s craggy slopes
    I offer up my words to you.

Elan brutal

dscn0020

She was sweeter than money till she met him
He has plenty of elan brutal.
Where are the borders of prayer?
By whose Messiah was love preserved?
Toujours re-bless.
Dies prayer
A la printemps de l’annee je suis flosse.
A quicksand is no place to gather moss.
He said,Oh,No! Raaaa.
A passim a day keeps the Word at bay
He is bluish and almost unconscionable.
Je m’appelle la diva derider.
I think I aren’t.
Is he a psychowrath?
I write with a pin on my arm.
I love to watch bones knitting
Quelle est l’heure de la torte?
C’est le mort diable.Scriabin.
Tortelier,mon amour.
How the hell he spells so well noone can tell.
Roman’s nose I love beside the bally car
I think my destiny was to greet this occupation … a la quartz