Day: November 15, 2017

I’ve had a really busy day, today
I planned my funeral, not the date,  I say!
If I’m cremated I’ll have Joan of Arc
If I’m  buried, let them play The Lark
I emptied all the drawers in my desk
I’ve not made a will, eternal pest!
I found five  stick deodorants unused
There was  the intention to be rude
To smell like a real woman does when nude.
A lot of artist’s rubbers and a fuse
There was soap and there were ear plugs in a case
Half a biscuit which I’m pleased to say I ate.
No envelopes  and only a few pens
No spectacles but I found one  single lens
Some ibuprofen and  a box of tapes
The drawer was overflowing till it ached
I put all these things into a box
I’ll have to scrub the drawers  out with Lux
Naturally, I  left stuff on my  only bed
I wish I’d put it all into the shed
I go upstairs and see the Lord  has fled
Just what the writer ordered for the dead.
Stay in tune and he will contact you
The infernal  broadband radio is new

I

Leonard Cohen sang it years ago

They say the flood is coming once again
Leonard Cohen sang it years ago
Who builds the ark, what is the pathogen?

Do we defer to women or to men?
Do we take it fast or fake it slow?
They say the flood is coming once again

We took away the  pillars built upon
Our ethics now destroyed by constant blows
Where is our ark, what was our pathogen?

We have PC not sin , confess, Amen!
And mini Stalins put on many shows.
They say the flood is rushing here again

Meanwhile, hidden Satans lure us on;
And goodness is  by bloodshed overthrown
Is there an ark, what was our pathogen?

Embarking soon, I wonder where we’ll go.
Is there dignity for those who cannot know?
They say the flood is coming once again
Who built our Ark, what was the pathogen?

 

 

 

A psychoanalyst …Winnicott and Harold Pinter

“In a remembrance of the writer Harold Pinter that appeared in the Los Angeles Times (and posted on Slow Painting), Charles McNulty included a memorable quote by D. W. Winnicott:

But for all his vehemence and posturing, Pinter was too gifted with words and too astute a critic to be dismissed as an ideological crank. He was also too deft a psychologist, understanding what the British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott meant when he wrote that “being weak is as aggressive as the attack of the strong on the weak” and that the repressive denial of personal aggressiveness is perhaps even more dangerous than ranting and raving. (All that stiff-upper-lip business can be murderous.)”

I just came across that quote by accident and thought it was worth posting here

Related articles

Wounded by reviews?

I very much like the writer Kenneth Gergen and especially his book,” The saturated society”

http://identitythoughts.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/the-saturated-self-dilemmas-of-identity-in-contemporary-life-kenneth-j-gergen-pt-2/

http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/553/1198e”

I think it’s  beautifully written and explains the bad side of post modernism but also how differently it could be used.He got a very good review on the Washington Post but later got a terrible one in the NYT.
In an interview he told how this affected him badly until the man who wrote the review died ten years later.I’ll put a link in here later.http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SweMLEe6TpgC&pg=PA294&lpg=PA294&dq=kenneth+gergen+the+saturated+self++washington+post+review&source=bl&ots=_lKF4I_lVi&sig=VEbgQl1ZpIwcLgfw3S5M5sI9__U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JJ_VUtfLEeaP7AaviYHwCA&ved=0CGwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=kenneth%20gergen%20the%20saturated%20self%20%20washington%20post%20review&f=false.

!He used to wake up at night with thoughts of what cruel things he’d  like to do to this person.This shows how even someone of high quality can be wounded easily.

Most people who read English novels have heard of Virginia Woolf. She was highly acclaimed yet had breakdowns whilst awaiting reviews.
Eventually she committed suicide during WW2.Her husband was Jewish and she was afraid of what would happen if the Germans invaded Britain.

But her mental health was fragile after losing her mother and favourite older sister in her teens and also possibly being sexually assaulted by her half brother.Despite al this she had much happiness and is one  of the most highly acclaimed women writers of the 20th century…not much good  to her of course

Sylvia Plath a great poet  a generation after Woolf also committed suicide and later became known as one of the best poets of our time

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/18/writers-who-suffered-from-the-sylvia-plath-effect/#!scilW

Would you like to be a tormented genius and enter the literary canon or just be an ordinary ,moderately happy person? Most of us are not so gifted in any case.

Some of us believe that others with more gifts, more money, more winning personalities are much happier ,but it’s not true.Many geniuses are troubled.

On the other hand being troubled by itself will not make you a genius,alas.Everybody is troubled at times.Sometimes a poet may use it

Is thinking a conversation? And dreaming…?It takes two.

Dwelling on my thoughts about thinking, and knowing much thinking is blind and cut off from the people outside us, is it valid to compare  it to different kinds of talk’ conversation?

 

Free thinker?

With a trusted friend or teacher we may open our hearts and ears.We may talk and listen .We may learn and give our friend new ideas…but also this conversation may be risky.So more frequently we gossip, talk about the weather or argue over trivialities.We may chat with a friend simply to show we are with them or as they say.To touch base…in other words to comfort and give security.

When we are alone, we might worry for hours.Some people used to worry a lot about their sins.Or whether they had enough money.Or some daydream and fantasise about Fifty Shades of Grey.
Maybe actual thinking or thought is rare.

I am not proposing we should be thinking all day.We would go mad!But were we to think ,would it be like a conversation with the Other within?So we’d be listening as well as talking silently?A kind of internal conversation may be taking place.We all know that our unconscious mind may be thinking while we are woolgathering or taking a a bath.Eureka..Archimedes famous cry.And dreams are also a kind of thought in images.They are a communication.Some people have had dreams which they felt were a message from God.
In a real conversation something new might be born…Why is thinking associated with tension and effort?

Related articles

A heart without words

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I’m not sure what prayer is but I like this quote

Quotes tagged as “prayer”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

Shall I turn it on?

Photo0609_001_001Hello, are you the householder? No ,I’m that spider on the wall that people keep talking about.Who are you?
Your printer is broken.Wow, it’s still in the box.Thanks, I’ll take it back tomorrow.
Your mobile phone has got a virus! Oh, don’t worry.I have one as well.
Your internet radio is  listening to you. Thanks, I’ve been singing all day.I hope the radio is not jealous.I’ll switch it on or do I need to if it’s already listening?
The TV is watching you. I don’t care.I’ve seen all its sordid secrets.Well, not all but enough.
We can protect you.It’s ok.Catholics have guardian angels.
We will give you a free month.Of what?
We can pray instead of you.Somehow I  don’t think that is quite the same.
It conveys a subtle yet fundamental misunderstanding of what prayer is for.
Good bye,

What is the mystery of the world we know?

Whatever evil  humankind may do,
The sun will rise and shine on one and all.
Mercy, grace, and love are spread  anew
As apples ripen and the sweet birds call.

What is the mystery of the world we know;
That God looks with dispassion on us all?
And what his  wondrous virtues are to show
When wolves attack and murder does appall.

Will heaven compensate the refugees
Who starve in camps when money is withheld.
From those who gave us prophets and great seers
We see confusion, fear then ethics felled.

So often we are blind to wider views
And  get mere  entertainment from  the News

The poet

Moments when the original ‘poet’ in each of us created the outside world for us, by finding the familiar in the unfamiliar, are perhaps forgotten by most people; or else they are guarded in some secret place of memory because they were too much like visitations by the gods to be mixed with everyday thinking.

Marion Milner

Tidying the drawers

My drawers are filled with little odds and ends
Letters from my brother and my friends
Some tablets  stop me vomiting at sea
And others cure the vertigo of me.

Alas each thing though small takes up a space
If each were infinitesimal what a grace!
For then I could keep millions in  one drawer
And stop myself from wondering where they are

Some inserts for my shoes I thought were lost
A photo of my husband in his past
A letter and a photo of a child
My diary of  last year  is nothing wild

Such clusters  never take on any life
I threw them in the bin and took a wife

Soothing rhythms help each mind to create;

Evensong evokes another state
A world of beauty, peace and mental calm
There all is still and thoughts do not gyrate

The breath slows down and evil does not mate
Indeed it flees  before the holy psalms
Evensong evokes another state

In the quiet, we  each can happy wait
Assured by song of good, of healing balm
Where all is still and thoughts do not gyrate

Soothing rhythms help each mind to create;
To bear the emptiness unfilled and do no harm.
Evensong evokes  this cultured state

Frantic notes  of music irritate
And minimise all  goodness and all warmth
Let all  be still and let thought emigrate

Let us lowly creatures slowly learn
To love each other as we take our turn
Evensong evokes another state
There all is  calm and thoughts are sweet as fate

Poetry and Emotion

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https://www.independent.ie/life/celebrating-our-lives-in-poetry-and-emotion-35624315.html

Peter Sirr

And as fellow poet – and partner to Enda Wyley – Peter Sirr points out, for many poets: ”Real life can be the work. Wallace Stevens, one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, used to write most of his poems on his walk through Hartford, Connecticut to his job as Vice-President of the Insurance Company where he worked. Everything he wrote was in his walk to his job.” Nevertheless, ”You have to cultivate the life from which poetry can come.” For Sirr, this life also started in teaching, before his talent as a linguist pushed him towards translation, although it is only in recent years that he has been able to devote himself to his work more fully.

This doesn’t mean that he is suddenly cranking out a poem a day: ”Holding back and not writing and the silence between poems is as important as the writing. You have to be a daily communicant in some way with the art of poetry and other poems and that quality of attention that you give to the world.”

 

 

Unwelcome calls

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I find with BT Call Guardian I can eliminate all international calls and I have got lots recently.The real friends I have abroad can use my mobile number.I managed to learn a few good responses like

I was in an accident Yes ,I was killed last week and I’m not any better
How are you: I have got diarrhea/ cancer/delusions   that I am the Queen or a relative so please speak appropriately
Your computer is faulty: I don’t have one.
Your computer needs checking give me remote access; I can never find that remote.
I am a BT  engineer: so am I
I am  a highly trained person: I don’t like people touching my computer that I don’t have.
I am from Dell: Did you say Hell?
I am from HP: We never use sauce.
I am from Acer: Someone stole mine from the patio.
I am from Asus: Are you God?
I am from Lenovo:Le Nouveau what?
I am very skilful: At what?
What is your name? Theresa May.What’s yours?
Your laptop has a virus: I  have to wash my hair now.
Your laptop is malfunctioning: how amazing.I’ve not even opened the box yet
Your laptop has got a new disease: I’ll  put it to bed then and pour water into it.
Your laptop is an error.Send me a bow.
Your laptop has no sound.Why, can you usually hear it?Where are you?
This is the police.Robbers are near you. If you are the police catch them!