Month: April 2018

We both chose

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I cannot mend the lamp that we both chose

The top and bottom split when  he fell down
But I can make it look as if it glows

The candle burns, has fragrance of a rose
That takes away my sadness and my frown
I cannot mend the lamp that we both chose

I find it hard to  bear the pain of loss
The concept is  more verbal than it’s noun
But in my home  the candle  brightly glows

In Blythburgh church, a lighted candle  bless
See the painted angels and their crowns!
I  will bear this breakage and its cost

I will get the strength to bear my cross
Oh,haul me, holy one, if I fall down.
Beyond  these lights we sense  the Light of God

Bless the hand that points us past the known
Where each of us must travel, perhaps alone
I cannot mend our lamp that we both chose
I  wander in my grief amongst the low

Royaume Uni: a hostile environment for “foreigners” England sins again against its own ex- Empire peoples.Some have died of strain and anxiety. Heil Mary

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/19/theresa-may-immigration-policy-seen-as-almost-reminiscent-of-nazi-germany

 

May’s immigration policy seen as ‘almost reminiscent of Nazi Germany’

“Comments from ex-civil service chief Sir Bob Kerslake increase pressure on PM as row over Windrush-era citizens continues”

 

“Mackenzie claims that May’s mission was to make it systematically difficult to get by without papers, even though the Home Office had no firm evidence of the scale of the alleged abuse.

Work checks, school registration, hospital and GP appointments, bank accounts and credit were all among the everyday activities where proof of status could be required.

“I saw endless papers claiming the system was ‘unsustainable in the current economic climate’ but no evidence to back it up,” she tweeted.

A former head of the UK border force said on Thursday that something had gone “badly wrong” at the Home Office with the loss of experience and knowledge of immigration as a result of departmental reorganisations.

“Corporate memory and expertise has been lost with the abolition of the immigration service and subsequently the abolition of the UK Border Agency now as well,” said Tony Smith, a veteran official in immigration enforcement who was the interim director general of the UK Border Force between 2012 and 2013.

“A lot of people were let go who had that experience “

When I was born my mother said,what’s that?

I wash my hair in Fairy green shampoo
[I do the dishes and the saucepans  hot]
I find the texture better than with glue

If my hair is dirty, I feel blue
My face goes red,my eyes look like pink dots
I wash my hair in Fairy green shampoo

I don’t do what other women do
My perspiration  draws great love from cats
I find hair spray is better than  UHU

I ‘m  trisexual ,I’m harassed  by you
Why  do other folk not find me hot?
I wash my hair in Fairy green shampoo

On holiday ,I hired a  green canoe
It had no engine, no computer mat
I find hair mousse is better than  UHU

When I was born my mother said,what’s that?
My grandma said I looked quite like the cat
I wash my hair in   any new shampoo
It shines so much  a Bobby cried,Love you!

The Start: Writing Your Own Poem

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Resisting the urge to interpret contemporary poems and “wrong” dreams. BY JUDY ROWE MICHAELS

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69588/the-start-writing-your-own-poem

 

Practice of an art is more salutary than talk about it.
There is nothing more composing than composition.
—Robert Frost, from his notebooks[Poetry and Prose,
edited by Edward Connery Lathem and Lawrance Thompson
(Holt, 1972)]

The Love

We knew not of the future or the loss
We blithely live unknowing of the price.
The severed heart, the depth of pain,the Love

To make a narrative at any cost
To be by love and loneliness enticed
Better we dismiss a future loss

Into a union holy and its lusts
Joyful when we feel dear love arrive
The full,great heart, the depth, its piteous Cross

Don’t live apart, split off,in psychic frost
Cut off from passion and creative drive
Better we accept the future loss

Our inner world is filled with these grey ghosts
We rid ourselves of hate and do not thrive
With frozen heart and hand and eye morose

Reality itself, we can’t describe
But in our sensual skin we feel alive
We accept the future and its loss
The severed heart, the depth of pain,the Love.

Loss and grief for both Israelis and Palestinians by David Grossman

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https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/full-text-speech-by-david-grossman-at-alternative-memorial-day-event-1.6011820

The death of a loved one is actually also the death of a private, whole, personal and unique culture, with its own special language and its own secret, and it will never be again, nor will there be another like it.

David Grossman’s speech at an alternative Memorial Day ceremony

An old man in the sun beside a tree

A man of peaceful face and pale blue eye
An old man in the sun beside  a tree
A pilot in the RAF  at war

He could have been a  Nazi, German spy
His Aryan appearance I could see
A man of peaceful face and pale blue eye

Men like him  flew from the other side
Mad blitz on London, blazes,poetry.
A pilot in the Luftwaffe for years

And who brought God in here,must Love be tried?
Was he the God of  Copper, broiling free?
The man had gentle face and kind blue eye

Was that life the one for which man’s born?
Was Jesus silent on his bended knee?
Is he  our pilot  in the inner war?

Up and down, the bells ring by the sea
Open up your arms,Lord, embrace me
Oh ,man of peaceful face and pale blue eye
A pilot in the RAF, dark Victory

 

 

I met a man who flew Spitfires in WW2

spits_aligned

http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/spitfire.html

 

 

I sat down in the town as it was so hot.A man near me who must be about 94 said he was in the RAF.He survived 2.5 years flying to protect Britain from German warplanes.
He said on his first flight he found himself face to face with a German plane.He had to pull a trigger and fire the machine guns on the wings.For a moment he did not want to but he did and all  the bombs on the German plane exploded in front of him and the crew were blown to bits.
Another time, again he was alone in the plane, he was hit by a German   and the tail fell off his plane.He managed to get out with his parachute,hoping the enemy would not  kill him by gunfire,They did sometimes
He seemed a peaceful person but he told  me he never sleeps well and has nightmares every night.But he married and had two children and has grandchildren.He was once in a pub in the East End when the Kray brothers shot a man and killed him.He worked for a company who supplied the marble for Euston Station.
So  we agreed that we never know the stories of the people we pass in the street.And he  might write his down

 

Until my invitation to the feast.

The bell rang on the ancient church at noon.

A sparrow flitted to  the Tudor wall.

Was this the knell  which brings us  damned gloom?

 

Perhaps there is no meaning here at all.

I read my unknown thoughts projected out,

And  in my rage, desire the walls to fall.

 

Like you, I am too  often stuck in doubt.

Betrayed by old ideal and vanished wish.

So what is in confuses that without.

 

Oh,pain, oh ,mind, oh agony, oh flesh.

I shall not cling to life and wait for grace.

I am, myself, a fish in net of mesh.

 

Was this my  destiny, my rightful place;

Alone besieged by sorrows on all sides?

I  err for  being sad is no disgrace.

 

So ,to my hopes, I’ll cling like drowning beast.

Until my invitation to the feast.

I don’t even know if it is Russian

IMG_0021.jpgThanks for calling to tell me I am owed insurance  money after that bus ran over me in Uxbridge Road.However,I   have died since.

Thanks for asking me what I think of your  telephone service.I prefer Westminster Cathedral.

Thanks for  saying I have a beautiful voice.However you may not realise I am 87 and  no longer date strange men  or indeed any men or other human beings.

Thanks for the offer of  three pairs  of shoes for the price of two.I have 50 pairs of shoes now so I must turn down your offer or buy a new home.

Thanks for sending me the Sun.If the Guardian is not there I’d prefer nothing at all to come or if  you are desperate  for money send The Telegraph

Thanks but the LRB is too much for me already.It gives me a certain je ne sais  pas or qua or da da  as I walk into the Turkish Cafe for my coffee.It keeps men at bay.And women,I hope.I love Jesus best.

Please stop writing to me.I don’t speak Russian.I don’t even know if it is Russian.And I do not want to  be  your wife.Or a spy.

Trump in Israel

graffiti-berlin-wall-wall-trabi.jpghttps://www.timesofisrael.com/late-night-shows-poke-fun-at-trumps-israel-visit/

 

“American late-night television hosts delivered a number of jokes at the expense of US President Donald Trump and his visit to Israel on Monday, highlighting some of the US leader’s less delicate moments and off-the-cuff remarks.

On “Late Night,” host Seth Meyers made fun of Trump’s historic visit to the Western Wall, tying it to the president’s pledge to build a wall long the border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for it.

“President Trump visited the Jewish holy site the Western Wall in East Jerusalem today. He also said the wall was the reason Israel doesn’t have any Mexicans,” Meyers said.”

On Sundays he takes in the Bread Divine

The way that we can split ourselves within
Is , in truth, the cause of grievous sin
The kindly doctor with his much loved wife
Experiments in  Death Camps with his  knife

On Sundays he takes in the Bread Divine
Washed down   with  God’s  own Blood ,now  changed to wine.
We would choose again to kill the Good
As madness rolls in overwhelming flood

Our  forced conversions   did not go down deep
Where dwells  barbarian soul ,awake,asleep.
At times of strain the force of evil grows
To entertain us humans with its blows

What shall guide us in the time to come,
Since we murdered God and then his Son?

I might have a nervous breakdown next

I might have a nervous  breakdown next
We have to fill the day with will and care
My mental health  is worsening as I text

I feel so angry, I am deeply vexed
If this was cricket someone would declare
That they might have a nervous  breakdown next

I guess a doctor might give me a test
Would it be  my cue to  show a flair?
My mental health  is worse than I can text

In the past man  used to value rest
Now it is our pysches we prefer
So I might have a psychic  break through next

I feel so limp,I’ve lost my love and  zest
But to the lords of warfare, won’t defer
My mental health   forecast in ancient texts

I see a crowd of medics who confer
I see a  syringe of the drugs so drear
I might have had mental  breakdown next
I escaped  but  they still  run  the West

Let’s go baby

IMG_0020.jpgDearly beloved,we are gathered here together to thank God for making us the best people on earth.And to say, we don’t need him any more as we have got some very artificial intelligence, thousands of spies and almost all the people in the world carry devices which have microphones,cameras and location  and moreover they read the News online and believe every word of it.Let’s go,baby

I wasn’t one of the six million

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52937/i-wasnt-one-of-the-six-million-and-what-is-my-life-span-open-closed-open

I Wasn’t One of the Six Million: And What Is My Life Span? Open Closed Open

TRANSLATED BY CHANA BLOCH

 

    6
I wasn’t one of the six million who died in the Shoah,
I wasn’t even among the survivors.
And I wasn’t one of the six hundred thousand who went out of Egypt.
I came to the Promised Land by sea.
No, I was not in that number, though I still have the fire and the smoke
within me, pillars of fire and pillars of smoke that guide me
by night and by day. I still have inside me the mad search
for emergency exits, for soft places, for the nakedness
of the land, for the escape into weakness and hope,
I still have within me the lust to search for living water
with quiet talk to the rock or with frenzied blows.
Afterwards, silence: no questions, no answers.
Jewish history and world history
grind me between them like two grindstones, sometimes
to a powder. And the solar year and the lunar year
get ahead of each other or fall behind,
leaping, they set my life in perpetual motion.
Sometimes I fall into the gap between them to hide,
or to sink all the way down.
    7
I believe with perfect faith that at this very moment
millions of human beings are standing at crossroads
and intersections, in jungles and deserts,
showing each other where to turn, what the right way is,
which direction. They explain exactly where to go,
what is the quickest way to get there, when to stop
and ask again. There, over there. The second
turnoff, not the first, and from there left or right,
near the white house, by the oak tree.
They explain with excited voices, with a wave of the hand
and a nod of the head: There, over there, not that there, the other there,
as in some ancient rite. This too is a new religion.
I believe with perfect faith that at this very moment.

4 pints of whiskey and a flea, s’il vous plait.

Our so called leaders could  barely get a flock of sheep to fall off a cliff without using a nuclear missile.
Theresa May or May Not ask the House of Commons to vote on anything more importantthat whether milk should be in bottles like whiskey.Or in view of our anxious condition, whether whiskey should come in  4 pint cardboard containers saying:Use with 24 hours.
In Britain we claw and bite  tourists speaking Spanish on the Tube while we gladly go to Spanish restaurants [ 2 women are charged with assault on he Underground]

If you  miss the sense of community engendered by War,why not move to Gaza City? It might be hard to get in but ,boy, is it hard to get out… alive.

If you feel bad, just thank God you are not a farmer in Gaza.

Israel, where  tickets to the Theatre are free.Bring your own wooden tower.

Ever wondered what it would be like to have a lunatic in charge of the world? Wonder no more.

Are adverbs bad? Not if you like crossing out with a red pen

My son passed out after receiving Communion.I thought Jesus being Jewish it would have been unleavened bread but it was a sponge from Tesco’s  or an india rubber from, possibly, India.Well ,talk about constipation.They should have put detergent in the wine.

I’ll never fall in love again.I’ll swim.

Make your own quotes with 26 letters and a few commas.And a full stop.

All the words enraged.

My writing career ended at the bus stop.The brakes came on too suddenly and I ripped my notebook in half.Which half I can’t tell.

I used to write lyric poetry until I realised I didn’t know what lyrics are.So no I mimic instead

The curlew rolled the bell into the hay
The flowing bird ran boldly  up a tree
I bought its lovely nest from off Ebay
It  left  me soiled in dark pests, what a flea!

Alexander Woollcott….read and laugh

pexels-photo-66400.jpeghttps://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Woollcott#Quotes

 

The two oldest professions in the world — ruined by amateurs.

  • On actors and prostitutes, from his column, as republished in Shouts and Murmurs: Echoes of a Thousand and One First Nights (1922), p. 57.

Stephen King on how to write

JGBallardbyFayGodwincreditBritishLibraryBoard.jpghttp://uk.businessinsider.com/stephen-king-on-how-to-write-2014-8/#3-dont-waste-time-trying-to-please-people-3

Extract

6. When writing, disconnect from the rest of the world.

Writing should be a fully intimate activity. Put your desk in the corner of the room, and eliminate all possible distractions, from phones to open windows. King advises, “Write with the door closed; rewrite with the door open.”

You should maintain total privacy between you and your work. Writing a first draft is “completely raw, the sort of thing I feel free to do with the door shut — it’s the story undressed, standing up in nothing but its socks and undershorts.”

7. Don’t be pretentious.

“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones,” says King. He compares this mistake to dressing up a household pet in evening clothes — both the pet and the owner are embarrassed, because it’s completely excessive.

As iconic businessman David Ogilvy writes in a memo to his employees, “Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.” Furthermore, don’t use symbols unless necessary. “Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity,” writes King.

8. Avoid adverbs and long paragraphs.

As King emphasizes several times in his memoir, “the adverb is not your friend.” In fact, he believes that “the road to hell is paved with adverbs” and compares them to dandelions that ruin your lawn. Adverbs are worst after “he said” and “she said” — those phrases are best left unadorned.

You should also pay attention to your paragraphs, so that they flow with the turns and rhythms of your story. “Paragraphs are almost always as important for how they look as for what they say,” says King.

Rondeau as poetic form

Bellevalia_cyanopoda2018.jpghttps://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/rondeau-poetic-form

 

“The rondeau’s form is not difficult to recognize: as it is known and practiced today, it is composed of fifteen lines, eight to ten syllables each, divided stanzaically into a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet. The rentrement consists of the first few words or the entire first line of the first stanza, and it recurs as the last line of both the second and third stanzas. Two rhymes guide the music of the rondeau, whose rhyme scheme is as follows (R representing the refrain): aabba aabR aabbaR.

Where the rentrement appears in its traditional French form, it typically does not adhere to the rhyme-scheme–in the interest of maintaining the line’s buoyancy and force. But when nineteenth-century English poets adopted the rondeau, many saw (or heard) the rentrement as more effective if rhymed and therefore more assimilated into the rest of the poem. An example of a solemn rondeau is the Canadian army physician John McCrae’s 1915 wartime poem, “In Flanders Fields“:

     In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The challenge of writing a rondeau is finding an opening line worth repeating and choosing two rhyme sounds that offer enough word choices. Modern rondeaus are often playful; for example, “Rondel” by Frank O’Hara begins with this mysterious directive: “Door of America, mention my fear to the cigars,” which becomes the poem’s refrain.”

Be negative

 

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I saw the light by Katherine

https://www.fastcompany.com/3038199/the-positive-results-of-being-negative

 

Quote

NEGATIVE THOUGHTS PROVIDE A HEALTHY BALANCE

In a study called “States of Mind Model,” University of Pittsburgh researchers Robert Schwartz and Gregory Garamoni explored positive and negative thinking as it relates to anxiety, depression, and stress. While too much negative inner dialogue can bring about depression and panic, the pair found that a “golden section”–two-thirds positive and one-third negative–is the healthiest state of min