What does “eerie” mean?

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 From my watercolour class
eerie
ˈɪəri/
adjective
adjective: eerie; comparative adjective: eerier; superlative adjective: eeriest
  1. strange and frightening.
    “an eerie green glow in the sky”
    synonyms: uncanny, sinisterghostlyspectral, unnaturalunearthlypreternaturalsupernaturalother-worldlyunrealmysteriousstrangeabnormaloddcuriousqueerweirdbizarrefreakish;

    antonyms: normal, reassuring
Origin
Middle English (originally northern English and Scots in the sense ‘fearful’): probably from Old English earg ‘cowardly’, of Germanic origin; related to German arg .

And today I shall be nineteen ninety four

In answer to your question I declare
That I must die seems totally bizarre
Yet since you ask  which burial I prefer
Cremation seems to be  the least unfair

I’d like to hear the sound of Joan of Arc
Jennifer and Leonard sing in parts
And as the Maiden burns up in the pyre
I shall be consumed by controlled fire

I’d like to  be more useful while alive
I am not a husband nor a wife
But I might be a friend to those I love
And pray the sun will shine ,below, above

I think I made a Will,but why d’you ask?
Do you think you’ll benefit at last?
I plan to leave it all to Charity
One that gives old folk  meringues for tea.

You never phone without your wise advice
About  how housework should fulfil my life
But my mind  is as good as yours, I find.
I keep it oiled  and covered in red wine.

Joan of Arc will be my friend and saint
September Cohen will become my mate
He’ll sing an anthem while I sail away
And give me courage  when it hurts to pray.

It’s time to laugh and cry over our lives
As to the  young we dictate our archives
Though few people  listen the Word
At least we can assure God  that we have tried

I  wonder why you never rang before
And today I shall be nineteen ninety four
I will ring you when your birthday comes
To ask you if you’d like pickling in rum.

Aphorism and poetry

Photo0324.jpghttps://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/making-space-aphorism-exploring-intersection-between-aphorism-and-poetry

 

¨What drew me to aphorisms was my reading of a new compilation of Kafka’s Zürau Aphorisms, translated by Michael Hofmann. This collection contracts and expands the notion of what an aphorism can be. Some are merely observations: “Like a path in autumn: no sooner is it cleared than it is once again littered with fallen leaves.” Others strike me as snapshots—fragments—of the personal: “To let one’s hate-and disgust-filled head slump onto one’s chest.” And of course, some grapple with such large concepts as Evil, God, Humility, Babel: “Once we have taken evil into ourselves, it no longer insists that we believe in it.” Finally, there are the aphorisms that, rather than delimiting something small, seem capable of offering a Weltanschauung, a world view, as in the justly famous aphorism that ends the Kafka collection:

It isn’t necessary that you leave home. Sit at your
desk and listen.
Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t wait, be still and
alone.
The whole world will offer itself to you to be
unmasked, it can
do no other, it will writhe before you in ecstasy.

This aphorism verges on being a parable: a small story that teaches. It strikes me that this is a self-portrait of the artist as a receptacle of, versus creator of, reality. Or, as the Moody Blues sang aphoristically many years ago, “Thinking is the best way to travel.”

I am proud and gleam like gold

I am a gleaming aubergine
in an oval dish
My purple skin is polished
Like BBC English.

I await my fate for I am ripe
My seeds fulfil my wish
Soon,soon the knife will cut me up
As corn in fields is threshed.

I’d rather lie in Egypt’s soil
By birds and insects bit
But here I am in England
Where irony is wit.

After cutting comes the salt
As in a bowl I sit
For I am moist like lady’s parts
As poets have much writ.

Moussaka is my destiny
And as you bite and chew
I shall be what Jesus was
And give my grace to you

I am fried in olive oil
To give me flavour ripe.
Dried in cloth and placed in pot
Atop the meat I ride.

My colour brings all eyes to me
As I lie in a heap.
Some like carrot heads so bright
Royal purple is my state.

So better than a lamb I am
For a sacrifice.
I am proud and gleam like gold
As Caesar-like I’m knifed.

My seeds through sewers deep shall pass
And somewhere come to grief.
I shall grow again and be
Portrayed by a leaf.

“I shall not hate” Izzeldin-Abuelaish.

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8300930/I-Shall-Not-Hate-A-Gaza-Doctors-Journey-on-the-Road-to-Peace-and-Human-Dignity-by-Izzeldin-Abuelaish.html

 

 

“This amazing book tells the life story of Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian who has lived through half a century of horror and destruction in Gaza. Abuelaish, like so many Palestinians, has endured loss, privation and suffering on a scale that is unimaginable. His response is not hatred and violence, which would be all too understandable. Instead he has produced a great work of insight and compassion that tries to point the way towards peace and reconciliation.

He grew up in the shadow of al-Nakba (“the Catastrophe”), the division of Palestine after the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. He came from an established land-owning family based in the south of the country. Overnight they were dispossessed, and his childhood was spent in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza.

His family, which had been prosperous, were now in deep poverty. There were 11 of them and he records how they “lived in one room which measured about 10 feet by 10 feet. There was no electricity, no running water; there were no toilets in the house.”

When he was 10, they found a new house to live in. Five years later it was bulldozed by one of Ariel Sharon’s tanks. His brother Noor fell into Israeli hands, went to prison, and later vanished. The book suggests his mother, a stoical woman to whom he acknowledges a huge debt, never fully recovered.

Education, and some inspirational teachers, were his redemption. Eventually he won a scholarship to study medicine in Cairo, and then gynaecology at the University of London.”

Read more by clicking the link.A  truly astonishing goodness.Photo0316.jpgWho is the Light of the world now?

Sorry,I am unable to answer the phone.

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    My voice is on strike.
    My husband has to keep his eye on the clock today.
    My sister’s glued to the television.
    While my brothers have been at loggerheads for a very long time.

    My daughter has to keep a weather eye on her fiancee,
    And my granddaughter has been entranced by “The Magic Flute.”
    The cat is having kittens.
    The dog is chasing his tail.
    I’ve got my finger on the button
    And my hand in the till.

    My feet have gone to sleep.
    My head is coming unscrewed,
    And my mind is on higher things.
    Where my brain is is under investigation
    And I hope to be reunited with it soon
    But they can’t be absolutely certain it will reconnect.

    My spirits have been in the doldrums
    But I have some whiskey in the cupboard.
    My career spanned the heights and the depths,
    Though not of love
    as God would recognize it,
    In a very real sense.
    You must rest assured I care about you
    Though I do not feel able to converse, owing to invasion by viruses.
    Now there’s just a few minutes before I go for broke again
    Please leave a message after the pips squeek

Stan and Mary……..the Anniversary

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    Stan was wearing his best suit,topped by a denim apron, and wad polishing the big windows with a microfibre cloth ,as
    he waited breathlessly for his stunning wife.Mary entered the room wearing a long purple and mauve dress which clung somewhat tightly to the curvaceous contours of her beautifully rounded body.
    On her feet she had some smart pewter ballet slippers and in her elegant hand she carried a huge pewter clutch bag which contained some of her many medications.She addressed Stan,
    “I think I can leave my handbag behind if I put my mouth spray into my bra.”
    “That somehow detracts from the romance of the evening.” Stan pronounced openly.
    “Well,you know,I never had a cleavage until lately and I fell I ought to make the most of it.”
    “Surely I should be the one make the most of it,” he riposted jocosely.
    “Of course you may,my angel,but not in the restaurant,”she answered back sweetly
    “I’ll put your spray in my pocket then,shall I?”Suddenly the doorbell rang.”Who’s this?”It was Annie,their next door neighbour.
    She was wearing a coral velvet track suit with matching Reeboks and sun hat.
    “Hi,I just came in with a little prezzie,”She declaimed.In
    her hand was a huge box of chocolates.
    “Gosh,Mary you look lovely in that beautiful long dress but you’re not
    going on your bike,are you?”
    “No,we are having a cab,but it’s not come as yet.”
    “Well,never mind.I’ll ring 999 and get them to send an emergency ambulance for you!”
    Fortunately,as luck would have it the minicab appeared and it was only as they were entering the restaurant that Stan realised he was still wearing his old denim apron.
    “Shall I take it off?” he pondered.
    On the pro side I will look smarter on the con side I might spill some soup down my front.I wish I’d done more logic at college.
    So he kept it on.Mary didn’t seem to notice.She just took him for granted.If he stood on his head and sang”Jerusalem” she probably wouldn’t pay any attention.
    Then he noticed that Mary was wearing an apron too.It was the same colour as her dress.What a brilliant idea,he thought.
    “There may be money in this.” He could start a small business,
    “Aprons R You” selling lovely aprons in all colours of the rainbow.
    Suddenly he heard noises;he awoke and heard Mary shouting
    “How can you go to sleep when you are out with me?”
    “Would you prefer me to recite the Periodic Table?” he snapped gently.
    “I’d prefer a poem,” she cried…All right,Petal,I’ll think of one soon.In the meantime would you like a fool?”
    “No.I’ve got you,” she responded handsomely.
    “I mean for a pudding?”
    “Oh,yes please.A Rubik fool would be lovely.It will pass the time.You know I get so bored.”
    “Well,I do my best but it’s hard keeping up with you.would you like to read a few truth tables whilst I finish?
    my meat.”
    He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small leather bound book.
    “Truth tables and levitation for geniuses,” by Bertha Russell.
    “Oh,Stan,this looks interesting.I’ve always wanted to fly like an angel or an owl.”
    “It’s never too late to say never.” he responded.
    “Whatever do you mean?”
    “I don’t know.Just because a sentence is grammatically correct doesn’t imply that it means something.”
    “Yes,quite right.And conversely a sentence can mean something even when it’s not grammatically correct.”

    “Isn’t thinking exciting!”
    “Yes,indeed.I was thinking how exciting it will be to go to bed with you.”
    “Wow,good grammar and full of meaning.I am yours.I am like a ripe plum ready to drop off the tree.I am a cat ready to mate.I am a song waiting to be sung.”
    “Gosh,are metaphors your bete noir?”
    “Je ne parle pas Francais.”
    “Aimez vous ein Nederlander?”
    “Sprechen sie Deutsche?”
    Ist sein mutter immer krank?”

Writing like an Asian

 

Photo0302.jpghttp://writinglikeanasian.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/feature-five-qs-with-ploi-pirapokin.html

 

Feature: Five Qs with Ploi Pirapokin

Ploi Pirapokin was born in Thailand and raised in Hong Kong. Her work is forthcoming and featured in Apogee Journal, Tor.com, the Bellingham Review, Fiction International, the Griffith Review and more. She has received fellowships from the Radgale Foundation, the Anderson Center, the Brush Creek Foundation, Willapa Bay AIR, Kundiman and others. She holds an MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University and has taught there in the creative writing department and at the Emerging Writers Institute at Brown University.

(Q1) In your nonfiction piece, “An Equation To Tell Your Mother Your Boyfriend Is Black,” the list begins and ends somewhat elliptically. Did the equation for telling result in the correct solution? What was the mother’s response? Or will this response come in a different story?
Initially, this excerpt began as a way for me to respond to my mother and to seek answers to her racism. I blamed the media for portraying stereotypes on black men as influencing her way of thinking and criticized her experiences for raising me the way she did, only to discover that I hadn’t excavated all that I could about the subject. I return to the page to figure out why her opinion matters so much to me, and it’s painful to admit that I’ve always felt like I’ve had to earn my mother’s love. Yet this playful method has led me to explore the constraints that have been placed on me as an Asian woman from Asia in America as well as a daughter who is choosing to immigrate to a country where the culture is completely different to the one she was raised in.

 

Read more by clicking the link above or this one below
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The powerful plants can do just what they want.

The tulips pushed the primroses away
They snatched the pot from these innocuous plants
Nature’s  never kind in such display
The powerful plants can do just what they want.

However, I admire their flowers of red
The shape is elegant, the colour clear.
And had they been in a much bigger bed
Both flowers would give us pleasure without fear.

Magnolias pink my eyes still do adore
Two of them I see from off the bus.
A visual parable, a story for
The short sweet life of all, including us.

We deceive ourselves in order to survive.
But shallowness makes trivia of our lives

It looks and speaks just as a sonnet would

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 may be decked in clothes of wolves;
And lambs be dressed in lion’s fearsome furs.
Thus, sense is tricked and problems are unsolved.
Landscapes etched, yet details seem quite blurred.

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

“Your hair looks nice”

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I found a video I made 3 years ago  in which I tried to talk with my original Northern accent about two people I had met and  interacted with in the town.One was a man with whom I extemporised a mini play
I found it quite  amusing so I sent it to my sister thinking the story was  interesting
After about 3 hours she replied:
Your hair looks nice!

Work needed

Chiloschista-parishii_2018-2Goethe

It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries, — to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.

Beware the charmers, make friends with the dour

I didn’t know there was a second row
Those three dots  when clicked on give us more
Visual signs and symbols can be shown

With much help this website is endowed
If we know the  way to open doors
I didn’t know there was a second row

To all inventors let us give a bow
we like learning, yet  ego´s are  sore
Visual signs and symbols can be shown

 

I could not type nor space my words just so
And then  I learned my IQ´s sixty four
Je suis un moron  avec  digi-score

 

My mother was a virgin till she bore
Me, like Jesus Christ,  unstable,poor
He´ś my Saviour and I share his lore

By

Beware the charmers, make friends with the dour
Yet always stand up straight and  never cower
I didn’t know there was a second row
Visual signs and symbols can be shown

 

 

http://englishchamber.blogspot.co.uk/2005/09/idiots-morons-imbeciles-cretins.html

 

Tools for formatting poetry or other writing

ReadingMuseum

This has information I did not know so is very useful not just for poetry but any writing

https://discover.wordpress.com/2018/03/29/poetry-tools/

One example:

Indent or outdent your text

When creating a post, you can indent or outdent text, pushing it further to the right or left. It’s another way to play with formatting and space:

Don’t you love the dance of words on the page?

Click increase indent once to move your words forward

and twice to jump even further

and even more, into the future.

Or click Decrease indent to return to where you began

and stay calm in this place

for another quiet moment

if you prefer.

Leisure, the basis of culture

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https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/08/10/leisure-the-basis-of-culture-josef-pieper/

 

“Leisure lives on affirmation. It is not the same as the absence of activity … or even as an inner quiet. It is rather like the stillness in the conversation of lovers, which is fed by their oneness.”

“We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can’t slow down enough to enjoy them when they come,” Alan Watts observed in 1970, aptly declaring us “a civilization which suffers from chronic disappointment.” Two millennia earlier, Aristotle asserted“This is the main question, with what activity one’s leisure is filled.”

Today, in our culture of productivity-fetishism, we have succumbed to the tyrannical notion of “work/life balance” and have come to see the very notion of “leisure” not as essential to the human spirit but as self-indulgent luxury reserved for the privileged or deplorable idleness reserved for the lazy. And yet the most significant human achievements between Aristotle’s time and our own — our greatest art, the most enduring ideas of philosophy, the spark for every technological breakthrough — originated in leisure, in moments of unburdened contemplation, of absolute presence with the universe within one’s own mind and absolute attentiveness to life without, be it Galileo inventing modern timekeeping after watching a pendulum swing in a cathedral or Oliver Sacks illuminating music’s incredible effects on the mind while hiking in a Norwegian fjord.

So how did we end up so conflicted about cultivating a culture of leisure?

In 1948, only a year after the word “workaholic” was coined in Canada and a year before an American career counselor issued the first concentrated countercultural clarion call for rethinking work, the German philosopher Josef Pieper (May 4, 1904–November 6, 1997) penned Leisure, the Basis of Culture (public library) — a magnificent manifesto for reclaiming human dignity in a culture of compulsive workaholism, triply timely today, in an age when we have commodified our aliveness so much as to mistake making a living for having a life

What can we do about fear of aging?

 

Image by Katherine

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While we are  alive  and mentally active we must make the most of it by being creative in some way
My sister took up art and sings in a wonderful choir

 

t.

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My sister  took up art in later life as did I,.
Art is very absorbing though I find it difficult being more used to words

 

 

As we get into middle or old age many of us are afraid.We retire and  have no hobbies. Housework and shopping are of  not enough,Having  a hobby  or serious interest takes our mind off  ourselves and  the bad news about dementia and  other problems,?But we are not helped by being afraid.Some of us have cancer.More are terrified of getting it.But do we want to waste what time we have torturing ourselves with fear? But some like my sister take up new hobbies and others take on voluntary work

 

The weeping of Lord Jesus on his Cross

The  death of self , the emptiness, the loss
Make a space where new works may be born
Like the dying of Lord Jesus on his Cross

The more the loss, the  more space  dispossessed,
The more may be the harvest of the corn
The  death of self , the emptiness, the loss

The creative must most freely their wish toss
Though pain like this is hard to make  welcome
Like the dying of Lord Jesus on his Cross~

In the soul, the  sharp thorn is  embraced
God himself from poor hearts  has been torn
The  death of self , the emptiness, the loss

The good, the holy, even love’s defaced
As we wander in the wastelands all forlorn,
Feel the death of Jesus on his Cross

Absolute,we lose our wealth and home.
In spaces deep as hell new life  is born
By the  death of self , the emptiness, the loss
The weeping of Lord Jesus on his Cross