Like the mist, he was gone
Month: June 2018
Great poets speak
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Angels of death
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Psalms 131
Psalms Chapter 131 תְּהִלִּים
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Who do you hate?
Manchester Evening News
My husband hated only 2 people.One was Iain Paisley whose voice we heard so often during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.I can see why many people could hate him.The second person was not me.I think it was Mervyn Stockwood who I believe was the Head of the Methodist Church.My husband was raised as a Methodist so that may explain it.
I only hate one person but nobody here will know them and it is private
However if you want to pick someone,pick someone who lives a long way off, that you never meet and never have any contact with.Then hate away!
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Talking and blood pressure
““I’ve done amazing experiments with Holocaust survivors, and the situation is the same. I would ask them to think for about five minutes about the worst things that happened in the camps. There is no change in blood pressure. I then asked them to tell me what they were thinking about. Boom. Their pressure would double.””
t what they want to say next.”
“You also may know many people, who perhaps never felt heard in their young lives, and who never stop talking when they got older. They become “chatterboxes!” Whenever I encountered hypertensive talkers in my practice I would always insist on verbal restraint. To me, “chatterbox-related hypertension” was a real entity.
Public speaking has been studied as a form of stress that can cause blood pressure to rise. We know that when you talk and are stressed, you instantly constrict your peripheral blood supply. A healthy heart pumping out a lot of blood against a constricted periphery can create huge pressure surges that go right up into the coronary arteries and could even damage the sensitive endothelial lining of arteries. This is an unheralded mechanism that can contribute to arterial disease.
The Sinatra Solution: Become a Better Listener
As a youngster I used to stutter. The biggest challenge, or fear, for me was talking in any kind of a public setting, such as school. Yet I obviously grew out of the stuttering and the fear. Nowadays when I speak to audiences, sometimes as big as 2-3,000 people, I am fearless. The words flow. I think that comes from speaking from the heart. If we just speak from our hearts, we are speaking for what is for us the truth. Our hearts and bodies are in sync.
The notion of speaking in public, whether in front of audiences or friends, is stressful only to the degree that you feel you can communicate. If you speak the truth, and you feel heard, it is not that stressful, and so less blood pressure-altering.
If you do have high blood pressure, think about what I just said. Try to become a better listener.
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How do I learn to write poems?
https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-learn-to-write-poems-1
“Re the first thing: according to the poetry teachers I know, it is very common for young people to want to write poetry, but not to read it. Let’s just think about how strange that is. If you were a musician, would you say you just want to play music, and that you don’t want to listen to it? What kind of musician doesn’t want to listen to music?”
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Wildlife loss on Saddleworth Moor
“The bleakness of Saddleworth Moor camouflages a richness of flora and fauna.
Its bogs and 9000-years-old peatland with fast-flowing streams and valleys sustains many plants and animals which will have perished as the fire swept across 2000 acres.
Wildlife experts believe the recovery could take years.
The timing of the blaze is catastrophic as fledglings emerge from nests in early summer.
Director of Conservation at the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside Tim Mitcham said: “The heat generated by the fires is devastating to the fragile upland moorland.
“Only the most mobile of animals escape and of course we are in peak breeding period for many – from curlew to ant.
“These animals are on the moors because they like the conditions they find there and ultimately depend upon the plants, many species depend upon specialist moorland plants like cotton-grass and heather.”
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He gazed at me and tried to speak some words
Three days before the end,he lay quite still
Could barely speak nor breathe not eat nor smile
I sat alone and swollen was my heart
I knew by inward feelings, soon we ‘d part
At home were waiting frozen ready meals
Quite suitable to my own freezing feel
He gazed at me and tried to speak some words
“How will you manage,sweet”, I barely heard.
The grief I felt ignored by day time nurse
And from the Sister, came demonic curse.
Exercised in Re Hab until dead
And even after that, cruel words they said
Resuscitated, left in peace in bed.
He lasted 19 hours .The verdict: “Dead.”
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The hell of Brexit?
Bedouins?
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bedouin
“In addition to the “noble” tribes who trace their ancestry to either Qaysi (northern Arabian) or Yamani (southern Arabian) origin, traditional Bedouin society comprises scattered “ancestor-less” groups who shelter under the protection of the large noble tribes and make a living by serving them as blacksmiths, tinkers, artisans, entertainers, and other workers.”
“”
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The spaces once held sacred are destroyed
Wikimedia
The spaces once held sacred are destroyed
Like Salisbury plain where sheep could safely graze
Now for soldiers use and practice Wars
The Bedouin who inhabit deserts cry
The Negev is no longer a free space
The places for creation are destroyed
Before the birth of Christ, they wandered by
Their little tents and camels no disgrace
Deserts are for practising new Wars
To shepherds and their flocks we say,Good bye.
The land is used for shooting, so debased
The places for creation are destroyed
The Lamb of God is fined and unemployed
Search for peace, be treated with distaste
Deserts are for practising new Wars
Of the Spirit, is there any trace
As the Lord God turns away his Face?
The spaces once held sacred are destroyed
Now for soldiers use and Final War.
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The Bedouins, refugees from other times
The Bedouins, refugees from other times
The places were they live are still the same
But other people founded States and took
The deserts where they roamed ,ancestral nooks.
Ther little tents of black on the hillsides
Have not changed from Mediaeval times
But now they are like flies, unwanted guests
Who will know the tremor in their breasts?
Cruel is the heart of humankind,
The Commandments spat on daily by men blind.
The Bedouins of our spirit need to be
Allowed their space, allowed their deserts free
Nomads of the desert[Jesus Christ,
Nomad of the darkness in our minds
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Bedouins under further attack
“Now, however, the brakes may be off. With the Trump administration providing diplomatic cover, right-wing ministers in Israel pressing to exploit that while it lasts and international support for the Palestinians focused for the moment on Gaza, a new ruling by a settler-majority panel of Israel’s Supreme Court appears to have freed the government to proceed with the removal of entire Bedouin communities on the West Bank. Advocates of the Bedouins say this would be a war crime: the forced transfer of a population under the protection of the military occupation.
“Everyone’s asking me, ‘What are you going to do, Bedouin?’” said Eid Abu Khamis, 51, Khan al-Ahmar’s leader. “I don’t have an F-16 or an F-15. I’m asking the international community: Where are the laws?”
Khan al-Ahmar is a dusty dot on the map, tucked behind a highway dividing two bustling Israeli settlements: Maale Adumim, so well-established as a suburb of Jerusalem that even leftists concede it would need to be carved out of a future Palestinian state; and a fast-growing offshoot, Kfar Adumim.
Bedouins have made the place their year-round home since at least the 1970s, though some, like Mr. Abu Khamis, say they were born there even earlier. Their tribe, the Jahalin, had wandered the Negev desert until being expelled by Israel after its establishment in 1948. When they arrived here in what was the uninhabited West Bank, the area was under Jordan’s control.
I
they were born there even earlier.CreditCorinna Kern for The New York Times
With Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, the army took over, restricted the herders’ movements and expropriated the area as state land — without yet evicting the Bedouins. In the 1970s, the developers of Maale Adumim called for evacuating the Bedouins to build Jewish housing to the east and “cut off the Arab settlement continuity between Judea and Samaria,” the terms Israelis use to refer to the northern and southern halves of the West Bank.”
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I’ll never leave you,but I will,no doubt, grieve you and deceive you,misperceive you.
Until the very end of time I’ll be loving you. Until the end of all my rhymes,I’ll be writing you. Until the day I die,I’ll be unintentionally annoying you. Older and older,I’ll never leave you,but I will,no doubt, grieve you and deceive you,misperceive you. Otherwise I’ll think of you,wink at you and make a hyperlink to you Still,for ever,I’ll be all over you..looking for fleas in your floes, and B’s in your Y’s. I’ll be looking for tears in your eyes and making you feel surprised. That’s a love poem,innit? Well,innit? Wot!I’m British,innit! Oh, geddit!
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Here we go
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Why learning may be difficult
I have several friends who are very good at some art or craft but are unable to teach another person because they can’t imagine themselves back at the beginning,not knowing how to knit or read
Teaching is harder than we think.
And how would you tell someone [in words] how to write a bicycle? Do you think that it would make them able to get on and expec cycle away? NO!
Some people have blockages.I was with a person who asked me to explain the difference between 0.1 and 1%
It was a disaster.I literally felt a force pushing me away.So I told her to find out some other way.And she says I am very gentle………
Teaching is harder than we can imagine.In the last case, I had not been able to reach her where she was.I didn’t know why she asked.
Some teachers are cruel.Perhaps they dare not imagine being a beginner again,
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Jesus the Jew
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A tautology of tripe
Mary went into the kitchen and put the kettle on.In ran Annie wearing a pink chiffon jumpsuit.Her lips were covered with a thick layer of “Deadly nightshade” by L’Oreal, a strange shade of burnt heather such as can be seen near Stalybridge UK right now
I’m going out with Joe, she cried.
Where to, asked Mary softly her eyes widening
Up on the hills I believe,Annie cried
Well, is a jumpsuit so thin really suitable? Suppose you need to have a leak?
Oh,dear,said Annie.A skirt would be easier.But do I have time
Take one of these,Mary ordered, holding out a long thin cardboard box
Are they biscuits,asked her friend?
No, they are panty liners.I assume you are wearing knickers,Mary murmured as she approached with a large magnifying glass to check.
Delia’s Lights,
the box was labelled
Is it Delia Smith, that TV COOK? Annie asked
No, it is Delia’s Protection for older folk or indeed young mothers!
Funny how we need all these products all our adult lives.How about a loofah?
It might get loose and drop out,Mary retorted.You mean a sponge?
Cakes and biscuits and Delia…. something odd here,Annie whimpered.
Are you trying to make me feel old?
Well, you will feel young if you wet yourself,Mary teased her in a knight hearted way
Suddenly Joe walked in looking pale
I am hungry he said and picked up the box
May I have a biscuit?
Mary began to laugh out loud as Joe pulled his hand out clutching a sticky white pad.
Funny looking biscuits, he shouted!
Are you a witch?
Not yet, Mary said,but I am getting a Ph.D next week
Not in baking, he asked rudely?
No, it’s in Tautology and Magic Roundabouts
That’s a load of tripe, in my view.Not that I know much about it but as a man I like to make a mark
How about a Vicious Circle? Mary queried?
Alright,I’ll take two, he shouted warmly
That will be £2.99 altogether
Is this a shop? Joe demanded.
In Capitalistic Economics, everywhere is a shop.
In that case, give me ten for nine!
As you wish,dear Mary answered.Don’t toast them now,my good fellow!
And so say all of us…..unless he is very hungry?
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Poetry and truth
https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2015/4/poetry-truth
Extract:
“For Winters, poetry—and, in its concision, lyric poetry, especially—is the highest linguistic form because, taken together, connotation and denotation compose the “total content” of language. It’s true that the two exist together in other kinds of writing, a novel, say, but poetry, by dint of its meters, lines, and highly wrought rhythms, modulates feeling with the greatest control. Connotation in poetry, then, acquires what Winters thinks of as a “moral” dimension. In order to render human experience truthfully, connotation or “feeling” must be precisely managed:
The artistic process is one of moral evaluation of human experience, by means of a technique which renders possible an evaluation more precise than any other. The poet tries to understand his experience in rational terms, to state his understanding, and simultaneously to state, by means of the feelings we attach to words, the kind and degree of emotion that should properly be motivated by this understanding.
The term “moral,” then, refers—at least in this instance—to a fairly technical process of selecting the best words in the best order for a given subject. “In so far as the rational statement is understandable and acceptable, and in so far as the feeling is properly motivated by the rational statement, the poem will be good,” he tells us.
Winters’s detractors—who feel that he, in his adherence to reason, quashes emotion in poetry—miss the point, I think. For Winters, emotion, expressed in the proper degree, is the whole ballgame. But this question of degree is crucial; if the feeling in a poem is either overstated or understated, the poem falls down. Excessive emotion, a form of sentimentality, obscures the experience under consideration, while the opposite of sentimentality—a kind of cold reportage—can also be a failure of evaluation. Understatement of the emotion robs experience of its humanity. The statement “Three prisoners were publicly executed in a detention center” crisply relates the facts, but in “The Shield of Achilles” Auden affords the reader some inkling of the feelings involved:
Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.
The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes liked to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.
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It is important to teach poetry
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/why-teaching-poetry-is-so-important/360346/
“Students who don’t like writing essays may like poetry, with its dearth of fixed rules and its kinship with rap. For these students, poetry can become a gateway to other forms of writing. It can help teach skills that come in handy with other kinds of writing—like precise, economical diction, for example. When Carl Sandburg writes, “The fog comes/on little cat feet,” in just six words, he endows a natural phenomenon with character, a pace, and a spirit. All forms of writing benefits from the powerful and concise phrases found in poems.
I have used cut-up poetry (a variation on the sort “popularized” by William Burroughs and Brion Gysin) to teach 9th grade students, most of whom learned English as a second language, about grammar and literary devices. They made collages after slicing up dozens of “sources,” identifying the adjectives and adverbs, utilizing parallel structure, alliteration, assonance, and other figures of speech. Short poems make a complete textual analysis more manageable for English language learners. When teaching students to read and evaluate every single word of a text, it makes sense to demonstrate the practice with a brief poem—like Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool.””
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Oh,take a pinch of humour in your tea
I found the answer , what to wear in heat
Buy a cotton nightgown with some pleats
Throw a denim jacket on and go
Wear some boots in case we get that snow
Or wear a full length slip and patent mules
I guarantee the air wil keep bums cool
We have to think outside the normal box
But never wear pyjamas without socks
Take some shorts and slash them with a knife
Combine with a man’s vest if you’re his wife
Dye your hair deep purple and take heart
We human beings can look chic and smart
Oh,take a pinch of humour in your tea
Then strip off and swim clothless in the sea.
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In summer heat, our clothes can cause us pain
From an online store for larger ladies [Elvi]
My wide leg trousers sweep dirt from the floor
My top is polyester, how I fry.
My underwear is nylon, and I’m sore
Deodorants give me eczema as does dye
I note my denim skirt is stained with ink
My hands are black from making pencil points
My T shirt is in fashion but it’s shrunk
Sandals show my toes without their paint
I wear a three penny bit on a brass chain
if it were made of gold, how thieves might blink
My hair has gone but you can’t see my brain
I’m likely a baboon in female shape
In summer heat, our clothes can cause us pain
So see us here all shopping nude, again.
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My husband,ink and blood
Made from a photo of an insect bite on my leg. Katherine
My husband was a very kind man ; he did used to like me in bright colours.
Sometimes I even wore clothes.He never mentioned that, of course.Nor ask about how I paid for them.Or if I paid for them.My secret is I am a criminal.I stole the clothes.Do you believe me?
No,it’s no good.I can’t convince people of my utter depravity.What do I have to do?
I’ve eaten many apples but not the sort to make God angry. I am too old to suffer childbirth, besides I am asexual or some other new category like resexual
.I am not interested in the physical side of life.I even get annoyed that I have to eat food.Can’t they come up with a Tablet?
I did love my husband but I have never fancied anyone else.Yet only a month ago a man pursued me down the street and up to my house declaring
“You are too beautiful and charming to live alone.” I think he was a dotty
I don’t live alone.But why should I tell him?Sometimes I try to tell lies but I can’t disrespect the truth.Even write an alternative narrative.I suppose in mathematics you have to be a genius to do that and even then some like Godel went mad.It’s not worth it,folk.Better to have fun, love your neighbour and wear clothes in winter.
What is irritating is, you have to wash your clothes.At night we should get into the bath with all our clothes on, get into a tumble dryer then go to bed dry and clean.It seems so simple but it would kill us trying to get into a tumble dryer.There’s always a flaw.So far.
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Morning blong
On the rug beside my chair
I saw a crumb, that wasn’t there
I’d been up half the day before
So I could polish and prepare
And now my squalor’s evident
I think I’ll move into a tent
My lover is a transient cat
Who likes to sleep upon a bat
He loves my smell and my bare skin
As he sniffs the soul within
I dream of failing/ passing tests
And men who have those tender wrists
I found some Xmas cards last night
Is this a broader hint to write?
My father drew upon the wall
Before he ended in his fall
I saw them through the wall paper
I looked again but they’re not there
I liked the humbler kind of folk
I am modest,I just quote
I like to guess what they will say
So sit beside them every day
But now it’s late and I’m not here
You will only see my tears
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The North Sea Scrolls
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The lines inside
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Downside up
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Fire near Manchester caused by dry weather and heat.From BBC website
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What we most fear
How like a monster is my fear of pain Expanding to fill all my heart and mind Swelling like a giant sponge in the rain, This fear begets new feelings more unkind. For humans being chased by lions fierce, Fear gives us the strength to dash away. But when by inner turmoil we are pierced We cannot run yet need not be its prey. Most strange ,we need to do what we most fear; Walk towards the pain with curious calm. As else we may be maddened like King Lear With no Cordelia to bring us balm. To feel in proper ratio to our pain. We need perception,grace and all their gains.
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Yet spacious in its arts to let me hope
My love was so elliptical it passed
Before the first one realised and grasped
But now I prefer the straight lines to connect
Or perhaps an obtuse angle I’ll bisect
In truth, I married mental furniture
His mind was parabolic in its shape
And filled it was by study and nature
Yet spacious in its arts to let me hope
He did not know of numbers past belief
I enlightened him, yet he was filled with grief.
For as the caterpillar eats the very leaf
Learners are depraved like common thieves
I made an error beating him at chess
And when he died, he left me no address.
How my heart sings 