Month: June 2018

On the last train,Warsaw to Moscow,change Niegoreloje.1939

Elena,a baby wrapped in woollen clothes.
On the last train,Warsaw to Moscow,
[ change Niegoreloje.]
1939.Father,mother,brother
You passed through the Arctic Wastes of life.
Still as if travelling on a train
To an impossibly far destination.
As you left, the German Army crashed into Poland
Lost,your aunts
Your cousins.
Your culture.
How does God select the damned?
You had your own baby,here in England,
Not lost like all those others.
Your father died by his own hand,
The hand of history;
The fingers twitching,
Not sure where to point.
Then settling into frozen grief
A sculpture only your mother saw.
You saw too,Elena.
You always saw,though you can’t remember.
The long journey,your mother’s breast,
Your father’s silence.
Only the dead know that silence.
Only the dead weep
With the rocks and stones .
And the ice in each eye
Fell like snow down your cheeks
As you held your own infant.
Warsaw to Moscow,
Moscow to Jerusalem.
Always journeying
Looking for what they can never find:
The home they left behind
The presence of the dead
Lying in gaunt heaps
Like rubbish.
Your aunts, Elena.
Your cousins.
You never knew them.
But there’s a hole in your mind
Through which the Polish wind blows forever

A very old poem I have copied from myself without permission

Oh my  dentist is handsome,a very fine man
He seduces women with his frying pan.
He cooks them eggs and fries some ham
And just now and then, cooks up spam.
He knows all the wiles and the tricks of the trade
To win the hearts of the charming young maids.
but when they see him in his surgery
They pick up their handbags
And out they flee.
So now he’s decided to charm the older ones

By making jam and  baking scones.

He makes them tea and pours it out.
his tea pot has a very large spout!
He plays soft music and says a few kind words
Then he tells ladies how to see irrational surds.
It worked on me and now I am
Totally in love with this most intriguing man.
I boil his hankies on the kitchen fire
And write hime  poetry he says is rather dire.
But when we go to lie down on his couch
A spring is sticking up,so he screams.Ouch,ouch.
So now I suggested we use the surgery,
As that reclining chair is big enough for three..
For I always take the cat  along on dates with me
And he will lie just behind my knee.
But my dentist does not want to have Henry there
He thinks his dental chair will pick up Henry’s hair..
I offered to clean it with a kitchen cloth
As I’m sure I can get all those  cat hair’s off!
I sit here waiting,wondering will he call——-
A fate that is common to us women, men and all.
But when at last the bell begins to go
I am listening politely  to a very  loud radio.
So consummation is deferred again
I feel quite sorry for this lovely gentleman.
but now I’ve taught him how to send a text
but he ‘s not sent on yet so I am feeling somewhat vexed.
I have a feeling this love is too bizarre
Making out in the dentist’s surgery chair.
So now I’m thinking of how a doctor would be,
And wondering if he would allow me to sit upon his knee?

Oh Jesu

Affect matters more than numbers do
Reason without love ,so blind to ends
Rational means were used to kill our Jews.

Searching  Europe’s “haystacks” for a clue
Reason makes its wondrous,  obscene blend
Affect matters more than numbers do

When Belsen was relieved, who bought the glue?
The bones of  suffering  dead  might,did offend
Rational  calculaters  tortured Jews.

Was Jesus rational,  what the end he knew?
See his mother Mary, weeping,kind.
Affect matters more than numbers do

By the Christians, Jesus was abused
His brothers and his sisters barred, disdained
Factories were used to gas his Jews.

How  to see what matters in the end
Hate outweighed by Love, controlled not blamed
Affect matters more than numbers do
Rational  calculations ,G-d, oh G-d, Jesu.

Beautiful nature photographs by Mike Flemming

dragon2birds1

http://home.btconnect.com/mike.flemming/butterfl.htm

Mike has been taking photos all his life but  now has more time to do it.Why don’t you get a camera or use your phone and  start a new hobby? I do  it although I have no technical skills.Again my technical skills in art are not very good but I still like to try.

scan00032.jpg

Essex UK.Drawing by Katherine

Success of the day

photo0069

My right forefinger is now only double its usual size
Burned my 10th pan.Cleaned cooker with brillo pad.Pan soaking as luckily it is not nonstick.
Broken  6 soup or ceral bowls..wedding presents
6 Mugs from 10th Wedding Anniversary
8 Polish dinner plates given me by a neighbour who was from Poland
Found 2 Kindles and a banana under the sofa.Failed to locate husband   there or under bed
Need a new  bed.Forgot to turn off electric blanket in March
Cleaned  bath and got into it and alas some Flash bathroom cleaner.Did wonders for my rear end.It’s still burning.No bath needed till Xmas.
Memo, clean bath after  not before using it,ditto WC
Thinks,safer to have a bed bath if only there was a nurse here to do it or Mother!
Grandad used to  bath us in a tin bath… can one still buy them?Much safer than running water
Do we really want all mod cons or is it a plot to rip us off?
Have  rehung a picture on the wall after 5 years behind a chair.Removed painting by husband to donate to Cancer UK as  some of us may need them more than  pictures
Had hair cut off to prepare for remote chance of very hot summer and to save money  .. looks like it will be a year before a trim is needed
Just a faint chance irate husband will rise from dead screaming, you know I don’t like you with short hair.But I am not optimistic.Neither is the hairdresser!

For as we’re nothing, we are free

Sacred the  love the rose dwells in;
Thorns protect what lies within.
Precious flower designed for bliss
Consummated with a kiss.

Eternity is one moment
When chattering minds are each silent.
The warp and weft of life  itself
Has value more than human wealth.

So passive be, with patience blessed
Focus wide and all relaxed
We wait like this  with music ‘joyed
So quietly played, all hurt’s destroyed.

The rose by nature of design
Gives peace to both the heart and mind.
And so it is with this  green world
Of  blossom,  bush,  and petals curled.

In a storm  small  butterflies
Dance in spaces small yet blithe.
Between the hailstones., they will  live
And of themselves entirely give.

We too  find our sacred space
When with nature we embrace.
We like flowers must grow and die.
We fall to dust and thus shall fly.

In the sunlight dust motes dance
As if by brightness full entranced.
We, like them, do not compete
For  that love which us completes

For as we’re nothing, we are free
For God made you and God made me.
As we have no pride or will
We trust in One who will fulfil.

 

Note : self-abandonment, which is a practice of the mystics .is abandonment to God.This desire for self-abandonment can be used by totalitarian regimes to make the crowd do their will.Like other of our desires, it has to be directed rightly.So we move between this passivity and active thought and will which guides us rightly.We must not abandon ourselves to governments or politicians and leaders,  especially Popes or other religious leaders.

Who are we to choose when loved ones die?

To fulminate against the hands of fate
To vent our anger on beloved friends
Will not repair our ills and our mistakes
But may bring friendships to a bitter end.

For who are we to know what is the best?
Who are we to choose when loved ones die?
And do not think this is a needed test.
As if on us God wastes his time to spy.

Once we were a joining of two cells
The lively sperm, a salmon riding high.
The egg awaiting without need for bells
Is fertilised and grows that which shall die.

Astonishing that we should live at all.
Unsurprising, that a loved one falls.

I kept telling  you to stop thinking! Now,stop dying

I’ve got writer’s block.
Oh,put your head on it

I have dried up.
Are you a river or a man?
I can’t write
.You lie,my friend.You contradict yourself

I think I am dead.
I kept telling  you to stop thinking! Now,stop dying

My eye offends me
Oh,cut it out.

I’m blocked
Get someone to plumb the depths of your mind
What with?
A teaspoon  will be  enough

Should I pray?
Who can answer that?

Can I wear a hat in Church
Only if you are a  Jew.
But they have a synagogue
You are so conceited you could get a synagogue  on yours and a mosque as well.Or St Pall’s Cathedrall
You think my head is swollen?
Take some ibuprofen and  follow the beat
What beat?
The heart has its reasons and it beats as well
I’ve had enough
Is it as good as a feast?

Don’t keep asking questions
Why not?
Just do as I say
Why?
Not everything has a reason
Why not?

 

Inventing logic and drowning under irrational numbers

‘Algebra’ is of Arabic derivation. It comes from title of the justly famous ninth century Arabic mathematical text ‘al-jebr w’almuquabala ‘by Mohammed ibn Musa Al-Khowarizmi of Baghdad and Damascus.

Have you never wondered about algebra
The Greeks are famed for genius  in the bath
Inventing logic and drowning under irrational numbers
Was it not Euclid who dominated your adolescence with his theorems
Those isosceles triangles, the very name chosen by the scholars of their age?
Those  strange numbers pi and e, the square root of 2 sent them running into conic sections
Straight lines and perfect forms.
Until Descartes with his fine drawn dramas of separation
Took the shape of geometry and rewrote it in abstract algebra
Unthinkable to the ghost of Archimedes with his sling and pendulum
The step into the higher realm left us grieving for our diagrams
And children wondering what the hell is x when it’s at home
‘al-jebr w’almuquabala”
Sacked Constaninople, now Istanbul, libraries looted as ideas ran like electronic rabbits
Up the spine of Europe,like giant fleas on LSD, like the manic humans we are on our dose of screens
Suddenly dimensions could be 4,5, 6… a million who could define a  limit?
Potent startled numbers shot out of fireworks, out of atom bombs, like   idiot stars
And the Universe exploded into God’s eye; a golden kite;  infinite attachments
Set fire to fields and borders as soldiers vainly shot the people they imagined
Were to blame.
If only we  didn’t know that there are no limits to our imagination
We could easily have lived  and died  bored into sanity by those diagrams
Flaunted by teachers, ignorant believers in hard facts
The whole world’s a fantasy, good or bad, algebra is the thrill up your spine
The hammer on your head
The beauty of the pattern  multiplying on invisible needles like God’s fairisle shawl
Tossed into the heavens and hanging forever, full of stars and  holes
Some black

Shock and Horror

https://www.distractify.com/humor/2018/06/12/24jM39/cleaners-unexpected-gross-things?utm_source=Boomtrain&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiAiYmZjODFhZDItNDNiMC00N2ViLTllOTAtM2NmOGM3ZjY4OWMyIn0%3D&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20170426

I WAS a Jordan Peterson supporter

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-petersons-strongest-supporter-now-i-think-hes-dangerous.html

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Peter Sansom

 

IMG_0142

I like this writer so I have copied this

http://www.hivesouthyorkshire.com/blog/interview-poet-peter-sansom.html

 

 

“You mentioned before about rejection, and how people don’t like being rejected. Do you think that it’s easier to deal with as you progress in your poetry – getting rejected more and more? Or do you think people still find it difficult?
No, I don’t think it does get easier, and I don’t think it happens that much. Once you get to a certain stage – in my experience and my friends’ experiences – the same magazines will take our work and ask us for work. It’s very rare, actually, for me to send work to somewhere that I don’t know.

Do you think that they see your name and don’t read it, almost, because they know the quality of your work?
I think there are certainly some magazines where they see my name and reject it straight away! I think with young people getting published, they always say to read the magazines. But my best advice is this: People will say, sometimes, that they won’t send it to big magazines because they think they’ve got to work their way up to them. But I feel that you send to little magazines, small circulation magazines, cheaply produced, perhaps, online magazines that don’t have much audience, if you like the stuff in them, if you’re excited by what they publish, then you must send them there. Otherwise, you must send to the top ones that are going to lift your profile, for 2 reasons: one is if you send to a middling magazine that’s only got a small circulation, and people won’t be reading it because they don’t trust it, then you’ve wasted your work; and the second thing is, often editors don’t know what they’re doing, and they’ll reject you.

Anne Sansom sent some poems to a magazine who rejected her. The guy is a really nice chap, but he felt he had to write a reply to everybody that entered. It was too much for him, so he sometimes said things he didn’t mean. And he seemed to be saying to Anne, “I don’t like these poems, because you don’t seem to be a very nice person.” I’m sure it’s not what he meant, but it’s how he came across. She was so annoyed. She sent them to The Time literary supplement, and they accepted them all, and the TLS was at that time, and still is, very well thought of, and they paid a lot of money. So what she could have done is thought, “they’re no good, these poems.” But instead she thought, “I don’t think that editor’s read them properly, so in the spirit of annoyance, I’ll send them to the TLS.”

So it is worth sending out to the right places and – if you’re not sure – why not go for the best known? And the ones that are going to reply quite quickly. One of the good things about poetry is that there’s a lot of good feeling – people read magazines wanting to be enthused by a new writer, and if you are good, if you’ve got something about you, I think other people will see it. You’ll be noticed in magazines and people will talk about you. It’s very grassroots, poetry. Though, after a point, it does become a bit of a Hollywood thing – there’s only room for a certain number of stars. And once you’ve got that status, you don’t have to do anything else.

What would you say is the best piece of poetry advice that you’ve ever heard that’s stayed with you?
I always quote Hunter Davis, the great biographer of The Beatles, Alfred Wainwright, and Wayne Rooney. And he said, “don’t get it right, get it written.” There’s some sense in that, though you can also get it right.

The other thing is, don’t waste your time. I wasted a lot of time writing quite poor things, not knowing what I was doing. The equivalent, really, to sitting in front of a piano and not having lessons, and not listening to other music. Philip Larkin said you don’t study poems, you read them, and you think, “what has it done? Can I do it?”

Who would you say are your favourite poets and what are your favourite poems?
Stanley Cook. I like Stanley Cook’s poems very much, because they’re about Doncaster and South Yorkshire and Sheffield, and they’re about real things. But they’re also numinous, they have this kind of visionary element to them. He’s quite a big-minded man, I think, but he works from the local. There’s a lot of interesting imagery, and he’s quite witty. He says things like, “and he was a little man you could have kept in a cupboard.”

I like John Keats. If you get past the language of the time – which is old fashioned – you can see that the poems are still alive.

When I’m writing, I go back to certain poets. Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Cook, Simon Armitage, and some early Carol Anne Duffy poems. When I started, Carol Anne had just published, and we had known each other a long time. I’ve known Simon Armitage a long time, and I often think I wish I’d worked slightly differently. One thing I think they did was to work out what poems did and what they needed to do in relation to it, and I didn’t do that. I was more interested in other things. But you can only do that to a certain extent – you can only do what you are. That’s the great thing about poems, isn’t it? Everybody is so different!

There’s John Hegley, who did a book called Glad to Wear Glasses – he’s a stand-up comic of a poet, really. And you’ve got Ian MacMillan who is unclassifiable – who is he?! He’s a kind of modernist, funny man. And then you’ve got what has become the mainstream, with Armitage and Duffy and so on, and then you’ve got these really weird guys, and the thing is, they’re just themselves. Even when they’re quite inaccessible poems, there’s something about them that makes people want to read them. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You don’t think, “How do I write a hit single?” You just write something, and when they hear it on the radio they think, “God, I want to get that!”

And finally, what advice would you give to young aspiring poets?
I think the most important thing is being open to experience. There’s an Armitage poem I usually use: It Ain’t What You Do, It’s What It Does to You. Just experience things, and then try and get the means, the wherewithal, to put that into language.

I wasted a lot of time reading poets who I never really got the hang of. I read the wrong poets, I think. Poets that weren’t helping me, and I think it’s much easier now to find poets that are available, and that give you the tools to say what you want to say. The trouble is, you can’t say it for other people.

Read widely, but read what you enjoy. Learn bits of poems by heart. When you read widely, you kind of skim poems. You don’t get changed by them. You are changed as a person by imbibing – making poems a part of yourself. By learning not the whole thing, but little bits.

Elizabeth Bishop said that she often feels distressed after spending months on a poem, and in the end she had to abandon it because it just wouldn’t work, whatever she did with it. But what she realised is doing the work on that poem meant that she got a free gift with a different poem just to write quite easily.”

Adieu ,she sighed

I am horrible I am unable unable to use my right hand today so I am dictating this into a Google Doc don’t put any of these programs is liable to make mistakes as they try to guess the context of what you are writing about and also some of them are censored censored so you cannot write  f*** s*** crap is alright though

still I don’t want to write crap crap and it is a waste of energy to try to write a poem by this method I think

but it is useful for learn how to do it and it may be my Northern accent which means it into error

It seems to think that we are all writing about sex food or money which may very well be correct most of the time although personally I do not write about sex in emails or blog posts most of the time. actually this is better than the one on Gmail which gives the most hilarious results and sent my sister into convulsions of laughter as I could not edit what I had written even though I knew that it was wrong because if I could have had it is it I wouldn’t have been using voice to  pipe type type would I

no I would not full stop it thinks I am a man saying I mention my  boyfriend it thinks that I am gay and ring very nice today

I suppose that if you wanted to offend somebody you could pretend that we were using voice to type and write something really horrible pretending that it was written by the program and not by you full stop capital letters

Well I can’t keep messing about like this all day so I’ll bid you adieu

It got adieu rite!

“I shall not hate”

ambulance architecture building business
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/26/not-hate-gaza-doctor-abuelaish-review

 

“Not everyone will share his conclusion that friendly dialogue with the enemy is the best course. A vogue for such dialogue between Jews and Palestinians grew up during the 1990s, after the Oslo Accords. The argument went that it was the leaders on both sides who were at fault, not their people, who just wanted peace. Many were hopeful of this approach to solving the conflict. All these attempts were flawed, however, by the assumption of equivalence between the two sides, and by the failure to acknowledge that understanding and friendship come after the end of conflict, not before. But the individuals engaged in dialogue certainly felt better and made friends. Abuelaish himself has numerous close friendships with Israelis, who have supported him. His extensive travel and wide experience have made him into an exceptional doctor, but a rarity in Gaza, where deprivation has stunted people’s educational and social development. And, sadly, such a valiant attempt to bridge the divide has failed to stop Israel’s colonisation and oppression of the Palestinians.”

Stan and Mary see a naked woman

5626469_f260
After dinner Mary and Stan  often went for a longish walk.They liked to go to a road where the richer people  of Britain lived.,where there were some Georgian houses and one Tudor house.
At dusk they would stroll by looking into the lighted windows to see how the rooms were decorated.And if the front garden was large sometimes they crept in to see more
One beautiful  house they liked from the outside was spoiled for Mary by the garish tartan wall paper.
What sort of people would live there, she asked Emile who was in her handbag.with his head peeping out
Well,they have a cat called Percy,he mewed softly.
Why Percy?It is a noble name from the British past of course,she answered…
Earls of Percy were involved in affairs of state.
Well.Percy is a  Chinese cat,Emile said to her wittily.
He ought to be called Hu Ar U then,Mary joked ,or tried to as her sense of humour was somewhat lacking or maybe just odd.Still she looked lovely despite her moth eaten clothes bought in Sales in colors nobody else wanted like purple and lilac and bottle green.
She and Stan crept slowly up the garden path and peered  nervously into the empty sitting room trying to identify the paintings on the walls.
All of a sudden, a woman who was completely naked came into the room and lay modishly on a sofa as if she were a trained  dancer.She was a sight for sore male eyes.
Are they about to have a drawing class,Stan whispered.
She must be a model for a Life Class or an abstract woman ,with cat ,if Percy gets into the frame,Mary mused
Percy might scratch her then.Stan muttered.She could scream.
Suddenly a loud voice was booming at them.
What the  bloody hell are you doing in my garden?
There stood a big man in plus fours and and an oversized red jumper with matching cheeks
We were admiring your wall paper,Mary said.I think it is very unusual.
He smiled in gratification.
I chose it,he cried.All by my self.
But why is there a nude lady on the sofa,Stan enquired.
I am so annoyed, the man told them.My fiancee likes to walk around nude but she forgets to draw the curtains first.
Does she want to make an exhibition of herself,Stan enquired hopefully.
We wondered if it was for a life class, you know,students learning to draw and become artists of note.
Well,that’s a good idea said Arthur thoughtfully.
The woman got up and came over.She opened the wondow.To their astonishment she was Annie,their neighbour and Stan’s mistress too.Stan might have known but he had kept his face immobile after years of practise.
Fancy seeing you here,Annie whispered creatively in her sweet little voice
I am trying to seduce Arthur but with no success so far  except a marriage proposal.
You need to be more discreet and indirect, said Stan.
If you act like this he will think you are an artist’s model and likely to be featured in the Tate Modern Annual Show of Infamy .Now, would a man like this marry or even sleep with such a woman as you appear to be walking around like Eve before she ate the apple?
I don’t know said Annie but my clothes are all in the tumble dryer,anyhow.
Did you wet yourself? Mary asked her kindly.It’s nothing to be ashamed of.We all do it now and then especially since public conveniences were shut down across the UK.And now ,even winter coats are machine washable.
Well,I knocked over some lemon barley water in a big jug and so I decided to wash all my clothes. while I was here as Arthur as a tumble dryer
That’s a  very strange tale Arthur told her.You look ravishing hanging out of the window with your nipples pointing up.Let me take a photo of
you.Say,Cheese
But will you put it on Twitter,Annie asked anxiously.
No,dear.I am not so cruel.Why don’t you get your clothes and make us all some tea .
I can’t make tea,she yelled and without pausing she dialledd 999.
What is it Fire or Ambulance the lady receptionist asked politely.
It’s a kettle.
Is it on fire?
No,it won’t boil.Can you send Dave the paramedic ,please, as he makes good tea.
We are quite busy so it may be  two hours or more she was told.
I thought this was an emergency service,Annie said.
But who defines what an emergency is? the lady asked her philosophically.
I will die without this tea,Annie informed her in a  ringing tone
Ok ,hang up and I will send the ambulance now.
Arthur seemed a little surprised
I have private medical insurance,he cried.But they don’t make tea not even for old people.
Well,in the UK tea has always been   essential to the  National  Health
But it will soon be drying up and we shall get flasks from the dustmen on Sundays instead.
I just don’t believe it,Arthur said and he then passed out on the rug which stood in front of a bookcase full of leather bound volumes of poetry.
Will he  live?Read more tomorrow and pay the price… af ew minutes of fun and gaiety.

The Red Cross is helping Gaza

1571710160https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5275703,00.html

If you can donate,I believe it is a reliable Charity to give to unlike a few we heard of lately in the News.Whoever these people are. they need help especially those who are losing limbs or require more than one surgery [ which many do] While we may understand tensions  I myself wonder why they use such lethal bullets.[Apparently they explode once inside the body and destroy  all the organs.If they enter the abdomen, you die.If it’s your leg  surgeons might save your life but not the limb]

Can poetry change our lives?

P1000402.jpghttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/poetryandplaybookreviews/9020436/How-poetry-can-change-lives.html

 

 

“There are poems that have, literally, changed my life, because they have changed the way I looked at and listened to the world; there are poems that, on repeated reading, have gradually revealed to me areas of my own experience that, for reasons both personal and societal, I had lost sight of; and there are poems that I have read over and over again, knowing they contained some secret knowledge that I had yet to discover, but refused to give up on. So, at the most basic level, poetry is important because it makes us think, it opens us up to wonder and the sometimes astonishing possibilities of language. It is, in its subtle yet powerful way, a discipline for re-engaging with a world we take too much for granted.

When the purveyors of bottom-line thinking call a mountain or a lake a “natural resource”, something to be merely exploited and used up, poetry reminds us that lakes and mountains are more than items on a spreadsheet; when a dictatorship imprisons and tortures its citizens, people write poems because the rhythms of poetry and the way it uses language to celebrate and to honour, rather than to denigrate and abuse, is akin to the rhythms and attentiveness of justice. Central to this attentiveness is the key ingredient of poetry, the metaphor, which Hannah Arendt defined as “the means by which the oneness of the world is poetically brought about”. It’s that power to bring things together, to unify experience as “the music of what happens”, that the best poetry achieves.

Most of us feel that this is true of the great dead poets society of history, of Shakespeare and Milton, of Coleridge and Shelley and, of course, of TS Eliot, an American who re-envisioned and so renewed and enriched our idea of England. Yet I would argue that poetry is, or can be, as central to our experience now as it has ever been. To read “I Am Your Waiter Tonight And My Name Is Dmitri”, by the great contemporary American poet, Robert Hass, at the height of George W Bush’s xenophobic repudiation of “Old Europe”, was to be reminded not just of the injustice and futility of war, but also of the very richness and complexity of history that Bush sought to expunge.”

The poet John Donne and his most famous poem:No man is an island

IMG_20130820_072103 (2)https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne

 

 

‘No Man is an Island’

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manor of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 


Olde English Version
No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe
is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as
well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were; any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne

In fact their relatives change and become saintly

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You know, I  think I want to go to church again and I must go to Confession before I go to Mass.But the trouble is that when you have no partner your opportunities for committing sins are greatly reduced.Especially if you don’t go out much
You can’t have a row with them about what TV programme to watch or which side of the bed you sleep on nor about whether they pull the duvet off you in the middle of the night.So you can’t blame them when you feel tired.
You can’t get angry when they ask you to wash their trousers again either or about them wearing a cashmere sweater in bed.Also you see less of their relatives and they were always good for producing sins like envy, rage, jealousy and so on.In fact their relatives change and become saintly so it’s even worse.I suppose that might make me sin.
It’s really hard, though, to commit a sin now so I am wondering   if I should get  a partner purely for the purpose of becoming a sinner who can them be saved by the Sacrament of Confession.I always thought it was odd because if God exists he must know our sins.. in fact  he might know more than we do.He must.
With that in mind, I  wonder about going into therapy as surely that would make  me aware of all the questionable things I have done.Which is better: therapy or getting married? I suppose if I married a rich person they could pay for psychoanalysis for me but it would be a sin to marry purely for that reason.Is that Russell’s Paradox?
Or if I got 2 cats  I could be unkind to them and  not let them sleep on my bed.But I have to admit I cannot be unkind to cats.And I don’t like dogs in the house.Too much work.You might as well get married again as have a dog to care for.Although dogs don’t wear clothes and can’t shout and scream and demand sex at 3 am.Barking is not quite the same
.I suppose I could become a Quaker because it might be  tough to find a husband  who is happy for me to study Wittgenstein and Sylvia’s  Wrath.My hair is no longer what it was.. my eyes are still blue  but now I have a scar on my face.I thought maybe no-one would notice but the dentist said,
Wow, he’s done a great job hasn’t he? Fantastic, there’s just a little lump here…. what little lump?
She’ll have me back in Dermatology as soon as take my teeth out.It was a  little lump that began the whole damn business as it was a bit like a Russian Vine invisibly covering [ part of ] my face.Well I can proudly say I had 23 injections of local anaesthetic  in my face but the surgeon was very handsome.Greek…man
Anyway I went out today with no sun cream on and that is really wicked when you’ve had what I had but the hypothalamus gland needs sunlight so my brother tells me.I have three brothers plus my aide P so I have plenty of men to tell me what to do or not to do.Still you can’t marry your brother can you? I wonder what the priest would say about that.I rest my case.By gum, it was heavy.I’ll take to drink