https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/01/design-for-living-books-adam-kirsch

Extract:

She climbed onto the bus like a gnat that has walked up Everest carrying 100 library books.
She sat down  like a mother of 15 children does after doing the washing by hand
He fell into bed like a shelf of books collapsing when all the nails broke at once
He got undressed like a courtesan being paid by the second
His pyjamas reminded me of   Wittgenstein’s  phrase: whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent
He gave me some tea in a mug as if he were handing me an umbrella in the sunshine while swallowing a sword and  igniting a rocket  with gas and air
She looked so beautiful ~I could have died of love.Except I’m not a lesbian as yet
He was so handsome it almost made me change my mind about  my future but I think I was right to flee.He could have fleed too if  you scream what you see.But he didn’t flee my way and I didn’t flee his way.That was it in a coconut shell or a bomb shell

I said I’m full of dread not shall we go to bed?
I said what rhymes with crap not  it’s time for a nap
I asked what was the score not  have  you a whore
I said I’d better eat not I’m a  lover of pleats
I said your fly is undone not   shall we have fun
I asked for the toilet not for you to  boil it
Can I have a rest and yes, you are a pest.
I made the bed and it is well dead
He asked  for a sex toy so I said why not play an imaginary game.Then he said not a sex toy a fixed ploy!
Well play it again,Sam.Not lay it again,damn.
I wrote a play no, there was no delay
I wrote the script  not  I taught  the whipped
I am a playwright not a daylight
I had a nightmare not she was alright bare.
I do like men  not now and again

I

I lay on this couch covered in big sheets of white paper.I was unable to lie on my side so I lay on my back with a  pillow under my right arm and my right hand was on my left shoulder.That pulled on the shoulder which had been frozen.
Then they began to put other things over me  maybe plastic to stop blood from  getting onto my dress.This seemed to take ages then he gave me a couple of injections.He stuck a pin in to see if I was numb.Then  silence fell as he laboured with his  knife.He cried,
Are you on Warfarin? Well, no,But I do bleed a lot.Silence
The nurse sprayed something on and I guess he stitched the wound.Then  he put a dressing on.I got up and walked to the chair
The nurse said it will hurt when the anaesthetic wears off
It didn’t hurt.Not compared to the pain I have all the time from arthritis which had been flaring up
So in the evening I got a severe pain in my left  thumb.Really agonising for a few hours… then it began to fade away.I am surrounded by supports and splints and so on……
Because I went alone I feel as if it  has not happened.I am to take off the dressing on Sunday…. what fun.He is good at sewing and is very clever.
Let’s hope that is it

When I said you were a pest, it was a metaphor.
I said the doctor cut  a lump off my  arm not a  chunk of my charm
I said the nurse was very kind not she was blind
I asked for a cup of tea, not  a jug for a wee.Though……
You are worse than a moth, words cannot say it.
You are a cross between a bluebottle and a wasp.Don’t breed, please.
I am innocent,you are innocent, they are innocent.So who did it?
I wanted a meringue not  the Big Bang
I feel like a prisoner in a confessional when the priest faints.Through my fault…..
I’d like to be a religious Jew like Jesus.Is it too late? Well,I’m not  man yet!

We understand new things   by comparing them with what we are aready familar with

She walked up the stairs like a migrainous  gazelle with lead weights hanging round its neck and a truck of bricks harnessed to its body.In other words,she was pretty, exhausted.
Dead!

I got a box of mugs again today
The cardboard and the wrapping fill the hall
I crack them in great numbers then they break

The government  despised , collapsed, dismayed
Their intellectual gifts are off the wall
I saw a bunch of mugs again today

Eggs are full of protein,  so eat cake!
Marie Antoinette could fake some brawls
I crack eggs in great numbers till they talk

When I painted I liked crimson lake
Cerulean blue,burnt umber,all
I drew a bunch of mugs again today

If I feel sad,I can always bake
Sponge cake,iced banana chocolate balls
I crack eggs in great numbers till they break

In the distance there Columbus sails
I prophesy some man will swallow whales
I got a box of mugs again today
I crack them in great numbers  for  a  lark

They said they had no time to read a  stanza
A verse,  a line ,a  little sonnet form
When I asked why, I got no solid answer

They liked  psalms and songs ,both well  enchanted
Judiciously embraced beneath a palm
They said they had no time to read a  stanza

As we talked ,the hot dogs panted
This hideous heat can do them deadly harm
When I asked why, I got no bally answer

The women and the men all flaunted
Their dress sense, their straw hats  and their   strange charm
They said they had no time to read a  stanza

The professor with her learning all had taunted
Saying, thinking cannot cook or keep us warm
When I asked why, I got a squalid answer

Well now and then we spin a  little yarn
Tell a tale or make love in the barn
They said they had no time to read a  stanza
When I asked why, I got no  valid answer

Tree trunk by Katherine

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/annabel-burn/poetry-changes-lives_b_7310814.html

DT has done a great service to education by showing how vital grammar is in all aspects of life.So yes, use a  preposition ,I suppose, if  you feel like it,Yet grammar is not based on feelings.One little word wrong and it could be the end of the world

I am  a crook, not the cook
I said my clothes needed pressing not messing
I want a new book, not a rebuke
I need a holiday not an obligation
He has television,you  have television.For  the 195th time  we all have television.
I said how do you like the grammar, not I’m an American spammer
What am I doing here?  What am I doing anywhere… living.
What is an ablative? It  sounds like water but it’s not a w.c.Is it the opposite if disablative?
Nominative  means No,I’m a native
Genitive …..   sensitive mainly  to the organs of generation .Or is it damaging the genitalia  by getting into a hot bath too frequently
Dative…. is it asking a native for a date ?
Accusative…  it’s a  bit like paranoid but less a theory and more an activity
Why can’t we just speak normal, eh?

I am sorry for my misdemeanors What did Miss Demeanor ever do for you and why is she yours.Surely then she’d be Mrs Demeanors
We say impolite and mistaken.Why not mispolite and imtaken?
English is terribly hard.Perhaps we should make everyone revert to Anglo Saxon except only  people at Oxbridge learn it and that ain’t right, is it? Once it was the tongue of the common man or woman or even cats but now we all talk la di dah oh  fuck,gorblimey,I ain’t dead yet,OK,Cheers,see you soon, you see what I mean? Anyway, it’s too like German so maybe at this moment in time it’s not the right moment to speak Saxon languages nor to use aged cliches as we are going to hell in a handcart

Margarine fly.Misbutter regrets

Misorderly conduct\\

Misreputable behaviour

Miscontrolled appetite

Misconsolate after death of cat which seemed unnatural

Mis-spelt words with purpose.

He has been seemed a danger to himself and mothers.Hence he must misdie in the Tower

No need to misapply for Uni.Come to sunny Addledsex where we admit all miscreants for  a small refundable free.

Have you miseaten your eggs and bacon? Take some hot salted water and make yourself sick

Do you miss headaches.Get one free after donating to a disreputable  hilarity

Don’t have misgivings.Give me your money and your wife now and all will missell

We used to have Missals to follow the Mass, but now we miss Mass

I said I was Ms.Tayke. not  I was a  mistake
Is Trump a miscreant? Or am I too polite?
Is  it rule or misrule in the USA?
He missed the mis before he spoke.
Why let a dummie run?
He apologised for being mispolite to the Queen.She told him to learn English before he comes again
There was a hap and then a mishap and then a baby app.
He said he misbombed Gaza.That is, he bombed Israel.They don’t mind dying as long as Jerusalem is still recognised as capital… or is it mis-recognised?
Did we misbomb Dresden? I think that was Evil.
If I say I don’t like avocados is it anti-Israelic as they call themselves prickly pears?
I had an Arab student once.When I told the class to reas Alice Through the Looking Glass he was the only one who did.The others misread Portnoy’s Complaint or Lolita.
I got laid today.Sorry I got mislaid by my husband.He put me in the airing cupboard as he said I was frigid.Frigid? What  nonsense.I just don’t like all the things we have to do nowadays.Like enjoying sex.Do you enjoy your dinner every single day? Of course not.Some want chips with everything, some like salt on everything and some are anorexic  and others  claim Miss Anna wrecks it

Do you prefer a fair or an affair?
I said,you’ve been framed but I meant misinformed.
Are you the doctor? My mistake!

Where are you my love, my dearest friend

I am lost in fog  that never ends

I miss you when I come back  here, our home

and when I wander, like a sheep  I roam

I was speaking to your sister on the phone

I  turned around as if you were at home

it was my own desire that haunted me

 creative ghosts  have nightly taunted me

I wonder should I move to somewhere new

so I would not keep thinking to see you

I  fear to move will kill me it’s too hard

The labour of transcription is now barred

I must accept this, I will never know

How it was that one man loved me so

I thought I might not be able to write today because of  minor surgery but it is not that which is preventing me from writing it is my left thumb which has decided to swell up. it is the base of the thumb… so I can’t use it. I am using this Google Doc typing app which seems a reasonable one but speaking is not the same as writing especially when it’s poetry

Now the place where I had surgery it’s starting to hurt so that is on the right hand side if it looks as if I’m in a right mess tonight  add  the wonderful news the temperature is high and so is the humidity which makes it rather difficult to enjoy the summer at the moment

I can’t think of the first line of a poem because I need to be using my hands for my mind to work I can’t do it with my voice as yet but maybe it will happen if I keep trying… or is this a divine message that god does not want me to write anymore poetry give my recent performance…… it is possible

please forgive my grammar and spelling mistakes because I cannot edit to this document at the moment but I have managed to make myself some food which involves courgettes and butter beans and eggs and I’m going to eat it now I hope with one hand or the other what shall I have to ring up my next door neighbour I asked them to feed me I don’t think they will like that definitely not.

would you like to feed somebody like me no I thought you wouldn’t.. new sentence when I was at school the teacher in the science class said that in about 50 years we wouldn’t need to eat food that it will come in the form of tablets and so we could just swallow 203 tablets instead of bothering to cook you dinner however she was quite wrong about this as she was about nearly everything that she told us.

how I passed that physics exam I do not know it was a miracle where are the mathematics exams we’re much easier because we didn’t have to do lab work. I didn’t like doing loud work it was the teacher she was hopeless. in those days as soon as a lady got pregnant she gave up her job and I’m afraid the physics teacher got pregnant a bit quicker then she might have initially planned as we were rather difficult to deal with she was only 21 when she started and she used to blush a lot she had rather nice blonde hair and a Slender figure but as I was not a lesbian it didn’t mean anything to me I suppose I might have tried to be jealous over but I didn’t manage to succeed in there because I have always judge people by there Essex ethics…. and not by their appearance except a man of course I do  judge men by appearance and by their sense of humour which is very important to me. I like to have fun I like to make jokes how to roll my eyes and pull faces at people but I haven’t been able to do it recently because I am frightened of being arrested by the police and charged with causing public disorder well it would make a change as someone once said to me that I was too good and that I had no faults but surely they can’t be so stupid… we all have faults but some of us can hide them better than others

I’m going to eat my supper now and then I might lose on the television to see how Theresa May our Prime Minister is doing

I think she is done for but I do not know who can succeed her as none of them seem do you have any friends or character

or strength of mind or morals. is this the end of civilisation… we never been terribly civilised.. any society with so many homeless people cannot be regarded as civilised in the true sense of the word. Goodbye

Katherine

https://www.bhg.com/recipes/how-to/cooking-basics/how-to-stir-fry/

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I have had some surgery today…. so not able to do much

https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/sachas_stir-fry_17077

https://www.theautodidactlife.com/single-post/2016/02/07/How-to-Write-A-Poem-A-Guide-for-Total-Beginners

May I love you,will you let me know?
I do not want to waste my life on earth
I will not let my feelings for you show
Nor deal you any dreadful. unkind blow
Instead I’d give affection and my mirth
So laughter and  good will would overflow
May I love you,will you let me know?
Shall we share our lives till we are earth?

Shakespeare would be   hardpressed to  conceive
The story of the Presidents’  deceits.
Of a   telling plot he’d be bereaved
To  emphasise the massive self conceit

It’s certainly post modern in its style
The story changes even as he speaks
There is no truth at all  just what beguiles
The father of the galleons of leaks

No expert can advise as there are none
Everyone can tweet and will be heard
We are all now equal  and we’re done
Most stupid thoughts of humans now are shared

When the experts and the scholars   tell
More important is, will stories sell?

How English became English – and not Latin

“Despite Webster, the Latinate model survived into the twentieth century in the English classroom. H. W. Fowler, whose Modern English Usage (1926) was the most influential guide of the 20^th century, read Classics at Oxford and spent some time as a Classics teacher before turning to lexicography. His linguistic prescriptions are soaked through with edicts derived from Latin grammar. The Latin use of the nominative case following the verb to be prompts Fowler to condemn English constructions such as it is me; according to Fowler, this ‘false grammar’ should properly be it is I. Fowler’s prescription continues to find loyal adherents today (if you are one – try saying it out loud); ironically, it is probably to blame for the widespread overcompensation (or ‘hypercorrection’) which leads to the preference for incorrect I in phrases such as ‘between you and me’.”

https://www.thoughtco.com/prescriptive-grammar-1691668

“According to linguists Ilse Depraetere and Chad Langford, “A prescriptive grammar is one that gives hard and fast rules about what is right (or grammatical) and what is wrong (or ungrammatical), often with advice about what not to say but with little explanation” (Advanced English Grammar: A Linguistic Approach, 2012).”

Have you ever used voice to typing and seen what a terrible mess you can produce with this tool well I am using it because I have got pain in my hands  and shoulders so I thought it would be a good idea

I don’t think writing poetry like this is sensible but it might be alright for writing a story. alternative lyric alternatively you can buy some software which may very well be better than this but since I use a Chromebook I cannot download any software onto it iIf anybody else has used these kind of tools I would be very pleased to hear from them about their experience and what they’re considered to be the best tool. thank you so much if you can help me

it is very hot and very humid today so it took me an hour to get home from the Chinese clinic where I am having treatment I thought I would never reach my house from the other end of the street and I was in a lot of pain but now the pain is easing off and I have drank a lot of lemon barley water and I feel better but I will go to bed soon I think

I wish that I still had a cat because I had one for 6 months after my husband perished or died or disappear and it was a great comfort to me until the owner decided to send it to live in Welwyn Garden City, can you believe it?

At least it was not run over buy a car which is my first fear which I missed it very much I called it Alfred Alfred used to sleep outside my bedroom door where are the hot water pipe going from the tank to the bathroom and so is AYA got up in the middle of the night I would see him full stop he was very clean and very loving no if there was a man with a similar nature and who could pay his way then I suppose I could adopt a man instead of a cat full stop come to that I could have dropped a woman if  I adopted a man and a woman they could be my parents and .. could look after me and make my dinner   and my bed
I am very lazy by Nature and the fact that I have written 5000 posts on my blog is an indication of this because I have been doing it for 9 years so that is less than 600 here or less than 50 a month or 12 and a half a week that’s nearly two a day
I should have written twice as much but possibly the readers would not be happy but then that there is no compulsion to read my poems because I do not wish to cause suffering to the human race and I hope that my poems will not make you unhappy and indeed there may amuse you or enlighten you they’re certainly amuse me but Donald Trump would not like them for sure
Well I think I will stop now before you all get terribly bored I hope you all sleep well if it’s night where you are and if you have just got up I hope you have a lovely day in front of you and that you will be helped by tiny people wherever you may wander or that your work will not be too arduous or boring so goodnight my children this is your blogger Katherine 

Good Night

The voice that called my name is heard no more
Of  knowledge  and  of love I am deprived
We ask ,if love  must  end ,what is it for?
Eternity enraptured  is its core
The space of love takes all dimensions  far
We recognise  the moment  and its life
The voice that called my name is heard no more
Of  being known,  of love, I am deprived.

Did we never think to say,goodbye
To say  our special words like,”nutmeg tree”
When life was ending and you soon would  die

No tears, no theatre ,no long  haunting sigh
No lost illusions, nothing  there to see
Did we never want to say,goodbye

I heard  a sound like distant sea gulls’ cry
Did that remind you of your cold North Sea?
Your life was ending all mankind must die

I wonder why the heavens are on high?
The mind is valued with its poetry
Did we never get to say,goodbye?

The lower organs procreate, are shy
Without these hidden parts nothing would be
Your life was made and then you had to die

My heart aches  like a migraine God decreed~
Some have said they feel their hearts will bleed
Did we never think to say,goodbye
When life was ending,one of us must  die?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/edward-hirsch-/10-terms-you-need-to-know_b_5153884.html?guccounter=1

Extract

“Here then are 10 key terms that can enlarge your understanding of poetry:

rhythm: The word rhythm comes from the Greek word rhythmos, “measured motion,” which in turn derives from a Greek verb meaning “to flow.” Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It rises and falls. It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves. Rhythm is the combination in English of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates a feeling of fixity and flux, of surprise and inevitability. Rhythm creates a pattern of yearning and expectation, of recurrence and change. It is repetition with a difference.

line: A unit of meaning, a measure of attention. The line is a way of framing poetry. All verse is measured by lines. The poetic line immediately announces its difference from everyday speech and prose. An autonomous line makes sense on its own, even if it is a fragment. It is end-stopped and completes a thought. The first line in Keats’s “Endymion” is end-stopped: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” By contrast, an enjambed line carries the meaning over from one line to the next, as in the next four lines of Keats’s poem: “Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness, but still will keep / A bower quiet for us, and a sleep / Full of sweet dreams…” Whether end-stopped or enjambed, however, the line in a poem moves horizontally, but the rhythm and sense also drive it vertically, and the meaning continues to accrue.

iambic pentameter: A five-stress, roughly 10 syllable line. This fundamental line, established by Chaucer (1340?-1400) for English poetry, was energized when English attained a condition of relative stability in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It might be the traditional formal line closest to the form of our speech and thus has been especially favored by dramatists ever since Christopher Marlowe, whose play Tamburlaine (1587) inaugurated the greatest Elizabethan drama, and William Shakespeare, who used it with astonishing virtuosity and freedom. John Milton showed how supple and dignified the pentameter line could be in Paradise Lost (1667): “Of man’s first disobedience, and the fall / Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste / Brought death into the world, and all our woe, / With loss of Eden, till one greater Man / Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, / Sing, Heav’nly Muse…””

We are little leaves upon the tree
We  never could control our  entire world
The tree of life; what power, what  mystery

With metaphor, it’s easier to see
Life is tender, see each leaf unfurl
We are only leaves upon the tree

Singing in the sun we seem to be
Full of joy until the storm winds swirl
The tree of life; what power, what  mystery

Extinguished   candles   smoke at Tenebrae
We are blown to death however bold
We are little leaves upon the tree

Thus we sacrifice to God uncertainly
Yet as the wars continue, we grow cold
The tree of life; what power, what  mystery

Who has dropped us from the hands that hold?
Who has stolen certainty untold?
We are little leaves upon the tree
The tree of life; what power, what  mystery

A howling bone dithers none the less.
What can’t be lured must be indifferent
It’s a song way to Tipperary.
Silent Plight,Holy Quite.
Have you  ever seen above my ploys?
Too many rooks rolled  up the bypass to caw.
See amid the sinners flow here on  earth we sing,oh,no.
I don’t know where I’ve seen you adore more
Send me a  twitter soon and I’ll be on board  sound.
Come into these belly sands.
This is the end of the code for me
I shan’t slope on.
God test thee very mental men.
I embroidered a meal on hessian but was unsure how to cook it
Now is the month of praying and by gum we need it