Caressed by light yet not by human hands
Stroked by colour, touched by sun and moon
The  lonely person cannot understand

We want the feel of flesh, the words so kind
Enveloped in our coat of  dogged gloom
Caressed by light yet not by human hands

Fixed on one who  elsewhere is deployed
We fail to notice as  our hate consumes
The  lonely person  will not understand

As our mind with misery is crammed
We do not check the facts,  careering on
Indifferent to the light,  or humankind

Colourless emotions fake our lines
Sharing words and sentences  is doomed
The  lonely person   could well understand

In the darkness of the human mind
Caressed by  none but God, we  lose the tune
The  lonely  feel  dismembered  and then damned 

If we feel despair  and breakdown looms
Will we weed out love and  bring  down ruin
Caressed by light yet not by human hands
The  lonely person wills  that she withstands

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7290/pat-barker-the-art-of-fiction-no-243-pat-barker

BARKER

Well, you see, this is what we have in common with the Bronze Age or World War I. We have these bodies that have actually not evolved during that time, as far as we know. The truth of the body is for me the most important route into the historical past, and into the mythic past as well. You have five senses—well, more than five, at least six because you have this sense of gravity, of where your body is in space—but that’s all you’ve got as a writer. There is literally almost nothing else. The whole thing rests on this incredibly simple foundation.

We voted to leave Europe with a kiss
How the heck has Britain come to this?
Fooled by propaganda from the liars
Educated  under nightmare’s  scheming spires
The beast of racism risen, where is Christ?
I doubt if God will want to save us twice
We think we are superior and wise
Images of Empire have not died
And if  I am Croatian, can’t I  work
Underneath the covers many shirk.
And if I fled from Syria am I damned,
Who was it divided up the land?
France and Britain were  a fine old pair
See the murderous Middle East they  chaired
Breaking Palestine  into two parts
Breaking many humans and their hearts.

I feel like a wet fish  tonight
Do you want a towel?
Why, do you like them?
Who do you mean?
That’s statistics.
Only elementary.
Maybe it is simple to you but not to others
Which others?
Well,I don’t know. People of average intelligence
Mine is so low I am an imbecile
Well, what a surprise
It was to me,I didn’t know before I went to Oxford, fortunately
How on earth did you get in?
I went on the train.
But did they not test you?
I said I’d cry if they rejected me
So what happened?
They asked me to teach some undergraduates
Just like that?
Yes,I was shocked myself but the maths was not so bad
Did you get Teach Yourself Analysis?
I didn’t know you could
Could what?
Teach yourself
Who taught you?
It was like talking,I just picked it up
Well, it’s a  puzzle
Not after you pick it up
Unless it’s a jigsaw puzzle
Well, where is the wet fish?
In the river
What river
The Dee.
Chester is on the Dee
Sto p accusing Chester.
What, is  being on the Dee wrong?
Probably with Boris ruling it will be
What does he know?
Nothing,That is the problem
Mathematics has problems
Not like this.
So one could say it’s easier than living
Well, you can’t so it when you are dead
You can’t live when you are dead
As far as we know.
Do we need a Venn Diagram?
They make me feel faint
That’s lack of food
Is it really? I thought food was just entertainment
How can  you be so stupid?
It is normal for imbeciles
Yet you taught linear algebra
We should have done it elliptically
You telling  me?
Cryptically

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/07/one-word-understand/?utm_source=The+Paris+Review+Newsletter&utm_campaign=48ea9ef95d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_Weekly_12072018_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_35491ea532-48ea9ef95d-55515601&mc_cid=48ea9ef95d&mc_eid=552ffa9eef

“This is where people misstep: they express understanding of a specific, private experience you have not yet been able to sufficiently describe—an experience you yourself may not yet understand. I recall watching an art teacher correct an abstract painting of mine, painting over a section of detailed work with his large, white brush.”

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/79663-5-writing-tips-mark-bowden.html?consumer

It’s hard to believe it is 100 years since the end of that war in which my uncle died and his father died in the ensuing flu epidemic.17 million people were killed.Is that why Europe has gone downhill morally and politically… some called it suicide.The people who survived were damaged emotionally/Empires fell; revolutions occurred. Hitler began  his mad ascent to power

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70139/the-poetry-of-world-war-i

God made the elephant and the bee
God knows why he then made me!

God likes hearing what I do
I  ate my dinner from my shoe

God says maths is  far too clear
Aleph Null will soon be here

God is perfect and sincere
I blame Guinness for the beer

God has told me I   am gay
I must live and I must play

God is a big memory bank
He remembers, does he think?

How spring is erratic;  the flowers no longer follow in sequence

But come like some Messiaen -like music

No, more like Boulez

following a defined but unknown new order…

So the snowdrops and the daffodils come together

in some marriage of spring and summer

struggling to push away the winter we still inhabit.

Long ago the apple tree
Overhung the dark green lawn
Vertical in mystery
Everlasting in the dawn

Youth and winter disagree
Overland and over sea
Underneath, the  clouds  agree

Deep in soil the worms  will work
Each one with its unique quirk
After feasting they will lie
Round  the rim of a dark sky
Eloquence is good to find
Sometimes it will us remind
This is where we must be kind

The geese have moved their flight path to the East
I miss the  gladness of their graceful wings
And wish I were a bird and not a beast

In the river, they have had their feast
While the sparrows watched and gently sang
The geese are gone, their flight path’s to the East

Seeing their grace at sunset gave me peace
The  natural  world such beauty to us brings
The wish I were a bird and not a beast

North East London’s  cut up by the Lea
No  bridge destroys its power, its currents sing
The geese have moved their flight path  further East

The geese do not  make nests  in a  tall tree
But dwell upon the water  like the swans
I wish I were a bird or honey bee.

As the infant  wisely grabs and clings
So the geese will fight  if threat descends
The geese have moved their flight path to the East
Oh, to fly at sunset  with the least

https://blog.sagradafamilia.org/en/divulgation/reinforced-concrete-for-the-temple-of-course/

The Pantheon from Ancient History

Extract

WHEN WAS THIS CEMENT FIRST USED?

Building with cement and concrete may seem like a modern invention but these materials were used in Roman times. Of particular note is Pozzolanic cement, used by Roman engineers to build water channels, piers and watermills after they discovered this material can harden underwater. The name comes from the town of Pozzuoli, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in Italy, and the most well-known example of building with this type of cement is the Pantheon in Rome, from 123 AD. Its lightness without sacrificing strength is another great quality of this material, which is why it was used to build the great dome: with its diameter of 43.3 metres it is still the largest made of un-reinforced concrete in the world to this day.

It took nearly two millennia to surpass this size and was made possible by innovations in reinforced concrete, first used by Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi in the 1960s.

As Mary ate her Weetabix, she felt a pain in her left leg rather like a toothache  gone awol
Emile, what are you doing?
Emile crawled out looking dusty. And he had just had a bath.
I was trying to bite the hairs off your leg, he miaowed plaintively
There are no hairs on my leg, she whispered. Oh, dear,I must  have walked into a cobweb
I wish Stan had got a cobweb brush, she muttered.
But do we really need a different brush for everything? Soon we will have one for each tooth. That will be expensive
She felt in her pocket for her Tablet. She wanted to draw a diagram of her brush cupboard using an Android App. But her pocket was empty
The back door opened and in ran Annie wearing a yellow nightdress and matching slippers
Hello, she cried. I  wanted to catch you before 9 am
Why, asked Mary?
The postman will be here by then. He has got a parcel for me. But I put your address.
What is the point of secrecy when you live alone. You have no man to question your expenses, have you? Nor a woman either
Well, Emile might ask me to explain.
Just because Emile is male it does not give him the right to tell you what to do
All my life I have obeyed men, Annie cried
Yes, after you have manipulated, seduced and terrified them
That is very cruel. I was only trying to help them.
Well, you may have done, but why not help yourself?
How can I do that?
Tune into your body and see what comes to mind
Beetroot, Annie responded.
So you must need  them, get dressed and we will go to the greengrocers
You have got very bossy, said Annie. Did you have a nightmare?
It was more like a night-tiger, Mary revealed. Something bit my foot and it hurt
Oh, mother , cried Emile, it was me!
You, Emile. What made you do that, she said angrily?
It was in my way as I crawled under the duvet, the cat whispered
Surely you could have gone further down.
I wanted to see what you tasted like!
That is evil, not to say perverted, Mary told him. I shall take you for therapy or would Confession be better? Is it a compulsion you cannot help or is it a sin?
Annie was silent. She  did not like questions nor  any kind of prolonged thought
Don’t ask me, she finally said. Maybe Emile needs a man in the house.
I don’t want any more men, Mary said sadly. They seem to die
Well, Stan was 128 years old. Annie informed her.I saw his birth certificate once. Unless it was 12.8 years
Don’t be so ridiculous. How could he have been 12.8 years old?
It must be a miracle, said Annie. Tell the Pope and he might be  declared a saint soon
St Stan of Knittingham, Patron Saint of Almost Adolescents.
The bell rang. In ran Dave.
He was dressed in navy.
I am  ready to take you to Church, he told the ladies
To church? I’d rather go to Wigan Pier
Oh,  the sea is not there on Sundays!
Is it there on the Sabbath, Annie muttered?
No, it’s not, Dave said quietly
Wow,  two more miracles, she said as she fainted into the Pantry
How annoying, Mary said. I just classified the jam
Well, things could be worse, said Dave. She’s not broken any and cut herself
What, she falls and breaks nothing. She must be very light.
Yes, she nearly  is electric, he quipped
Whatever next?

And so say all of us

https://www.jehsmith.com/1/2018/12/its-all-over.html

“The essay touched a nerve, and most of the response to it was positive. One common mistaken interpretation, to which I want to respond, was that it amounts to an expression of “conservatism”. We are at a strange point indeed in our culture when a scoffing and dismissive attitude towards Hollywood entertainments such as action-hero movies, generated by market forces alone, may be seen as conservative. I continue to believe in a culture independent of these forces, and I bemoan the obsession of so many in our present age with monitoring the garbage output of the entertainment industry for signs of this industry’s affirmations of progressive values. I do not care about this industry. I think true progressivism consists in rejecting it, not in proclaiming the latest “iteration of Wonder Woman “good” because it managed to stay on-message relative to some particular conception of feminism, or that some movie with Emma Stone in it is “bad” because the lead role should have gone to a person of color. Who gives a shit? Who has time for this kind of stuff? Woke celebrity-gossip-mongering is still celebrity-gossip-mongering, and no one is going to convince me that it counts as political in any meaningful sense. Let’s make our own culture instead, with bold new visions of what art might be, rather than pushing Hollywood business moguls to do it for us.

I admitted in the essay to a certain fogeyism, so let me pull out a fogey trope and tell you how things were in the old days. In my late teens I used to drive thirty miles each way to go to the nearest art-house video-rental store, in order to take back home VHS tapes of the works of Ousmane Sembène, rightly called the Chekhov of Senegal. I loved his cinematic language, and I felt that through it I was gaining access to a certain true depiction of Africa. This and similar experiences leave me nonplussed and, yes, a bit angry, when, years later, I find myself reading excited young people declaring on Twitter that, with the release of Black Panther in 2018, we are “finally getting to see Africa depicted in film”. But that is not Africa; that is some fantasy bullshit. Africa has already been depicted in film going back several decades, by great African directors such as Sembène, and you are just not working hard enough if you expect movies to be delivered up to you as mass-release big-screen entertainments. I recently gave in and selected Black Panther while on a very long flight. I turned it off after ten minutes or so. It was just too stupid.”

The little words invented as we loved
Now have no other speaker but myself.
Lost, unique, the husband, so beloved,
These little words expressed our  joyous love.
In my speech, these words no longer live
I cannot use those words, our loving wealth.
The chosen words invented as we loved
Now have no other listener but myself.

Eeh, it were right crackin’ at school t’day
Wot wur thi sayin’ this time?
Thi said wi can do Greek next year
Ye’re not doin’ Greek
Why not,our Mam
Ye can’t even spek English
Why,  am I not canny enough?
No, we don’t spek English eether
Well, ye shud a thought eh that before y’ad me
Ye mean only  people with BBC eksents can bear childern?Well, we reckoned if we learnt English we’d lose our desire
F’wat, Mam
F’ that! Ye know… It, ye get what ah mean
No,Mam.Can ye not spell it our a bit more?
Spell it out, t’dad would tan me hide!
Still he must a dunnit,Mam
I dunno, it wer dark.Mebbe it wer the cat, ah thought
Surely the cat’s not mi  dad, is  he?
It weren’t this cat, it wer another called Billy.
Well, how come ah’m human?
You think ye’re human, but  am telling ye,ye got  t’cat’s eyes
Just his eyes? How abaht his whiskers
Don’t be so daft, our Kath,Ye’ve got his hair
But only on my head so far.Willa bi changin’ into a cat as ah mature?
Wi’ll have te wait and see.Put ‘t kettle on.We need some tea.
Why, what difference will that make now.I’m a cat,I’m a cat…. oh, what’ll  ‘et nuns say  ‘et Convent when ah tellum?
You keep away from ‘et Convent~
Why, our Mam?
Do as I tell you.Never confide in a nun
Well,Ah shan’t let ‘et cat fettle me.Ah’m not that daft
Well, yi can’t do Greek and that’s final
Kyrie Eleison,Kyrie Eleison
Wot’s that?
Oh, nothin’ at all
Christie Horizon
For God’s sake speak English!

https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/easy_chocolate_cake_31070

https://www.womansday.com/food-recipes/food-drinks/recipes/a12296/oven-baked-spanish-tortilla-recipe-wdy0913/

the art of poetry isn’t hard to master
make the syntax good and  entertaining
the  gruesome heart of poetry's a disaster

 
a meter errant makes  the lines come faster
an oxford  thesaurus   gets the listeners   waning
the art of poetry isn’t hard to master.

 
a genius woke and saw a verse rush past her
it only needed polishing and planing
the  gruesome heart of poetry, her  disaster


she left the oven on, it gassed her
ever since her folk  groan, paining
the art of poetry isn’t hard to master.

 

she saw her selves as coloured shapes in plaster
and round her mind, were ghosts all  weakly craning
the  gruesome heart of poetry brings disaster

there’s not a lot of hope if we’re complaining
for criticism  from hidden ghosts is draining
the art of poetry isn’t hard to master
the  gruesome signs of poetry bring disaster

http://www.sarahwilson.com/2018/03/hard-love-weak-character/

Extract:

“Existentialist angst always surfaces during times of human ugliness.

Arendt adds that it’s a moral imperative to not sink into banality, as righteous as not doing harm.

• Not comprehending what Brexit was about before voting proved irrevocably harmful.
• Not caring where your plastic bag ends up (because you’ve not engaged with the facts) is killing the planet.
• Failing to be bold in love is killing relationships…and making us all bored.
• Drifting, flaking, blaming, avoiding, turning blind eyes, going MIA when you’re needed, scrolling Instagram instead of reading long reads about stuff that counts…it’s making us all lesser.

And we know it. We don’t like it about ourselves, but what to do?

I know some people’s response is that it’s all too much, that they can’t afford the energy to care, to think, to get engaged. I quote New York chef and owner of Prune restaurant Gabrielle Hamilton (a thinker, a doer, a liver) who found herself telling friends who can’t be arsed reducing food waste with some minor lifestyle adjustments:

“It’s hard for me to love somebody with a weak character like that”.

I’ve been wondering lately if I’m reaching the same point. I note that many of you on this blog and on my socials are feeling the same. I’m certainly struggling with flaccid, excuse-making, buck-passing characters at the moment. It’s dead difficult viewing such expressions of anti-humanity with mature, kind eyes. And walking away (turning a blind eye) strikes me as (almost) equally banal and flaccid.”