Month: June 2019

Trial and horror

In the land of grief and tears I float
I can’t swim so will you send a boat?

My sorrow is as deep as love is high
I’ll crawl out when the sun has made my dry

I  heard her singing “Help me through the night”
I bought some  ear plugs , it was  that or flight

Leonard Cohen helped   me  in my woe
Then he died, it’s just my luck,I know

Imagination and good sight   are key
To perceiving well   the bleeding heart of me

I can’t be British,I am very warm
I cry with babies and with all who’re scorned

I’m just a foreigner  from Blackburn Lancs
We’re almost civilised, we have a Bank

The English people seem so very cold
They say, hello, please cross my palm with gold

I wept into my pillow in the night
The cat has emigrated,  it’s pure spite

I cried when I got washed and  then I dried
Saving water,I’m  preoccupied

The kitchen is  much  quieter  than a grave
My husband does the cooking, he’s my slave

I never ate a meal  all by myself
I’m in a restaurant ,  but there’s no-one  else

I went inside McDonalds for a test
Don’t go there if you wear woollen vests

I think I feel  my salty tears will flow again
I’ll find my hanky, breathe and eat my pen

I’m never going sad or mad again
The clock hands  move but where  is my old man?

 

 

Competitive grief

 

Is that a game we play in public?

I’ve lost six friends this year

You lost only a cat,

She lost her husband.

Somethings we’d never share anyway

I lost my pride,my job and my eyesight

You’d  never know but for the white stick

And my coat is five  years old.. or maybe ten

She got married  just a year after her husband

fell off the roof  onto the concrete yard

So what’s her claim to mourning?

It was just another topic to write about.

She made money.

Think of that.

Surely, in the USA , nobody would object to it

We know how important numbers and measurements are

In this society

We ourselves  are numbers to the government

So much easier to deal with.

But how can grief be measured?

Good actors can play the part

Others are more circumspect or shy.

In this society we forget

Not everything can be measured except metaphorically…….

Like,I’ve got your measure.

Competitive mourning,,,

Why not have a Game?

Why not have it in the Olympics?

Why not have it on TV  nightly.

Why not get the Queen to give us  medals?

Just  passing a remark,as it were.

No offence intended.

But it was taken like a dagger to the throat,

Then they blame you for having  such thin, thin skin

The Sermon off the Mount

8342227_f520 (1)https://fourminutebooks.com/the-courage-to-be-disliked-summary/

Extract

Lesson 3: A competitive mindset destroys your mental health.

In one of my most popular posts, I wrote:

Mark Twain remarked that “comparison is the death of joy.” But, and this is worse, it’s also the birth of misery.

This is something Adler would agree with. He saw competitive societies as detrimental to our mental health and well-being. Today, this is a prominent topic in debates around Western vs. Eastern culture. Countries like Japan and China also have competition, but are, overall, more focused on cooperation, whereas nations like the US and Germany really focus on individual winner types.

The problem is that if you believe in order to be happy, you need to come out on top of some game, like earning money, getting likes, or having friends, you’ll be sad and stressed either way. The losers feel bad for losing, the winners constantly worry about their success.

Adler sought something much more productive to be the purpose of psychology: to help humans be courageous. Once you let go of a narrow, competitive mindset and embrace abundance, you’ll never feel like anyone is holding you back. After all, there’s enough to go around for everyone and as long as you work on yourself, you can achieve anything you want!

I’m not addicted, though I try.

tresco_2019-2

 

 

Oh,doctor I am in a flap
I cannot turn this childproof cap
I cannot take my medicine
So I shall toss it in the bin

The beta blockers make me down
I am in a study brown.
The mini aspirins make me bruise
And my mind is quite confused.

The ibuprofen hurt my heart
Yet without one I cannot start.
The thyroxine has no effect
So now I feel my life is dreck.

The codeine fails to make me high
I'm not addicted, though I try.
I'll have to take a shot of gin
And alcohol will make me sin.

I'll go to parties in a dress
That makes men's hormones more or less.
I'll take a big one home with me,
And give him poison in his tea.

And when I am in jail at last
I'll feel remorse for all my past.
For as I suffer dreadful pain
God has hit me yet again.

It's not enough that I am blind
And suffer terrors in my mind
Not enough that lovers cruel
Give me stick instead of jewels.

Or maybe life does not make sense
Especially when I feel so tense.
Maybe random are my days
and my life has gone astray.

I think that I shall buy a cat
And love it tenderly and chat.
But if my cat gives me a scratch...
I'll light its tail up with a match.

All the world must me obey
Else I'll be enraged all day.
I want my own way all the time.
Other people must conform.

I am here and full of ills
What do you think of these blue pills?
If they take away my heart
That at least will be a start.

Then they can remove my brain
To help me with this damned pain.
Why not kill me right away
Then I'll be from pain astray?

Come my tigers, tell me of your names

Maybe there are senses  humans lack
Another world  where this world is reframed
To the blind, reality is black

In the midst of tragedy, the rack
The  outstretched hands of god   do seem  forlorn
Maybe there are senses  which we lack

But while we are out ambling  well known tracks
We   may not see  our morals stumble lamed
To the blind, reality is black

The paranoid, the people,  madly  wreck
The natural law, the tablets, the  whole game
Maybe there are senses  which we lack

The albatross may hang around our necks
Yet we must feel  positive these days
To the blind, reality is black

Come my tigers, tell me of your names
Sit beside me, summon up my dreams
Maybe there are senses   people slight
To the deaf, reality is bright

 

About the Natural Law he is a berk

He may  scream at dogs and hurt his wife
Harass his girfriend in the summer night
He drinks red wine  and slops it all about
Is he the PM  we all await?

Worse, he lies so blatantly it stinks
He has charisma like the psychopaths
He feels he is superior to us folk
The carers struggling  daily  with our wrath

He supports  harassment of the  poor
The dying man who’s told he has to work
He cuts tax for the wealthy making clear
About the Natural Law he is a berk

Aquinas must be trembling in his grave
The Natural Law is  dying ,killed by knaves

I thought of crazed wasps

I wonder what rhymes with pedantic

Without being excessively frantic?

I thought of crazed wasps

Whose teeth I would floss

Yet that is  not really romantic

Pedantic seems related  to feet

In poetry that might be quite neat

Pedes obscuro

Might made a detouro

In search of a very fine beat

Podiatry’s a  useful profession

Especially combined with Confession

The priest cuts toe nails

While with sin we regale

We get   rid of out corns with a Blessing

Psychiatry is not for the weak

Stick your finger in a hole in the dyke

We try to contain things

Until we are bursting

Then our madness comes out in one leap

Prayer is  essential these days

Job  comes to mind  in this fray

But why would God help  us

More likely he’d scalp us

Electing  Gove, Johnson and May

 

Love and Friendship BY EMILY BRONTË

 tresco_2019-8
To  my friends/ readers with gratitude

Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree—
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?
The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?
Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He still may leave thy garland green.

I wonder now if this was sacrilege

Note to readers

I realise now what made me write this.I was recalling a viaduct where the railway crosses the River Kent  and the train then goes to Carlisle.From  this side  one can see the mountains of the Lake District.That makes me think of

I will lift up mine eyes to the hills
From whence cometh my strength

And also it must in my unconscious mind be associated with Calvary as well.But I didn’t realise until I began writing.
As a  child I remember being on a train crossing the wide river.I loved it

 

I saw Jesus on a wooden bridge
Carrying his Cross while all alone
I wonder now if this  was sacrilege

In the past no doubt I was a witch
People hit me, mocked me with their stones
I saw Jesus on a wooden bridge

He looked so sad but did not bear a grudge
Soon his flesh would wither on his bones
I wonder if  my writing’s sacrilege

On ward to the mountains Jesus trudged
I think I heard a sound like a slight groan
I saw Jesus on a wooden bridge

With many  tears  his human face was smudged
What was wrong when this world was designed?
I wonder if  my writing’s sacrilege

His  holy spirit   is now unconfined
Where  will we hear the whisper,small, divine?
I saw Jesus on a wooden bridge
I wonder now if this  was sacrilege

Why some people can’t apologise

baby child close up crying
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-squeaky-wheel/201305/5-reasons-why-some-people-will-never-say-sorry

Extract

  1. By refusing to apologize, non-apologists are trying to manage their emotions. They are often comfortable with anger, irritability, and emotional distance, and experience emotional closeness and vulnerability to be extremely threatening. They fear that lowering their guard even slightly will make their psychological defenses crumble and open the floodgates to a well of sadness and despair that will pour out of them, leaving them powerless to stop it. They might be correct. However, they are incorrect in assuming that exhibiting these deep and pent-up emotions (as long as they get support, love, and caring when they do—which fortunately, is often the case) will be traumatic and damaging. Opening up in such a way is often incredibly therapeutic and empowering, and it can lead them to experience far deeper emotional closeness and trust toward the other person, significantly deepening their relationship satisfaction.

To feel the greenness,  let ourselves be drowned

Remember how our breathing slows right down
When we see a small bird close at hand
We want the  happy moment to expand
To feel the greenness,  let ourselves  be drowned

Our breathing comes much faster in the town
Our hearts will beat as fast as Previn’s hands
We lose our  mind and body, their demands
We may walk in traffic  like dead clowns

See the human faces as they frown
They may update their phone,a thousand pounds!
They may park and ride the underground
To  Mayfair with a credit  card and  crown

We  need to create memories that last
In Dedham Vale  with  wild geese  flying past

Not a moral issue to address

We are both   the Nazis and the Jews
Europe’s heart destroyed by what we chose
Are we just dissociated from
The  pain of learning   what our dreams have done?

They say it’s only post traumatic stress
Not a moral issue to address
Yes, it’s over  but it’s never done
The  starving ghosts of  children  wander on

The dead are  just as strong  as we who live
They intermingle   with  us  in the dreams of night
Wanting their remembrance , our remorse
The Christian people who made live our curse

And as we swallow Jesus in the Mass
The Auschwitz  dead  walk up the aisle en masse

 

So called British values

beige cat with gold colored crown
Photo by Katarzyna Modrzejewska on Pexels.com

Many of the British people don’t  live by these values!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/19/baby-taught-british-values-childminder

Creative boredom

rosa-cornelia-2019http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/06/19/adam-phillips-boredom/

A century and a half ago, Kierkegaard argued that this impulse to escape the present by keeping ourselves busy is our greatest source of unhappiness. A century later, Susan Sontag wrote in her diary about the creative purpose of boredom. And yet ours is a culture that equates boredom with the opposite of creativity and goes to great lengths to offer us escape route.

Is sad bad?

conchidium_extinctorum2019

https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/feeling-bad-about-being-sad/

“When we feel bad about feeling sad, we often have internalized these social expectations to feel sad only briefly and to value and therefore be happy. A recent study in Emotion suggests that this social pressure not to feel bad can actually intensify sad feelings, increase levels of depression and reduce life satisfaction (February, 2012).

Studies on our judgments of social situations highlight that when we think about events in our lives, we rely heavily on the reactions of the people around us. How we believe others might respond to us has an impact on our emotions and how we feel about and express our emotions.

Believing that others expect us not to feel sad in any given situation sets us up for negative thinking and unhealthy responses that can intensify that bad feeling. For example, when we fail to meet others expectations, even in the way that we feel, we may tell ourselves that we are failures. These thoughts only intensify negative feelings.

So what can you do if you’re stuck in a cycle of feeling sad and feeling bad about feeling sad? There are a number of interventions that can be helpful, but you may want to start simply by recognizing your emotions. Understanding, naming and describing emotional experiences can reduce their intensity.

Untangling feelings of sadness that originate in negative life events from feeling bad about feeling sad can, in itself, begin to make you feel better. Beyond that, changing the messages that you tell yourself from “I shouldn’t feel this way” to “It hurts to feel this way, but sadness has a purpose” can help.”

 

The agony of loss

When you sentenced me to painful loss
To give birth in a desert stony , grey
I felt like rubbish from a window tossed

Although you did not have to pay the cost
I had wished you’d speak to me again
Despite you sentenced me to painful loss

You gave me not a warning but a test
To see if love and care might still remain
I felt like rubbish from a window tossed
I felt your words strike like a dagger thrust

I knew then it was a cruel game

To make me feel the agony of loss
I know your play with me was never just
What of the child who should have borne your name?
We feel like rubbish from a window tossed

Now I stumble , will I be detained?
I have no papers, no-one to obtain
You cruelly sentenced us to painful loss

From your home my fertile body tossed

f

Baptise her with the lot

I wish you were still living
I wish you were still here
I was making you a cup of tea
You were sitting  near

I put it down beside you
On the table top
But before we could drink it
We heard a heavy knock

The woman  came in boldly
With a  spirit black and sheer
She wanted to assess you
But Death had come with her

Death was dancing like her shadow
She was its chosen host
You never drank that cup of tea
That loss hurts me  the most

For a married couple
Sitting side by side
Having a nice cup of tea
Is nothing to deride

Meals and drinks  form  structures
For the sick and frail
You were happy in your old brown chair
I feel that I have failed

I  should have kept that woman out
I see her mocking face
Death hid itself  just by the porch
She  left me  here defaced

Eight days later on the phone
She heard  my quivering voice
Told me to get therapy
Mourning is for ghosts

We cannot grieve and weep these days
For all emotion’s wrong
We need to be schizoid
Our affect flatly flung

Now they say I have spare rooms
They cut my  benefits
I cannot sell my body
I’ll have to use my wits

Come back,John, and have your tea
I’m still warming the pot
If that woman comes again
I’ll baptise her with the lot

I miss you, how I miss you
I only have your dust
I keep it in the window
I ‘m lost in a grey mist

Red maple tree

I lie back in the weather-proofed green chair
To gaze up at the flowering maple tree.
Now, touched by sun,lungs full of scented air
I embrace with joy the beauty I now see.

Old celandine show brightly by my feet
Neglected currant bushes straggle round the path
There is no birdsong yet a silence sweet
Soothes my heart and quietens my wrath.

For my heart's sore and anguished is my mind
Yet in this little wood I feel deep calm.
My eyes are shadowed and my face is lined.
May this greenwood bring me a gentle balm.

For even in depression and deep grief,
The mind makes healing medicine of a leaf.

They pay £162,000 for a handbag but can’t pay income tax

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/jun/12/hermes-birkin-bag-sells-for-162500-in-london-auction

 

Hermès Birkin bag sells for £162,500 in London auction

Birkin 35 sells for over double its estimate at Christie’s sale which fetched £3.4m

A black niloticus crocodile Birkin 35 bag, left.
 A black niloticus crocodile Birkin 35 bag, left, and a mother of pearl Chanel bag, right, in auction at Christie’s in 2017. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian

A Hermès Birkin bag sold for £162,500 at Christie’s, in London, on Tuesday, shattering its predicted sales price of £70-90,000.

The 2015 Himalaya niloticus crocodile Birkin 35 was not the only bag to exceed expectations, with a 2007 Hermès shiny ficelle porosus crocodile Birkin selling for £118,750, following estimates of £50,000-70,000.

Perception  stolen by the body’s pain

Perception clouded by the body’s pain
The mind dwells in our flesh   as does the heart
Life seems  dark and  all feels  loss not gain

The mind is not a ghost made by the brain
Why is flesh  not equal in its charm?
Perception’s clouded by the body’s pain

So illness and infection  cause us  strain
In the end from flesh we will depart
Life seems  dark and  all seems loss not gain

Where are they who give love warm,unfeigned?
Absence of a lover brings alarm
Perception’s clouded by the body’s pain

Why do people near project disdain?
The illness and the fevers on me swarm
Life seems  dark and  all seems loss not gain

Here is Satan with his  curving horns
He is not deterred by any thorn
Perception  stolen by the body’s pain
To Satan I  submit to  live unchained

 

The clouds must hide

Clouds like herring bones line up to die
Interspersed with clouds of other kinds
Above the Western reaches of the sky

The sun is setting ,troubling tender eyes
Sinking full of pride , impressed on minds
Clouds like herring bones line up to die

In  the West , stand hills where Satan cries
Asking for  submission  to his  binds
Below the Western reaches of the sky

Now all colours gone, the clouds must hide
As in anxious  dreams our teeth may grind
Clouds like herring bones will shiver, die

Across the fields I see a horse go by
His hooves make patterns, but to them he’s blind
He knows  now,  bewitching  is the sky

For the childhood vision we have pined
Dreams mixed with reality make eyes
Clouds like herring bones line up to die
Above the Western reaches  on they fly

 

A silent UTI makes you get very depressed

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/silent-urinary-infections-serious-consequences

I have a silent UTI
My bladder’s sick but I deny
I sat down  on a wall I cried
I sobbed and wept and then I dried
My tears all full of stress hormones
Ran away and wet the phone
I  maybe am incontinent
My self esteem had not got dents
If I’m wet then I’ll be shunned
I don’t care,I ‘ll be  a nun
I’ll take a vow of poverty
And give it to O’Doherty

Is it its?

 

 

rose of sharon seed pod

Some people mock those who write, :that cat ate it’s dinner.

But  that is related  just to  what is customary:

the cat ate its dinner …. means its own dinner

“The cat ate it’s dinner” means another being called “it”  had its dinner eaten by the cat.Alas.

But usually the context tells us.

“I have lost my head” might confuse some of us.It’s most often a dead metaphor.

I lost my head and told my husband I regretted ever meeting him.But my head was screwed on the right way later.

She lost her head and swore  at the Rabbi who gamely swore back  to keep their friendship alive except it was all in his head.She didn’t even know he was a Rabbi, but believed he was  a soft toy with a missing tee.That’s life.For some of us

Language rages

man in knight raising his sword
Photo by Maria Jose Bueso on Pexels.com

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/17/language-wars-18-greatest-linguistic-spats

Are you really disinterested?

Use this word at your own risk. If what you want to say is “lacking in interest” then brace yourself, because there’s an army of people who will point out that it should be “uninterested”, and that “disinterested” must mean “impartial”. They are sticklers for what they regard as the correct meaning, and have taken up columnist William Safire’s command to “rear up and rage, rage against the dying of an enlightening distinction”. The problem is that if a word is more frequently used to mean one thing than another, then that’s effectively what it means: you can’t fight a linguistic consensus. The news for pedants gets worse, however. The OED tells us that the use of “disinterested” to mean not interested or unconcerned has been around since at least the 17th century, used by no less a stylist than the poet John Donne.

English and Maori versions of the Treaty of Waitangi had important differences.
 English and Maori versions of the Treaty of Waitangi had important differences. Photograph: Ian Paterson/Alamy Stock Photo

The Waitangi swindle

In 1840, the British government and more than 500 local chiefs signed a bilingual agreement that made New Zealand a colony. English missionaries had translated the draft of the Treaty of Waitangi into Maori but the two versions had important differences. The New Zealand Ministry of Culture explains that “in Maori it gave Queen Victoria governance [kawanatanga] over the land, while in English it gave her sovereignty over the land, which is a stronger term”. The English text also assured the Maori that they would have “undisturbed possession” of all their “properties”, whereas the Maori translation merely gave them tino rangatiratanga (full authority) over taonga(treasures) – a more nebulous term.

Tips for poets

27067324_1065257550280789_1277755180664167940_nimg_20190311_122518https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/20-best-tips-poets

 

Extracts

1.

The second thing I’d say is you must read old stuff. Dante, Herrick, Donne, Pope, Dickinson…Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore. Read voraciously! And read aloud.” – Aaron Belz, author of Glitter Bomb”

2.

“Always be writing the next poem.” – Amorak Huey, author of Ha Ha Ha Thump

“Do. Not. Take. Rejections. Personally.” – Amy MacLennan, author of The Body, A Tree

“Be kind. Be aware. Be brave.” – Bryan Borland, author of DIG

“Writing is what makes you a writer. Not a book contract or an award, so don’t let anyone make you feel less than. And don’t quit.” – Christina Stoddard, author of Hive

“I would tell (poets) to honor their truth, whatever it may be, and to write it. Trust the poem. Don’t try to force it or control it. Let the poem take you where it wants to go.” – Beth Copeland, author of Transcendental Telemarketer

*****

Mary’s obsession

thumbnail_Photo135q
Copyright

Mary went  out shopping as usual on Saturday.She didn’t need much but liked to watch people  passing the Coffee Shop window and give a rating to their  appearance though the number of women in transparent beige leggings was rather  high.Why not wear thicj black ones, she wondered? They look much better but maybe the poor can’t afford good quality
She herself wore a  dusky violet coat and blue shoes.She had forgotten  to comb her hair!
She saw Annie  her late husband’s mistress so  she knocked on the window and Annie came in.
I’ll have a coffee too ,she said jovially
,It is quite expensive but I like the people here
I love that olive green  jacket, Mary informed her.Where on earth did you find  the eye-shadow to match?
I got it up in Wigan. You know, that outlet store I love
But the train ticket must  be expensive Mary tried to calculate how much but gave up
Well, I love Southport so I do go up now and then to Formby Sands
You didn’t tell me.Have you got a boyfriend up there? Sand Dunes are good places to hide.
I know I am very attractive to men, however there are other things in my life like shopping, clothes, make up, hairdressers and manicures.
Why don’t you read a book!
There are so many I can’t decide where to start
Well  don’t bother with Fifty Shades of Grey,Try Mary Wesley.She began writing when she was 70. I can lend you one.Or did you like Jane Austen?
Was she at our school?
No, she’s dead
Oh,I am terribly sorry.Was she a friend of yours? I realise now people are taking  it into their heads   to  succumb to illnesses they managed to ignore for years

No, she was not my friend.She was a writer  who wrote many years ago.
Some have been televised. She is one of the best English writers.Try Persuasion
I am already good at that especially with handsome and intelligent men
I am getting tired of how you keep thinking  about men.Are you not too oId now?
No, I am not but I’m sorry if I offended you.I can’t think of  what else to chat about
Shall we got to a shoe shop to see if they have any olive green shoes  to match that jacket?
That’s your obsession, shoes,Annie answered angrily.Why not dye your hair, it looks dreadful.
Well  I like my hair this colour as Helen Mirren has it the same
We must accept each other as we are.At least we don’t gamble or  take cocaine.Or try to be the next Prime Minister,Mary murmured optimistically.

And so say all of us. Mioaw  cries Emile.

Where is Oxford,on the Tomes?

Where is Ipswich, what is true
Where is Norwich, deja vuP1000005
Cambridge juggles counterpoise

Here’s the  train, is it full
Will there be a cord to pull
Is it diesel, is it steam?
It’s atomic in its beams

I can sit and Sudoku
I’ll sing and whistle as you coo
Let’s not read  the Gaza  strip
Cartoons make old people sick

Is it real, is it  true
Jesus sat down next to you
He abhors the Holy Land
He prefers the Southport sands.

What we find may not be what we sought

.
I have  filled my mind   with  dreams   and thoughts
I have drawn conclusions  that seem real.
What’s of  value’s not by effort bought.

As Ted Hughes said,  his fishing was the sport
Which brought both meditation and a meal.
I have   studied minds   and  dreams   and thoughts

We see ,like that,new images are caught.
In silence and in noticing  the feel
What’s of  value’s not by effort bought.

What we find may not be what we sought
At  first ,it may not show its wise appeal
I have  found  my mind   through  dreams   and thoughts

In the night the images  take flight.
God’s lioness  destroys what  is  congealed
What’s of  value’s not by effort wrought.

Like a butterfly, a flowering dart
Of love and beauty  which was once concealed
I have  found my mind  by  dreams, my  wordless thoughts.
What’s of  value’s not by effort bought.