Day: July 29, 2019

What comfort could I  bring  to the Unknown?

I have spent  a hundred nights alone
No face to greet  me  when my dreams depart
No comfort  from the warmness of your arm

I  hear your key  but it’s a false alarm
A tear runs down  my face  and then more start
I have spent  a  thousand nights alone

A   river with no bridge  nor stepping stone
This water which keeps  lovers  late apart
No comfort  from the warmness of an arm

I see you are now dust, where are  your bones?
Where eyes to show  me  when you are contrite
I have spent  ten thousand nights alone

In the night you prayed for all who groan
You  smiled  when I  once spoke  of future life
What comfort could I  bring  to the Unknown?

I shall find a way to carry on
I will find the secrets  and the  light
I accept a million nights alone

 

When we were joined , who knew when we would part?
I am left with fragments of  a heart
 I have spent   so many  nights alone
Give me comfort  ,take me in  your arms

 

 

Mary visits the hospital

pinkcatandsun

Mary went to the hospital  to see the rheumatologist.The entire hospital had been re-built and half the site was full of so called “Executive Homes”
She and Annie took a cab as it was raining hard.Although Mary was wearing her new green raincoat, she did not like to get it wet.
Where did you buy your mac,Annie enquired jauntily?
Cotton Traders,Mary admitted nervously.It looked lighter  than it is and Stan liked me in green
You already  have two trenchoats and a nylon mac,Annie told her.And Stan is no logere here
What’s it to you?Do  you want me to give all my money to the poor?
Well, some of it,Annie responded  anxiously.You need to pay your utilities.

My utilities!That sounds like something sexual that cannot be openly named,Mary cried
You are confusing it with urethra, Annie laughed
What is my ethra? whispered Mary
No, the urethra is a little tube for the bladder to empty itself  through
Isn’t  the human body amazing? Mary acknowledged wisely
Definitely, said Annie and I love wearing beautiful  clothes like velvet
Where do we draw the line though, between  looking good and giving money to the poor, tortured or victimised,Mary pondered

It is hard now because we can  see what the rich have and we want it.Annie shouted
Or in your case  you can see all those philosophy books on Amazon and buy them with one click she continued.
Mary could see in her mind’s eye her living room piled high with books but if she were rich like Michael Frayn she could have a huge house full of shelves and desks.
Adam Phillips,’ room looked more full than Mary’s and he must want it like that

In the waiting room Mary looked at Wittgenstein’s biography by Ray Monk  on her kindle
while Annie read The Sun.Soon Mary was called in
Hello, said Doctor Morse.How are you?
In the pink , she cried
I don’t understand, he  screeched likea parrot
It’s an old English saying.It means I feel fine, but I don’t   really that’s why I am here
He looked at her left hand. and said there was no cartilege betweeb the the thumb and wrist.
Where has it gone,Mary asked but he remained silent
Then he said,I think steroid injections will help.Would you turn your chair tound by 180 degrees so you can put your arm on my desk?
Mary turned round and felt a bit dizzy
It’s hard getting older isn’t it, the doctor said in a tone rather artificially kind like a bad actor on stage and afraid.
Mary burst out laughing.
You are a weird person, he told her tenderly with  his glowing eyes shining like the moon over Lake Windermere in October.
Well, we can’t all be  exact;y the same ,she told him logically
Then she had to turn her chair round again. despite her poor hands
Why don’t you have swivelling chairs ,she asked pointedly
They won’t give me  enough money
Can’t you buy a second hand one? Mary wondered
No, it has to pass Health and Safety,Dr Morse whispered cautiously
I see.Well don’t  blame it all on the EU.
I love the EU, he told her.I hope Brexit fails
Me too she croaked
They sat in companiable silence for a few minutes until his next patient arrived
I will see you in September, he told her

Miaow, cried Emile from Mary’s designer handbag
What the hell is that, the doctor asked nervously

Don’t worry doctor.I forgot to  leave Emile in the Waiting Room
Emile stuck out his head and smiled at Dr Morse
Good morning, he said  graciously.Is Dave the paramedic here?
No, they are  not here they  have their own  Ambulance Station down the road
Emile  began to sob.
Mary apologised as she shook hands with the doctor.
Thank you for helping me, she murmured.I feel better already
And so say all of us

Can poetry change your life?

 

 

 

 

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http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/31/can-poetry-change-your-life

Extract

His other idea is that the key to the real-world effectiveness of poems and songs is “form.” The invocation of form is awkward, for the same reason that advanced-pop criticism itself is inherently awkward, which is that most popular music, and especially popular music categorized as rock, is magnificently and unambiguously hostile to everything associated with the word “school.” And form is a very academic concept. It’s the shell in the game teachers play to hide content.

The phrase “equipment for living” is taken from Kenneth Burke, who also wrote that form is “a public matter that symbolically enrolls us with allies who will share the burdens with us.” Robbins likes this. I think it means that the experience of poems and songs is shared with other people, even if often implicitly, and so it can be a means of achieving solidarity. Form “grounds us in a community,” Robbins says.

This might be a little wishful. Reading poems is normally a solitary pastime, and so is a lot of music listening, except at concerts, where the emotions aren’t really your own. In any case, form cuts no political ice. The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” once an anthem of antiwar protesters, is played at Trump rallies. I assume it instills feelings of solidarity among his supporters.

With aesthetic experience in general, after a certain age, the effects are probably as much a product of what you bring to it as what you get from it. “Records are useful equipment for living, provided you don’t expect more from them …………