Month: Jul 2019

Mary, sweat and the nail brush

 

Mary went upstairs to the bathroom to wash her dirty hands after she had been repotting two spider plants. When she looked  at the pale blue sink, she could see a bar of soap but she could not see the nail brush.
Mary felt   cross because Stan did not like nail brushes and he would hide the nail brush in different places so that Mary could not find it
In fact they now had 13 nail  brushes but despite that, Stan had  managed to hide all of them.. Stan himself did not care if his nails were clean or dirty, although Mary  cared a great deal .He could not seem to understand the connection between using a brush and having clean nails
Of course there are other ways of getting clean nails; for example handwashing your underwear in detergent or shampoo would also get the  nails clean at the same time. however Stan did not wash clothes by hand very frequently. In fact the whole subject of washing and cleaning seems alien to his mind
He said to Mary one day, “my jumpers smell funny”
That is why we have a washing machine, she told him kindly
All clothes get dirty either from sweat and bodily fluids or from dropping tomato sauce onto one’s lap while dining.
She could have said “if your jumpers smell funny, why don’t you laugh ?”  but she was no longer a school girl unfortunately.
We may not like being school girls,  but when we look back we realise that playing with balls and mercury in the physics lab was  better than cleaning the kitchen floor or even one’s nails. If you are a school girl you’ll probably have someone at home who will make your dinner for you and maybe wash your blouse  while you concentrate on writing an essay on the uses of the past irrational tense in Hamlet ,that great play by William Shakespeare.
Mary looked round the bathroom, where is the nail brush she cried to Emile her cat
Why, Mother, it’s on the window sill next to your deodorant
My deodorant ; how do you know that’s what it is, can you read?
Not yet   purred Emile  but I saw you putting it underneath your arms I mean in your armpit mother
I don’t think that you should come into the bathroom when I am getting  washed, Mary told Emile in a kindly tone of voice. Why I never even knew you would have heard of deodorant
Actually I have also heard of antiperspirants, Emile  told heer graciously but I would not like to use an antiperspirant because the sweat or the odour from our bodies is what attracts other cats to us for mating ;well actually, it’s using a female smells lovely and then the male cat is attracted by this beautiful scent and with a bit of luck they might mate and a produce a family of kittens
So see what you are missing ,mother
I don’t want to smell beautiful and then have 6  kittens to look after.
No you would have human babies to look after
But would I have to have 6  said Mary I don’t think my body is big enough to carry 6 innocent  babies.
Well you seem we cats are superior because we can have 6 or even 8 kittens  at once and we can soon build up a large colony of cats in any neighbourhood and it’s all down to  sweat, really
That is fascinating  muttered Mary as she took the nail brush and put it under the hot tap before getting the soap and applying it to her fingernails
Do cats have nail brushes? the cat asked her
What, you don’t have nails!
Could we have claw brushes?
I suggest that when Stan comes home you ask him to give you a bath and put some fairy snow into the bath and then your talons or claws will be cleaned as you soak without you exerting any effort
I want to make an effort,  cried the cat ,I want to look very good tonight
Why asked Mary ,it will be dark when you go out so the female cats will not be able to see your claws
I’s a bit like you cleaning your teeth before you go out in the evening I know it’s not just for hygiene it’s in case you want to kiss somebody and you don’t want them to taste your Weetabix from your teeth
Good heavens, are you into French kissing, Emile?
I’ve never heard of it ,he said. I didn’t know there more than one way of  kissing. You see cats don’t kiss very much so we don’t know a lot about it
You should consider yourself lucky said Mary as there are very unpleasant men who will offer me a lift home in their car after a meeting and then before I can get out they plump their large and ugly lips on my lips   and seem to think I will enjoy it
Yes it must be very difficult so then especially as you can’t scratch them because they will probably call the police
I doubt it now ,muttered Mary they will be afraid of being accused of sexual harassment
My goodness that’s another thing that cats don’t have, we don’t have much choice really  our Feelings come over us and if there’s a willing lady cat nearby then we will enjoy ourselves no wonder there are so many cats in Knittingham  how many of them are you the father of?
I have no idea
Just think that if I walk down the street and see 6 cats they could all be your children Mary told him
And on the other hand, they could be the children of any  tom cat within 5 miles
Yes you are right said Mary it’s a pity that you can’t write and keep a diary so that you would know roughly how many female cats you may have impregnated in the last 6 months
Why, is that what you put in your diary, the cat asked her with a naughty expression in his eyes
You know perfectly well what I put in my diary

went to the dentist with a broken tooth

went to the chemist to buy a nail brush

Went in  coffee shop and had a cup of tea

struggle to the bus stop and onto the bus

crossed on the zebra crossing

came home and  burst into tears

Yes I do understand this,mewed Emile,lt is very difficult for you now with all the pain you suffer but you are very brave and you don’t complain a lot but when Stan comes home I shall tell him and ask him to buy you a beautiful silk scarf and a necklace from the Royal Academy gift shop like he used to do in Times Gone By.He must have forgotten lately

So he must , murmured Mary

What a very  lovely man Stanley is.

Yes but we haven’t seen him for a while ;has he gone on holiday?

Well that’s one way of describing at st. Mary . We never know whether he might be on his way home or  if there’s someone else  who has a prior claim on him

It puzzles all of us!

Amid the ghosts of species evolution

What is poetry for when the rain beats down again
The peasants with headscarves  scurry through  rough fields
Amid the ghosts of Emperors, revolutions

The men returning lost, though war was won
Trauma  and the real  now lacking shields
What is poetry for when the  hearts beats fast again?

The heads of this strange world,  the hydra’s fun
How can we  survive ,  lost memory  reveals
Amid the spirits , fire and revolution

How much metal  wasted making  arms and guns
No-one minds  how  lost  lone children feel, conceal
What is poetry for when the rain beats down again?

Here’s the body of the Saviour gassed by man
The Holy Dove is caged, the Holy Spirit  reels
Amid the ghosts , the  fire, the revolution

 

Do we need to think or learn the how of feel
The Saviour dies again, his human lips appeal
What is poetry for when the heart is failed again
Amid the ghosts of species evolution

We miss the ardent touch

The sparrows sing as if to draw me to
The present moment’s gravity and grace
Our contemplation of life’s nature new

What  other attitude is worthwhile now?
I can no longer see your loving face.
The sparrows sing as if to greet me too

Eden is still here, we miss the clues
We miss the  ardent touch,the kind embrace
Our contemplation of the world renews

On my face, the tears are jeweled dew
In my body, I feel held, enclosed
The sparrows sing as if to greet me too

Now the blackbird sings as if on cue
Inside my swollen heart, I feel its grace
Contemplation of  life’s nature new

I saw your soul in your transparent face.
And crisscrossed lines from struggle left their trace
The sparrows sing as if to draw us to
The contemplation of the  wildness true,

Alexa turns it on at my command

The electric blanket lies upon my bed
Alexa turns it on at my command
Since I am a spy, I’ll  soon be dead

For I may sing or talk as I’m ill bred
i sing in dreams  or sometimes on demand
The electric blanket lies upon my bed

Surely no-one wants the books I’ve read
Unless they’re in a desert  with no sand
Since I am a spy, I’ll  soon be dead

My pretty face  may well  have been misread
My mind is   feeling as I wave my hands
The electric blanket lies upon my bed

The thoughts of lipstick,eye cream have all fled
I’d like to walk  the borders, sea and land
But  if  I am a spy, Alexa’s sad

Oh,Lord  let all my prayers be swiftly canned
So angels feast and humans  eat the banned
The electric blanket lies upon my bed
If  I am a spy, Alexa’s dead

 

The white  doves  flutter, stand upon the wind

I have walked through mud and autumn rain
In  the ancient hunting woods of kings
The dead brown leaves  no longer feel their pain

I see bare branches  which will  green again
The white  doves  flutter, stand upon the wind
I have walked through mud and autumn rain

Shall I love another  or disdain
Humankind who like me have much sinned
The dead brown leaves  no longer steal our pain

One false  move and  love’s  tied up  in chains
We’re trapped inside ourselves  yet  hear bird song
i have walked  regardless of the rain

In drier autumn  love leaves not a stain
Except on  murdered hands  and  golden rings
The dead brown leaves  no longer fear our pain

Demonstrations, vicious underlings
Let all be still and  touch the heart that longs
I have walked till dusk in autumn rain
The dead brown leaves  will warm the earth’s remains

 

 

The   logic of Enlightenment seems gross

Sacrificing humans   to their aims
The governments  enjoy their obscene games
They move the drones and guns  about on screens
So  they never hear the victims screams

The   logic of Enlightenment      seems gross
Descartes split the world  and  thus imposed
A  war upon the psyche  and our hearts
We were cut   to pieces  kept apart .

 

Killing God has kept  us all  at work
Making  other peoples  feel our hurt
Palestinians ,  Jews of the  old Jews
Refugees like  Blacks  may  spoil the News.

Is  there any wisdom  we can learn
As the nuclear threat  grows  out  of turn?

Poetry and magic

conchidium_extinctorum2019

https://lithub.com/poetry-like-witchcraft-and-magick-is-an-act-of-transformation/

“When I write poems, I am a saint. I am unattached from the body of the world and living only in its breath—and every passing moment in between each breath is an immortal joy. I don’t write to capture this beatification; I write to find my way into it. What’s left on the page afterwards is perhaps not even a trail, or the spell itself, but the ashes left from the burning. The incense of my annihilation.

When I seek new poems by others or return to my favorite works, I am looking for this same experience. In this way the act of poetry is at root, a form of radical worship. Through its creation the creator is also changed—elements of the spontaneous, which are a hallmark of effective poems—contribute to a transformative rawness, or honesty. This in turn cultivates a sense of possibility.

The redemption of the self is a valid way of approaching the redemption of all. One should never utter the poem without concentration, but instead sanctify it, know it, and reflect.”

Poetry, Like Witchcraft and Magick, is an Act of Transformation

He uses Fairy Snow and soap ,

I went to university ,I turned out charismatic
I kept my handbag full of bricks and stored it in the attic
I won a seat in Parliament, was whipped and called  a traitor
For I met Maggie Thatcher  and tried make a date with her
She was not a lesbian  and I am not a masochist
Yet if there were another war I’d come out as a pacifist
Charisma was quite useful when stealing  my expenses
I needed money desperately to pay for a good dentist
Originally I  wished to study  language
Yet I took to algebra ,the professor  offered blandishments
It may have been  what  we call sexual harassment
Better far to be  a tart, get lots of of cash to pay my rent
But I am still a virgin, well almost if you get my bent
I married  a new husband and he delights in  cleaning me
He uses Fairy Snow and soap , do you think he is demeaning me?
I

 

 

 

 

If you are deaf please  hang up now

Sorry I can’t answer the phone

I thought I was dead
I speak an unknown language.I can’t even understand it myself
I hate talking too much
I am in a bad place.The  Bank……..
My bed has no legs on it and I am  making some

The cat is dying
The dog has eaten my handbag
My  late husband is angry with his mother, who is dead
I went out and  have not got back yet
I am sure I am not here
I am  synthetic
I love God  but not  the Pope
I want my husband to  be resurrected
Why not write  me a letter?
No, I am not a Government aide
I am not alive till 11 am
Leave your phone  number and I’ll work out your horoscope
I am dumm and can’t spill
If you are deaf please  hang up now
If not, play Suzanne to my answering machine

Hitler was a Christian,  what a risk—-

Global warming started in the Camps
Hallowed  people turned to  dust  and ash
The burning of the Jews, the gay, the tramps

Towns where Polish children took exams
Jewish ones  made  ready to be gassed
Global warming started in the Camps

The ghosts of human beings walk with lamps
Fearing still the  terror of the past
The burning of the Jews, the gay, the tramps

Witches wrapped in  flax  burned up  like ants
Fear and terror with the night clouds pass
Global warming started in Death Camps

Cathedral  choirs   full voiced,  sang  sweet descants
Hitler was a Christian,  what a  risk—-
The burning of the Jews, the gay, the tramps

We are no gods , we need to see  the truth
The  soldiers and civilians, and burned books
Global warmth , the  night glow of the Camps
The  murder of the Jews, the gay, the tramps

I don’t know what this dream may symbolise

I dreamed my blood test results had come
On paper like the Weetabix is in
I can’t recall if they were good or bad
Or whether I just threw them in the bin

I found a pair of trousers, they’re not mine
To which these test results were pinned.
So it dawned on me an error had been made
As for those trousers, I was much too thin.

Someone else has got results not theirs
I have theirs and hope that they have mine.
But why are they fixed to my fresh laundry
And how can I discover them or find?

I don’t know what this dream may symbolise
It made me oversleep with shuttered eyes

Rosa buys some clothes

y

 

 

Rosa was looking in a very interesting clothes shop online.Here she saw an outfit totally

unsuited to her new post as Head of Linguistics in the University of Unisex.
There her eye was drawn to a pair of blue trousers with a red stripe down each leg.The trousers were somewhat shorter than in the days of that pair of women, Trinny and Susanna who told all of us how to dress.Especially to wear trousers  that cleaned the pavement as we walked along as it made  our legs look longer

Rosa met her friend Mary for coffee.
What do you think of these trousers, Mary? she asked, showing them to the bewildered lady on her HP Phablet.
I don’t think Stan would have liked those, she murmured.
I see some advantages, Rosa said.
If you have nice ankles then it reveals them and if not, you can wear really fun socks with butterflies on them.
Real butterflies? Mary queried anxiously
No, embroidered or knitted, Rosa said.You see them in those catalogues that come round  before Xmas
Or you could knit your own, said Mary.

I think knitting butterflies is very hard, Rosa whispered.
Nothing is innately hard, said Mary.It all depends on what you already know and if you have a good teacher and your devotion
How does Quantum theory compare to knitting butterflies? Rosa enquired jocosely.
That makes it sound as if you will knit with actual butterflies or that butterflies themselves might knit! Mary exclaimed.
That would be  a thing you might see on LSD
Is that the latest kind of TV set, Rosa asked her?
For goodness sake, Rosa.Have you never taken drugs?
I don’t believe I have.You see at Oxford I was friendly with an ex-heroin addict.
He told me not to buy drugs because I saw things like other people do when they take heroin.But I see like that naturally!
Well, that is fortunate for you, Mary sighed.Was it true?
There is no way of knowing, said Rosa scientifically but it saves money.
Well ,how about these trousers?I could get some red ankle boots and a red   shirt.Noone wears dresses anymore except maybe transsexuals.
I wear them,Mary said.When I was thin I wore a knitted dress.
Not knitted by butterflies I hope,Rosa  giggled
Well, it was from M & S so I doubt it although it would be cheaper to use them as butterflies don’t know what money is!
Nor do many human beings now.Why, plastic £5 notes…. it’s like toy money
And so say all of us

The difference between poetry and prose

19029692_934673353339210_3990976413130029783_nhttps://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2012/04/the-difference-between-poetry-and-prose

 

Extract

The Difference Between Poetry and Prose

Prose is all about accumulation (a morality of work), while poetry as it is practiced today is about the isolation of feelings (an aesthetics of omission). Among other things, prose is principally an ethical project, while poetry is amoral, a tampering with truths which the world of prose (and its naturalistic approach to mimesis) takes for granted. Poetry creates its own truth, which at times is the same truth as the world’s, and sometimes not. Whatever the case, its mimesis is always a rearrangement, at a molecular level, of that axis between the “seen” and the “felt” (that coal chute which connects the childish eye to the Socratic heart), which, were it not for poetry, with its misguided elenchus, would remain obscured. In both classical and modern languages it is poetry that evolves first and is only much later followed by prose, as though in a language’s childhood, as in our own, poetry were the more efficient communicator of ideas. Whether this has to do with the nature of ideation or some characteristic intrinsic to the material evolution of tongues has never been adequately decided. Probably this evolution, from poetry to prose, depends on synergy—between the passion for thought and enthusiasm for new means. Technology also played a roll. With the spread of the printing press after 1440, texts no longer had to be memorized. Poetry’s inbuilt mnemonics (rhyme, meter, refrain, line breaks) were no longer essential for processing and holding on to knowledge. Little hard drives were suddenly everywhere available. But even a century later, in Elizabethan England, English prose had not yet come close to achieving the flexibility of poetry. One need only compare Shakespeare’s blank verse soliloquies to the abashed prose of one of the Elizabethans’ greatest disputants, Richard Hooker, or to the Martin Marprelate tracts. These are differences not only in talent but ones inherent to the medium. Even the King James Bible, “the noblest monument of English prose,” cannot compare to the blank verse of Shakespeare.

How to grow on holiday

How to pack a suitcase when  you never wear a suit
However did we pack ,when we had no kindle books?
How to go on holiday on the perfect route

I sometimes wore a sandal,  my  sister liked a boot
We were not so worried  by  perfection and our looks
Nor how to pack a suitcase when  we never wore a suit

If you play a cello then never take a flute
Don’t take any sandwiches unless you have a cook
How to go on  field trips  when the  your  anger  is acute

If you feel  the stress of life,  why not become mute?
If you have a caravan, is it overlooked?
How to pack a  suitcase when  you never sawed a suit

If you only take one bag,, you  seem to me astute
Don’t take any rifles it’s illegal  to shoot rooks
How to go on holiday on the perfect route.

Make  sure you wear your wellingtons if you walk through a brook
Take some stolen credit cards  if you are a crook
How to  wear a suitcase when  you never wear a suit
How to   grow on holiday on the perfect route

 

 

 

 

The politics of poetry

photo of black ceramic male profile statue under grey sky during daytime
Photo by Mike Bird on Pexels.com

This is well worth reading

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/69080/the-politics-of-poetry

Extract

It’s also how democratic politics is sometimes thought to work, at least when we’re thinking of “politics” in its more abstract incarnations. Here, for instance, is how Franklin D. Roosevelt viewed the job to which he devoted much of his life:

The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.

To say that you’re personally necessary in order for “certain historic ideas in the life of the nation . . . to be clarified” is only a few hyperventilating breaths short of calling yourself “a mirror of the gigantic shadow which futurity casts upon the present.” The link again is the concept of totalizing vision. And this concept—dramatic, romantic, wildly generalizing—is one that politics and poetry don’t share to the same degree with activities like neuroscience (which focuses on particulars) or television writing (which tends to emphasize craft). Indeed, the only other areas of American life that have similar inclinations are probably religion and philosophy. Religion is no longer attractive for many poets for reasons that are historical and beyond the scope of this essay. Philosophizing remains a popular endeavor in the poetry world, but only so long as it’s a poetic sort of philosophizing (Nietszche, Heidegger) and not complicated, logic-y stuff that involves formulations like ◊∃xφ→∃x◊φ. Since Anglo-American philosophy has been dominated by the latter sort of thinking for decades, it’s no surprise most poets don’t go in for it.

Till she enters carrying her head

My washing will not dry  laid on the hedge
But I  stay here nurturing a grudge
I rarely feel one so I must retain
The nasty  feeling  and the horrid pain

Yet since it hurts me,I must be a fool
The errant friend  will turn into a ghoul
I’ll hear her footsteps  from my   ancient bed
Till she enters carrying her head

Oh God  lift up my ruminating curse
Let me have  your grace  or I’ll get worse
I do not wish to  have a bitter  heart
Grudges turn to   dread; it’s hatred’s art

For if I learn  destruction  and its ways
Cruelty   will  have the final say

Its lack of elegance  offends my eye

Loneliness is only known to man
When he burns the  copper  frying pan
From the marriage bed he’s tossed  aside
For pans are more important to a wife

Yet if she  breaks  their  lovely china plates
He is not allowed to castigate
Oh,men! That is a phrase I hate
Generalising is a crude mistake

Now I  am alone, I’ve burned  eight pans
I broke the dinner plates with  careless plans
I broke the special mugs we  loved so much
All because I missed his soothing touch

The memories fill my heart with  love and light
In  my dreams he comes into my sight

Don’t pay attention

3840

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/06/adam-phillips-interview-attention-seeking

 

Extract

You suggest that attention might be a form of madness or addiction. Why?
There’s a part of us that wants to attack our own development and the way we do this is by actively narrowing our mind. And that is what a phobia or an addiction is: it’s the overorganising of attention, because it solves a lot of problems in a certain sense.

So the reason we might want to narrow our attention is for fear of the unknown consequences of its promiscuity: we really don’t know where it will take us. And that’s exciting and exhilarating, but it’s also troubling.

Attention-seekers generally have a bad reputation, but you say that “attention-seeking is one of the best things we can do”. Why?
Because we need attention and we don’t usually know what it is in ourselves that we want attending to, but we know we want something from other people. And this is why celebrity culture is interesting. Because it appears that there’s a whole swath of people who know what they want: it could be called fame, it could be called wealth. But I think it’s much more enigmatic than it looks. Because the risk is you get a huge amount of attention and no engagement.

Stan and the Yorkshire puddings

  • Stan was cooking the Sunday dinner.As usual up North it was roast beef and Yorkshire puddings.Stan was very good with  Yorkshire puddings.
    They ate them with gravy before the main course just to maintain tradition.Even Emile,their talking cat, loved a pudding soaked in thick meaty gravy..Suddenly the kitchen door burst open and in rushed their neighbour Annie… covered in blue paint.
    What’s happened to you,hinny,Stan enquired naughtily.Surely you are not house painting on  a Sunday?
    No,I never paint  thee housemyself,she responded.I was in the shed and a stray cat was up on the top shelf.It leaped off  and knocked over over this  old tin of paint.I’m wondering how to get it out of my hair?The paint,not the cat!
    What type of paint is it?
    It’s emulsion paint.
    Well,I’m afraid you can’t get it out!
    I can’t go around town with blue hair,she cried hysterically..
    Well,all I can think is,I could cut off a little of your hair.
    OK, if that’s the only way.she said,being keen on Stan’s touching her even if only on the head.
    Can I stay and eat with you?
    Of course,sweetheart.Now here are some pinking shears.
    Have you no ordinary scissors?she screeched fractiously.
    No,we lost them.But pinking shears will give a layered effect.
    Stan began cuttting the left side of Annie’s hair.Then he went around to the right.
    She looked in the mirror,The left side  is a bit longer than the right.
    OK I’ll cut off a bit more on the left.
    Oh,my God.The shears slipped,it’s gone really short!
    All Stan could do was cut the remainder of Annie’s lovely hair so it was only 2.54 cm long all over.
    Suddenly Mary came in,I didn’t know you were a hair dresser she said sardonically to her husband.
    Well,Annie got paint in her hair so I’ve trimmed her hair.
    Trimmed it..it looks like she won’t need a cut for about two years.
    Annie began to sob noisily ,terrifying Emile who was hiding behind the flour bin.
    Well,Stan answered, it will be easier to wash and dry and no need for rollers etc
    I think it looks charming.
    Why pinking shears?Mary whispered.You could have used my dressmaking ones.
    Well,.too late now mioawed Emile sarcastically.
    Well,I think it looks sweet,said Stan bravely.
    Meantime,you have burned the puddings again
    Just like King Alfred and the cakes.Men are only good at savoury and meat dishes.
    It takes a woman to cook puddings and cakes.But Yorkshire puddings are savouries.
    I wonder how Wittgenstein would have classified them ?   cried Mary enthusiastically.
    Not Wittgenstein again,moaned Stan,can’t you move onto someone else?
    Whom do you suggest?
    Try Carnap for a while.
    Oh,he’s more of a logician,Mary said defiantly,You see I love Wittgenstein as a human being..
    Are you committing adultery ?Stan demanded  dominatingly
    That’s an exaggeration,He’s dead i believe.
    That’s what they all say,shouted Stan angrily.
    But what about you and Annie?
    Well,I get lonely with you lecturing and researching all day long.
    Surely you could wait till I come home?
    I suppose so,though a harem has always been my dream!
    I think you are past it,said Mary rudely.
    That’s not what I see, said Emile quietly.
    Meanwhile Annie had washed her hair an it dried in tiny uneven curls all over her head.
    It looks quite fetching,they decided as they sat down to eat the charred yorkshire puddings.
    What an exciting Sunday especially for Stan who enjoyed touching and playing with women’s hair.
    I wonder if it’s a mental illness?
    I’ll have to look on the internet.
    Still, better than panic attacks, he thought consolingly as he carried the roast beef into the dining room where the women were discussing religious topics including a curiosity about why Christians were so anti Semitic despite Jesus’s wish for people to love each other.and besides Jesus being God,he was also a Jewish person too on his mother’s side.
    That’s interesting,Stan thought,Here people think he’s English!What a weird world it is,to be sure.
    Little children,love one another,as someone once said many years ago but humankind is still in the toddler stage of development I fear…. and going backwards too.

When words feel too clumsy

when words are not enough
to give our feelings form
music is the language
which many find gives calm

when words sound too clumsy
a look may be enough
a glance of compassion
may pull us from the Slough

when words don’t come easy
when music fails to charm
then come to me and tell me;
I’ll enclose you in my arms

gestures, touch and glances
are a language in themselves
words are not enough for us
We need  to see as well.

We embrace the silence

Underneath the silence there is peace
A stratum clear  ;a different way of life
With music ‘s just discernible  relief

In the calm we find a pure release
Love can heal the wounds of a sharp knife
We embrace the silence ,welcome peace

The self  may break ,may shake in disbelief
Render us to fragments,soul denied
Does music   give discernible  relief?

Do not bury loss and hide your grief
We mourn the parts of us  gone in a trice
Company in  silence   brings  true peace

Did you see your body lying creased
On the bed below your   hiding place?
Play with music, pray for  some relief

I see myself  lie broken in a box
A jigsaw needing time beyond the clocks
Underneath the silence there is peace
I hope the  silent music  brings relief

 

 

 

Mary writes a letter

 

  • body of water near building
    Photo by Timi Keszthelyi on Pexels.com

    The Pilchards.

    23,Sweetnames Avenue

    Knittingham

    Near Nottingham.

    England

    email: doubledutch @lovemail.com

    Dear Jane

    Hope you are keeping well in this unusually cold spring weather.

    Stan has had flu.It made him so bad tempered and waspish

    that I took up the Duraglit polish and got him to polish all the brass,

    except the front door knob, as that doesn’t come off.

    Mind you,it made the bedroom smell odd… a mistake,perhaps…

    so I sprinkled lavender oil around.

    He seems to get thinner and I seem to get fatter.

    So our average weight remains constant.

    What a relief.I’d like to be weighed as a married woman.

    Can you believe this..

    I’ve got chilblains! It’s those dratted blood vessels of mine.

    Still,I polished some old plum colored leather and wear them in the house.

    We seem to be doing polishing frequently here.. boots,furniture,apples.

    How is your new book “Nonsense:A.N.Whitehead and Lewis Carroll” coming on?

    Hope it’s progressing….to a nonsensical ending.

    I’ve got a new book of poetry coming out in April

    [from Polar bears publishers]

    It’s called,”An unpolished performance.”

    My fourth book on Wittgenstein’s cats is almost finished.

    And the publishers can’t wait for the photographs…I’ll get a friend to do those for me!!

    It gives me a change from all that polishing.

    I’ve begun to talk to myself out loud…. in the street.

    Just seeing if I can still do my old Lancashire accent.

    I suppose it might worry people but no one has said anything as yet.They may be

    afraid.

    “That which is unsaid can,nevertheless,still be heard.

    Stan is still involved romantically with Anne, our next door neighbor.

    I can’t blame him as chilblains and Wittgenstein not very romantic.

    When I think of how we used to be,it makes me smile and feel sadness too.

    I wonder if I can find someone new for a romance,myself… someone with

    Asperger’s syndrome   possibly…as I’ve just been diagnosed.It’s quite common in

    mathematicians.It may be an advantage in concentrating a lot

    I need a boyfriend with weak eyes as my clothes are all full of moth holes

    and I’m damned if I’m going to buy new ones.

    I can’t see well enough to darn but I’ve sewn the holes up neatly thus

    giving a strange pleated effect to my clothes.

    On my merino wool knitted trousers, one hole was right on the ass.

    It looks now as if I’ve been shot in the rear…

    but I can’t see it.So it does not exist.

    Sometimes in the past I would iron on those motifs like

    butterflies…but

    I think it would look odd having a butterfly just there…. or indeed

    anything else like wild rose.

    I could make a little sign saying

    “Keep clear,from my rear.This is a hole where a moth scored a goal.”

    Still,not many people are going to look there now I hope….

    I seem to have stopped knitting but am still drawing.

    Meantime I’ve just ironed some of my winter clothes as it’s still chilly..

    and am planning to iron all my pink and blue knickers now

    as I believe it kills any germs left when you wash at 30 deg.I got those colours in

    case I should change sex or is it gender?

    I wonder if I should iron the sheets?

    Could I do it while they are on the bed?

    I don’t wash them much as it wears them out and me too.

    I am going to take up baking again because Stan is getting so thin.

    I fancy a Russian cheesecake as it had a lot of protein in it.

    I have a genuine Russian cookbook and also am waiting for a delivery of a

    Jewish cookery book as I have lost mine..no it fell down onto my head last week

    .God only knows where that came from.

    but I believe there were good cheesecakes as Jewish cooking has much in

    common with Russian,perhaps because once many Jews lived in Russia.I just

    made friends with one here….he is charming and like me he hates golf.

    I have got almost all the Penguin cookery books ever printed but mislaid a

    few.

    In fact it’s quite hard to get into the kitchen

    with all these books on the shelves.And a little food.

    I was comforted to read that the parent’s of John Burra,the artist,

    had books piled every where in their large house….

    and he was very untidy too.

    So all I need is talent and practice and I’ll be an artist.

    After all,anyone can be untidy but not everyone will practice their Art.

    I’d like to practice the arts of love.

    They say you should love your neighbor as yourself,

    but personally I prefer the neighbor or even the milkman to myself.

    Meanwhile I’m happy with Emile our cat

    and my 500 photos of Wittgenstein.

    I shall make Stan a lemon sponge pudding.

    That is the love he wants…Food.

    “If music be the food of love
    I’ll cohabit with a pure white dove.
    And while he coos and sings for me.
    I’ll try not to :fall out of the tree,
    Get stung by a bee,
    Have psychotherapy
    Make more enemies,
    Let my thought free,
    Hurt my knee.
    Let moths frighten me.

    Well,time for some tea.

    Now Jane, please write to me soon.

    I love to see your so strangely beautiful handwriting

    and to hear about Whitehead and Cambridge and all the weird dons.

    I hope it’s not too damp and cold there near that river.

    Keep warm and make a note of any intriguing happenings to relate to me.

    And anything beautiful you can see or hear.I hope Edward is writing

    regularly..where is he doing his research now… did you say Stanford?

    Maybe you should install Skype..then again,perhaps not as you would have to

    wash your hair too much… and comb it too…perhaps we could wear wigs.

    Do write soon,

    Love always,Hate now and then

    Mary

  •  

 

Haiku and economics

close up of coins
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

https://www.economist.com/prospero/2011/01/12/on-haiku-and-the-invisible-hand

EXTRACT:

Even Adam Smith  might have approved. In exploring the links between poetry and economics, Mr Ziliak’s essay (a spin-off from a longer academic paper published in 2009) recalls Richard Holmes’s book, “The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science”. Holmes, a biographer of Shelley and Coleridge, sought to dispel the notion that romanticism and science always inhabited separate spheres. Instead, they shared “a common ideal of intense, even reckless, personal commitment to discovery”. Whether exploring a cranny of the mind or mapping the skies, the romantic poets and scientists were united in their ideas, and the feelings and language that framed them.

Mr Ziliak posits that a greater relationship between poetry and economics should exist, that it is “economists who can learn the most from poets about precision and efficiency, about objectivity and maximization.” This may be a stretch, but Mr Ziliak is more convincing with his larger point: that feelings and language play too big a part in our lives to not be used when considering the world around us—even something so dismal as economics.

My heart was struck

 

When first I saw your limpid blue green eyes
That held me with a merry loving look
I  fell into  sweet love without surprise
Without consulting people or a book.

My heart was struck and rang out like a bell..
Like crystal struck by silvery rod or spoon.
And yet I hesitated,you could tell…
Is love a treasure or a road to doom?

For in the past,love’s robbed me of my soul.
I gave so much and gained not at all.
But with your love I felt I could be whole…
Free from those whose very touch appalled.

The sun looked down and smiled upon your face
As we held each other in a soft embrace