Month: Jul 2019

Like  sex and drugs and eating from my shoe

We spent 10 years  a -wandering  Southport Beach
You may wonder how but I don’t teach

I went to Sinai just to have a look
Now it is in Egypt . bless my boots/

The Bedouin people  have not found a home
In the deserts of my heart, they roam

I washed my dishes in some  water cold
They are greasy but I’m going blind

Would you vote for leaving Asia next?
Brexit  has put patience to the test

Are we  in New Zealand’s  trading zone?
We could cut the cord and be reborn

I read the Times and leave a comment too
To be quite  clear  I asked  them , is I you?

The Bread that is so sacred  feeds the poor
Jesus never wished to be adored.

I saw a beggar lying on  the ground
I gave him my down coat, is that unsound?

I thought I’d go out on the River Thames
But then I went to Kew to make amends

Did God wish to  convert the  Jews by force?
I hope he will be filled with bald remorse

The Inquisition, torture and  then death
Jesus would be shattered by this mess

Don’t we pay the Hebrews  for their Scrolls?
They told the stories , made the Bible  whole.

All of Europe forced to go to Mass
Those unwilling,  burn them up like grass

I hated sermons for  men gave no clue
How to do in practice what they knew

I made some salad green and ate it all
The slugs and snails are  looking up appalled

English grammar is no use to me
I want to go to Norway and catch flu

I made a rule :it is a sin to pee
Like  sex and drugs and eating from my shoe

Why not work out what we’re made to do?
Making babies may be the real clue

Getting mystic, lying on the lawn
Is that a cat that  bit me on the arm?

I fear my cat has grown her claws  yards long
If she liked my boyfriend,  she’d grow fangs

When in Israel  do  not speak in code
They invented it  to please the Lord

I wonder was  the first word ever   God?
Cr*p or Sh*t or F*ck   or Praise [the Lord]

Do you long fo marmalade in bed?
The duvet’s  bitter orange  matching bread

The cats are in the basket on the wall
They ate  up  violets  ,I call that absurd

My husband  phones  me when I am asleep
I can’t pick it up so it is cheap

Wandering in the Estuary of the Ribble
Stand on Sinking Sand and play the fiddle

If Britain  travels  like the great Titanic
Boris Johnson will sell us our own Panic

If you see a Polar bear at night
Take a photo  followed by swift flight

I’d like to phone my husband but he ‘s gone
Get BT to lay a line  for one.

I don’t believe in mourning over-long
I’ll  soon be dead myself and feeling prongs

Grief is free for all of us on Earth
It hurts like Hell and  makes the World seem cursed

Good night my little cat and my tame snails
I’m off soon  to New  Zealand  with my tales

 

 

We can’t phone God ,yet he talked to Dory Previn

 

 

 

God has got no telephones in heaven
The saints need no Samaritans,I’m sure
We can’t phone God ,yet he talked to Dory Previn

Better to take holidays in Devon
No airports and no  crowds to squash, endure
God has got no telephones in heaven

I like one man , I don’t need twenty seven
One is all I want . is that quite clear?
We can’t ask God ,yet he talked to Dory Previn

Boris Johnson’s Turkish, don’t you love him?
The  white cliffs  and the rocks  are getting near
God has got no match  for him in heaven

Stalin killed   his people when they threatened
He  said that perfect love was based on fear
We can’t phone God ,yet he  wept  on Dory Previn
Beachy Head ,  where is    love’s  right decision
Will sorrow add a little more   to our provisions?
God has got no telephones in heaven
He ignores us but he skyped with Dory Previn

 

Soon the hidden mind willall allure

Socrates evoked the answers true
The students and the citizens all knew
He did not give great lectures nor long tests
Of pocket calculators he would think, what pests

As we plan to do our daily work
Remember even geniuses get blocked
You who have no confidence nor power
You have a mind, so do not let it cower

Writing rubbish, nonsense, don’t expire
Soon the hidden mind will you allure
Act as what you wish to be today
Writing poems, an abstract sort of play

Loosen up your head and you will find
A better writer living in your mind

What fearsome burning God

 Flowers in mall 2

How softly sweetly,gently flowers pose

Carnation,orchid ,daffodil and rose.
For their intricate petals form a shield
Yet bees with striped force shall make them yield.
Appearances,both natural and contrived,
Mixed with the wiles of human nature thrive.
As knowing not, we pluck the apple rare
And bite its flesh,with teeth we have to bare.
We too deceive the innocent who pass
Not seeing watchers hid behind the glass.
The windows break,the deep earth quakes;
Seized is the maiden ,he  her virtue takes.
Beneath the surface,force and fierceness thrive.
What fearsome, burning God enjoys our lives?

The  new laws passed  that bless the right to kill  

After catastrophic loss we  long to flee
We want the arms of love to hold us still
But where can we take hate and leave it be?

The inner draw of death, its scenery
The  orders  of the proud, the human will
The  catastrophic loss they  long to see

The lovey,dovey, kisses  will all flee
The  new laws passed , they bless the right to kill
The hero crippled in the Great War  bleeds

Burning Jews  cremated mystery
Dresden was a  graveyard, ghosts so still
Oh   bleeding loss oh tanks , oh hanging tree 

Integration, calculus of need
The atom bomb, the  little toys  that thrill
We   long to sate our demons with God’s blood

Post traumatic agony, the bill
Triggers  haunt the fingers in the till
After catastrophic loss we  long to flee
Hatred split from love’s no victory

The harmony of movement and of sense

The natural grace that animals possess
The harmony of movement and of sense
Few Britons  live well in their pallid flesh

The unseen side of skin when  blessed, caressed
Softening the nerves’ we strangle, tense
May bring  that natural grace  Adam possessed

The kindness of the arteries, who addressed
The circulating inner seas that rinse?
Few Britons  live well in their   sacred flesh

The hollow veins ,the pumping   heart , the blush
The expectation intimate, feared lost
The natural grace that animals possess


Vulnerable to others’ speech, ambushed.
Our unused appetites will turn  and twist
The civilised don’t  live well in their flesh

The old and  fragile curse,  they never kissed
We wait too long , articulate no wish
The natural grace that humans once possessed
 We ‘re ill disposed,we falter. long for death

 

Patterns and poems disclose other worlds.

rosa-felicia

Nobody knocked but I opened the door
But that room’s not the room I was looking for.
The light didn’t work and I fell  on a book
Then I saw you and your smile and your look

We don’t know what we want until it comes by
I’m too ancient  now;who knows when   they die?
But while I am here, I’m enjoying the peace
Of being alone, smiling, and writing re geese.

I see them fly by when the sun starts to sink.
How like a wild god; they ‘re gone when I blink.
Then they descend ;they all move as one.
No training in music could teach us that song.

Evoking the beauty of  stars far away,
I like to watch geese at the end of the day.
Patterns and poems disclose other worlds.
The  hand of a baby; the fingers uncurled

The trust and the smile ; mother is home
She creates entire worlds for the one she has borne.
For chaos and panic  are not far away;
Even in adults who don’t care to say.

The little hands touch me so deeply, so well;
How come the world holy is rolling to hell?
How can we kill little wains  by the score?
Was it for this that I opened your door?

Was it for this  love electrified  us?
We were lost in each other, as moved the white dove.
Was it for war that we lent love our wombs
Making more soldiers and building more tombs?

The bombs, they are loading; they’re having parades.
It’s not North Korea, it’s Washington, dude.
Let the tanks  crush Marie Corrie, the Bedouin tribes.
Let the allies laugh blindly  as once more Jesus dies.

O take me, dear mother.Please take me away
I can’t see no point in saying my prayers.
The leaders’ religions are making God frown.
The desert is empty, the tents all dragged down.

The centuries of living , so free,  so mobile
The Holy Land blessing; they pause for while.
The little black  tents,  the  wombs of the night,
Are all gone to shredders; they’re out of our sight

My fevered brain tormented fleas at night

My fevered brain tormented me at night
The curtains were as drawn as my own face
I saw  the moon shine, whiskey, what delight

I saw gnats circling, wanting  tiny bites
My underslip was pink with purple lace
My fevered brain incited men at night

I asked the doctor  why he came too late
All I wanted then was an embrace
I saw  the moon shine, whiskey, what delight

Was this   perturbation   stirred  by fate?
Would I be so humble  if not chaste?
My fevered brain tormented fleas at night

I looked dishevelled after the  wild knights
If we get a chance, we  eat the bait
I saw  the moon shine, whiskey,  brandy faked

I asked for love and all I got was cake
And that was plastic so it was not baked
My fevered brain tormented men at night
I saw  the moon shine, whiskey, but no spite

 

Ahahaaaaa…

My face is pale,my hair is white as snow
In my eyes is an unearthly glow

I ate some salt beef  and some bread today
I tried to write a poem very gay

The Government attracted scorn and  blows
The wind is in the willows with Jon Snow

Israel is  getting on my mind
The deaf can’t see.  and  all rest are  blind

Come to Gaza, on the beach we play
Some children just got shot, ought we to pray?

On mountains where the prophets   heard the Lord
The  vultures  now await the battle scarred.

The United Nations cannot  speak  the Word
Apartheid   makes me wonder who is scared.

Jesus was a man   so we are told
God sent him here, the Vatican is gold

Would you like  Guernica again?
Say the word, we’ll kill for pay.Amen

In the desert of the human heart
Are there wells where water can be bought?

From whom come our so called  Human Rights?
And by the way, what of the children’s plight?

Would you  take a break on the West Bank?
We have a Bedouin Tent,and many tanks

Jerusalem is holy,  what a shock!
You can eat ice cream right on the Rock

Women cannot wail on  that great Wall
They have no  height, they need to grow more tall

Golden is the dome and bright the sun
Catch an “Arab” out and have some fun

If  we did not believe there is a God
He’d go away and leave us  just his rod

I hate her wooden coat hangers all cracked
Give me wire  and let me be abstract

I found some shoes but they have dropped apart
Think of how that   hurtt my  Bakewell tarts

The Sacred Whore, the  Holy Demon’s plight
The Holy   Ghost  is not inclined to fight

I have a table here on which I paint
I look so pale, will I be forced to faint?

In the bitter depths of winter night
Boil the kettle, lose your human rights

If you feel depressed then eat our bread
It will remove the  skull from off your head

Are you feeling lonesome in the crowd?
Buy our lipstick  then men will be cowed

Did you think ceramic hobs were best?
Come  to us and have your IQ blessed

I want a pan for halogen hot plates
I’d ask the cat but it’s out  on a date

 

Does Confession really help the damned?
God have mercy as the Devil can’t

English grammar for forgetful people like me

beige and gray barn owl
Photo by Jean van der Meulen on Pexels.com

Three confusions

I learned grammar at school but when I began writing found I’d forgotten a lot of it

.Maybe full stops etc are best omitted!

Here are three sets of confusing words

1. Its and it’s

This is the one many of us get wrong.

“It’s” is usually  short for” it is”. sometimes for “It has”

Otherwise there is no apostrophe separating the it and the s.

So if you say “The cat took its prey behind the dresser” there is no apostrophe.

But if you say “It’s cold today” there is.

Sometimes “It’s” can be short for “It has” eg “It’s been raining all day”

2. Their and there.

Their coats,their possessions. Usage  is like that of my or your.

“They took off their clothes and fell into their cosy bed”

“There” refers to a place.”I thought I left my keys just there on the desk,but when I came in I found hem there on the table.
It’s related to “Here”

“Did you leave your coat here or was it out there by the porch?Isn’t it cold? It’s really freezing tonight.
The cat brought its kittens inside by the fire,.
I gave the dog a bone and it’s really happy now,out there.They have their own lives.”

3. Your and  ,  you’re

As in 1. an apostrophe indicates a missing letter.So” you’re” means”you are”

“You’re crazy if you believe that Hitler was a good person

“You’re late again”

“You’re mine,You’re divine.You’re practically sublime”

“Your” denotes belonging to you.

Like “Where is your coat?

It’s on the chair with yours”

“What is your dad saying?”

“Your country needs you”

4. Conclusion:Apostrophes are a problem.We see signs in the market “apple’s 20p each”

If in doubt,leave it out!

These are the three commonest confusions.

Our work will look more professional if we’re well versed in grammar.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of  to ask for  guidance or buy a book on grammar

Every dog has its day.

Every cloud has its silver lining.

I time for me to go so I’ll end there and let everyone find their own needs out.

Words or phrases that sound the same are not always written the same.****************

I hoope this iss a  a hilp  but it’s 2 easy for myst peeple hya. As they say in Tyneside UK

Good Nite Hall

Richard Zimler

https://alchetron.com/Richard-Zimler#Our-love-for-the-life-we-survive-richard-zimler

Extract

Richard Zimler received the 2009 Alberto Benveniste literary prize in France for his novel Guardian of the Dawn. The prize is given to novels that have to do with Sephardic Jewish culture or history. It was awarded to him at a ceremony at the Sorbonne in January 2009.

Richard Zimler Richard Zimler RichardZimler Twitter

Five of Zimler’s novels – Hunting Midnight (2005), The Search for Sana (2007), The Seventh Gate (2009), The Warsaw Anagrams (2013) and The Night Watchman (2016) – have been nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the richest prize in the English-Speaking world.

Richard Zimler httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommons44

Zimler has also edited an anthology of short stories for which all the author’s royalties go to Save the Children, the largest children’s rights organization in the world. The anthology is entitled The Children’s Hours. Participating authors include Margaret Atwood, Nadine Gordimer, André Brink, Markus Zusak, David Almond, Katherine Vaz, Alberto Manguel, Eva Hoffman, Junot Díaz, Uri Orlev and Ali Smith.

Brexiteer poetry quest

rosa-veilchenblauhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/12/brexiteers-poetry-epic-quest-eliot-tennyson-yeats-brexit

Extract

. The Brexiteers incanted a mixture of the first and second world wars to generate a mythical Britain in which to be British was to be heroic, ethical, and enlightened. The reactivation of this ancient spirit, they suggested, could unify an increasingly incoherent land torn apart by the same European enemy that it had once defeated.

Just like the aged narrators of the poems contemplating their own fate, the Brexiteers positioned Britain as an ancient, declining force poised on the brink of a glorious eternity. In spite of Britain’s post-imperial belatedness, that sense of already being too late, they contended that this ancient spirit could make the jaded land young again. Placing themselves against the shattering experience that was the loss of Britain’s global sway, they promised a world in which a simpler, more glorious past was to be restored.

Against the already ambivalent content of a quest vision of this sort, even darker resonances emerge. It was precisely this sort of fantastical history, in which to renew was to return to a purer past, that provided the tenacious narrative underpinnings of fascism. Tennyson’s aged sovereign Ulysses is a nationalist strongman before such a term existed, who “mete[s] and dole[s] / Unequal laws unto a savage race”, while Yeats and Eliot’s flirtations with autocracy are infamous. The quest narrative of national renewal is dangerous precisely to the extent that it promises to redeem: Make America Great Againand all that.

Brexit is and always has been a political theology. By keying into this elemental narrative, leavers could lend weight and meaning to their campaign through an intuitive, if often unconscious, historical plot. For those progressives who wish to fight Brexit, the urgent issue becomes whether they too can find a similarly deep story to tell about the UK’s relationship with the world about it.

A comment

conejo 

1718

An interesting and relevant article.

The go-to poem for Brexit must surely be Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” which seems uncannily prescient. From Wikipedia:

The tale begins with the ship departing on its journey. Despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven south by a storm and eventually reaches Antarctic waters. An albatross appears and leads them out of the ice jam where they are stuck, but even as the albatross is praised by the ship’s crew, the mariner shoots the bird:

With my cross-bow,
I shot the albatross.

They soon find that they made a grave mistake in supporting this crime, as it arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship “from the land of mist and snow”; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot – Oh Christ!
That ever this should be.
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs,
Upon the slimy sea.

The sailors change their minds again and blame the mariner for the torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck, perhaps to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it, or perhaps as a sign of regret:

Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung.

One by one, all of the crew members die, but the mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew’s corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces.

The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.

Finally the mariner comes in sight of his homeland, but is initially uncertain as to whether or not he is hallucinating.
The rotten remains of the ship sink in a whirlpool, leaving only the mariner behind.

Theresa May might wear chunky pearls around her neck, but they surely represent an albatross. In years to come, May will be stumbling around the Houses of Parliament, weighed down by her beads and rambling about the dead spirits adrift in a soulless ocean.

The little wild flowers are in bloom

I want to meet with Jesus  very soon
I cannot wait till I am dead and gone
I sing a psalm  to draw  him by  the tune

I fear no judgement nor do I fear doom
Jesus never carries bombs or guns
I want to meet with Jesus  very soon

I’d better sweep the  room up, make it clean
Jesus ,as a refugee, might come
I sing a psalm  while baking bread for him

I want to see his eyes as in my dreams
I wonder what he thinks; what have we done?
I  think he’s being deported  in the gloom

Go back where you came from , what’d’ya mean?
Stress and tension aggravated loom
I hum a psalm did David write the tune?


If he comes as whispers in my dreams
I shall attend  I shall not fear my shame
I want to talk to Jesus  very soon
I  see the  little wildflowers  burst to bloom

 

 

 

Where is my skin?

The sun shines in the places that haunt me
Not the cave of darkness  and despair
His empty chair ,his love,my memory

What  I was and who  I soon shall  be
How my little time on earth will  fare
The sun peers into places that haunt me

The beauty of the dark red maple tree
He wished to have his ashes buried there
Oh, empty chair  the kindest memory

Regardless , joyous , flowers   will love the bee
I watch them  start their silent love affair
The sun shines in the places that haunt me

I weep into my   android phone, it beeps
Feeling shocked, I gasp ,I need more air
Oh,   startling phone ,  who fillled your memory

Oh, chance and fate,why  blast my heart so bare?
Where is my skin, my boundary, my despair
The sun shines in the places that haunt me
His empty chair, the anguish,  the repair.

 

 

How guilt can be used to control people

architecture black and white brighton building
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

 

https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/korach/how-leaders-can-use-guilt-control-people?utm_source=TMT-Monday&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20190701&utm_campaign=TMT

Extract

Couples therapy, guilt, and violence

Upon first examination, it seems that people with a tendency for guilt and self-punishment are not dangerous to those around them. They may be a danger to themselves, but it appears that there is no suspicion that they would hurt someone else. However, an additional aggadah about Baba ben Buta debunks that calming assumption.
This aggadah begins with a Babylonian Jew who comes west to the Land of Israel and marries a local woman. At that time, both Babylonian Jews and Jews in the Land of Israel spoke Aramaic, but they used different dialects. These linguistic differences caused difficulty in communication between the couple: He asked her to prepare a certain dish, and she, in her innocence, prepared a different dish. Thus, in a series of linguistic miscommunications, the couple’s relationship became more and more tense.
At the height of this crisis, the husband asks his wife to bring him a “tray butzini.” In his dialect of Aramaic that means two zucchini. In her dialect of Aramaic it means two lamps (made of clay). Furious with anger, the husband commands his wife, “Go and break these clay lamps ‘al rosh ha’baba.” In his Babylonian Aramaic, rosh ha’baba means “above the gate.” However, in his wife’s Aramaic dialect rosh means “head” and baba, as we have already seen, can be a person’s name. In her distress, and lacking her husband’s understanding of this word, the woman goes to the Sage Baba ben Buta and breaks the clay lamps on his head.
This is how Baba ben Buta, the man who has never been opposed to bearing the burden of guilt, responded to that woman: “He said to her, ‘What are you doing?’ She said to him, ‘Thusly my husband commanded me to do.’ He said, ‘You have done your husband’s bidding, God will bring forth from you two sons like Baba ben Buta’ ” (Babylonian Talmud, N’darim 66b).
He sends her back to the aggressor’s arms 
At first glance, this seems like generous couples therapy. The Rabbi sees the woman’s distress, so he puts aside his own honor and lets her fulfill the violent and uncompromising demands of her husband (as at this point, he does not know about the couple’s language confusion). However, the Torah has already taught us: “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Lev.19:18). The phrasing of this commandment reflects the psychological truth that only someone who loves him- or herself can properly love his neighbor.
If Baba ben Buta was not full of so many feelings of guilt he could find room in his heart to get angry and feel injured by the woman who hurt him. If Baba ben Buta would permit himself to get angry at the woman, he could subsequently become angry at her abusive husband. If Baba ben Buta could believe that he isn’t supposed to be beaten by a strange woman, he could understand that she too isn’t supposed to receive degrading commands from her husband. And, if Baba ben Buta could love himself, he could supply this woman with genuine protection.
It is easy to see that the breaking of clay lamps on Baba’s head was not just the result a linguistic mistake; it was a call for desperately needed help. Baba ben Buta should have gone to the aggressive husband and spoken to him harshly and sensitively to save his neighbor from her distress. But Baba ben Buta is in love with guilt, and people experiencing perpetual guilt offer to those around them the same world they experience — a world without love or mercy. From these combined traditions of Baba ben Buta, we can learn that whoever lacks compassion for himself or herself cannot be compassionate toward others.
Back to Korach
We have to remember that guilt feelings are sometimes used as governmental tools, that guilt feelings are very much overrated, and that often they don’t serve the public good but rather serve power positions. We have to be careful with feeling guilty.
(This article was translated with the help of Uzi Bar Pinchas.)

Dr. Ruhama Weiss, Ph.D. is the director of the Blaustein Center for Pastoral Counseling at HUC-JIRin Jerusalem.